Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in treasureeverywh's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, November 29th, 2009
8:27 am	The Shipping News - Annie Proulx Big award winner (Pulitzer Prixe) and much talked about and read. It was an interesting read. One part of it spoke very powerfully to me. The protagonist, Quoyle, starts life out quite incompetent. He relocates to a small isolated community on the Rock (Newfoundland) and has to become self reliant. Early during that phase he HAS to learn some new skills without any help but also without anyone else around to laugh at him. With several (non-fatal but nearly so) missteps he succeeds and learns. There is also a very funny section about wasteful governmental efforts to create jobs in Newfoundland. I appreciated the fact that the handling of what is lost and what is gained in the transition from the old ways to the new ways is not entirely one sided. There is a crazy over the top wild party, shades of Jack Hodgins on the other coast. The love interest is delightfully understated (quite different from the movie I'm guessing especially given the cover photos) In short this is a nuanced multi-themed book. I can't figure out why I'm not more enthusiastic about it. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
11:59 am	Chindia: How China and India Are Revolutionizing Global Business - ed. Pete Engardio This is just a bunch of articles from Business Week pulled together into a book. Not much of interest given that I read the Economist which has more uptodate (though less detailed) info on the same topics. Once I started skimming it I grew less bored. Some of the articles contradicted each other. "It was an advantage to have gotten into China early since you build contacts." versus (and I summarize) "It was a disadvantage to have gotten into China early because you had to follow the dictates of politicians who wanted you to build factories and distribution channels in less than optimal locations that remain liabilities." Ah yes, generalizations are dangerous aren't they. No wonder I always challenge slogans and try to find the reasoning behind them. (Comment on this)
11:52 am	Wisdom Information & Wonder: What is Knowledge For - Mary Midgley Fairly technical stuff about the development of British philosophical tradition in the 20th C. The start makes an interesting point about some current peoples view of knowledge as something you collect into a storehouse rather than something you ponder and use. There were, as I've come to expect from Midgley, a few pithy insights and analogies. For example on page 232, she suggest that if we shift the meaning of the word "know" from being about a mental state to how it's used it becomes much less problematic. Here's a lengthy quote. "Accordingly, the question often raised by Descartes and others, 'How do you know that you know?', has perhaps as little sense as 'How do you know that you offer?' or 'How do you know that you thank?' The meaning of the work 'know', like that of other words, is its use. This word is not the name of a peculiar mental state or process because, like very many other words, it is not a name at all. Its work is not the work of referring or corresponding to some set object, but of helping people to distinguish between the more reliable and less reliable parts of the world around them. In doing this, speakers offer their own guarantees, which are of course understood, like all other human guarantees to be fallible. Though itis our business as citizens and language-users to offer these guarantees carefully and responsibly, and therefor only to offer them when we do have reason to feel certain, it is not our business to be omniscient." Then, on page 241 in a section titled "Intelligence is Not Enough" we get: "Many people, for instance, suggest that what is wrong with the human race is simply a shortage of intelligence, a shortage which can perhaps be cured by raising IQ through genetic engineering. This is an odd suggestion. Never mind the technical and scientific problems of IQ-raising, it is clear that we don't use a tenth of the intelligence we have got already. If we had more, we would certainly squander it in the same ways as we do now. Very high intelligence can be seen running to waste all round, both inside and outside our institutions. Outside them it runs to waste in suicide and depression, in quarrelling, alcoholism, neurosis, and organized crime, in various ways of killing time without much enjoyment, and most recently down special sinks designed for it, called computer games. Inside the institutions, it lavishes itself on intrigues and obsessions of the most various kinds, on internal feuds and deceptions, and on finding ways to block measures introduced by other people." (Emphasis mine). I was getting nervous when I read the part about "don't use a tenth" part since that's an old chestnut about individual brain use that is surely false. (Most of our brain does a lot of very sophisticated processing that isn't conscious thinking but it certainly doesn't mean that the brain isn't being used, just not used for conscious thinking.) But her real point was about wasting our intelligence and her list of wastes is impressive and convincing. So, the solution is finding ways to repurpose all this wasted intelligence. This was an early work and a bit technical for me, the lay reader. Some of her later stuff is more accessible. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 29th, 2008
11:08 am	Matter – Iain Banks Usual excellent Banks fare. Not quite as good as some of his others though maybe it’s just starting to feel like more of the same. The middle contains a description of a fairly dark world with some philosophy about needing actual matter to explore actual consequences of something a bit hard to put into words. We can’t actually be characters in someone’s virtual world because it requires actual matter to handle the full complexity. Sounds a bit absurd stated so baldly but it’s not too incoherent in novel form. Somewhat interesting thoughts but they seem rather disconnected from the rest of the novel. Even the bang at the end of the story is somewhat disappointing. Still, an enjoyable read. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 21st, 2008
8:06 am	Curious phenomenon At 4:40 this morning I witnessed a puzzling phenomenon. I saw somewhere from 5 to 10 bright flashes (camera flashes) at random locations within a 2 meter sphere. I was reminded of when I saw a transformer blow out and thought "there goes our power". I got up to look out the window and about a minute later saw another sequence of such but in a location 50 meters along the road from the first one. A similar time later I saw similar flashes reflecting off the window below the one I was looking out but could not identify where they were coming from, probably even further down the road. We did not lose power to the house and I just can't think of what was causing the flashes. Something traveling in a vehicle no doubt. A police car with a white siren? (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 13th, 2008
8:31 pm	By the Numbers I’ve been reading the Economist lately. It’s very found of citing numbers. Occasionally I remember to wonder whether the numbers are measuring anything real. Numbers maybe inaccurate but more insidiously they may measure the wrong thing. In the worse case they may distort the decisions people make in order to achieve better numbers. Especially when the Economist applies numbers to education I become queasy. Then about a month ago I read Jane Jacobs’ “Dark Ages Ahead” where she talked about the rise of credentialism at universities by which she is referring to the fact that students increasingly go to University not to learn but to get a degree, a credential for a better paying job. This started me thinking abit harder about the Economist’s approach to education. Finally, my son wrote the SAT exam last weekend. One component of it is writing an essay. Not something Philip had much experience with. So, we started in on a program of learning to write essays. With much groaning and complaining he buckled down to the task. He found web sites that explained how to write essays and painstakingly applied what he read. I reviewed his initial essays and saw significant growth. His logical thinking and clear headedness serve him well in constructing essays. However, at some point we picked up the Rocket Review which is a guide on how to do well in the SAT exams. Obviously, given the importance of the SAT’s to entering the American university system there is going to be an industry of preparing people to do well in them. I don’t have a problem with that. Rather I was disturbed when it suggested that certain tricks would help to achieve good scores. In particular, draw your examples from an esteemed source NOT your personal experience, use big words, focus on the start because first impressions count, … And speed matters hugely. You have to write a 200 word essay in 25 minutes!! All of which reminded me of the problem that it’s extremely difficult to measure knowledge to say nothing of judgment and creative thinking in a written exam. Italy, at least in the 80s, used oral exams rather than written ones to award bachelor’s degrees. They have a much better chance of assessing such abilities but they’re horror of horrors subjective. They are also extremely expensive. So, just how important is it to measure these things well. I know that I’m glad that Creo used a very subjective process to measure my performance in the past and mitigated the risks of personal feeling entering the process by making sure there were lots of people in the room when the decisions were made. It would be utter folly to switch to objective measures like counting the lines of code I wrote or the number of bugs I generated and/or fixed. It’s the quality of the code and even more important of the designs that make me a good software developer. All of which leaves me in a conundrum. I’ve been horrified to learn that fewer students are now taking provincial exams (graduating year standardized tests) since the universities no longer require them for entrance. I know from the efforts of a UBC math professor that students with an A at some high schools average in the 80sk in first year math while students with an A from other high schools average significantly lower. It seems that if teachers are evaluated by the marks their students achieve they have a tendency to award higher marks. Universities need way to recognize good students both to determine admissions and to award scholarships but standardized exams have some fundamental flaws since they don’t measure quite the right thing. But I guess the value of such doesn’t quite warrant the expense of oral exams administered by university faculty. (Comment on this)
8:30 pm	Progress and Religion: An Historical Inquiry – Christopher Dawson Hmmm. Let me start by noting that this book was published in 1927. The introduction by Mary Douglas calls it a history of ideas. It’s more like a whirlwind tour of history and the ideas behind it. There is little in the way of argumentation or even justification for the views put forward. If you don’t find what he says plausible he certainly won’t convince you. I find his claims rather too sketchy even to firmly grasp let alone be persuaded. And yet. Often when I read a book where I’m skeptical, or even not sure how much to trust the author when they stray into an area I understand and get it wrong I lose confidence. In this book, exactly the opposite ALMOST sways me to lend Dawson more credence than I’m inclined to. In a chapter entitled “Christianity and the Rise of Western Civilization” he writes “Consequently when the Assyrian world power conquered the lesser people of the Near East, the religion of Jahweh did not share the political fortunes of the nation, as was the case with the other peoples. For the prophets saw in the material ruin of Israel not a proof of the powerlessness of Jahweh to protect his people, but a manifestation of his universal power in a higher and more mysterious sense. Assyria itself was but an instrument in the hand of the God of Israel, which would be discarded and broken when his purpose was accomplished, and Israel was to look for salvation not to ‘the arm of the flesh,’ but to the mysterious workings of divine omnipotence. The crisis which destroyed the existence of Israel as an independent nation was also the time of travail in which Judaism was reborn as a world religion. The series of national calamities which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and the period of the captivity only strengthened and enlarged the prophetic belief in the sovereignty of the divine purpose in history. And this purpose was no longer limited to the fate of Israel himself, it had an even wider significance. The sufferings of Israel and of the Chosen Servant of Jahweh were the necessary means by which God’s power and righteousness were to be manifested to humanity. From the beginning the will of Jahweh had set apart this little Palestinian people as his chosen vehicle, and the great world empires which had crushed Israel in the dust of their advance were but the instruments of his transcendent purpose. Thus all history was moving to a great consummation, the revelation of the power and glory of Jahweh in his servant Israel, and the eternal reign of justice in the Messianic kingdom of God.” Well, there you have it, a brilliant summary of the theological developments during the period of the prophets. I have never seen it so aptly or succinctly summarized. But still. His similar sketchy accounts of Hinduism and Confucianism are no doubt quite good but his handling of the earlier “primitive” (as he calls them religions) must be dependent on the quality of the work of European anthropologists (pre 1929) which I consider highly suspect. My gut feeling is that he reads too much into things. He also has a clear sense of higher and lower religions which he doesn’t justify and I am skeptical of. Later, as he discusses trends in Europe from the Renaissance on, he loses me constantly as he cites writers and movements that I’ve never heard of. His erudition is remarkable and leaves me in the dust. And, in the end, I just don’t care enough to do the work to figure out what he’s saying and whether he’s right. I prefer my Charles Taylor’s “Sources of the Self” for this sort of stuff. (Comment on this)
Monday, October 27th, 2008
6:31 pm	The Second Coming of Yeeat Shpanst – Armin Wiebe Amazing, this is the first novel I’ve ever read where there’s a Klippenstein in it. Admittedly he’s a bit of a shmuck but …. Most of the characters in this book are southern Manitoban rural Mennonites, i.e. they could be my cousins/aunts and uncles. It’s a kinda crazy book. The title character makes only brief appearances and then keeps vanishing. He’s meant to be a political saviour, bringing a voice to the common people of Canada. It took me embarrassingly long to clue into the fact that said character is a metaphoric Jesus. But the parallels only go so far and the book is not really about Shpanst/Jesus. This is very much an anti-free trade anti-capitalist book. I’m not particularly in sympathy with its viewpoint though it does make its points in a funny way. There is a lot of Low German in the book. I found this annoying since I don’t read or speak Low German. Admittedly there is a glossary at the back but it’s a nuisance looking things up in it. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 25th, 2008
10:14 am	Rollback – Robert Sawyer Well, this has been the most satisfying Sawyer to date. I still have my quibble with his writing style but let’s start with what I like about this book. First, it’s not a one idea story. The story includes wrestling with first contact with aliens where the time lag between messages is about 18 years. Just imagine how frustrating that would be, especially given the human life span. So, throw into the works a technique for extending human life radically (at least doubling if not more) by “rolling back” your age which is only affordable by the wealthiest of the wealthy and examine the social implications for a few individuals especially for someone who could never afford it but gets it because a super wealthy individual wants said persons wife to continue her success at deciphering the alien messages and she insists that her husband must get it as well. You’ll be the envy of your friends and relatives who will think that they’re more deserving of it than you are, possibly rightly so. Now, throw in the fact that it doesn’t take for your wife so that suddenly you’re a biological age of mid 20’s while she’s in her 80s. You’ve been retired for 2 decades so your job skills are obsolete even though you now feel a need to work. Finally, if that wasn’t enough ideas to have you pondering, though the aliens can’t travel to Earth, they can and do send instructions on how to “build” one, ie assemble an artificial womb. So, we have a fountain of interesting situations to explore. This is an excellent thing, it’s why I read science fiction. In general Sawyer does a fine job of exploring them as well. I have three quibbles however. First, there is the issue of sex. Yes, he needed to include some because it was germane to the issue of suddenly becoming 25 when your wife remains 85. But my DEW system is hypersensitive to the level of detail provided and the purpose. Probably reflects as much on me the reader as on the writer but since I take a guilty pleasure in reading it, I suspect the author of including it as a way of selling books. I just don’t believe that the level of detail provided was necessary, and like so many guilty pleasures, it left me with a mildly disgusted feeling afterwards. Secondly, he likes to fly the Canadian flag and it’s just a bit too blatant for my tastes. It wasn’t quite as bad in this one as in some of the others but still. Finally the detail provided as the SETI researcher deciphers the first message from aliens didn’t work for me. Boring while not being convincing as a deciphering method. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
7:23 am	Dark Age Ahead – Jane Jacobs Hmmm. Interesting collection of thoughts about problems in our (Canadian but also North American) culture. It begins with explaining that at the heart of “dark ages” is cultural memory loss. She then lists about 4 areas where she thinks we’re in danger of forgetting things. It’s an interesting exercise writing this because I’m seeing how little of it I can return to memory. There was a section on family and I recall that it didn’t really feel like it was about family but not why it didn’t feel that way or what it was really about. I remember some later chapters better. For example there was some stuff about how science works and also about self-policing followed by a couple of examples of how some engineering disciplines and accounting are failing. In the case of engineering, she talked about how traffic engineering seemed a pseudo science since in several instances she was part of groups that worked with traffic engineers to adapt traffic flow. In both cases community groups wanted to block it and the trafficists (my made up word to disparage traffic engineers) opposed it because “the flow would just go around the blockage” but could point to no supporting evidence for this belief. It seemed they had a water flow model for traffic (which I can see easily seems compelling even without any supporting data). In the event, the traffic just seemed to vanish (hard to believe I know). Jacobs said she found it mysterious too but did not have the tools nor the inclination to pursue it, but she was mystified that the trafficists didn’t bother either. I know this head in the sand response to unexpected data all too well. She also talked a bit about how the professions need to be more professional, focusing on accountants during the Enron and related scandals. Come on folks, how about putting professional pride ahead of personal gain. What is most fascinating about the approach of this book is that it’s not stuffed with data but is rather a mix of anecdote and reasoning. Sometimes I was a bit uncomfortable with the use of anecdote to support her claims but, I accept that reams of data would be even easier to manipulate. One could say that she’s trying to apply common sense over against people who let data override common sense. Definitely overtones of John Ralston Saul’s “Voltaire’s Bastards: the Dictatorship of Reason in the West” Though she doesn’t cite this book, she gives a model of how to think that Saul would approve of. And guess what. Iain Banks has a new Culture novel out. I'm on the waiting list at the library so I should get it in a couple of months. Yay. (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
8:01 am	The Shack – William P. Young A curious, fascinating, odd and powerful book.  In it, a man, Mack, who is bitter and angry with God as a result of a couple of tragedies, goes alone to a shack where he meets God embodied as three people.  Without giving too much away, the embodiments of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are quite surprising and interesting.  The power of this book arises from the way it illustrates several truths.  First, by embodying all of the Trinity (note I’m struggling for words that not theologically inaccurate) the author is able to illustrate the relationship of love, respect and admiration that exists WITHIN the Trinity.  Part of being created in God’s image means that we are created to relate.  Even people like myself who need and value time on our own need human contact and relationships.  This I have learnt through personal experience.  It was Francis Schaeffer’s writing that first impressed on me the importance of this aspect of who God is and it’s bearing on we image bearers.  There are however several weaknesses surrounding this strength.  The dialog between the Trinity often seems clumsy.  It is not writing style that makes this a great book.  Of course, the embodiment of the Trinity underplays the Unity of God.  This doesn’t bother me at all since I don’t think it’s possible for humans to get the Trinity in Unity correct.  I’ll take it as a given that the ancient creeds have got it but I don’t claim to understand them.  I’ve always taken comfort in the analogy of light which is both particle and wave.  Particles behave differently from waves and yet light behaves like both.  I vividly remember my first year Physics teacher (of all people) telling us that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday he believes that light is a wave, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday he believes that it’s a particle and on Sunday he takes a rest.  There is another problem of emphasis is that is the value of relationships over other aspects of our image in Godness.  Mack asks God “Is what I do back home important?  Does it matter?  I really don’t do much other than working and caring for my family and friends …”  God’s answer is that “everything you do is important.  Every time you fortive, the universe changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.”  Note, that the only examples of what matters are relationship stuff like kindness, service, forgiveness.  What about making stuff or learning things, does their only value come from their value inside a human relationship?  No, these are also aspects of our image of God.  But, again, I realize that this is only a matter of emphasis.  It’s just that this emphasis mistake is EXTREMELY common within Christendom.  A friend of mine said he dreads going to heaven because he likes making stuff and doesn’t think he’ll get to make stuff when he’s in heaven.  I, on possibly slender evidence, believe that I will be doing much of what I do on earth, just somehow the bad parts will be missing.  My great joys (beyond relationships) are learning things and eating.  I firmly believe I will continue to do both in heaven. Another thing the book focuses on is the relationship between grace and the law as we find it in Romans.  That abstract teaching is contextualized in this story.  Along the way, there is much talk of trust.  The author points out that you can’t force trust:  you can neither force yourself to trust someone nor can you force someone to trust you.  It has to develop from a relationship!  It is much harder to make a synopsis of how the book deals with the infamous problem of pain.  Suffice it to say that the usual arguments are contextualized because this is a story of a man who has experienced a great deal of pain.  Although important points are made, it underplays the central story of Christianity, namely that God entered into our pain with us.  Stephen Lawhead’s “Byzantium” is the most powerful expression of this that I’ve ever read.  Rudy Wiebe’s “Blue Mountains of China”, the most Christian book I know, rather than trying to explain the problem of pain rather illustrates a Christian response. The only part that I think is just wrong rather than an emphasis issue is the repeated statement that “Nothing is ritual.”  Seems pretty clear that God instituted rituals for the Israelites in the Old Testament and that Jesus initiated and Paul instituted the ritual of the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist, call it what you will).  Rituals have their uses and their abuses.  There are even rituals within close personal relationships, the hug as part of greeting, the good by kiss amongst married couples, ….  I am NOT going to tackle here the value of rituals and how to avoid their abuses just assert that they exist. Let me give you a flavour of the book by discussing what if for me the most memorable image.  Mack goes with the Holy Spirit to do some gardening.  The garden is a chaotic riotous glorious place, much more like a rambling English country garden than a formal French palace garden.  They have some discussion of poisonous plants and why God created them (some have healing properties, …)  Finishing the work, Mack says ‘“I mean, look at this mess.” … “But it really is beautiful, and full of you Sarayu (Holy Spirit).  Even though it seems like lots of work still needs to be done, I feel strangely at home and comfortable here.”  … Sarayu stepped toward him until she had invaded his personal space.  “And well you should, Mackenzie, because this garden is your soul.  This mess is you!  Together, you and I, we have been working with a purpose in your heart.  And it is wild and beautiful and perfectly in process.  To you it seems like a mess, but to me, I see a perfect pattern emerging and growing and alive – a living fractal.”’  The garden image for a person resonates with me, in part because ever since reading David Brin’s “Earth” I see humans, especially human brains, as containing several competing subsystems with our consciousness and will trying to impose order and select between the alternatives being proposed by the various subsystems.   Echoes of Paul’s complaints about the war within.  The passage I quoted above illustrates both what I like about “The Shack”, the surprising analogies (I read about him working in the garden for several pages without realizing that it was meant as an analogy for the human innards (I’m avoiding the word soul because I don’t really know what it means)) combined with the too heavy didacticism (the phrase “perfectly in process” feels clumsy and unnecessary to me and the “living fractal” is annoying because it’s just one more example of someone who doesn’t really understand mathematics referring to fractals in appropriately).  But yes, my thought life is a messy garden and in some mysterious way God and I are at work trying to tame the mess.  It’s just that I resemble more of a jungle than an English country garden and there are some VERY toxic plants growing as well as some very vigorous and prickly blackberries. In the end, the Shack deals with important issues in a fresh way (what, am I writing copy for a dust jacket) and I’m sure that some of the images will stay with me for quite a while.  You can see from how this post is much more personal than usual that this book got me thinking about things that matter. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
8:51 pm	Shampoo Planet – Douglas Coupland Standard Coupland fare.  Good for several laughs but not one of his best.  I’ll just record a couple of funny sentences.  While the main character is having the traditional North American wandering around in Europe for several months experience he writes:  “I ditched Kiwi and the evening’s gift sampler of semidisposable Europals ….”  The next sample sentence is not just funny but somewhat thoughtful.  About to meet his small town’s AIDs patient (victim?) the main character reports that a friend said “Not thinking about sex these days is like not thinking about what goes into hot dogs.” Then he reflects: “The general concensus seems to be that it’s best to think of modern sex as a uniform abstracted snack – and not to dwell to heavily on its manufacture.” (Comment on this)
8:43 pm	Away – Jane Urquhart Breathtakingly beautiful story of several generations of women starting with one in Ireland at the time of the potato famine who moves to Canada on through several generations of her descendants in Ontario.  I learnt much about the lives of the Irish in Ireland at the time and in Canada subsequently.  Along the way I learnt snippets about the Fenians, the Orangemen and the assassination of Darcy McGee. But never mind all the history, the mood of this book is what I enjoyed and the only way I have of describing mood is by referring to music the produces the same mood in me.  Loreena McKennitt came immediately to mind and lo and behold the author mentions a McKennitt song in her acknowledgements. I guess the standard “tags” for such a book are lyrical and evocative. (Comment on this)
8:23 pm	Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks and A Writer’s Life – Kathleen Norris The acquisition of this book is a tale in itself.  We had stopped at an English language bookstore in Paris and as I browsed the outdoor bookcases, I saw this book and picked it up since I’d enjoyed some other books by Ms. Norris.  Since this seemed to be about something closely related to depression, a topic of some personal interest, I decided to buy it.  I checked the inside cover for a price and was astounded to see the word “FREE” double underlined (try that in LiveJournal or almost any word processing software).  When I asked indoors if that was correct, they said “yes, it was an advance proof so that they were not allowed to sell it”.  Bonus I thought.  As I read it, I noticed a number of infelicitous sentences that seemed considerably worse than typos.  They were very bad grammar and I scratched my head over how Ms. Norris, an excellent writer in my experience, could generate such ungrammatical sentences.  Here’s an example:  “They gave each one another good counsel:  …”  After many such, it finally dawned on me what’s going on.  The editor must have been using some software that let them make suggestions and whomever was in charge of deciding whether to use the original or the editor’s suggestion didn’t know how to use the revision feature and ended up accepting both.  So, you have both “each other” and “one another” in the sentence, either of which would have been fine but the combination was awkward (assuming that the linguists reading this will wince if I call it incorrect).  After that realization it was clear sailing figuring out how to read the other awkward sentences. The book has some useful insights into acedia which, in lieu of the fuller description in the book I’ll call a cross between depression, apathy and despair.  She agonizes whether it’s more useful to think of it as an illness or a sin.  She quotes many monks who’ve written about their struggles with the problem.  She talks personally about her own struggles with the problem and to a lesser extent about her husband’s struggles.  However, she does rather meander around the topic. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 29th, 2008
8:53 am	Horseshoe bay memory Staring at cenes from a bay window, with no camera to hand there is nothing for it but to remember in words.  (Surprising how many aggressive words for the proces came to mind: capture, render (as on does fat), preserve (as one does pickles)) Cloud shrouded mountains Erupt from the crinkled sea Ignoring the pretentious ferry (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
5:56 pm	Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie Well, my expectations were rather high since this was selected as the best Booker prizewinner over a 25 year period.  But I almost gave up reading it part way through.  There was a lot that I was missing.  I didn’t know enough about Indian history in the 20th century to catch many of the references.  It’s true that I learnt a lot of history as a result ….   There are lots of allusions to Indian culture as well that went sailing over my head.  So, it may be a great book I’m just not the right reader.  I guess I have no intentions of reading more of Mr. Rusdie’s work.  I much prefer the works of Rohinton Mistry as a way of learning about the problems of India. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 5th, 2008
1:00 pm	World Without End – Ken Follett 1000 pages of pleasure however somewhat disappointing.  This was a follow on to his hugely popular “Pillars of the Earth” which I loved.  This one was set a few hundred years later in the reign of Edward the III which gets us the great victory of the English longbow men at Crecy as well as the Black death causing social upheaval as labourers gain some increase in income and freedom as their services are in high demand.  The historical novel aspect of it was well done (assuming it’s accurate, I couldn’t catch him out on any details but I’m certainly not an authority).  I had always taken some pleasure the victory of the longbow men at Crecy.  So, I was quite surprised that by the time it arrived I was cheering for the French having seen how the English raped and pillaged their way through France, even raping and murdering nuns.  I guess this is one thing that doesn’t quite ring true but it’s within the realm of the possible. What I liked least about this, especially in comparison with “Pillars of the Earth” is that now the church is completely a source of evil within the community.  Given that Follett had done such a balanced job in the previous novel and even showed how people who repented of their evil could be transformed I was shocked that he painted such a negative picture of the church 200 years later.  Possibly he is trying to capture an actual change in the role of the church within society that will culminate a few more hundred years later with the Reformation.  Again, my knowledge of history isn’t good enough to know if he’s got it roughly right.  He did manage to have one sympathetic monk sidelined in a minor institution.  So, I was longing for a bigger role for authentic Christians. What did I like about the book?  First, and foremost, smart people, though they have to struggle against stupid and venal people, generally succeed and are a force for good.  Good for my ego that point of view.  Same pleasure one gets from reading “The Fountainhead” for example.  I also liked the fact that children of all ages played a role in the story and family relations were important (compare my earlier post about the relative absence of such from novels).  Finally, the struggle of Caris to balance her love for one man with her need for independence in a world that didn’t provide many options was well done and the primary thread in the book. So, if you’re only going to read one Ken Follett, stick with “Pillars of the Earth” but if you really enjoyed that, you’re probably going to enjoy this as well. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
8:24 pm	Why I'm glad I live in Canada In commemoration of Canada day today, let me list some reasons I'm glad I live where I do.  Admittedly some of them are specific to my specific location within Canada.  Nevertheless clean air lots of fresh water minimal corruption health care is free (yes, it's paid for by taxes but i don't have to worry about being out of pocket when I have a health issue, I've paid up front) university is cheap (not the $50,000/year my brother is about to pay for his daughter to attend USC) Canada, especially BC, leads the pack in terms of allowing home education freedom of worship (even if my choices where I live are non too thrilling) smoking in BC is banned in all indoor public places.   Now if only they'd ban it everywhere like bus stops and on the deck of the ferry. No doubt there are many others related to my ability to lead an affluent lifestyle.  But at least my list is sufficient to explain why I prefer living where I do over any other place I've ever lived (England, Belgium, China) and why I prefer living here to living in the US (which admittedly I've never tried).  Note that I'm not claiming it's better, only that I prefer it. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
6:46 pm	Mysteries of the Middle Ages and the Beginning of the Modern World - Thomas Cahill Fascinating read if a little irksome.  I learnt lots about the Middle Ages.  We get vivid accounts of the lives of people like Hildegard of Bingen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Dante and several others.  Lots of lavish illustrations.  However, I felt that the author was reading things into both the art and the history.  Certainly I couldn’t read as much about the characters of the people in art as he could.  Also, he made sweeping claims about the impact of say the cult of Mary on the status of women in society that need a much more carefully reasoned study to be convincing.  Another example of this would be where he says of Francis of Assisi bringing animals into a church for a Christmas mass: “This archetypal tableau announced the end of the ikon and the beginning of realism.  No more would the visual artist make a kind of Christian idol to be bowed before and held in awe.  No more would traveling companies offer merely symbolic dramas with actors brought onstage to illustrate virtues and vices, as in the medieval drama Everyman who is never any particular man.  The wholly new question to be asked was historical emotional, particular, and human: what would it have been like to be there?  Really? Still, I guess I’d rather have such sweeping claims with a modicum of evidence than history without any attempt at such intellectual history.  But of course, Owen Barfield’s “Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry” and Charles Taylor’s “Sources of the Self” do intellectual history without shirking the hard work.  I need one of those book cloud things that would steer me towards books like those of Barfield and Taylor. Then there is the uncalled for and out of the blue tirade at the end of the book against the current hierarchy of the Catholic church for their handling of pederasty amongst the priesthood.  I suspect that I sympathize with him but I don’t have enough grasp of the facts to be sure.  What I don’t understand is why it belongs in this book.  I guess he had a platform and wanted to use it.  (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 8th, 2008
12:43 pm	Itsuka – Joy Kogawa Fascinating book.  A personal story interwoven with the story of Japanese Canadians to obtain redress for the wrongs done to them during WW II.  What was fascinating was something that in hindsight is obvious.  Namely, how does a disparate community manage to speak with one voice?  Who exactly does the Canadian government negotiate with to determine what is an appropriate statement and compensation?  Apparently this was quite a fractious issue for them. (2 Comments |Comment on this)