Bound to obey and serve

Executive Experience Not Necessary

2008-11-04T14:14:57Z

I am off to the polls.

In the event you read this before voting, and encounter someone today who is still worried about Obama's supposed lack of experience, a two-word response is sufficient:

Abraham Lincoln

After one congressional term and one failed run at the Senate, he became the compromise Republican candidate in 1860. Initially derided as an ignorant back-country "Railsplitter," Lincoln did make some mistakes (everyone does!), but he proved to be brilliant at executing his vision and, at least as importantly, holding together a fractious coalition of advisers ranging from out-and-out abolitionists to border-state, anti-Emancipationists.

Madeleine L'Engle

2007-09-08T22:01:25Z

A long and prolific life ends, and pinkfinity posted an excellent meme to commemorate L'Engle's life and works:

When you see this on your flist, post a quotation from a book by Madeleine L'Engle in your LJ/blog/journal/etc.

I have spent the last hour looking for my copy of A Wrinkle in Time, which used to reside on my son's bookshelf, and have regretfully concluded that when we painted his room he packed it up with the Hardy Boys books that we have given away, because I can't find it anywhere. So, this quote is from memory, and it's going to be rough:

"Meg felt as though she were being flattened by a steamroller. 'Oh,' said Mrs. Whatsit, "That's a two-dimensional planet and I forgot the children can't manage there.'"

I think that's not a bad effort, considering that I haven't opened the book in at least 20 years.

Oddly, this line is the only one that has stayed with me all these years, I think because after reading AWIT for the first time, I found myself speculating on space, time and dimensionality, whether the tesseract made sense and what other dimensions might exist that we could not even imagine.

If anyone could supply the exact quote, I would be most appreciative. And I'm going to keep looking for my copy.

Finished Deathly Hallows

2007-07-22T02:12:21Z

In less than 24 hours, a record for me! And loved it, in the sense that the story kept me turning pages at an amazing rate. The only other book to match it in intensity was GoF. Flaws are certain to be exposed on further reading, although DH now has his hands on it, having elected not to wait for the Bloomsbury version to arrive after all. I intended a reread to pull my thoughts together, but I'll make do without --

The body count was suprisingly high, especially since it included several experienced Order members and only one student, who was underage and shouldn't have been there. Harry's DA training must have been extraordinary.

Speaking of students at Hogwarts, I thought the Creeveys were muggleborn, so what were they doing at Hogwarts?

Having spent a bit of bandwith defending Harrycrux, I can't complain about how it was used, or why the information was withheld.

Not surprisingly, I liked Dumbledore better for his flaws. I found his backstory very much in character.)

Cheers for some of my favorite characters -- Neville, Ron, Percy, SNAPE! (But Lupin, another old favorite, didn't work so well for me.)

After having vigilantly guarded myself against spoilers all week, I hit a particularly bleak moment in the tent-camping adventure that compelled me to read the epilogue. Oddly, I found that reading the epilogue enhanced my enjoyment of the book. It's all in the journey, not the result.

Was there ever an explanation of the spell Harry's wand executed by itself during the flight from Privet Drive? I had assumed from the outset that it was Snape's doing, but don't remember any resolution of this.

I had problems with the wedding chapter; Harry was acting like Harry and not a Weasley cousin, but somehow Elphias Doge and Auntie Muriel completely failed to be surprised by the conversation.

Who were Rose and Hugo?

I'll have more comments on my second read.

Gay Rights

2006-10-04T02:32:26Z

(Gacked from blpurdom)

We would like to know who really believes in gay rights on livejournal. There is no bribe of a miracle or anything like that. If you truly believe in gay rights, then repost this and title the post as "Gay Rights". If you don't believe in gay rights, then just ignore this. Thanks.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, considering those who read my journal. Even my mother believes in gay rights, and she's one of the most conservative people on the planet.

Interests Meme

2006-09-11T01:06:43Z

Gacked from nearly everyone --

Create your own! Originally Written By ga_woo, Hosted and ReWritten by darkman424

I really liked this one, even if it provided only photos of bridges to represent a card game. Fortunately, I can't think of any man-made structure more beautiful than a bridge.

Bwahahahaha!

2006-01-09T00:26:21Z

The evil me is revealed at last:

Your Social Dysfunction:
Schizotypal

You display social deficits and oddities of thinking. Your perception and communication are similar to those of a schizophrenic.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Please note that we aren't, nor do we claim to be, psychologists. This quiz is for fun and entertainment only. Try not to freak out about your results.

Is this because I like baseball? Or because I don't want lots of friends who don't know me well? An odd quiz, I thought.

OTOH, I knew I couldn't win this one, as neither my undergraduate major (government) nor law was one of the options. Apparently they believe all analytical thinkers should be engineers. At least it got that I can't draw, not even stick figures.

You scored as Engineering. You should be an Engineering major!

</td>

Philosophy

92%

Engineering

92%

Mathematics

83%

Biology

75%

Psychology

75%

Linguistics

75%

English

75%

Sociology

75%

Dance

67%

Anthropology

67%

Chemistry

42%

Theater

42%

Journalism

25%

Art

17%

What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
created with QuizFarm.com

Books I've Read in 2005

2005-12-31T19:12:31Z

I used to do this every three months. I'm seriously slacking off . . .

Organized by theme rather than chronologically.

Richard Moe, The Last Full Measure. This is the story of the First Minnesota Volunteers, which fought in the Civil War and whose stand against the Confederates at Gettysburg may have made the difference in the battle. If you have any interest in the Civil War, or in military history, this is an excellent and very readable book that tells the story as much as possible using the diaries and letters of the men themselves – some of whom were highly literate; others’ writings were eloquent in their simplicity and honesty.

Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels. Fictional account of the Battle of Gettysburg. Told from multiple POVs, all different from the perspective of the First Minnesota. Good, but The Last Full Measure was better.

Azir Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Another truly excellent book, recommended by many. Dr. Nafisi brilliantly intertwines the study of English literature with the history of the Iranian Revolution.

Henry James, Daisy Miller, Washington Square, and The Turn of the Screw. The first two were discussed by Dr. Nafisi in her book. I didn’t care much for The Turn of the Screw; I found it plodding and only finished it because it was so short. The others were good. I also began reading The Ambassadors, but haven’t finished it.

Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading. (also discussed by Dr. Nafisi) and The Secret Life of Sebastian Knight. I’ve never read a Nabokov book I didn’t like.

Agatha Christie, At Bertram’s Hotel and Murder on the Orient Express. I found the first one in my mom’s basement. First-time Christie reader.

Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten, all great fun.

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Read twice.

C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew. First-time read, in preparation for the Narnia film. Never got around to LWW, which I’d read only once before and very quickly.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. Reread in anticipation of the P&P3 film. On this reread I particularly appreciated the wealth of comic characters.

Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club. Good, but lightweight.

I’m sure I’ve read other books, but I just can’t remember them at this point. Bad recordkeeping, I guess. And, of course, I’ve left out all the contracts, case law, tax codes, regulations and other guidance that I’ve read. And the newspapers and magazines.

I resolve to read more nonfiction in 2006, as well as more books.

Intelligent Design

2005-11-19T01:10:24Z

From today's Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701304.html

Evolution for believers, eloquently and succinctly written.

I wish I'd read it before the conversation I had last week with my Christian fundamentalist uncle.

Election Day and Capital Punishment

2005-11-07T19:18:01Z

I don't post a lot of political content, but it's election day tomorrow, with a photo-finish gubernatorial race expected here in Virginia (though it's an off-year for Congress, I live in one of the two states that thinks its governors shouldn't have coattails).

Naturally we have been inundated with tedious ads. Most of them are of the he-said, no-I-didn't variety, but I found one exchange deeply disturbing, and it continues to haunt me even though I've not seen the offending ads for at least a week.the ones descibed here really did make me ill. Basically, the Republican candidate Kilgore has dredged up relatives of executed criminals to appear in TV ads to proclaim that they don't trust the Democratic candidate to execute those convicted of the killing. Yes, that's right. They don't "trust" (their word) Kaine to kill people. I didn't like Kilgore before, but now I can't separate him from the message of retribution in these ads.

The Democratic candidate ~~Yorrick~~ Tim Kaine (yes, Ffordefans, that's right) is opposed to the death penalty. He is a Catholic, and his position avowedly reflects his faith. Yet he has had to produce response ads assuring that he will uphold the law regarding the death penalty in Virginia. ("Don't worry, good Republicans! I'm going to kill people because it's the law!")

The whole episode is especially troubling because of the history of the death penalty here. Virginia has executed more criminals than any other state (even Texas). Since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, Virginia has had the highest per capita rate of executions of any state in the U.S. By that measure, it is far ahead of Texas, which is cited frequently for having the most executions.

Virginia death-row convicts -- many of whom are poor and do not have access to legal counsel of their choice -- also have suffered from the most restrictive post-trial criminal procedure in the country. One of the reasons for this is that under Virginia criminal procedure, defendants have only 21 days after judgment to introduce new evidence. Evidence discovered later may not be considered, even if it proves the defendant's innocence. It's the shortest time limit in the country (and even though it has been mitigated somewhat recently, it still exists), and it has resulted in the killing of innocent people.

In Virginia the death penalty may be considered whenever "special circumstances" are present -- which are very broad. Also, Virginia was happy to use it to execute people who were minors when the crime was committed (that's why sniper suspects John Muhammed and Lee Malvo were tried first in Virginia, not in Maryland where most of the sniper killings occurred) and the mentally retarded, until the Supreme Court said NO. (In the retardation case, using arcane determination rules, Virginia recently ruled that Atkins was not, in fact, mentally retarded. The ruling has been appealed.)

In short, the system was designed to produce convictions, not justice. (I won't even get into the rules for retaining and turning over potentially exculpatory evidence, which is a trap for the unwary defendant.)

I'm hoping that Kilgore's strategy will backfire. Kilgore's ads have been widely denounced as inaccurate in the press; Kaine's responses have been deemed to be factually correct. Moreover, it's a strategy that seems to be aimed at conservative, traditional Virginians, but the polls indicate that the race will be won or lost here in Northern Virginia, which is wealthier, more liberal, and more likely from someplace else where different rules apply.

Rant over.

Catching up on days of LJ

2005-10-27T02:08:29Z

You are a RAVENCLAW!

As a Ravenclaw and as an NTP, you are intellectual,
independent, and value excellence in yourself
and in those around you. You have a strong
sense of curiosity, and in general can see many
aspects of a single issue or debate. You have
a strong drive to acquire knowledge and set
very high standards for yourself and those
around you. You enjoy being challenged, and
can accept constructive criticism without
taking it personally. You are probably at
least somewhat unconventional, and will not
usually follow authority for its own sake;
instead, you will consider the issue at hand
and make a decision for yourself.

Hogwarts Sorting Hat: Based on Myers-Briggs Personality Typing
brought to you by Quizilla

Yup, this is about right.

Did I mention that I was sorted into Ravenclaw at The Witching Hour? Did I mention that I attended The Witching Hour? I did (for a single day) and that was three weeks ago, already! It was too short, but great fun -- it rekindled my interest in HP, to the point where I’m actually considering submitting a proposal to present my Quidditch essay at Lumos, even though I already know I have a conflict that weekend and would have to take the red-eye home.

Yeah, I’m so hopelessly behind that I still haven’t posted my summer photos yet, even though I finally figured out how to do it. It seems a bit frivolous when so many of you
are dealing with health problems, money woes, joblessness, family or relationship issues, death, hurricane aftermath, or schoolwork. I feel guilty sometimes – I have a good job, good health, a loving family (considering that I have a teenager at home), even good weather (well, it’s rained a lot lately, but I like rain). I don’t deserve all this, of course. I’m just lucky. And since none of my F-list is nearby, all I can do is send hugs. ::sending hugs to all who need them::

Now I’m going to knock on the largest piece of wood I can find.

Movie Meme Update

2005-09-26T05:43:24Z

Nineteen of my twenty movies were guessed, which means either that I've got common tastes or that my memory of the more obscure movies I've seen -- which I am not periodically reminded of -- is deficient. A couple of clues for #3. First, though the photo is black & white, the movie's not that old. Second, look at the setting of the photo. What's that behind the characters? Third, I put up a new photo here.

I really enjoyed this game, even though I was spectacularly bad at it. I found I couldn't identify even my favorite films based on a single pic, unless the scene had become fixed in my mind for some reason. (One film I couldn't identify until I unwittingly chose the same pic for my set.)

Another phenomenon was the number of films others chose that I've never seen but really want to see. So why don't I run to the video store? Problem is, I hate watching films on TV. The screen is too small, and the distractions are too many. I love a darkened theatre, with a big screen that demands my full attention.

Back in the days when I was young and impecunious, there was a wonderful cheap repertory theatre here in town, the Biograph, where the fare consisted primarily of all the old films all of you chose. I have not seen any of those films since the Biograph closed and was converted to a CVS pharmacy.

My question: Do you enjoy watching movies on video? What can I do to make video-watching more like going to the theatre? Do I need to turn my basement into a home theatre? Because I really do want to see Dr. Strangelove.

Movie meme, my politics

2005-09-22T05:00:53Z

The movie meme, gacked from many. Proving what a technosquib I am, it took me two days to figure out how to find screencaps and then figure out how to upload them to Yahoo photos. By then, some of my favorite movies were taken. No guarantee that there still aren't any duplicates, but the results are

here

Most of these are really well-known, and some of my absolute favorites are missing because they've already been used; I had trouble getting a pic for one.

Rules are:
1. Pick 20 films you love/thoroughly enjoyed.
2. Find screen captures (stills) for each film. If you can't find a still, pick a new movie.
3. Post the pictures with the rules; let your readers guess what movie each still is from.

By the way, I am a socialist like most of you.

Two Questions

2005-09-01T17:09:41Z

How can a city in a supposedly civilized nation issue a mandatory evacuation order and then stand by as the affluent leave, without providing the poor with any means of escape? Where were the 475 busses before the hurricane hit?

And a more prosaic question: Can someone give some good advice on uploading photos to LJ? I've looked at the LJ help instructions, but my attempt to use Comcast's photo feature seems to have failed.

Katrina

2005-08-31T02:27:09Z

I just turned on the TV for the first time today saw the images of the devastation. I have no words. My possessions seem very frivolous right now.

A real update will have to wait. It's been months, so another day or two won't make a difference. I will say, though, that I had an exciting, exhausting and rewarding summer. School starts Tuesday.

Off to wire money to a relief agency.

Something about a book

2005-07-19T02:49:43Z

I live! First, apologies for the lack of comments - I've been checking only a few times a week and rushing through everyone's entries before rushing off to something or other. But I am briefly delurking to acknowledge that I spend Friday evening at the bookstore (something about a book everyone seemed to be buying) and part of my weekend reading between various children's sporting events that I dared not bring my new book to for fear it would be rained on. And dealing with other RL events. My kids' summer babysitter was seriously injured in a boating accident this weekend -- not life-threatening, but she'll require long-term rehab. Amazingly, we found a replacement. Unfortunately, she was 1 1/2 hours late today. I will give her a second chance. Under the circumstances that's the right thing to do.

No time to write a proper review of said book, as I have a plane to catch at some ungodly hour in the morning. Except to say I enjoyed this one much better than OOP (despite a couple of things that made me blanch), and to promise a better review soon.

Cheering the art of compromise

2005-05-24T13:43:02Z

Perhaps there is hope after all --

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR2005052301970.html

It seems that the legislature will not grind to a halt, which can only be a good thing. But I'm not yet ready to restore any measure of confidence in our nation's elected representatives. Negotiation and compromise is the lifeblood of human relations, yet it seems that increasing numbers of people seem to regard compromise as a form of moral weakness, rather than as a measure of respect for one's colleagues. I suspect it has roots in the religious right, When did mutual respect, compromise, and confidence in the constitutional system of checks and balances break down? And how? I suspect it has roots in the religious right, but it has crossed over to the other side of the aisle as well.

The centrists are a dwindling number. What are the prospects that they will be able to broker a deal next time?

I am alive and well and promise that a real update will be forthcoming, very soon.

Thanks and Sadness

2004-12-29T13:38:14Z

This is not a real update, but thanks to those of you who sent cards. I'll be sending individual thanks as soon as I can, but they brightened a much too busy holiday season. My last card didn't go out until the 24th, but I did manage to finish everything.

I haven't caught up yet partly because my office won't leave me alone, but mostly because I keep getting sidetracked every time I log on to the internet by the terribly depressing tsunami coverage (my homepage is CNN). This morning the death toll was 10,000 higher than reported in the newspaper I had just picked up from my doorstep. Last night I spent my internet time reading profiles of aid agencies to decide where to send a donation. This morning's coverage compels me to send another one. And to pray. Prayers for the living as well as the dead, and especially for the aid to reach them in time.

I also learned yesterday that my 96 year old great uncle died, the last of his generation. I feel that I've lost a link to my past. He was the last of the immigrants, the only remaining relative to speak with a foreign accent. Though not related to her, he came to America on the same boat as my grandmother. She died thirty years ago, but my great-uncle told us about it.

Leave plenty of time to vote!

2004-11-02T12:22:47Z

I left for the polls this morning at 6:03 a.m., jogging the four blocks to my precinct station. I expected to be among the first 10 or 20 voters.

Wrong. There were well over a hundred people in line ahead of me, and it took over an hour to get to the front and vote.

So leave lots of time. If possible, vote mid-morning or mid-afternoon.

Edited to add: I passed three other precincts on my travels this morning and all of them had lines out the door all the way to the street. And I don't live in a battleground state. This is a Democratic neighborhood in a very Republican state, and I've never seen a heavier turnout. Lots of young voters, too.

Poetry meme and central heating

2004-10-25T00:38:24Z

Poetry meme, gacked from about half my f-list. I’m a week late, but poetry is never stale. After contemplating the choices overnight, I settled on a seasonal selection, from Macbeth.

Round about the cauldron go:
In the poison’d entrails throw,
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty one
Swelter’d venom, sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Woll of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting.
Lizard’s leg and howler’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

* * *

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

O, well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i’ the gains:
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.

Fall has finally arrived. I finally succumbed and turned on the heat today. I promised to do it when the indoor temperature dropped below 60 degrees, and it had been hovering at about 61 for 2-3 days because the clouds had prevented the sun from doing my heating for me. I was beginning to become lethargic, but I caught the thermometer reading 59 degrees this morning, and the heat went on. Too bad. I was liking the gas bill, and the heat turns my bedroom into an oven while the den freezes.

But next week I can enjoy a cold bedroom again. I'm going camping with the Cub Scouts in Pennsylvania and there is no heat in my tent. Actually, I'm looking forward to it.

Credit for the new elf icon goes to here_be_dragons or alpheratz or giraffe_warrior. I can no longer remember which because it has been too long since I've had it.

Lolita! and more

2004-10-12T03:21:56Z

It’s been 3 months since my last reading update, so here goes:

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: This was one of the most compelling reads in a long time. It was equal parts tragedy and comedy (the Episode of the Ineffective Sleeping Pill, in particular, was a wonderful piece of comic timing!), fantasy and gritty realism, and a psychological study infused with biting commentary on middle America of the ‘50s. The forward states that at one point he threw the manuscript in the trash. Fortunately for us, his wife fished it out. Equally fascinating, though, was the insight into the writing process, and particularly the degree to which Nabokov used ideas from other literature in crafting Lolita. He wrote Lolita during the time that he was lecturing at Cornell University in the early 50s, and reading carefully, I found echoes of the works he taught (at least the ones I’ve read) in his lectures. For example, he takes the predator theme of Mansfield Park and turns it on its head, as Lo employs the polar opposite of the means used by Fanny Price to thwart the predator. As if to emphasize that, he borrows a phrase almost verbatim from MP when he has HH tell Lo that “we shall be thrown a good deal together.” Lo’s character (or at least her boredom) also borrows from Madame Bovary (a book I will never read again), there is something Joycean about his use of perspective, and the legal troubles providing background for the narrative are reminiscent of the chancery suit that pervades Dickens’ Bleak House. All this has persuaded me to take his course by reading each book he taught, along with his lectures. Then I am going to reread Lolita along with all the annotations I skipped the first time around because they were full of spoilers.

Dearest Friend (author’s name forgotten). This was an autobiography of Abigail Adams; since John Adams was a rival of Benjamin Franklin’s, this biography was in some ways complementary to the biography I read earlier this year. I liked this one quite a bit less, however, as I felt that the author was too anxious to explain her faults and her actions instead of showing them to us. Still, the book provided a good insight into a woman who is widely regarded as an early feminist.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. One of the books in Nabokov’s Cornell lecture course. I’m not sure I’d agree that it deserved to be included. It was interesting, but Stevenson felt compelled to make his point (concerning the dual nature of man) in epistolary form, and the letter that ended the story read like an essay, so overall I was disappointed. The book included a number of other short stories on the same theme.

The View from Saturday, by E.L. Konigsburg. This was my daughter’s summer reading book for school. I thought it was a good choice, involving a disparate group of kids linked by events that came to support one another.

My current reading is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. I should have been reading Ulysses (following the Nabokov course), but I had college memories of being unable to finish a Joyce novel and decided to pick up the same one I'd been force-fed before as a test. And I made some odd discoveries. My copy of the book, which I've hauled to every address I've lived in since I was 18, is in poor condition, as though it has been read too often rather than not enough. The spine is breaking, and it's clearly been wet. Inside it’s full of annotations in a youthful script that is unmistakably my own, yet as I read through the first few chapters, I could not recall ever reading these words before, because I know I would have liked it. So, I must admit that I’ve never even tried to read Joyce before. I must have had too many exams that week and taken a bye on my weekly paper. So I think I could have tried for Ulysses after all, all 800 pages of a single day in 1906. No matter, I'll save it for the centennial of the celebrated date.

In other news, we visited the new National Museum of the American Indian this weekend. Lots of good stuff there, starting with the architecture of the building (somewhat pueblo-like) and the Three Sisters (beans, corn and squash) growing outside instead of some sterile landscaping. We found the pre-Colombian gold from South America, which my son found very cool. He has chosen his favorites, and we’ve looked up the styles in our Colombian gold book at home, so I think the trip was a success. In two weeks we’re going to visit the Colombian ambassador for a program that I hope will be a good follow-up to the Indian adventure.

Yes I know I owe replies to comments, and I have all the greatest intentions in the world of actually doing it. Soon. This week.

Challenged Books

2004-09-26T11:23:04Z

In honor of Banned Books week (behind the cut). Books I've read are in bold. Books one of my children has read are in italics. The asterisked books are on my daughter's seventh grade reading list for this year, strongly suggesting that I make Tom Sawyer the next challenged book on my reading list. And special kudos for Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories, a book more funny than scary and which was the first book my phonics-challenged son ever willingly read.

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton*
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain*
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

A retrospective, but a day late, as always . . .

2004-09-12T22:24:45Z

Yesterday I happened to turn on the radio at exactly 9:41 a.m., and what I heard was a rerun of the first report of the plane that crashed at the Pentagon. And I remembered where I was when I first heard about the Pentagon attack, in a tiny little carryout in Chinatown where I had stopped to buy a bottle of water, in an attempt to cleanse my parched throat of WTC particles. I had just begun to convince myself that there were no more planes coming, so that perhaps we could stop running now.

The Washington Post had stories about some of the forgotten victims - the ones that survived the attack but suffered head injuries from being thrown across the room and who are now brain-damaged and unable to work. And our firefighters, who are now suffering from PTSD. They're now split into three groups: the ones on disability, the ones about to ask for disability, and the ones who need to ask but don't want to admit the problem.

When we remember 9/11, we tend to remember the dead and their families. Here's a plea to remember these forgotten victims, who continue to live 9/11 every day. In retrospect, I was perhaps very lucky. I was away from home, and out on the streets away from the television. I saw the North Tower on fire, and I saw it collapse. But only once. I had a moment of terror when we were enveloped by the cloud, but we were able to run. The fight or flight response was in good working order and served me well. I didn't watch the events over and over again on television. And I seemed to bounce back much faster than some who only saw the events on TV. Perhaps television is not such a good thing in a crisis after all.

At that point, I decided I needed to visit the Pentagon. The bike path still goes right along the west facade, the one that was hit (it's been moved closer to the highway, and a fence has been installed, but it's still very close). I hadn't been out for a good long ride all summer. There was nobody there except for two tourists reading a plaque about a planned memorial. The rebuilt facade looks much like it always did, though the parking lots and a nearby highway have been shifted and a lot of incidental construction has taken place to make the building inaccessible to truck bombers.

And I had a great ride. The bike path on the Arlington side parallels the Potomac, so all the memorials were in view. And where the path passes the airport, I took the traditional cyclist's rest to enjoy the rush of watching the airplanes take off right above my head. Don't ask me why, but all the cyclists stop there before heading south. The planes took off and flew past the Pentagon, as it should be.

Where did the summer go?

2004-09-06T13:13:34Z

My friends and I have traditionally held and end-of-summer cookout for our families. It nearly didn't happen this year, but a telephone call at 4:30 p.m. yesterday led to an inventory of everyone's refrigerator shelves and by 6:30 we were all assembled and busy conjuring up ways to cook our pooled groceries. A wonderful time was had by all, and I've managed to avoid the end-of-summer blues. At least so far. This afternoon may be gloomy, between the edges of Frances (it's a Texas-sized storm, after all) taking away our Labor Day sunshine and the final preparations for the first day of school tomorrow. But for now I feel relaxed and happy. It was a good summer, and the family is spending the last day together. If it's too cool and cloudy for the pool, we'll take a family bike ride instead.

This is not a proper update. A proper update would provide some kind of clue as to what my good summer consisted of. alpheratz chided me at least a month ago for not updating more frequently, and look how long it's taken me to write just a couple of short paragraphs. It's just that I don't ever write anything personal until all my work is done, and of course my work is never done. ::sigh::

Soon. I promise.

Six-Month Booklist

2004-07-11T11:42:27Z

With the year more than half over already, it’s time to take stock of what I’ve been reading. I’ve watched enviously while here_be_dragons has been reading about 2 books per week. In between work, family and all those things I foolishly volunteer for, I’m pretty much at the one-book-a-month rate, and I read most of these books on the subway, often standing up hanging onto a pole.

Since I can’t possibly read all the books I’d like to (I haven’t even read all the ones that I own), I’ve tried to look at why I choose to read a particular book:

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by David Isaacson. This was a Christmas present. I've always enjoyed reading history, and this book was no exception. In the end, I found that I appreciated Franklin's accomplishments more than before but didn't really care for him as a person. Biographies are often slanted, but I couldn’t tell with this one, as his virtues and faults were in plain view, as apparently they were, more or less, in his lifetime.

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery. I picked this one up (which I’d never read before) off my daughter’s bookshelf because her best friend was scheduled to appear in a dramatic adaptation of the novel. After reading Anne’s first long monologue my reaction was “OMG! Miss Bates reincarnated!” Not a good start. Anne proved to be a lot smarter than Miss Bates, if something of a drama queen, but I never really warmed to her, and I found the novel too moralistic. I don’t know if it’s because the book doesn’t translate well to the 21st century, or if I was too old to appreciate it. I doubt I’ll ever pick it up again.

The Woman in White, by Willkie Collins. This is the book that sageofgodalming recommended. This book, which was described as the first real mystery, was a wonderful read, and I highly recommend it.If there was a flaw, it was the character of the heroine (and love interest). Laura was a proper Victorian heroine – beautiful but weak, almost childlike. Her half sister, Marian (through whose eyes part of the story was told), who had intelligence and gumption, seemed like a better match for Walter, but we are told when we first meet her that her face was ugly despite a beautiful figure. I suppose it offended my feminist sensibilities, but there was something disturbing about the fact that only the villain (whom I enjoyed very much as the villain) of the book was attracted to her. Perhaps in Victorian times an assertive heroine would have been unacceptable? If so, it appears that Collins would have liked to create one, and settled for splitting the character in two, for in the end Walter seems intellectually married to Marian, though physically married to Laura.

Mandragola by Niccolo Machiavelli. I pulled it off my bookshelf after DH noted a reference to mandrakes (aka mandragola) in a book he was reading. This is a very short, but delightfully funny play in which Machiavelli applies the realpolitik principles he expounded on in The Prince to the art of seduction. Recommended, especially if your only prior experience of Machiavelli took place in a tedious political philosophy class.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. Morrison came up in a conversation I had with my sister, who said this was her favorite. I especially liked the way it combined gritty realism with quasi-magical elements and how she drew the characters. I regret that in the context of the novel she could not show more than a few vignettes of some of the minor characters; I especially liked the ending which was simultaneously sad and extremely satisfying. Midway though the book, I was thinking that I preferred Beloved to Song of Solomon but changed my mind about three-quarters through.

Appalachian Mountain Girl, By Rhoda Bailey Warren. I only knew about this book because the author’s son is a friend of mine, in fact the only RL friend with whom I've ever had a serious discussion about HP. This is a short, sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, series of reminiscences about the author’s childhood in Kentucky coal mining country, beginning with the family’s decision to leave the company town.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. I happened to visit www.pemberley.com just as they were beginning a “group read” of this book. I’ve read it more than once before, and I’d also read a lot of critical essays on this book and on Jane Austen, but I’d never participated in a group discussion, so I got out my old paperback and joined in. This is my favorite of all Austen’s works (with Persuasion a close second); though it lacks the “light, bright and sparkling” (and arguably fairy-tale) quality of Pride and Prejudice, I suppose I prefer its shade. In particular, I think the Sotherton and play sequences are a tour de force. I’m impressed with the way Austen appears to have used the book to explore larger issues such as education, evangelicalism, the improvement of the estate and feminism. I like the Portsmouth section as well, though I am dissatisfied that, in contrast to the multiple POVs presented by the omniscient narrator earlier in the book, she constricts our POV to Fanny’s so that the important events of this stage of the book occur “offstage” and the reader learns of these events in fragmentary fashion through the cryptic letters she receives.

Unlike me, many critics don’t like MP much; some object to Fanny’s stasis, and find the ostensible villains of the story much more appealing characters. Feminist critics, on the other hand, seem to object to Fanny’s willing subjection to male authority, and denounce Sir Thomas as a monster, and to a lesser extent, Edmund. I think that misses the point. Austen appears to have used the female conduct book of the day as a model for Fanny, which requires her to appear meek and submissive, yet she does not submit to what goes against her principles. Austen nicely shows how absurd the conduct-book school of thought is in the first place, particularly when it operates side by side with the economic aspects of the marriage market. And Sir Thomas and Edmund, as representatives of the marriage-as-economics and the evangelical/conduct-book writer POV, respectively, inevitably won’t look too good, I don’t think they’re intended to be deliberately cruel, just unthinking, as evidenced by Sir Thomas’ about-face at the end of the novel. As a good HP fan, I paid particular attention to the character of Mrs. Norris in this reading. Though generally considered to be a comic character, I find Mrs. Norris’s avarice and self-aggrandizement too destructive in result for her to be considered merely comic. She presents herself as the most indulgent person in the world, eagerly spends money as long as it’s not her own, spunges constantly off others, and displays sycophantic tendencies toward her betters while heartlessly humiliating those who she deems beneath her. At the same time, Mrs. Norris’ treatment of Fanny as her primary whipping post, provides a basis for Fanny’s outward appearance as a conduct-book model even though in substance, she is not. Other than her nosiness (ex: "The Grants had their faults, and Mrs. Norris soon found them out"), though, I can't see a lot of similarities between her and Filch's cat.

What am I going to read next? While reading Mansfield Park I also reread the MP chapter of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature from his teaching days at Cornell University. Unlike many critics, Nabokov seems to like Fanny’s innocence, and I cannot read that Nabokov’s lecture without feeling urged to run to the library to check out Lolita. So that’s what I’ve done.

Also must borrow The Jane Austen Book Club from my friend, after taking a sneak peek at her copy yesterday.

Goal for the next six months: Double the number of books read.

Who is this?

2004-05-03T22:03:27Z

I took this quiz:

I took the most accurate villain personality test
created by: The Arch Villainess Gracie

And I haven't got a clue who this villain is.

Please help!