Sharing something very special tonight

So, this past week a memory just popped into mind.  About something I had written a long time ago as a student at Elon.  Awhile back I discovered an online archive of every issue of The Pendulum, which was the college's newspaper.  I've shared a few of the op-ed pieces I wrote for the paper already.

I don't know why I found myself thinking of it but I went looking for it.  And lo and behold I not only found it, but I realized today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication!

Maybe there is something at work, that such synchronicity happened right just now.

For many years at Christmas time I posted the text of this piece.  It was a holiday tradition for this blog.  But I haven't done that in a long while.  Maybe this year would be a good occasion to bring that tradition back.

Well anyway, here it is.  From the December 3rd, 1998 issue of Elon College's The Pendulum: my essay about Christmas and its memories.  Click to enlarge the image.

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Too Much Tolerance? Another op-ed piece from my college's newspaper

It's been a truly fascinating journey for me these past few months after finding an online archive of The Pendulum, Elon University's student newspaper.  I'm finding articles written by me that I had forgotten about.  I can really see the person I was then, and contrast him with the man who I am today.  There is a lot of growth there.  Some things changed in the intervening decades while others remained starkly the same.  I think my beliefs evolved, while staying true to the heart meat of my being.

So here's my essay from The Pendulum's October 1st, 1998 issue... gadzooks that was twenty-five whole years ago!  Well, this one calls for some background.  A year and a half before this was published Joycelyn Elders - the former surgeon general under President Clinton - visited Elon and spoke one night.  And I was a hot-blooded American youth "full of piss and vinegar" who was going to confront Elders on her radical stance on abortion and sexual policies.

Long story short: I did not comport myself as the Christian I had become five months earlier.  Instead of trying to change hearts I only made myself look very foolish.  Some fellow students liked that I had "taken her on."  But over the following weeks and months I came to realize how wrong I was in doing that.

I decided that I had to do something to try and make things right.  This essay was in part an attempt to do that.  Some people expressed appreciation for it.  Others ignored my apology and homed in on what I wrote about homosexuality.  Which wasn't the main focus of the article at all.

Well, anyway, here it is.  Click on the pic to embiggen it.

What do you folks think?

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Another article from the college newspaper. And it's not controversial either!

 See?  I really do know how to write an op-ed piece that doesn't honk off many readers!

This edition of Elon's student newspaper The Pendulum came out right before spring break 1999.  I didn't want to be on the cusp of that and deliver something that would be overly provocative.  There had been an article for Christmas a few months earlier and this new one needed to be on a happy note too.

So here it is, from two months before the premiere of Star Wars Episode I.  Note the special photo we used for the essay: me brandishing a toy lightsaber and wearing the helmet from a Darth Vader mask.  Click on the pic to enlarge and read!

 

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Another op-ed piece from my time at Elon's newspaper

Last month I stumbled on an online archive that has tons of issues of various newspapers going back many, many years.  Including The Pendulum: the student newspaper of Elon University.  Or at least it used to be.  I've been scrounging around Elon's website and it seems that The Pendulum has gone defunct: a casualty of instant news, social media and streaming video.  I hate to see that happen to any newspaper, because there is a priceless value to be had on printed information chronicling a place and its people.  It is also a magnificent snapshot of the thoughts and ideas and values of those people.  I looked and I looked, but I didn't see any opinion/editorial writing recently on Elon's servers.  Having those gone is an immeasurable loss.

Well anyway, I previously found the first op-ed piece I wrote for The Pendulum, about abortion.  I hadn't gone searching for any more essays until this afternoon.  I came across several more articles.  This one aroused some appreciation but also a fair amount of anger, about what I wrote regarding abortion and homosexuality.  I was only sharing Mother Teresa's perspective on such matters.  It wasn't anything that she herself was not unaccustomed to during her lifetime of service.

So, from the September 25, 1997 edition of The Pendulum, here is my column.  Click to enlargen...

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Found my first op-ed article for my college's newspaper

The other night I was trying to locate something regarding my alma mater Elon University (though it was still "Elon College" when I was there).  During the search I came upon something truly wonderful: an archive of just about every issue of Elon's weekly student newspaper The Pendulum.

I got involved in the The Pendulum early in my first semester at the school.  At first I was a reporter, writing articles about the new food court and elections in the town of Elon.  But increasingly I realized that I could be a journalist... but what I really wanted was to write opinion pieces.  I had already been writing letters to the region's largest newspaper and more often than not they got published.  Carrying that passion to my college's newspaper would be seriously putting myself out there, with immediate feedback when the issue hit the stands.  This was my true calling as a writer: to encourage people to think just a little extra.

My first essay for the paper was published in March of 1996.  And it was about the true cost of abortion.  It was a quote from Mother Teresa that had me pondering some things.  It was as good as anything to write about.  I definitely was going in guns blazing.  It certainly did precipitate a response.  By the time the next issue hit I had received five death threats.  And then there was the female student who got in my face and said "You stupid pro-life f-cking piece of sh-t."

Anyhoo, the other night I went looking for some of my pieces.  And I found the one about abortion.  I took a screenshot of it.  Which included the worst photo of me that's ever been taken.  Seriously, what happened?!?  I look terrible.  Thankfully a better photo was taken for future articles.  But this one... wow.

So here is my first op-ed essay for The Pendulum.  Click on the image to enlarge it big enough to read comfortably:

The other pieces, I'll try to post those too in the near future.  But this gives you an idea of what I was up to in college.  Which, was one of the few aspects about my life as a student that made sense.  But that's something for another time.

Yes, feel free to make snarky remarks about my photo here.  I certainly do :-)

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My first op-ed piece was about abortion. This is what happened...

During the four years I spent (of my seven year undergraduate career... ehh, family tradition you might say) at Elon, I was on the staff of the student newspaper The Pendulum.  First as a reporter but mostly as an op-ed writer.  It was a continuation of all the letters to the editor I had been sending the bigger newspapers.  I figured that being an essayist for my school's paper would provide for constructive feedback.  Well, that and also having a more captive audience.

 

My first column was published in March of 1996.  And for the subject I chose abortion. Mainly, why it was destroying our capacity for the value of the human soul.  The heartmeat of the argument was that we were numbing ourselves to the sanctity of human life, and I kicked the piece off with a quote from Mother Teresa.  It was, I thought, a solid essay.

 

Naturally, it touched some nerves. This being a fairly liberal private school (albeit one with a sizable evangelical Christian presence).  A number of people contacted me and said they were glad somebody was standing up for the unborn.

 

But there was hate also.  By the end of that weekend I think three or four death threats had come my way.  I took it all in stride.  To me, it only meant that three or four additional people had read my essay and took it seriously.

 

But then, there's what happened the week after that issue ran.

 

I had come down with the flu, with a 102 degree fever and of course like an idiot, I was walking around campus.  I was with two friends that day, and we were going into the library.  The original building that is, before Elon's new one a few years later.

 

Two people were coming out of the building and, to this day I can still hear the voice of one of them as she got into my face and said:

 

"You stupid pro-life fucking piece of shit."

 

I was so feverish that it took several seconds for what she said to fully impact me.  I asked one of my friends if he heard that and he said yes.  Our other friend hadn't been able to make out what she had said, so we told him.  He immediately wanted to go and confront her, but we dissuaded him.

 

Here it is twenty-six years later, and I still see the face of that young woman, warped with anger and hatred.

 

If she had only kept her thoughts to herself, I would likely not be as I am today: someone who sees the pro-abortion movement as one composed of some very ugly people.  Ugly in heart, ugly in thought, and ugly in face.

 

Have you ever looked at pro-abortion protestors?  They don't smile.  Not smile like normal people do.  Their faces aren't filled with love and light as are the faces of pro-lifers.  Instead the pro-abortion protestors are angry, dour, mean and filled with hatred.  The two could not be more unlike each another.

 

If only that fellow student (no, I don't know her name and don't really care to either) had not confronted me as she did, I might be able to give the pro-abortion side the courtesy of hearing them out.  But that possibility has long passed.  There is no courting civility with people so dark and rife with rancor.

 

A quarter century later, and I am no closer to communion with people who so blatantly advocate terminating the life of an unborn child for "convenience" sake.

 

Be mindful of the impression you make.  It persists, and maybe longer than you ever mean for it to.

 

 

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Chris addresses the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation and declares war against hate at Elon University... with his FIFTH article for American Thinker!

Hmmm... let's see...

This past week has seen the writing of my second-ever work of short story fiction (while stranded in a motel room along with Tammy the Pup during Hurricane Florence) after trying for decades to crack that art, work begun on a one-act play, finally started plotting a children's book(?!?). And now, it's article #5 written for American Thinker!

Has the Muse roared back from her exile, or what? For awhile I thought she had gone sailing off the cliff in a convertible accompanied by Dignity a'la Thelma and Louise, but anyhoo...

"There's Poisoning the Well, and Then There's Borking the Well" is my take on the Brett Kavanaugh nomination for the United States Supreme Court. However, that's just the peripheral matter of a way bigger issue: that for sake of partisan power there are some - and I'm looking at you in particular, Senator Feinstein - who are enthusiastically willing to trample upon a millennia of legal tradition in abandoning the rule of law. And when that is allowed to transpire, all of us as a people suffer its consequences.

From the article:

The machinations currently deployed against Brett Kavanaugh stem from a heart of darkest cowardice. If his detractors cannot prevail on purely rational and intellectual grounds, then they will do so playing to the basest hysteria and hate. There will be no satisfying their bloodlust until Kavanaugh's haggard, weary face is up on the telescreens, accusing himself of crimes against Big Sister that he never committed. So it is that the yet to be substantiated claims of Ford and Ramirez are now enough, we are told, to override fair and due process. Strangely, this principle never seemed applicable to Juanita Broaddrick, but I digress.

But... that's not all, folks! Because something else gets touched on in my new article and this one is much more personal.

It is this: that in the article I'm calling attention to the fact that Elon University - the college I could once be proud to call myself an alumnus of - is now harboring, employing and celebrating someone who has been taking an active part in the harassment of many innocent people, for no reason other than their holding to political beliefs she does not agree with.

Megan Squire, an Elon computer sciences professor, was revealed earlier this year to be an Antifa activist. She is, for all intents and purposes, an enabler of domestic terrorism.

Yeah, I said it. I went there. And from where I'm sitting it's plenty enough cause for myself and other alumni to withhold our contributions to Elon.

Again from the article:

The ol' alma mater already lost my contributions earlier this year – a consequence of Wired revealing that one of Elon's computer professors is Antifa activist who has been compiling a massive database of anyone she deems Lebensunwertes Leben.  That means "Republicans," "conservatives," "Alt-Right," "white supremacists," and pretty much everyone listing starboard of Friedrich Engels.

Megan Squire is not only still employed at Elon, but applauded.  Last week Squire delivered a "Distinguished Scholar Lecture" about her work supplying the Southern Poverty Law Center with information about their common enemies.  This is the same Southern Poverty Law Center whose "hate list" has been used to target innocent people for assassination.  Curiously, Squire's work is totally absent any analogues from the left of the political spectrum.  A "scholarly oversight," no doubt.

Once upon a time, Elon University was a place that encouraged freedom of ideas and vigorous debate. But as ideological homogeneity has prevailed upon "the most beautiful campus in America," that time is now past. The school that welcomed Margaret Thatcher to dedicate its student center in 1995 would probably have the Iron Lady arrested for trespassing were she still with us.

In good conscience, I can no longer contribute to a school that has embraced intellectual intolerance and has abandoned reason for capricious "feelings." Neither can I endorse my college when it continues to have among its staff a gleeful provider of resources for domestic terrorism. But still, I held out hope that sanity there might yet prevail.

As ever, in conveying my thoughts for publication I do my best to steer away from partisan labels and identity politics. As I told a colleague today: "I deal in ideas, not ideologies."

But regardless of where you're coming from on the political spectrum, I like to believe that very, very few of us are comfortable with the knowledge that anyone is being targetted for harassment, intimidation and much worse because of their opinions.


Does Megan Squire believe herself justified in painting her enemies in such broad strokes?  Is she a fitting representative of the Elon University community in doing so?

Regardless of whether she does, well... I've no other way to put this. At times I have encountered truly hate-filled people. Like neo-Nazis (got shot at by a gang of them) and the Westboro Baptist Church (had to spent several hours with them one hot summer night in a small television studio).

From where I'm sitting, there is not a shred of difference between the "God Hates Fags" idiots and Megan Squire. One just happens to have a computer science education and a better web page.  And also potentially has had her work lead to the injury of others if not worse.

When the objective is hatred, the semantics matter none. And there can be no excuse or justifying that hatred.


So, President Connie Ledoux Book and the trustees of Elon University: in keeping with the school's expressed beliefs in diversity of ideas and backgrounds and that the school should be a safe environment... when are you going to dismiss Dr. Megan Squire from the computer sciences department?

Because having a hate-filled extremist in your faculty, and one so enthusiastically applying her work toward damaging and destroying the lives of others, is the kind of thing that - not to put too fine a point on it - might dry up the alumni contributions. It sure has mine. Having seen some of Dr. Squire's Twitter account, I cannot understand how anyone's life can contain so much anger and hatred. Much less that of a Ph.D.

As far as Squire's work from a purely academic perspective is concerned: she may be brilliant at Python databases but the bias factor of the data itself is so irredeemably out of whack that it's utterly useless beyond a political agenda. Raw data is supposed to be neutral, impartial, agnostic... and Squire's methodology is a betrayal of all of that and more. In short: she is not a serious scholar. That alone would merit reconsidering her status as a member of the faculty.

Having such a malicious person intent upon causing grief to others certainly does not reflect well at all on whatever vestige of Christian values remain from the college's founding under the oaks in 1889.

Which is more important: the reputation and integrity of an institution that many of us still hold dear in our hearts and memories? Or protecting an enabler of domestic terrorism out of some passing fad of "resistance"?

So... "Long live Elon"?

What is it going to be?

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Got to see Neil deGrasse Tyson this afternoon at Elon

Dr. Tyson's badass jazz-hands

Astrophysicist, bestselling author, science education advocate, "some guy from a Fox show" (as we heard one passerby say while we waited in the standby line), advisor to multiple White Houses and general megaboffin Neil deGrasse Tyson came to my alma mater Elon University this afternoon to speak at the school's spring convocation.  This was a tough thing to get into.  Tickets sold out in less than 30 minutes when they went on sale a few weeks ago, with only a few allotted for the general public.  Not even being esteemed alumni as "Weird" Ed and myself are was any help.

But Ed was determined to see Tyson, and nothing was going to stop him.  He drove four hours to pick me up and then after some lunch on the way we got to Elon and became the third and fourth people in the standby line.  That was at half past noon.  Convocation was scheduled for 3:30.  Thirty minutes before it began they began handing out tickets for the standby people and we proceeded in to await the appearance of Dr. Tyson.

After the processional of the class of 2015 into the hall, Elon's chaplain delivered an opening prayer.  President Leo Lambert and a member of the science faculty extolled the virtues and accolades that Tyson has accumulated during his colorful career.  And then it was time for the man himself...

He spoke for at least an hour, in what he called a "stream of consciousness" speech as opposed to something really prepared.  He had multitudes of information and was nothing short of animated in presenting it.  Tyson totally took hold of the scene and captivated us with thought on objective and subjective realities, the guiding forces of exploration and scientific inquiry (I especially appreciated his remarks on the real reason why President Kennedy challenged the country to reach the Moon in less than a decade).  During his opening Tyson spoke of Aristotle and how experimentation had not been developed as a tool of investigation.  To demonstrate the point he took off his shoe and dropped it onto the stage: trust me, it was the coolest demonstration of the tenets of Newton's Principia that I've yet seen.

What I appreciated most of Tyson's lecture however had nothing really to do with science.  He made a point numerous times: that we can't be defined by the majority.  We certainly cannot be defined by political parties (which, he noted, are capricious in the extreme).  That was something which resounded especially strong with me.

I will be honest: I do not agree with Neil deGrasse Tyson on everything.  In my estimation, he is too focused on the objective means of understanding the universe around us, while showing considerable disregard and even some amount of disdain toward what he termed the "subjective": of which the spiritual is part.  Throughout my years I have come to understand... and Tyson would be the first to note that this is purely something that I cannot prove, as it lacks grounds for experimental proof... that science and faith are not counter to each other, but are instead two sides of the same coin.  Each is the pursuit of truth.  For the love of truth.  Truth for its own sake, without ourselves within its frame of reference.  More than we give them credit for, I do hold that those from the spheres of religion are, for the most part, seeking that truth... and not to draw from it any sense of power.

But I also came away from his lecture with a far deeper respect for Tyson's perspective as a scientist.  And during his lecture I came to understand something: that we may disagree on the methods, but our motives are the same.  Although, it must be said, he definitely has a classier presentation!

I enjoyed this.  I came away from this with a deeper appreciation of the human condition.  "Weird" Ed agreed.  And his four-hour drive wasn't for naught after all.  Mission accomplished!

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Lots of Christian music from my college days

In retrospect of the long and curious journey of my spiritual life, I can see now how my seeking after God has been a quest that has taken the majority of my years on this Earth. But it was only sixteen years ago when that seeking coalesced and crystallized into a choice to follow after Christ.

As with many things however, those first few years were, well... interesting, to put it mildly. Downright strange and bizarre in fact. Yeah bizarre even by my own standards...

But the Lord provides. And He sustains. Always. Sometimes in ways that we can't fully appreciate until a long time later, and that is certainly what I have found in recent years especially.

Something that was an encouragement for me during those first few years were the brothers and sisters at Elon College's InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Every Tuesday night was an evening of praise and worship and for some reason or another they even tolerated a fallen and frail guy like me. Helped me, even. A lot. Well, there was a bunch of singing those nights, and waaaay back in 1998 there was a whole night's "recording session" of those songs. Over the years the tapes were converted into MP3 files for digital dispersal among friends. I've been carrying them around on my iPod for more than six years now. When I went through an especially rough patch two years ago, these songs became one of the few things that helped me hold onto God's promise that the darkness would end. So, I can readily attest that there's some uplifting material here.

Geoff Gentry, not just a true brother in the Lord but an all-around kewl dude and techno-wunderkind, has made ALL of those recordings available on his website! There are two zipped-up files to download: one is the "main" body of 29 songs and then there's a "bonus" archive with 6 songs. My voice is somewhere in the larger collection but it's (thankfully) drowned out by those of much better singers. Anyhoo, these have been a blessing to me over the years and if you need something uplifting, maybe they can be a blessing to you too.

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Elon University named #1 "Most Beautiful College Campus"!

My beloved alma mater, Elon University, has just been named #1 on the list of 50 Most Beautiful College Campuses by collegiate review website The Best Colleges. Also on the list are Duke University, Wake Forest University and UNC-Chapel Hill (all here in North Carolina), Texas A&M, Ole Miss, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale, and Princeton.

Yowza!

The Best Colleges cited that "this campus not only offers an exceptional education but has been the site of several films... Elon has been named the prettiest campus in the country on multiple occasions, including landing at the top spot in rankings by the Princeton Review and the New York Times. We can't argue, and Elon takes the top spot in our list of the prettiest college campuses."

I have to heartily agree... and I'd do so even if I were not a proud Fighting Christian errrr, "Phoenix" (still getting used to that :-) But Elon is not only a very beautiful place, it also epitomizes everything about what it means to most fully experience the pursuit of higher education: not just in the college years, but for life. Elon was the place where I learned not only much about the world, but much more about myself than I ever had before... and probably even since.

Yeah, I'll recommend it to any prospective students ;-)

Anyhoo, congrats to Elon University on the recognition!

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Elon dorms plagued by bats!

I just had to post about this 'cuz I'm an Elon alum and have friends from there who read this blog: Virginia, West and Sloan dormitories at Elon University have been invaded by bats.

Fourteen students already moved in but had to evacuate for two days while the bats (mostly in Virginia) were removed. Elon's fine maintenance crew (you know, the ones who have to paint the grass green whenever the school's honchos come to visit) installed a gadget that emitted sonic frequencies which drove the chiropterae to flee the premises. Then various holes in the dorms were patched up with caulking so that the bats couldn't get back in.

If Virginia has problems with bats, then Lord only knows what is lurking inside Smith...

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Elon University lit up for Christmas

Last night on our way back from Raleigh, Lisa and I drove through my alma mater Elon University. It's usually lit-up for the holiday season and this year is no exception. Here's the Alamance Building, as seen from the road...

Here's looking the other way across the road, toward the Moseley Student Center...

And here are some geese gliding atop the water at Lake Mary Nell...

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