It’s interesting that most graduations happen in the spring, as they more often mark an ending of the old ways rather than the beginning of the new. In school terms, the new doesn’t begin until the fall, when nature is resplendent in death. A decided lack of symmetry.

But as cliché as it sounds, my graduation speech was the perfect culmination of my high school career. The following video was taped as I spoke before the ~10,000 people who attended Cherry Creek High School’s Class of 1999 commencement, but this was not the golden moment. That came about 10 minutes before as I gave my speech in front of my class and the faculty inside the school gym.

Since the first three speakers performed before the teachers and students had entered the stadium, the Student Body President, our Class President, and I gave our speeches twice. At the end of our speeches we introduced the faculty, the special guests, and finally the student body. Because those groups were waiting outside the stadium during their introductions and couldn’t really hear what we were saying, the three of us had already given our speeches to the 806 graduating seniors and numerous faculty who had assembled in the gym for one last rally.

But some of them are fun and serve a purpose. So here are my answers to the two recent Meme games I’ve been invited to. First up, 4 THINGS Meme:

N.B. Being the nonconformist that I am, I choose to ignore the limitation or suggestion of only 4 answers to each prompt.

Some Jobs I have had in my life: Marketing Consultant for Electronic Arts, Founder of a highly successful treasure hunting forum, President of the Colorado Junior Classical League, Technical Consultant for a major Lawfirm, Real Estate Agent, Student Representative to the CO State Senate Subcommittee on Gifted and Talented Education, Financial Manager of La Casa Italiana at Stanford University, Alumni Co-Chair of the Youth Advisory Board of the Young American’s Bank, Congress Captain of the Speech and Debate Team at Cherry Creek High School, Border Collie Breeder

Some Places I have lived in my life: Denver, Colorado => Cherry Hills Village, Colorado => Stanford University, CA => Palo Alto, CA => Back to Colorado

Some Movies I’ve watched more than once: The Devil’s Advocate, Dune, The Usual Suspects, The Boondock Saints, Graveyard of the Fireflies, Crash, Traffic, Patton, LOTR, Gattaca, Closely Watched Trains, Krull, The Bunny Picnic


Some TV Shows I watch: House, Battlestar Galactica, Nip/Tuck, Deadwood, Rome, Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Sopranos (early seasons), SeaQuest DSV, Fraggle Rock, 24, Monk, Family Guy, South Park, The Shield, LOST (only in marathons, constant cliff hangers are annoying)

Some Places I Have Been:

States:
Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island

Countries:
Canada, USA, Mexico, Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Vatican City, Israel, Egypt

Some of My Favorite Foods: Ravioli, Steamed Chinese Dumplings, Macaroni and Cheese, Stuffed Cabbage, Pumpkin Pie, Spinach and Artichoke dip, Baked Brie, Lo Mein, Prime Rib

Some Places I’d rather be right now: On a ranch in Southern Spain, Outside a warm hut near the arctic circle where I could observe the Aurora Borealis, In the market in Ancient Rome with a pocket full of coin, One thousand years in the future.

Some Things I am looking forward to this year: Competing with my dogs and training my puppies, Getting a new Jeep, Watching Pacific Life go down in flames in the court case I am assisting with and all of the clients getting their money back and then some, The end to election coverage on the news which has been going on for way too long, the return of the final season of Battlestar Galactica, The Deadwood Movies, Keeping up with the puppies and their new families.

Next is the 7 THINGS Meme, for which I’ve been tagged by Fay at the Country Livin’ Blog.

1. I was born a month premature by Caesarian section. I feel that this justifies me to be a few minutes late to just about every appointment so the cosmos stays in balance. I am never early and rarely on time. Despite being tiny and blue at birth, my head maintained its lovely shape from being spared passage through the birth canal. My parents were told to put me in the window with the houseplants upon taking me home from the hospital to keep my bilirubin levels in check. I’ve been in the 95%+ percentile in height and weight ever since.

2. I was voted “Most Likely To Be Sober” by my Freshman dorm, and I’m proud to say that I deserved it. I have no moral or religious hang ups about drugs, I just think they are incredibly stupid and I hate not being in control of all of my faculties. I’m in no way a prohibitionist and will have a drink if the occasion suits it, and I’d even advocate for the mass legalization and regulation (read: sin tax) of numerous other common drugs besides cigarettes and alcohol. I see no reason why the US should be sustaining every country from Mexico on south with an illegal drug business that we could replicate cheaper, safer, and more economically right here at home.

I’ve never tried anything harder than Tequila, nor will I and I find smoking of any kind rather disgusting.

3. I have really good relative pitch, which means that I can whistle or sing most songs in tune but off key. Given a few minutes and a harmonica I could probably transcribe and play most common songs using my own notation, but it’s likely that it won’t be in the same key as the original.

Despite years and years of lessons I don’t read music well at all, but I can memorize the notes and the styling for a whole concert with little effort if only I can hear someone else play the notes first. The notes on the page only make sense if I can associate it with sounds. I can’t sight read worth anything and to this day can’t tell you how the mathematics work out, despite playing the Saxaphone since middle school, the recorder since elementary school, and winning the State Math Contest. I am mediocre at improvisational jazz on the saxophone but excellent at impromptu speech.

4. If I had to pick a designer dog, I’d probably go with a Bordernese, a cross between a Border Collie and a Bernese Mountain Dog. Although larger, dumber, and thicker boned than a Border Collie, I rather like the Bernese and I’ve admired the handful of Bordernese dogs I’ve met in public. There’s something altogether appealing about really big dogs and no other big breed really complements a Border Collie as much as a Bernese Mountain Dog.

Not only do their colorings match, but the Bernese temperament is a good counter to the Border Collie, and the Border Collie certainly improves the elements of the Bernese that I’d find lacking.

5. Normally, I speak in the tenor range and so fast and have to remind myself to slow down. While I sound clear in my own head, recordings usually come out garbled and some people have a hard time following. Other fast talkers have no problems keeping up.

When I debate I speak very loud and in a pitch an octave lower than my normal voice. This trait earned my circle of friends in my Freshman dorm the title of “the loud talkers” as we’d keep the RA up during our late night philosophy fests.

When I speak in public, I rarely have the same problem with pitch or speed and sound like a news caster. This is common among Coloradoans as we have little to no accent. I find that not having a strong accent makes me susceptible to local accents and I’ll often pick one up if I’m visiting somewhere for a few days.

6. I can juggle while riding a bicycle. I learned to juggle because I was always an over achiever and eager to please. This landed me in trouble when the middle school drama teacher asked me if I could juggle and I said yes even though I didn’t know the first thing about it. She cast me in the school play that was opening in 2 days as a jester, so I had to learn fast.

As a child I was always jealous of a kid who used to ride his bike down my street with no hands. I could never figure it out. Then in college, when I was on a bike more the first week than I had been in the decade prior, I finally figured out the secret to riding with no hands. Of course I had to combine the two, although no one was there to film my amazing feat.

7. I was a driver in the longest Presidential motorcade in history.

In a day and age where the ROTC and the Minutemen are invited to speak by a student group at Columbia, then banned by a callow and effete administration kowtowing to another student group of fascist pinkos, it’s little surprise that a dictator and terrorist like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is welcomed with open arms even after severe backlash from the Country. Idiot college students (like the girl they interviewed on TV) who think we need “greater dialog” with monsters like Mahmoud should be allowed their wish and given first class tickets to Tehran via Baghdad. Let them “dialog” all they want from the front lines.

The terrorist Ahmadinejad was given a pulpit to preach hatred, rebuffed only by the tepid insult of “you must be either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.” PROVOCATIVE or UNEDUCATED!! Oh please! God forbid we call the World’s #1 sponsor of terror “uneducated” and “provocative!”

I really need to teach a class on vicious personal attacks and deeply cutting insults and give Columbia’s President Bollinger a scholarship to attend. His pathetic insult wouldn’t get him slapped in a singles bar, let alone make an impression against the likes of Ahmadinejad. What a toad.

Since Columbia is proving that you shouldn’t bother to listen to college professors (let alone bankrupt your parents and burden yourself with decades of debt to do so), here are some words that are worth reading and taking to heart. You won’t find such insight and elloquence coming out of Columbia, the UN, or Iran any time soon.

Hat tip to ThrowTheScoundrelsOut at Townhall.com:

This letter was written by Charles Grennel and his comrades, veterans of the Global War On Terror. Grennel is an Army Reservist who spent two years in Iraq and was a principal in putting together the first Iraq elections in January 2005. It was written to Jill Edwards, student at the University of Washington , who did not want to honor Medal of Honor winner USMC Colonel Greg “Pappy” Boyington.

Ms. Edwards and other students and faculty do not think those who serve in the U.S. Armed Services are worthy as good role models.

To: Jill Edwards, Student, c/o University of Washington

Subject: Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs

Miss Edwards, I read of your student activity regarding the proposed memorial to Colonel Greg Boyington, USMC and a Medal of Honor winner. I suspect you will receive many angry emails from conservative people like me. You may be too young to appreciate fully the sacrifices of generations of servicemen and servicewomen, on whose shoulders you and your fellow students stand. I forgive you for the untutored ways of youth and your naiveté. It may be that you are simply a sheep. There’s no dishonor in being a sheep, as long as you know and accept what you are.

William J. Bennett, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997 said “Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident. We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people, not capable of hurting each other except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

Then there are the wolves who feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

Then there are sheepdogs and I’m a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf. If you have no capacity for violence and you are a healthy productive citizen, you are a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the uncharted path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

We know that the sheep live in denial, which is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kid’s schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid’s school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep’s only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard. So they choose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog that intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports, in camouflage fatigues, holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go Baa. That is, until the wolf shows up, and then the entire flock try desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough, know-it-all high school students, and under ordinary circumstances would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them.

This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door. Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America , more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be.

Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter. He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed, right along with the young ones. Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day.

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said “Thank God I wasn’t on one of those planes.” The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, “Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference.” You want to be able to make a difference. There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that would destroy 98 percent of the population.

Research was conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said they specifically targeted victims by body language: Slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa , when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I’m proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs. Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury , New Jersey . Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When they learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd and the other passengers confronted the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers – athletes, business people and parents – from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

Edmund Burke said “There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” Here is the point I want to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They don’t have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision. If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you.

If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

This business of being a sheep or a sheepdog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors and the warriors started taking their job more seriously.

It’s OK to be a sheep, but do not kick the sheepdog. Indeed, the sheepdog may just run a little harder, strive to protect a little better and be fully prepared to pay an ultimate price in battle and spirit with the sheep moving from “baa” to “thanks”.

We do not call for gifts or freedoms beyond our lot. Just like the sheepdog, we in the military just need a small pat on the head, a smile and a thank you to fill the emotional tank which is drained protecting the sheep.

And, when our number is called by The Almighty, and day retreats into night, a small prayer before the heavens just may be in order to say thanks for letting you continue to be a sheep. And be grateful for the millions of American sheepdogs who permit you the freedom to express even bad ideas.

It’s a shame that so many pinko idiots spit upon the men and women of our armed services because they have some tofu+marijuana+patchouli induced idiocy and complete disregard for what it really takes to defend freedom. These people promote the Nanny state because they wish to remain forever-children. Why grow up when you can suck the tit of the government and complain about it the entire time?

Such stupidity disgusts me, and such keen insight by men like Grennel inspires me.

I really have only one thing to critique about the letter. I was a senior in high school in 1999, at a school not too far from Columbine. I had met the first victim, Rachel Scott, as well as the first survivor–that fame seeking buffoon Brooks Brown–prior to the shootings at school events like Speech and Debate meets. Many people use Columbine to “prove” many points, and the impact of the event has grown well beyond the basic cause and effect of what happened that day, much like the OJ Simpson case a few years before exploded beyond the act of OJ brutally killing his ex-wife and Mr. Goldman.

The thing that disturbs me most about Columbine is the fact that the sheepdogs didn’t do their job. Although over 1,000 law enforcement personnel were on scene by the end of the day, not a single one of them did anything that prevented anyone from being hurt by the wolves. Not one. Not one thing. Nothing. The sheriff’s deputy at the school was stuffing his face and harassing the smokers and he didn’t even get out of his car except to fire FOUR! rounds from 60 some yards away at one of the gunmen who was inside the building. That’s it. Four rounds fired at one gunman from about as far away as you could have gotten. The hack didn’t even empty his magazine.

Not one of those 1,000 sheepdogs even entered the building until the shooters were already dead, and it took three hours before the SWAT team finally made it into the Library. P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C dereliction of duty all around.
The writer of the letter made a poor choice in evoking the images of Columbine to make a point about the “sheepdogs” of society. They failed miserably that day. Miserably.

Once there lived and existed a great learned man with a beard almost as long as God’s. And one day the people came to this man and said ‘Go to the Lord, and tell him of our misery.’ ‘I will go,’ said the man. So he caught a great bubble, and sat down on top of it, and flew up and up until he pierced the heaven above us. And there he saw God and told him of our misery and God pardoned our sins and lightened our burdens. Then the great bearded man came down from the heavens and the people were happy. And for this, the authorities and the Tsar made this man a very great scientist.

Dmitri Mendeleev ponders the perfect Vodka.
(thanks to my elite Photoshop skills and a painting by Ilya Repin)

Patrick Burns posted a challenge on his blog to discuss the etymological ramifications of the Russian word “Razvodit” which means both “to breed” and “to dilute.” As a logophile, verbivore, and lover of etymology; how could I resist?

I’m sure Patrick is eager for a piece that discusses show breeding’s uncanny ability to dilute the original talents of a dog breed until they are either no longer extant or so watered down as to be a joke. But he’s already written that piece several times, so I’ll venture to talk about something else, namely: vodka. Don’t worry, I’ll get to dogs later.

The verb vodit’, razvodit’ (водить, разводить) which gives us “breed” and “dilute” also gives us Vodka. An early use of the word vodka comes from a pharmaceutical text discussing various tinctures and spirits used for medical applications, dilutions of various curatives in water and grain alcohol.

While saving lives is all well and good, the real success of Vodka is that it gets you drunk. The drink is believed to have originated in the bread basket region of Central Europe known for grain production that stretches through modern day Poland – Belarus – Lithuania – Ukraine – and western Russia. Etymology of languages from this region suggests that Vodka wasn’t always the drink of choice for wimpy college girls who didn’t want to taste the booze in their cocktails.

Peoples in the area of vodka’s probable origin have names for vodka with roots meaning “to burn”: Polish: gorzałka; Ukrainian: горілка, horilka; Belarusian: гарэлка, harelka; Lithuanian: degtinė (prior purification of Lithuanian language Belarusian loanword arielka was used); Latvian: degvīns; Finnish: paloviina; Danish; brændevin; Swedish: brännvin; Norwegian: Brennevin (although the Swedish and Norwegian terms refer to any strong alcoholic beverage); in Russian during 17th and 18th century горящее вино (goryashchee vino, “burning wine”) was widely used.

In other words, it was rather unpleasant and unrefined stuff that supposedly puts hair on your chest and turns many a newcomer in to a gasping fire breather. While it might not have taken a genius to figure out that if you water the stuff down a little bit it might not be so caustic, in the case of Vodka, it did take a genius. That’s where Dimitri Mendeleev comes in.

You’ll remember Mr. Mendeleev from such high school lectures as “the guy who developed the periodic table,” or “the guy who invented smokeless powder,” or even “the guy who postulated that oil doesn’t come from fossils at all,” but I doubt you were ever given the lecture about Dimitri Mendeleev, the man who brought Vodka to the world. Well, your school sucked.

Dr. LaRue, my high school CP and AP chemistry teacher (and the AP coordinator for the most successful AP school in a thousand mile radius) was quite the party animal in college. His graduate biochem lab hosted the best parties on or off campus because young Mr. LaRue and his classmates had access to untainted 200 proof alcohol. Coeds these days might enjoy a little “rectified spirit” or Everclear in their Orange Juice, but in the good old days on dry campuses in states with Blue Laws, the pure and unadulterated (non-denatured) ethanol was the best, and typically the only way to get your grad school groove on.

You see, pure alcohol has many uses both industrial and scientific, and to keep the workers sober, it’s a universal practice to “denature” pure ethanol with nasty and carcinogenic toxins to render it unfit for consumption (benzene, methanol, jet fuel). My guess is that there was probably a little bit of political pressure from the booze industry as well. Although the word denature has a specific scientific meaning, its use here simply means to remove the natural urge to drink it.

The additives also prevent the ethanol from spoiling. You see, pure ethanol is parched, dehydrated, and in search of any moisture it can get. It will even pull it right out of the air. So, to keep the industrial ethanol pure and effective, the additives hinder its ability to draw moisture out of the air. That property of pure ethanol is also the reason that Chemistry and Biology grad students have access to bountiful amounts of ethanol. They need pure ethanol for their labs, so the tainted stuff won’t work, but it also goes bad as the ethanol draws moisture out of the air and thus becomes unreliable as having a stable concentration of ethanol.

Well, instead of throwing it out, why not drink it?!

And that’s just what Mr. LaRue and Mendeleev did. The addition of water to the ethanol is what made it bad for science, but perfect for drinking. The question becomes, when you’re all out of juice for mixers (and who keeps such things in the lab anyway), what is the perfect ratio of ethanol to water to take the fire out of firewater but still leave you feeling warm and fuzzy inside?

The most all penetrating spirit before which will open the possibility of tilting not tables, but planets, is the spirit of free human inquiry. Believe only in that.
- Dmitri

And by spirit, Dmitri meant booze. Being the genius that he was, Mendeleev wasted no time in finding the solution and put his late night table-tilting parties in the lab and marathon of taste testing dilutions of booze to good use. So as not to detract from his studies, Dmitri made booze his study, and turned his little project into his Doctoral dissertation. In 1866, he published his dissertation “On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol,” and was awarded the title of Doctor of Science and Professor of Chemistry at the University in St. Petersburg.

“His research findings were expansive and beneficial to the Russian people.”

You bet they were. And his findings were also expansive to his waistline and beneficial to his notoriety in all the best bars in St. Petersburg. But his fame was not so beneficial to his first marriage and Dmitri ditched his first wife to lust after the pubescent friend of his niece, eventually marrying her against the doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church and condemning his soul to eternal damnation. But it worked for the two of them and they drank much vodka and had hot monkey sex and she bore him many children.

Dmitri became uber-famous and a national hero when his vodka-induced visions led to his ordering of the known elements into a table based upon the periodic nature of their properties and reactive natures based upon their atomic mass. Brilliant insight, although he probably would have made the final leap from atomic mass to today’s ordering by atomic number if he weren’t so damn drunk. No matter, it didn’t change anything, and Dmitri’s ability to not only predict the future but order the past earned him well deserved fame.

In order to clarify the matter further, I wish to draw some conclusions as to the chemical and physical properties of those elements which have not been placed in the system and which are still undiscovered but whose discovery is very probable. I think that until now we have not had any chance to foresee the absence of these or other elements, because we have had no order for their arrangement, and even less have we had occasion to predict the properties of such elements. An established system is limited by its order of known or discovered elements.
- Dmitri

Dmitri eventually ditched academia and took up a job on the government payroll, directing the Bureau of Weights and Measures. Like all good bureaucrats, Dmitri didn’t have much to do and a lot of time to do it in, so he turned his considerable talents once again to vodka. This time, he was going to prove that his preferred mixture of water and ethanol was the best, so he applied cutting edge chemistry to the task. Based upon the physical properties of the ethyl alcohol molecule, Mendeleev discovered that one molecule of ethyl alcohol shepherded on either end by one molecule of water (2 waters to 1 ethyl alcohol) made for the perfect vodka experience.

There was just enough water to prevent the ethyl molecule from robbing moisture from your mouth or stomach (creating the burn) and not too much as to waste precious space in the bottle, glass, and stomach with excess water. By volume, the mixture works out to be 62% water and 38% alcohol. At strengths less than this, vodka will taste watery, and in higher concentrations it will burn.

There exists everywhere a medium in things, determined by equilibrium. The Russian proverb says, ‘Too much salt or too little salt is alike an evil.’ It is the same in political and social relations… It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order in nature and to find the causes governing this order. And this refers in equal measure to the relations of man – social and political – and to the entire universe as a whole.
- Dmitri

Dmitri’s formula didn’t solve the social and political problems in the entire Universe, nor even in Russia (the Vodka Wars are still going strong), but his work was so convincing that Tsar Alexander III instituted Russian Standards for Vodka Production based on the research and the new era of drinkable Vodka was ushered in. Almost every bottle of Vodka you can find in on store shelves today that is meant to be consumed neat will be sold at 40% alcohol by volume or 80 proof. The slight rounding has to do with ease of taxation (spirits are taxed based upon strength) and not on the actual mixture in the bottle.

Dmitri’s final words to his students upon his retirement from the University in no small way resemble the effects one gains when drinking Vodka in the perfect concentration:

I have achieved an inner freedom. There is nothing in this world that I fear to say. No one nor anything can silence me. This is a good feeling. This is the feeling of a man. I want you to have this feeling too – it is my moral responsibility to help you achieve this inner freedom. I am an evolutionist of a peaceable type. Proceed in a logical and systematic manner.
- Dmitri Mendeleev

So by bringing the perfect Vodka to the impoverished and downtrodden masses in Russia, Mendeleev did see God vodka while perched on a bubble (hik!) and told Him it of their misery. And in bars and homes everywhere across Russia and the world, God vodka is pardoning sins and lightening burdens.

Then the great bearded man came down from the heavens and the people were happy.

Part 1:
A decade ago during the first weeks of 9th grade I got my first and only F on a paper. Of course I was livid when I got the paper back, especially because the only comment on the paper was “I don’t agree.” Ms. Montgomery was a novice history teacher and a pinko socialist, and I had already embarrassed her during the first week when she compensated for her own ineptitude and lack of preparation (no lesson plan) by making us watch irrelevant movies and color in maps with crayons and colored pencils.

Her running a high school class like a kindergarten was degrading and especially insulting to a precocious freshmen who was eager for a more mature classroom experience than he had in Middle School. It was her first time teaching, but it was hardly my first time running into an idiot teacher. The issue came to a head when I refused to color in yet another photocopy of a map of some part of the world that I already knew and wasn’t going to get credit for, to “prepare” for a quiz I could already ace, opting instead to read our as-of-yet unused textbook figuring that Ms. Montgomery would eventually use our classroom time for teaching instead of babysitting and scrambling to do preparations she should have done on her own time weeks before.

One class she finally looked up from her desk long enough to notice that I was reading my textbook instead of coloring and decided to make an example out of me. “What are you doing, Christopher?” “Actually learning something.” “Put that book away and get to your map. This is a history class and I won’t have you doing your homework for another class.” “This isn’t for another class, this is the textbook for this class, don’t you recognize it?” “You’re going to fail the quiz if you don’t study, now get out your map.”

“Ms. Montgomery, we colored maps in elementary school. I learned the names of all the countries in middle school. This is a waste of time. We’ve spent the entire week coloring maps and you’re not even going to give us credit for it. I’m ready for the quiz, coloring isn’t going to change that.” “Really? You’re ready? Let’s see.”

Montgomery walked over to the board and fumbled with the world map. When she finally got it to stay down, she had already lost the whiff of authority and momentum the teacher has in such a situation, but she insisted on making an example. She grabbed a yard stick and started pointing to countries.

From across the room I started, “Morocco, France, Greece, Jordan, Mongolia, Laos, Philippines.”
She chimed in with glee, “No, that’s Indo-ne-si-a. I told you that you needed to study!”

“Um, no, that’s the Philippines. Indonesia is south and west. Look again.”

As she leaned into the map I couldn’t resist. I noticed that she needed to confirm where she was pointing by actually reading the country names, she obviously didn’t know the map. “Maybe you should color in a map.” She retaliated by blitzing through Africa with her yardstick, but I didn’t falter (I had been there a month before) and she only reinforced to the entire class that I knew the map better than she did.

I didn’t get 100% on the quiz… until I brought it to her attention that she had botched the grading of Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, probably because she couldn’t read her teacher’s manual answer key. The gauntlet had be laid and it didn’t take her long to get even.

The assignment was to watch the Dolly Parton movie “Nine to Five” and do at least a one page analysis. We wasted three full class periods watching the movie and I handed in my paper on the last day, two days before it was due. I did a finely written three page analysis where I argued that social identity comes as much from one’s in group as it does from one’s out group, comparing elements of the film with historical events. My hypothesis was that “I am not” is a crucial to identity as “I am.”

Ms. Montgomery was looking for mindless pap along the lines of conspiracy to commit homicide, false imprisonment, aggravated kidnapping and assault are justified when your boss is a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” and you sing catchy tunes while perpetrating your criminal revenge. It didn’t matter to Montgomery that my essay elegantly linked a lousy comedy that had no part in a high school history class to more pressing and relevant historical issues. It didn’t matter that I bit my tongue and didn’t discuss how a movie about women botching the murder of their boss was about as useful in effecting change in the workplace as Fonda sitting on a Viet Cong anti-air turret was to ending the Vietnam war.

It didn’t matter that I keenly observed that the difference between the in group and the out group need not be vast differences, and often it was very small differences that lead to the most atrocious warfare. The War of Independence, The Hatfields and the McCoys, the split families of the American Civil War, the Fascists an the Communists, the Protestant Reformation and subsequent sub-fracturing, etc.

Even when I approached her after the papers came back to inquire about why I had an F, her only comment was that she didn’t agree that people behaved like that. Such thinking was supposedly negative and bigoted. She denied that she ever made such assessments and was above such petty behavior. Then I asked her if she was popular in school and her world fell apart. No, she wasn’t one of the rich popular kids, and n
o she wasn’t a nerd. Point proven, she wasn’t this nor that and what group she wasn’t was as significant to her identity as what she was.

I handed her my book and told her that I would not be coming back to her class. And I never did. I marched into the head of the department’s office and demanded that Miss Montgomery be fired and that I be transferred into a real class with a teacher who wasn’t a hack. Mr. Kempton read my essay, saw the one comment “I don’t agree. F” in red, and listened to my beef about her lack of preparation, lack of real teaching, and horrible liberal bias that infected her grade book. He agreed that the grade and her justification was wholly inappropriate, apologized for her lackluster performance and assured me that she’d be reigned in and informed of the appropriate way to grade and teach. Best of all, he transferred me into his class and I earned an A+.

It was a pivotal moment in my high school career even though I didn’t appreciate it at the time. Not only was it the first time that I truly took control of my own education and didn’t call in my parents to deal with a stupid teacher, it led directly to many opportunities that wouldn’t have existed if I sucked it up and pandered to the pinko. Mr. Kempton’s U.S. History class was an inspiration and I took his AP US Government and AP Comparative Government classes (and scored 5s on all three AP exams). He recommended me for the American Legion’s Boys State program as well as local program called “Colorado Close Up.” While attending the former I became involved with the American Legion’s speech contest which led me to take Speech and Debate and later become a team captain. In the later program I got my first taste of being a trial lawyer which inspired me to join the Mock Trial teams in both high school and in college at Stanford.

When I acquire my JD/MBA, part of the credit for the JD belongs to that F and the idiot pinko who did more for me by not teaching than she ever could have done by doing her job.