Good emergency, bad emergency

It appears that the forecasters on Groundhog Day were right about having another six weeks of cold after that day. And it appears that God still likes to play with His thermostat up there to give us some variety down here. We're still switching rapidly between sunny mild days and cloudy cold days with snowstorms and windchill.

And it appears that I'm becoming a good forecaster about emergency levels and hence school closures. Last night, when they were talking about 4-6 inches of snow and strong winds for Tuesday, I could easily anticipate a level 2 emergency. Such inclement weather means hazardous driving conditions and that means school closure.

And it appears that I've not improved so much since my early years as a school-kid, although I'm in graduate school now. It's not that I don't like school. If it were so, I wouldn't had abandoned a promising career in engineering to go back to school. It's just that while I've always had an insatiable thirst for learning and although I spend most of the time I'm awake and sitting somewhere (even in buses) reading something, I've always had problem with sitting in classes like a good boy, quiet, silent and above all, immobile. Since elementary school up until now.

So basically, snowstorms and school closures have always been good news to me. Even at this age. So, it's not difficult to imagine my joy about level 2 emergency in Lucas County. And overburdened as I am this semester under heavy coursework, I was counting days for our spring break. And more than having fun or travel (which I cannot afford after 2 financially excruciating root-canals), to work on the whole lot of my papers. And this advance spring break day, was a God-sent blessing to let off a little bit of my stress to brace for a busy break.

So, in the same way that we have good terrorism and bad terrorism (depending on your political position and whether those babykillers are your friends or not), we can think of good emergency and bad emergency. If you're a school-kid, even a busy grad student, a level 2 emergency (that grants you a day away from classes), would be a good emergency. But I doubt that homeless people would feel the same. For them, a snowstorm means more misery and cold. And I have to confess that when I think of those guys, I feel guilty about my rejoicing over snowy days.

However, schoolkids should not rejoice unconditionaly (as we college kids do). There's a cap on the number of Calamity Days (days that the schools get closed as a result of snow or else). All school districts should observe Minimum School Days when they shut down schools. If they exceed their cap, they have to make up for the excess days during spreak break or worse, summer vacation.

Anyway, thinking again of cold and adaptation, I took advantage of this great day where the temperature remained around freezing with a little bit of windchill and I gave myself a day off. Trivially, I thought of biking and spending my time with Mother Nature. I biked to Wildwood Preserve amid snow and wind. And having realized that my camera had been gathering dust since my last trip to Nicosia in 2006, I decided to take it with myself. However, as I knew that it would take quite some time to develop my film before spending all its 36 frames, I used my cellphone camera to capture some of the scenes for a short-term pleasure. The pictures appear a little bit reddish and somehow poorly focused, but that's what you get with a cheap cellphone camera (and I didn't feel like editing the photos). And right now, I'm far from being able to buy a satisfactory digital camera. We have a proverb in Persian: "a tiny cookie is better than nothing".

The interesting thing was that although Toledo Metroparks were officially declared closed, they were still plowing the trails. I could see a few people who had visited the park to enjoy their great day. Oddly enough, I didn't see many kids. In Iran, when schools are closed, you can see kids around parks making snowmen or throwing snowballs.

After finishing my day and returning to school to check my Emails, I was checking Google Analytics for reports of visits to my blog. And I found that some UT student searching for university of toledo closing during level 2 snow emergency, had hit a previous post where I'd written about snow and level 2 emergency. This reminded me of a previous post on Google search and the relevancy of its results. I checked the a.m. keywords on Google and found that my blog actually showed up as the third search results. It was surprising to me. But what surprised me even more was the student hitting my page. Surely, Google shouldn't had listed my page before news outlets for that matter. But this student had a clear intention by searching those words and this blog post (from 2007) clearly didn't satisfy that intention. Checking news websites below and above my blog entry would had been more useful.

Then, I remembered one of those old school years silly jokes. A teacher asks a pupil: "why didn't you come to school yesterday?" and the pupil replies "I saw a newspaper on a window reading 'all schools are closed today'".

Obama at UT

Well, what I saw today was more or less what I expected. It appears that my impression about Obama's campaign was not wrong. Enthusiastic and pretty well organized. They had planned an event starting at 4:20 (is it just me who wonders why 4:20 instead of the routine 4:00 or 4:30?) and opening the doors at 2:15 (again).

When I walked toward Savage Hall around 3:20 to have my second round of observation on campaign rallies, I could guess that the 9,000 seat arena must have been already packed. And I knew that I had to stand in a long line with little chance to get a seat. However, I didn't have any idea that it wouldn't take me so long as Hillary's rally to get in the building (security check was not as tight as in Hillary's).

There were notices from the US Secret Service in English and Spanish on the building entrance doors informing people that "by passing this point they would consent to body and material search". Interestingly enough, the search wasn't actually done by the Secret Service (and it's not their job); rather, TSA and TPD officers would search people (and I wondered what TSA had to do in a city). I passed the security check about 4:15 but the arena was already packed and there was no way in and people had to wait in the west wing waiting area and lounge.

There was no closed circuit TV here either, but there were some accommodations and provisions. They had placed some loudspeakers so that people could at least hear what's going on in the arena. And that was not all.

I used to think of Obama as a nerd from Harvard who has somehow managed to improve his social skills to appeal to people with his charisma and eloquent words. I realized that he was not just a nerd. There was some surprise for me and the rest of the folks waiting outside the arena.

Realizing how unhappy we must have felt by failing to get a seat inside, he came to us before beginning his speech inside the arena. Actually, he gave a short speech on a small platform (that I'd not noticed before) expressing his sympathy that we couldn't get in, thanked everybody for their support and enthusiasm and then took his time to shake hand with as many people as possible before going through the backdoor. And people were ecstatic. It was impressing even for me who (as an outsider neutral observer) was not a fan. I was not so obsessed about being in the arena. I could've simply left just the way I did in Hillary's rally. But this made me stay to see more.

Also, I was curious to see how he would react to Hillary's last round of angry barrage. Hillary's campaign has been all about negative campaigning since the beginning and there's no surprise that she's losing her ground day after day. And she's known for her volatile mood and flying off the handle easily (and that provides further ammunition for Hillary-haters). But this "Shame on you Barack Obama" thing yesterday was quite a shock after all those apparently nice words just two days before, that she was "honored, absolutely honored being with Barack Obama" on Texas debate. To me, both (the artificially kind one in Texas and the genuinely angry one in Ohio) sounded like an already lost campaign. To supplement her campaign even more, she added some mockery of Obama in Rhode Island today. It reminded me of Guiliani mocking Hillary time and again. And now he's long gone (I always wondered why he ever ran for President). Anyway.

When Obama entered the arena and went on the stage (which was almost in the center, not on the side), the crowd went wild with cheers, clapping and foot stupming. And he gave his not-so-short (yet as always eloquent) spirited speech with the same composure he's kept all over his campaign. Gradually, I could find my way in the arena to have a look. And although I have very low regard for emotional election-time speeches and emotions determining people's political opinion, I couldn't help think about the hope and confidence emanating from this Harvard nerd turned into a media celebrity. And I could see how and why he's being compared so much with JFK, another young ambitious candidate who represented American Dream.

Looking at the people, I could see for myself what I had found in various statistical analyses that he's not the candidate for any certain demographic group. I could see whites and blacks, male and female, young and old. And almost all evenly represented. And I could see hope in their faces.

And now for the sidenotes and other observations. I could see people holding the Audacity of Hope and his other books hoping to have them signed by the author. And he actually did that at the end of his speech after going through a hand-shaking marathon around the arena (and at times baby holding photo-ops).

And apart from attacking Bush (which has become the usual ammunition for all candidates, Republican or Democrat), I didn't see any personal attacks or negative campaigning neither in his speech nor in various Obama stuff sold outside Savage Hall. Those stuff are not necessarily produced or promoted by a candidate's campaign. But the nature of advertising for a candidate, even if done by third parties, could give you an idea about the candidate 's fans and support base.

And right before leaving the arena, I saw something that made me think again about this media celebrity. What I saw would not had surprised me if I'd seen it in my country and in my culture. But here, it made me think that perhaps to some of his ardent supporters, he's more than a celebrity or merely a symbol of hope. While people were leaving the floor and the staff were beginning to clean up, a black kid (teenager or maybe younger) jumped on the now empty stage and snatched from the side of the podium, the bottle of water that Obama had partly drunk during his heated speech (and I doubt that Obama drinks directly from a bottle in his daily life).

But probably, Obama prefers to remain a celebrity. His campaign sold tickets for preferred seats since days before this rally. And this preferred seats happened to be on the arena floor very close to the center-stage. Still, I could see people with tickets in their hands who couldn't even get into the arena (even sitting on non-preferred seats; i.e. far upper level seats). I'm not sure how much they had paid for tickets, but nevertheless, it doesn't sound right to me. If you want contributions from people, you can ask them directly and unconditionally. Why take money from people so that they can sit close to you? Maybe I'm a little bit cynic about this, but it sounds like what lobbyists do to politicians, just on a lower popular scale. If you are going to fight lobbyists in Washington, why accustom ordinary people elsewhere to the same reprehensible practices?

And although I'm not usually carried away by emotions and celebrity-dominated atmosphere, I have to admit that I was not completely successful to maintain my neutrality and detachment here. There were many people who tried to capture photos/movies of this widely covered celebrity with their cellphones or cameras. I did not follow suit by this. But when I saw people struggling with taking their shots from above other people's head, I would lend a helping hand, holding their cameras and cellphones above my head for a few minutes so that they could get a better take of their historical moments with their celebrity.

Hillary's rally at Toledo

When I was in Iran, I never attended football stadiums. Their function at best could be entertaining the mob and letting them vent off their stress by shouting at the top of their lung. To let off my stress, I prefer exercising myself instead of cheering others doing it.

I avoided election campaign rallies for the same reason. Such rallies are places for empty big words with emotional people cheering or jeering (depending on where they stand politically). I'm not a politically active person, but when I choose to vote, I'd rather vote with my brain instead of my emotions.

So, I saw it unlikely to attend any rallies in the US either. Here, rallies are more of entertainment and you hear even more empty words with ecstatic fans making all sorts of noise in support (or opposition). To understand how things are going in an election, one has better analyze solid data and tangible facts instead of relying on the perceived support (or lack of it) in a rally by way of measuring the noise one hears or worse, getting an impression of how packed the venue looks.

And having studied how American politics works, I really don't believe that primaries and their results determine who will get the nomination in a party. Specifically, I find it ridiculous when I read or hear so-called analyses going into details of how and why the primary results of a certain state have historically determined the national election outcome. But that's another story.

And overburdened as I am this semester with my coursework, I couldn't care less about the candidates visiting Toledo. When McCain came here, I was mostly concerned about a mid-term exam on Thursday and the presentation that I had right after the exam. But when I passed the two hurdles, the sociologist inside me began prodding. Being at such events is an opportunity to observe people. And more than observing what goes on at the event, I was keen to see what happens on the side of it. To me, this was an alternative way of entertainment, sociological style.

And when I found that Hillary was going to have a rally this Friday night, I thought again about my reluctance. Having read a book on behind the scene preparations for Hillary's events, I was somehow familiar with her and how things go on her events. The book is written by a person who has dedicatedly served as one of Hillary's chief advance staff for a long time. So, you can soundly assume that the information you get from this book is free from the prevalent Hillary-phobia.

I learned a couple of interesting things from this book. First, the location chosen by the staff indicates the level of support they anticipate in that city. Campaign events are more than anything, a show of support and the visual impact matters a lot. When choosing a place, apart from political affiliations, advance people are concerned about whether they can pack the venue. If the place (regardless of its size) doesn't look crowded with people, the event would be a failure no matter how loud the noise.

Toledo is a (more or less) liberal Midwest city of 300,000+ mostly comprised of blue-collar people, over 25,000 college students and a 24% black population ratio (high above national and state average). Traditionally, these demographic groups are strong support bases for Democratic Party candidates.

So, when Bill Clinton visited Toledo last week and they chose a high-school for one of the most popular presidents of the US, I could realize how hopeless those Hillary advance guys might have felt (the turnout appeared to be about 1600). And I saw it unlikely for them to organize Hillary's rally at a much bigger place. And it turned out that I was not wrong; another high school for the former First Lady (that's while Obama is going to have his rally at the University of Toledo Savage Hall).

Another thing that I learned from the book was how advance staff do their best to provide the best quality so that people who attend the event leave it with a very good feeling and memory. That should help a lot at the Election Day.

I already knew that Hillary's campaign was badly troubled and being at a backward place like Toledo, I didn't expect a quality event at a high-school. And just making a comparison between the TV ads for Hillary and Obama, I could get an impression about the campaign quality for Hillary. But what I observed here was dismal.

People had to wait in a below freezing cold for at least 2 hours to get in and when the gym was filled with enough people, the rest had to settle for the auxiliary gym (or leave, as I did). And the organizers had not even thought of (or spared money for) closed circuit TV. And we're living in the age of online broadcasting.

So basically, people in the auxiliary gym had to idle their time away for another 3 hours looking at each other and the bare walls waiting for Hillary to come and greet them after she was done at the main gym (she arrived at 11 pm instead of 9 pm). Ardent fans may be (or maybe not?) willing to endure even worse than this. But such a poor organizing would hardly win the hearts of people who are going to make their mind based on what they feel at the event.

And now for the fun stuff; i.e. observations and sidenotes. As people had wrapped themselves against the windchill, I could not get a good estimate of the demographics of the people standing in line. But still, there were interesting things to observe.

There were all sorts of Hillary memorabilia out there for sale. This is America. Look for any opportunity to make money. There were wise retailers who anticipated that people would have to wait in the cold for hours. So, there were Hillary hats for $15. And there were all sorts of lapel pins and buttons for $5 (what you normally buy for $1). And it was not just the classic Hillary buttons.

As a non-American citizen, I'm neither Republican nor Democrat. But I wonder what kind of campaign is it. To give a few examples of Democratic buttons, "There's a village in Texas that's missing its idiot" or "Democrats are sexy ... Who has ever heard of a good piece of elephant?" or "Bush reminds every woman of her first husband". You can find more buttons like this here and here. However, anti-Hillary stuff don't seem to be any better. Have a look here, here, here and here. Abhorrible negative campaigning on both sides.

In my country and in my culture, if candidates campaign like this, they'll surely lose their bid and the candidate who has been the target of this kind of mudslinging will win people's heart. Actually, that's what happened in 1997 election. Political opponents of Khatami went too far in their sinister smear campaign and it backlashed. He won the election with such a big margin that was surprising even to him and his campaign.

The last button I saw while I was standing in line was the most interesting to me: "Bring Sox Clinton back to the White House". In case you wonder who is "Sox Clinton", it was the First Cat (and it was Socks not Sox). Anyway, even if American voters (whose major problems must probably be poor healthcare, a declining economy and a failed War of Terror) do the right thing and vote to bring Socks back to the White House, their dream won't come true. Socks lost the favor of the First Couple even before they left the White House. In 1997, they adopted a dog and eventually gave Socks away to Bill Clinton's secretary in 2001.

And to make people feel they're doing something big for their city while standing in the long line, there was a guy collecting signatures for a petition to build casinos in Toledo. And the motive? Preventing local money going out of state (there are lots of casinos in Michigan). Would it help local economy? Maybe, maybe not.

When people are financially troubled (and hence depressed), they are more likely to resort to unproductive ways to vent off their stress. Building casinos in Toledo would probably prevent some people from going all the way to Michigan to waste their time and money. But when casinos become available locally, even more people would be encouraged to drain their money this way. So, in the long run who would benefit? The economy? Or the gambling industry?

Traditional vs Contemporary Worship (6)

Google has free services that let you track visits to your website. Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools are examples of such services. You register your website with Google and it gives you all sort of statistics on visits to your website on a daily and monthly basis. You can find which search keywords land people on your webpages with details as what path they take in reading through pages in your websites, frequency of visits, network location, all sort of data on traffic sources and visitor trending. The main purpose of Google Analytics is business. However, you can analyze the data for non-business purposes as well.

As a former engineer and a lifetime data-cruncher, I registered my blog with Google to see what kind of people (apart from my friends) read my blog and what lands them there. The results were interesting and at times odd.

As I've focused on traditional vs contemporary worship since my arrival in the US, I've written a lot on the subject in my blog. Interestingly enough, many visits to my blog have been initiated by searching a combination of the keywords: contemporary, traditional and worship (or service) and at times combined by church denominations. People who googled these keywords, saw my blog either in the first or the second page of Google search results. If you google traditional vs contemporary protestant worship, my blog would be the first search result. Given my focus on this subject, I was delighted to find about these analytics on my blog.

However, I don't know why Google always shows my first post on contemporary worship as its search result. Google claims that its search results are based on content analysis. I admit that I like this first post. It was original as I had a fresh perspective as a non-American, newly arrived here and hence had an objective outlook. But I've written other posts on this subject as well. I wonder why none of them show up when these keywords are searched. For example, my fourth and fifth posts on this title are informative also (especially the latter). Even posts that are not titled as such are focused on the subject (more or less).

And buying Google's claim, there were results that were odd and funny. For example, searching anti contemporary worship, my blog used to show up as one of the first search results. Fortunately, that's no longer the case. And again, my first post on traditional vs contemporary worship was the one showing up. I have strong criticism on making worship into something of entertainment or business or anything that the focus is not completely on God. But that doesn't make me anti contemporary worship by and in itself. Surely, different people communicate with God through different ways. What matters to God is purity and focus.

Sometimes, I'm surprised by seeing Google listing my weblog among its first search results, merely for the presence of search keywords scattered over a certain page (I face this problem frequently when I do my search on Google). To say the least, Google search engine is not as intelligent as it claims. While I appreciate visits to my blog, what surprises me even more is what makes people click on my blog, while they can clearly see (from the summary provided by Google) that the page listed is totally irrelevant to what they're looking for.

Another thing that I can get from Google data on my blog is a trending of what people are looking for over a certain period of time. That would give me a clue that something has happened or is going to happen at that place over those days.

Sifting through Google analytics, I've had another interesting observation. Sometimes, it lists one of my blog entries before the webpage of the place that people are searching for. This is really amusing. I admit that sometimes, I go into great length writing about a church or an event, but still, I wonder why should Google give precedence to my blog entry while people are merely looking for a certain church. But to me, it's no big deal. I'd appreciate publicity for my blog. I hope people who click on those search results mistakenly (or out of curiosity?) find them interesting and come back again.

And as a devout Shia Muslim, it was very delightful for me to see keywords related to my beliefs and deep religious passions like this or this, landing people on my blog. I ask God and trust Him to keep me and my blog focused on His way. Amen.

A Christian Wedding

I'd seen baptism ceremonies in movies and I always wished to observe them in person. Over my second trip to Cyprus, I could attend one at a historical Greek Orthodox Church (not so far from the American embassy). This baptism was for a 2-year old boy and it appeared that everybody was enjoying the lengthy procession, except for the baby who had no clue about what was going on and why it was so important to be stripped in that cool evening and be treated with all sort of consecrated liquids. Probably, that's one of the reasons that Baptists postpone the baptism till people grow up and decide for themselves. After all, Jesus was baptized when he was a grownup man.

The next time was in Toledo for grownup people at Corpus Christi University Parish when I'd gone there for Easter last year. Then, it was for a one-year old girl at the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist in Cleveland over my trip last summer. These last two were in Catholic churches. I'm still open to see more and more in other denominations.

The next on my wish list was attending a wedding ceremony. However, wedding ceremonies are not as easily accessible as baptism. Wedding is sorta private and invite-only. The baptism in Nicosia looked somehow private and family-only too, but probing and curious (nosy?) as I am in my social field research, I went in and gradually proceeded to the front row as if I were a close relative. By the end, the baby's grandfather got interested in this curious social researcher and was happy with my explanation. And I ended up with a detailed history of the 17th century Agios Dometios Church (pronounced, Ah-yoo Doh-meh-tioo) and furthermore, 2 delicious dark chocolate cupcakes. So, my lengthy observation was fruitful in every possible way.

But that doesn't happen all the time. At least, not with a wedding ceremony. And this could remain just a wish on a wish list. The day I had dropped by Hope Lutheran Church to save my afternoon prayers, a wedding rehearsal was in progress. And I had no clue about this as I entered the church to find some place in the back-office to say my prayers. And then, just after I set my feet in the sanctuary, a stern lady (more stern than the pastor at Hanmi) appeared out of nowhere and blocked my way with "Can I help you?" (God knows how much I hate this apparently polite, yet unfriendly infamous question). Hope is one of my churches and my first home in Toledo. Yet, this was embarrassing after my encounter at Hanmi. Fortunately, Pastor Tom was in the sanctuary and he knew how he could help me. This taught me a lesson.

So, when I visited Grace Lutheran Church the week after Christmas 2007 for their contemporary worship and was invited to the wedding ceremony for 2 of my friends, it was a God-sent blessing. Not just because it was a wedding. It was extra special in every way.

These friends are not friends in the normal sense. Both are almost the age of my parents (maybe a few years younger). One is a retired teacher who took me to Cherry Street Mission to participate in their food serving early last year. He clicked with me (the son of two retired teachers) easily and as a born-again Christian, he was very fascinated with my research on the role of religion in society and people's life and more so with my bold career switch to pursue this objective.

The other one is a nurse (who really loves her job). I got to know her over Bible studies that I attended almost every Wednesday over my first semester. And as a devout Christian, she too was very interested in my research and my views on religion.

Both of them have lost their spouses years ago and as regular church members, they gradually got interested in each other over the course of years. And voila. Is there a better context to fall in love than the House of God when you go there for God's love? So, this was the marriage of two grandparents who happened to be my friends (and neither look like grandparents). I was not aware of their marriage decision up until this Christmas; although I had noticed over past months that there was something special about their relationship and interaction. And then, I got the news and the invitation. An excellent opportunity for an interesting field observation.

Although I knew I would be extremely busy this semester, I couldn't be more willing to accept the invitation. And I counted days to attend the wedding and really hoped that nothing happened to stop me from attending this ceremony. And here we go.

As regular members of a traditional church, it was most trivial for them to make their wedding as Christian as possible. An overview of a typical Christian wedding could be found here. There were extra readings of Bible, selected by the bride and groom. Pastor Baumgartner from Salem Lutheran whom I knew from MAMA at Grace, was one of the vocalists who sang the Lord's Prayer. And by this time, it must have become clear that the Eucharist was included in the wedding procession (which is not a norm in all Christian weddings). And the wedding itself was done by Pastor Jacobs and Pastor Lauman together. An extra dose of pastoral care. Apart from the three pastors directly involved in the wedding, there were other pastors as guests. Before the ceremony began, one of the guest pastors joked, "you must beware of having so many ministers in your wedding".

Apart from these extra doses of Christianity, the wedding was more or less like the ones I had seen in movies. But maybe not. In a typical wedding, you don't have the groom's son (who is a father himself) as the best man. Or having bride's married daughters and their daughters as bridesmaids. But these were not the only interesting things that I witnessed over this ceremony. I arrived in the church early and there was a photography marathon going on. And you know, much fun goes on over such photo takings.

When Pastor Van Brussel (one of the retired pastors of Grace) posed for a photo with the couple, Pastor Jacobs jumped on the scene to make a V-sign behind his head. And then, it was when the photographer asked all people on the scene to remove their eyeglasses. Much fun for me to watch. So, being early bird has its benefits.

What was interesting to me was the love between the couple (especially on the groom side). At times, I sensed signs of feminism. At the beginning of wedding ceremony, the groom (accompanied by his best man/son) stood patiently and expectantly on the stage, waiting for the bride to enter from the rear of the sanctuary, accompanied by her granddaughter/bridesmaids. And when she did, everybody rose in admiration. This is not what you see in all movies. Or when it came to the Exchange of Vows, he refused to repeat after Pastor Jacobs "to forgive you" and instead, repeated twice "to give you". Well, the bride was so lovely that he could think of nothing about her to forgive.

By the end, the bride and groom walked along the aisle, greeting and/or hugging all the guests one by one. And the church was packed. And then, we left for the reception in Brenner Hall which was dimly lit with mini-candles. And there was much fun here also.

My first experience with a Christian wedding was very pleasant. I'm not sure how many weddings of this quality I would attend. A wedding so Christian and so romantic. Yet, real and natural, not staged (as in movies). I can just be hopeful.