so the strike has been settled, or so they say after rumors whirled and finally i got an email from the chancellor herself who was probably relieved that the whole lurid mess finally came to a close. it was a week of loud marches, people banging drums in front of the chancellor's building, propaganda flying like excretory material hitting the ventilating device. it has thrown me into a civil war mood and i've started researching what it was like for the people in this southern-sympathizing area, drawn in to a national battle to crush the rebel troops in places like chancellorsville or vicksburg. to learn this i've been reading a bit about our local hero, one john a logan, who was known to have started memorial day and who was a colorful politician. at the john a logan museum though, one guy told me he was a traitor. sold out to the highest bidder.

now by the way i might also mention, i've been working straight along, i never struck myself, my union settled at 4 30 in the morning before the deadline and back to work i went until i have a midterm tomorrow and then settle in for a long holiday weekend of what, maybe reliving a solid week of uprooted lives and anxiety over in my wife's department and in other nearby households, the kind of ground-war that affects every classroom, every walk out to the parking lot, etc. i wore a civil war hat for a bit and told everyone the news was that the south was seceding from the union. when i heard that the teacher's union wanted strike pay, pay for the five or six days they'd been out on strike, i suggested that they get hardship pay for the times they stood at the entrances and people actually tried to run them over. this was only half in jest as this actually happened, probably more than once, in spite of it being a nice day and most people having nothing against the faculty. i myself waved at them every time, thinking, actually, that in a town this small you say hello to everyone, and it really doesn't matter if they're your best friend, an acquaintance, or someone you're locked in a life-or-death struggle for basic human rights at all costs etc. etc.

there is of course this one woman in town who doesn't even say hello to me, she tried to be chair of our department once a while back and promised to make relationships more civil within the department. i'm all for more civil, i pointed out, but still i wondered how it was she hadn't talked to me in so many years and i still didn't know, clearly, why. a good place to start with "civil" would be saying hello to everyone, even your worst enemies.

in the struggle for the hearts and minds of the people in the countryside, amid vast and overflowing propaganda for all sides and a land war in which not only attendance monitors, but also substitute teachers and even regular teachers are all taking an interest in who exactly is in class at any given time, anyone except the students themselves, who are all marching outside carrying signs and beating drums, the one thing i can say is, they've both kind of lost my heart and mind, i'd rather be thinking chancellorsville, appomattox, vicksburg, than of more mundane concerns such as financial exigency, fair share, whatever. i come back from the civil war re-enactment and my quaker friend says to me, why don't you re-enact the dysentery, or the sawed-off legs, or the starvation. that's not the point, i said, and i didn't even mind the musket fire though it was obvious that the kids liked that much more than the steamed beets and fried yams. the point is to remember history, and not worry so much about how great it was.

the faculty union blog is called deo volente and that is the motto of the university itself although i've always wondered, not knowing latin, if that would be god willing or if god wills or god's will or, better, god is violent since who knows latin anyway? i tend to read it always keeping in mind that complete, utter obsession with any single dominating one-horse-town kind of institution is thoroughly unhealthy even though, at this point, it is still my main and only employer, and though i try to keep an even keel, and even feel that if you completely believe one side or the other in a dispute like this, you're way over your head, i still get caught up, once in a while, in the tides of war. i'll spare you the pictures of dead bodies all over beautiful battlefields such as gettysburg, manassas, etc. which ironically are all placed in the mountain areas, center of the country as we knew it at that time. this was john a's country, his people, the rolling hills, the hardwood forests felled to make little jacksonian pioneer homesteads out on the western fringe of civilization. brother against brother, some went off to fight for the rebs, and preserve a southern way of doing things.

why do i confuse the issues? some guy has begun writing on deo volente by the name of johnny gray and i don't even know this guy, but all i can think of is, what a name, where'd you get this name, and, are you taking sides or what? i guess he's clearly taking sides, writing on the blog and all, but i'm thinking, no, it's just a coincidence, and, not a single person has died yet in our conflagration although it's reared up and devoured our entire town not to mention our building, our student center, our coffee shop, even the pool. down at the pool, speaking of which, i told someone, now if they shut down this pool, then i'll be right out there with my sign, lifting it and shaking it and screaming at passersby, but i really don't care that much about that other stuff, which is pathetic, if you think about it, because "that other stuff" is faculty respect and an honest accounting etc. etc. and is life and death in its own kind of way. but if i couldn't swim, then my life would really go to hell.

in class we were talking about these two identical twins who were adopted out into different homes and found each other thirty-three years later & did an informal nature-nurture experiment trying to figure out all the stuff they had in common that could only or at least would more likely, come from their common genetics. then the underground railroad came up unexpectedly and, sure enough, back into the civil war i went, researching where exactly folks came, when they came through here on their way north to chicago or wherever it wasn't so darn hostile to black folks. it doesn't hurt to do research. you tend to find out stuff that way.

down in the democratic republic of congo they prepare for a presidential election and one of the main candidates goes bonkers, announcing that he's already president and they should just turn everything over to him. meanwhile a volcano erupts out there in the eastern part of the place, which is actually huge, bigger than texas, and harder to drive across, being all jungle and no roads. this volcano is called nyamuragira and what do i know, about when it erupted or who it affected, for all i know it's just a peaceful little orange bubbly drink, spitting and gurgling for all comers & especially the photographers. it's a rowdy place, that eastern congo, tucked right up against uganda and all these other places where rebels like the lord's resistance army go around just killing whoever they please, raping and pillaging and using the border like it's some kind of tightrope they don't have to keep their feet on. here, everyone's so wrapped up in the propaganda, and they try to figure out if these are real people we are dealing with, or have they been awake for a few too many 24-hour bargaining sessions or is there any reason on earth, that civilized educated people couldn't reach a deal of some kind before it got too late and ruined the entire university system and all hopes for future enrollment. we'll have to wait and find out. my guess is, someday, the whole place might be civilized, but, by then, it might be too late.