bookish

1. A book I have read more than once

Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin (and lots of other books, but I keep coming back to this one for the way it portrays a whole world and culture).

2. A book I would want on a desert island

Aarrgghh, only allowed one? Tricky. If I can only have one, it would probably be a large blank book with an inexhaustible supply of paper and pens, so I could finally write that novel. But I'd also like the Tao Te Ching. One would need something profound to get one through the experience.

3. A book that made me laugh

Watching the English by Kate Fox. Hilarious - and an incisive observation of what makes the English tick. Recommended reading for all non-English people, especially Scots (though it will of course justify your feelings of superiority).

4. A book that made me cry

Crikey, I'm always crying at books. Recently, though, I read the sequels to When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr, and those made me cry a lot - mainly at the utter drabness of 1940s Britain, and the difficulties experienced by the main character's beloved Papa and the other refugees, but also because of the way she evokes the little details of oppression, of lives wasted, whole communities destroyed.

5. A book I wish I had written

Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker - I got to the end and almost started reading it again from the beginning, I loved it so much. It also made me cry.

6. A book I wish had never been written

The Story of O. It's all wrong - tone, atmosphere, politics, everything. Though whether one should wish that a book had never been written, I am not sure. But I certainly wish I hadn't read it.

7. A book I am currently reading

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (alongside a couple of other things for my course) - I've only just started it, though. I was interested because a colleague recommended it to me, and it is about first contact and cultural misunderstandings - two fascinating topics. Oddly, it's not in classic SF style, it reads more like a thriller so far.

8. A book I have been meaning to read

Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's about clones and ethics, and what constitutes humanity.

9. A book that changed my life

Indirectly, the works of Foucault - I went to a lecture about Foucault and that changed my life. All the doubts and niggles I had been feeling about psychology suddenly fell into place, or came into focus - Foucault had explained it all.

I don't normally do these memes, but this is a good one, and something I can respond to. Found it on foucaultonacid.

limbo bimbos

Theological doctrine of limbo is... in limbo

The current review of limbo began in 2004, when Pope John Paul II asked the commission to come up with "a more coherent and enlightened way" of describing the fate of such innocent babes.

Why don't they just admit that babies who die get reincarnated? (OK, so that creates an even bigger theological difficulty, because of the Catholic doctrine of the unity of body and soul, but if they really want to make people happy....)

Apparently the review of the doctrine of limbo is part of a "wider re-examination of the notion of salvation that has been taking place within the Church" - crikey, now that would be interesting, if the Catholics suddenly became Universalists. Unlikely, though.

haiku

reading late at night,
tears crystallise into grit -
pearls will form later.

(haiku by Yvonne Aburrow)

demi-god

If I Was Born in 2893...
My Name Would Be: Umoro Iara
And I Would Be: A Demi-God

If You Were Born in 2893

carbuncle

Stop The Bulldozer: "Bath and North East Somerset council are sponsoring a scheme to replace all the existing buildings with a pair of six storey glass and concrete constructions; a replacement campus for Bath Spa University and the Dyson Engineering School."

The architect who designed this building went on to design the parliament buidlings in Canada, and this is the only example of his work in the Bath area. Surely the new use that is planned for the site could incorporate the existing building, and not demolish it? The designs for the new buildings are utterly boring and trivial, with no distinguishing features whatsoever. Bath is a World Heritage Site and does not need any more crappy modern buildings ruining its character.

the squid lives

Parsnip found that looks like Cthulhu

A Bedfordshire woman's home has become a shrine for latter-day worshippers of the Lovecraftian horror Cthulhu, after the tentacly one manifested in her garden in the form of a parsnip, writes our correspondent, H A Wilcox.

total perspective vortex

You Are Here → | Metro.co.uk
A photo of Earth taken by the Cassini probe from Saturn's orbit reveals just how big space really is. There's a tiny tiny speck in a vast expanse of black, with Saturn's rings in the foreground. Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

belly-shaking

Men shake their bellies | Reuters.co.uk - Amazing dancing. So there you go, men, don't replace that beer-belly with a six-pack, just paint a tiger or lion face on it and shake it all about. Very cool.

out of context

BBC News: The Pope's speech

The whole furore over the Pope's speech has been blown out of all proportion, just because a short soundbite was taken out of context. This is what is so irresponsible about news - it takes a tiny bit of something out of context and then relays it around the world just to wind everyone up.

I can honestly say that I am a completely neutral observer (not being a Catholic at all), but taken in context, there's nothing to be offended about. I'm not a fan of "God's Rottweiler", particularly, but I intensely dislike being misled by the media.

This is what he actually said:

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read... of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.

In the seventh conversation...the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. ... he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable.

1. The Pope distances himself from Manuel II by prefacing the quote with the phrase "with a startling brusqueness" and following with "after having expressed himself so forcefully".
2. Manuel II was talking in the sense of comparative religion, saying that the main difference between his religion (Orthodox Christianity, which didn't do forcible conversions as far as I know) and Islam was that Muhammad had only brought violence (in addition to stuff that other religions had already invented). Clearly they hadn't really got the hang of interfaith dialogue in those days.
3. The Pope is quoting this in support of his argument that faith and reason need to go hand in hand; not as part of an attempt to persuade people that Islam is bad.
4. He is specifically talking about Islam because he wants to make the point that the Muslim view of God (in the 14th century at any rate) was that God transcends our categories, even rationality; whereas the Byzantine view was that not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. He then reflects on the question of whether the Greek view is universally true, or just an opinion.
   

My own criticism of the above would be that the Pope should also have mentioned the forced conversions of Muslims and Jews in Spain in the fifteenth century, and indeed the Crusades, which were also heinous (and could also have been used to bolster his argument that faith and reason should go hand in hand), but apart from that, it is clear that the Pope himself was not saying that Islam is evil and inhuman (and I'm pretty sure Manuel II Paleologus wasn't actually saying that either). Here's the whole speech if you want even more context.

deflated...

A joke heard by my team leader at a wedding:

As the inflatable teacher in the inflatable school said to the inflatable boy who brought a drawing pin into the school:

"You've let yourself, down, you've let me down, and you've let the whole school down."

folk wisdom

A colleague sent me this very amusing page: Making Light: Folksongs Are Your Friends, all about the wisdom inherent in folksongs, as we were discussing various folksongs, and I quoted a friend of mine who always says that English folksongs are about rebellion and raunchiness, Irish folksongs are about famine and disaster, and Scottish folksongs are about incest and murder (preferably both in the same song). Nevertheless, it's surprising how much of the wisdom in folk songs is still relevant, especially "A fellow who's a massively accomplished flirt hasn't been spending his time sitting around waiting for his One True Love to come along. Furthermore, odds are poor that you'll turn out to be his One True Love who will reform him."

life in colour

Over the weekend we watched two movies (one directed by Steven Soderbergh, the other produced by him): Sex Lies and Videotape (1989) and Pleasantville (1998). As a result of watching these, I can only conclude that life in the USA is irremediably drab and conformist. (This is confirmed by the fact that teenagers have to wear beige to school in order not to appear like someone who will go mad with a gun.)

Sex Lies and Videotape is about the strange empty lives of small-town Americans - the lawyer character (a former frat boy) gets quite aerated about the fact that the other main male character, Graham, wears a black shirt - apparently this is very weird in hicksville. There were definitely parallels between the themes of the two films.

Pleasantville was a very good film. The effects were stunning - the way the monotone world starts breaking out in colour, first as a sort of overlaid Technicolor, and then as real colours, as people start changing and having emotions. The story was very effective, particularly the scary book-burning and window-smashing scene, reminiscent of Kristallnacht; and the sign in the window saying "NO COLOREDS", reminiscent of segregation in the 1950s. And all of it an oblique comment on Bush's vision (and that of the Christian right) of what America should be like. The character development of the two main characters was interesting too.

We have also realised that our cat, Bean, is an escapee from Pleasantville. She is grey and white and always happy. She rarely thinks about anything - clearly the perfect citizen of Pleasantville.

Soderbergh's next film, Jennifer Government, looks to be exploring some of the same ideas, only this time, it's set in a future where the corporations run everything. (Hey, wait a minute, that's the present, isn't it?) I think I can see a theme developing here.

In fact there are quite a few people drawing these parallels between the current situation in America and past and future totalitarian scenarios. V for Vendetta, Babylon 5, Equilibrium, Gattaca, The Truman Show, etc.

Live your life in colour - don't let the greyness (or the beigeness) engulf you.

extremists

Brilliant post on CatBlog - Sunday thoughts

The problem is not Christianity.
The problem is Fundamentalism.

It doesn't matter what religious (or political, or philosophical) belief you hold - if you claim that your belief is The Only Truth and that all those who disagree are not just Wrong, but Evil... then you are part of the problem.

It doesn't matter if you are on the Right or the Left, if you are Christian, Moslem, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Scientific Materialist Atheist or something you made up for yourself... if your belief is True and all others False, then you are part of the problem.

If you can genuinely talk with those who believe differently to you and compare notes on the Universe - and actually listen to and learn from the points on which you differ - then you are not part of the problem.

If you are willing to change your beliefs on the basis of life experience or finding wisdom from the minds of others, then you are not part of the problem.

If you hold compassion for all people, regardless of how much they do not resemble you, you are not part of the problem.

Yes, that includes compassion for the Fundamentalists.

For all that their attitudes scare and horrify us, they are humans too - with the same potential for change and growth. It is hard to reach them through the armour of their hardened belief and their fear and hatred of the Different - but that should never stop us trying.

To see them as a single Enemy is to fall into the same trap they are in.

I couldn't have put it better. Hooray for the rainbow of possibilities and the multiplicity of truths!