Packing

I just pulled out our suitcases to start packing (we're leaving for Cache Valley tomorrow!) and Simone wriggled into one of them. She's going to be so disappointed to find out that she's not going with us . . .

Alma Mater in Roses

In case you hadn't heard, the Fighting Illini are playing in the Rose Bowl on January 1st against the USC Trojans. Illini fever has swept the campus. The most charming proof of Rose Bowl excitement is the Alma Mater statue (she is flanked by Labor and Learning) decorated with roses. Some art and design students adorned the Alma Mater with red, blue, and orange roses to celebrate the upcoming bowl game.

See more pictures of the bedecking here.

See the official "Tournament of Roses" website here.

School's out, snow, etc.

We got several inches of snow yesterday and last night. Here's the view from our front porch:

Today our church meetings were postponed until 11 a.m. so that hopefully people will be able to get there. For the last two weeks our church meetings have been canceled, so we're happy that we'll get to go today (but just for one hour instead of the usual three -- I know my little brothers are so jealous right now). Mike is outside shoveling the driveway as I write this.

I finished the last of my coursework for this semester on Friday and it feels great to be done. It's remarkable that I was able to finish my final paper under these working conditions. Simone was sleeping on the laptop!

Simone is my little helper

On Thursday we're leaving for Cache Valley and we're so excited! It will be a really long road trip, but we're checking out a bunch of audio books from the library, loading some podcasts on the iPod, and we're praying for good weather. Hopefully the roads will be good and we won't drive each other nuts cooped up in the car for ~20 hours together.

I hope that you are enjoying the run-up to Christmas and that you feel the joy of the season. I felt the Christmas spirit arrive the other night when we watched Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. At the end, the Grinch has a realization:

Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

Isn't that true? It's easy to get caught up in all of the exciting gift-buying, gift-getting, decorating, going to parties, eating lots of food, etc. But that's not what the holiday is all about. I recently read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and was impressed with this quote:

I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely. . .

Merry Christmas!

(You can see a video clip from the Grinch here or read about the making of the Grinch here. Both links are from NPR.)

The Presidential Politics Edition: The Good, the Bad, the Funny

Hello to our faithful blog readers. This is Mike, composing a few thoughts on the race for the White House. For those of you who know M & M, you know we're both interested in politics, so you had to see this one coming.

Let's start with the funny. By now, you may have seen the video of Chuck Norris stumping for Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. If you have seen it, come on, you know you want to watch it again! If you haven't seen it, here it is for your viewing pleasure.


I don't want to dwell too much on the bad (there's plenty of that to go around when it comes to politics), but I'd have to say that the worst part of the presidential race, so far, has been the media coverage. How many times have we heard that Mitt Romney needs to make a "JFK-style speech" about his religious beliefs? The fact that reporters keep making the comparison between Romney and JFK without much analysis highlights the shallowness of media coverage of the campaigns so far. (I did hear some in-depth reporting on the Romney-JFK connection on NPR a couple of days ago, after Mitt made his long-awaited speech. Here's the link to the story I'm referring to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16981132.)

Like I said, I don't want to harp on this too much, but I've also been frustrated by the way the media uses the language of fist-fighting and boxing to describe candidates' disagreements, and I'm tired of the media's constantly emphasizing "top-tier" vs. "second-tier" candidates. Listening to, watching, or reading the news, you almost feel like it's a foregone conclusion that the general election will be between Rudy Giuliani and Hilary Clinton. Sometimes it feels like reporters forget that it's up to voters to decide who will win their party's nomination.

Where's the good in all this? Allow me to quote Barack Obama. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes, "a polarized electorate isn't good enough. What's needed is a broad majority of Americans - Democrats, Republicans, and independents of goodwill - who are reengaged in the project of national renewal, and who see their own self-interest as inextricably linked to the interests of others" (40). Is it possible for citizens who are sharply divided along party lines to unite for the common good in some way? I hope so, and I'm very glad to see at least one candidate who is talking about cooperation and unity across party lines. Whoever wins in 2008, I'm hopeful that the "project of national renewal" Obama refers to will become a reality. Until then, enjoy the circus of Election 2008!