What Are Stabilimenta?

After I accidentally erased my old blog, I needed a new name.  I thought about writing on the web and remembered back in the 1980's (pre-Web) I walked out to my backyard in Richardson and saw this huge spider web (about two feet across) in the garden, and in it a beautiful yellow and black spider.

Each morning I went out to see what my "pet" spider had managed to secure during the night and wrap up for future meals.  I got so interested in the spider and the curious pattern in the center of her web that I actually--this was before Internet--got into my car and drove to the Richardson library and checked out an actual book on spiders of Texas.  There I learned the name of the spider:  Argiope aurentia, also called the orb spinner and the writing spider.
These are called the writing spiders because they decorate the center of their webs with patterns, like the zig zag in the picture.  No one knows for sure what the purpose of the decorations is.  It was thought at first that they stabilized the web, hence the name stabilimenta (plural).  However, that theory has not panned out.  I like the fact that the purpose of the decoration is a mystery. 

Possibly stabilimenta are messages.  Did you read Charlotte's Web when you were little?  Charlotte was a spider who saved the life of a pig named Wilbur by repeatedly writing messages in her web to the farmer who was about to slaughter the pig, messages like "Terrific pig!"   The story was about empathy and friendship.

 “Why did you do all this for me?”  Wilbur asks Charlotte.  “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die . . . By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

Kids can learn a lot from good stories, reading them with parents if they are too young to do it on their own.  This may not be the most unified blog post, but I think it fits well with the point of the other post I wrote this morning.

Facebook: A Friendly Place?

Sunday, Dec. 5:  I'm not looking for these stories just because I am focusing on civility in my 1302, but these reports about incivility just keep popping up.   Here is today's offering from the front page of the New York Times. Some of you disagreed with my post about rudeness on the Boulevard.

OK, so maybe snowball throwers go a little too wild, and football fans get a pass for being rude to the other team, but Facebook is supposed to be about friendship, so why are so many kids using it to bully each other?  Who has an excuse for the kind of behavior? Why would someone send a text message to a girl whose leg is in a brace, mocking her disability?  Why would three boys forge another boy's identity on Facebook and make it appear that he was the one doing the bullying?  Why do kids take the time to be so  mean? 

This is my own little problem solution post because if you read the article, you will see that parents are a big part of the problem.  Some do not want to get involved because when they intervene to defend their kid, they can make the problem worse.  But I'm wondering where the parents are when the kids are three, four, five, and so on.  Those are the times when parents need to teach the lessons of the Golden Rule.  And the motto about walking in someone else's shoes.

Zeitoun (remember?) asked why Americans sometimes did not live up to their best selves.  I don't think we are naturally our best selves.  Being kind is something we have to learn--from parents, from religion, and from the culture--if the culture values that.  For some reason, the culture today, including the superficial friendliness of Facebook, does not value empathy.

Death--and Life

My mother, at the age of 91, had a severe stroke in late October.  Although she had some initial recovery, the damage to her brain was too great, and in the following weeks, she became less and less responsive.  My sisters and I moved Mom from the hospital rehab to a nursing home and then finally to hospice, where she passed away on November 18.  The family will have a memorial service for her in the spring. 

Because of her advanced age and the many, many medical problems and pains she had been suffering for some time, her passing was not unexpected, and was, in some ways, a blessing.  

The loss of a loved one reminds us of the inevitability of death but also the opportunity of life.  A death renews our appreciation of the things that make life worth living.  In my mother’s last days, even though she was left nearly speechless from the stroke, she seemed to take pleasure in: the warm sunny day when we took her out to the garden, the pink rosebud we picked for her, the fish she watched in an aquarium, the Béarnaise Mountain Dog she petted, the encouragement and kindness of the nursing staff, and the hugs and words of love from her daughters and grandchildren.  

Beginnings of new stages in life are also a time to think about what makes life worth living.  That’s why I want to tell you about the “Semester Theme” at the University of Michigan.  Instead of everyone reading one book as SMU  students did, Michigan had students engage with a single question: “What makes life worth living?”

Students were invited to share their ideas and reflections on what, for them, gives meaning to life—and why that question is a good one for students to think about as they begin a college education.  An even better time to think about it might be the end of the first semester, when papers, exams, deadlines, (and for me, grading) take over our attentions.  Do you think the University of Michigan theme was a good idea?  How would you answer the question?

Match or Mix?

How does SMU pair up roommates and suitemates?  I’ve seen that some schools use computer matching, like a dating service: morning person or night owl, heavy metal or hip hop, and what about race, sexual orientation, religion?  But how important is it to be compatible with your roommate?  

In my freshman year, I had two roommates, one from Boston, and after she transferred mid-year, one from Philadelphia.  To my conservative and middle-class West-side Cleveland view of the world, these girls gave me my first introduction to a real-live Democrat, a Jew, a non-virgin, classical music, and the sultry pop singer Ketty Lester.  

The Boston roomie drove me a little crazy when she brought her drum set back after Thanksgiving and set it up in the room.  We were opposites but became friends; I visited her the next summer and we drove all the way from Boston to Provincetown and back in one day, just talking.

I have to admit that roommates can be stressful; ultimately I wound up living with my twin sister by the junior and senior year, but I still have to agree with this column by Maureen Dowd about why it’s good to have a roommate who is NOT like you because college should be a time to get out of the confines of your familiar world. 

Good Things Go Viral Too

 With all the talk about cyber bullying and other bad effects of the Internet, it's nice to know that technology can also help people bring about positive change in the world.  The best recent example of this was after several suicides by bullied gay young men, including the Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, one person in Ft. Worth decided to speak up.  Joel Burns is on the Ft. Worth City Council, so he already had a platform and a camera for his speech about his own experiences growing up gay.  However, the speech he gave on Oct. 10 was so honest and well-composed and emotional that it became an Internet phenomenon. It went viral.

Rhetorically, the speech was aimed at gay and lesbian youth, and the message was don't consider suicide because if you "stick around,  . . . it gets better."  He revealed his own suicidal thoughts while growing up. But while he addressed the GLBT audience,  I'd like to think that any intolerant, prejudiced people who take the time to watch the speech might also be affected by it. His decision to give that speech is exactly the kind of thing Siegel meant when he talked about the brave leaders who speak up against injustice can change information in the news into knowledge and understanding.

But how many bullies have watched the speech?  How many religious nuts who think homosexuality is a sin would rethink their views?  The only hope is for more people to follow Burns's example and speak out.

A Climate of Insensitivity

Since my 1302 class this spring is about civility and its possible decline in the past few years, a letter to the Dallas Morning News editor about incivility by SMU football fans caught my attention.  The author of the letter, a woman whose daughter attends TCU, wrote that when she, her husband, and their daughter walked to the game through the tailgating, SMU students engaged in rude name-calling toward the daughter, who was so upset she decided not to attend the game with her parents. 

Trash-talk is part of sports rivalry. Some trash talk shows school spirit. But name-calling of a personal nature is more like bullying.  If your intention is to hurt someone’s feelings, that’s bullying, not school spirit.  When you stop thinking about how the other person feels, that’s the beginning of the end of a civil society. 

During last year's big snowstorm, SMU students got pretty wild, throwing snowballs.  But the fun went too far when they pelted snowballs at girls who were just walking along with umbrellas up, trying to stay dry.  I felt a little sick watching a video of this posted on one student’s blog.  The victims tried to ignore the taunting and the snowballs that were denting their umbrellas. What was funny insensitivity to others' feelings?

These seem like small incidents, snowballs and name-calling, but my point is, incivility can be like a snowball, and when it gets going, a climate of insensitivity becomes acceptable.   The result can be tragic, like the incident at Rutgers this month, where someone’s idea of a funny prank at his roommate's expense ended in the roommate’s suicide.

While the video was streaming, viewers posted comments, but none of them  were outraged.  Nobody spoke up to ask what kind of  cruel person would violate someone's privacy like that.  How brave do you have to be to ask somebody quit being insensitive?  If people don't speak up, they tacitly approve of incivility.

Freshman Year Tips

 Today's news has some good advice for freshmen from six graduate students, all in different areas of study. All  these just-a-little-older students have tips on how to get the most out of college, both in personal and intellectual growth.  I wish I had taken some of this advice since I wasted too much time with the hometown honey and other boyfriend issues.  (Tip:  Break up!)  I squandered the opportunity to hear the Cleveland Symphony on a weekly basis, right there  in Severance Hall on the CWRU campus. (Tip: Discover new musical tastes).  Unlike today's freshmen, I did not pay half attention to (most) lectures because there were no laptops. (Tip: Leave the laptop!).  Have a look and see if you are already starting a new life or just continuing your old one in a new place.