Today

Not that you asked, but...
27 years ago on this date I moved to Warner Robins, Georgia. At a later date in the year I moved back to Sunnyvale, first temporarily then permanently. Thus it was 27 years ago that I...

• first heard the Lord's Prayer at my public elementary school
• learned to ride a bike
• had a sister (the step variety)
  
• discovered sweet tea
  
• heard a tornado warning
  
• learned the joys of loansharking with one's siblings
• lived with my dad
• learned to swim
• made my first cross country move

Not all of the above would be the last of such experiences. Good and bad, as always. What reminds me of these facts is that on this date some years prior, David was born, which is a rather important date to remember. Happy b-day, Dabug.

Visuals

Not that you asked, but...
I have a new category of blog postings. It's called "not that you asked". You can now easily find out all the things I want to share with you that you never knew to ask me.

My picture pages have been reorganized and updated to include our recent stay in California.

Next Blogging has given me some things to think about today and I think you should think about them too.

• Right out of the gate I found a good one. Funny, a bit dark, with a posting about the sad reality of Major League Baseball then funny observations about Jeopardy. It has to go downhill from here.
  
• This one is just a loooong list of television shows, organized by series and season with each available episode listed and access codes ("The password will be one of the following") for watching said episodes on the Internet. It seems scandalous and mundane at the same time.
  
• This one is called Pedo News and is all kinds of news reports and comments on "pedo-sexuals". Go ahead, see what it means.
• There was a site that I'd really rather not have come across. Let's just say it had a lot of spread legs. Sorry, no link folks.
• This site's name has got to be one of the longest in Blogger history: "Orissa at the receiving end of MHRD again: Announced for new IIT for Orissa shifted?" Um, is that code for something?
• At first glance this site looked like another porn blog. But no, nothing so titillating.
• I've been jipped. I hit several sites twice, and none of them were fun ones. Are we facing a blog shortage?

Have I told you how sad I am not to have BBC America? I want to watch Robin Hood so badly. My desire is becoming quite irrational. I don't want to wait until June and I don't want to just read about episodes. This reminds me how much I'd like a la carte cable. Not that you asked, but the channels I would subscribe to are PBS, ABC, NBC, HBO, FX, BBC America, Bravo, SciFi, Discovery, ESPN, VH1, USA, Comedy Central, and maybe Food Network.

Should I start doing these so-called meme postings?

You might want me to have a point, but I don't.

Excuses

Finally, something truly useful for the world travelers in the crowd.

Polemics

There's something to get every head scratching today....

The New York Times has done it again, reporting on that which we didn't know we needed to know. Today's news: the latest Newberry Award winning children's novel The Higher Power of Lucky is embroiled in controversy. The word scrotum appears twice on the very first page. Yup, you read that right. Twice. It's used three times more within a page. Would it have been less problematic if the scrotum had waited until page two to appear?

Let's see, what else is going on in the literary world? Here's an interesting book: Letter to a Christian Nation. This book is a response to the response author Sam Harris got after his previous book. He's got a bit of an axe to grind. See if you can figure out what the previous book was about, and what the complaints centered on. Letter begins...

Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.

As outrageous as this opening paragraph is, the end there kind of makes me chuckle. And since we're talking outrageous today, check out this list of "outrageous" media comments from 2006 (the ever-polemical Ann Coulter is well represented in the list). Or here is a list of webpages that have been tagged (labeled) as "outrageous" by del.icio.us users. Thoroughly useless but kinda amusing. Enjoy.

Language

Food for thought from the preface to Jane Eyre:

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is -- I repeat it -- a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth -- to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose -- to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it -- to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.

Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaannah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel.

So, modern reader, what does it mean?

Visions

Finally, the New York Times takes on a truly important matter, namely why people see (or imagine they see) the face of (a stylistically rendered and not historically likely image of) Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich. [This one's for you, Virginia.]

Taste

Not that you asked, but...
It's official. Earl Grey has deposed Darjeeling (at least temporarily) as my favorite tea.

I think I need a change, and a change in tea is as good a start as any. I was in a funk all last week. Even my sure-thing entertainment (The Office) was disappointing. Current popular music seems unlistenable. I can't stand whiny music and I appreciate melodies or harmonies, ones that sound like they actually took some genuine work or talent to create. The list of top ten downloads on iTunes left me in pain. I read Something Borrowed on a whim recently and loved it. I am nervous now to pick up another lighthearted bedtime read as it will not be as fun and well written. I'd rather go without than plod through a disappointing, pretentious or ridiculous novel after finishing something satisfying.

As with fools, I do not suffer mediocrity gladly.

Lineage

This story on Whoopi Goldberg and Guinea-Bissau is fascinating. Whoopi participated in a genetic genealogy test to uncover some of her roots, which turn out to be in the West African nation. (Such efforts have become increasingly popular among descendants of diaspora-affected populations, such as those of African descent outside of Africa.) Apart from describing the small nation's response to its sudden Hollywood association, I liked how the article hints at the opportunities (sometimes a lineage is clear and visible) and the barriers that exist in tracing--genetically, at least--your lineage (there are often difficulties traveling to some of our ancestral places, more less comfortably belonging to them or finding meaningful familial ties).

I'd love to do genealogical genetic testing, but I believe it would only tell me so much (and likely not much more than I knew before). DNA only goes so far. I've long wanted to learn more about the town in Italy whence my great grandfather came. But if/when I go there, what will I really find out? I can read history and see sites, even spot our rather unusual family name on a nameplate near the main square (which I've done); but what more does such knowledge offer? When it comes down to it, I will not be happier or more secure as a result of knowing more about my ancestors. It will keep me occupied and provide conversation topics for family gatherings, but substantively it will not change who I am now. I'm not sure that studying my genealogy will do near as much for me as, say, intensive therapy.

On the other hand, I love the idea of creating a more connected, community minded society. All of us doing genetic genealogy might be a nice way to catalog just how connected we are.

Intrigued? Check out these projects:
DNA Ancestry Project
DNA Tribes
FamilyTree DNA
DNA Heritage
There's even a Journal of Genetic Genealogy
Finally, help on what to do with the info you would get

Movies!

I've got some light and dark cinema to recommend, four films actually. There's The Holiday--that would be the extreme end of light on our light-to-dark spectrum today--, We Are Marshall, Children of Men, and The Good Shepherd--this last one being the darkest of the set. With so many movies (and all fading or gone from theaters) I'll keep my comments short...

The Holiday - classic romance formula: gorgeous people (oh Jude, oh Kate) in gorgeous or adorably quaint places experiencing unpainful problems, but we the audience are compelled to root for them to get together. Need I tell you how it ends? Perfect for those seeking an uncomplicated, stereotypical romance. Likely painful for all others.

We Are Marshall - admittedly a movie with highly local (Huntington, WV) appeal, this story of a college football team and town decimated by a plane crash in 1970 and the community's efforts to go on with life has the classic rise from the ashes feel, with both hopeless and hopeful strugglers among those portrayed. Heartfelt story telling about unprecedented real life events; recommended to sports fans and those in need of some catharsis.

Children of Men - based on a PD James novel of same name, this is a bleak view of a sterile world. A civil servant in London renews old activist contacts as he gets embroiled in an escape plan for an illegal immigrant (a "fugee") pregnant with the first child to be born on Earth in 18 years. Imagine the desolation that might go with no pregnancy, children, or hope of a sustained future and you will be in right frame of mind for this movie. Intriguing premise, events not so implausible, sympathetic characters (Michael Caine is a highlight); recommended to thoughtful adults with tolerance for darkness and violence.

The Good Shepherd - my view of the movie is colored by knowledge that story is a fictionalized account of a man (Angleton) whose life may have made for an even more interesting movie. Still Matt Damon is good as a quiet Yale grad who dedicates his entire adult life to intrigue and the nascent CIA. Told in flashbacks and during aftermath of Bay of Pigs (1961), the movie succeeds when it focuses on spy stories and suspense. Personal plot is sad but underdeveloped (I didn't care enough that wife and son were home alone). Felt slow in many parts, but an interesting story; recommended for spy story fans.

Farewell

Yesterday saw the passing of fabulously truth stirring Texas liberal columnist Molly Ivins. If you're not familiar with Ms. Ivins, then you owe it to yourself to read some of her work; even if you disagree with her, it'll get you thinking in a way that will hurt no one. The Nation has posted some lovely farewell pieces, and of course there are old columns of hers for you to read on the web (including a 2006 piece where she criticized the Democratic Party). Or you could read her last column about the troop surge decision. Possibly the best way to get to know Molly Ivins quickly is to read some of her quotes (and more quotes). Here's a sampling--Enjoy.

What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols. Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for.

Good thing we've still got politics in Texas - finest form of free entertainment ever invented.

I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

Amen to that.