The Serial Thinker Blog

Thoughts Worth Thinking: Quotes from "The Bed of Procrustes"

 

 

It's Okay To Leave The Plantation

Mason C. Weaver wrote a book called “It’s Okay to Leave the Plantation”. Mason grew up during the civil rights movement, was an admitted racist and supported the Black Panther movement. He attended UC Berkley, majored in Afro-American studies, and had an “Ah-Ha!” moment after he applied some critical thought to the message he kept getting about the Democrats being for “The Poor and Disenfranchised”, and the Republicans being for “The Rich and Successful”.

He put 2 and 2 together and realized that if the Democrats are for “The Poor and Disenfranchised”, and that party gains power and  influence through those people….then it is in the best interest of the Democrat party to make more people poor and disenfranchised.

If Republicans get power and influence through “The Rich and Successful”, then it is in their best interest to make more people rich and successful.

Who then is looking out for his interests to become wealthy and successful in life?

He goes into great detail in comparing the old slavery system to the modern day government dependency plantation system. 

It is a very good read. 

J'Accuse

I just finished reading a short book of poetry written by Israeli author Ahron Shabtai and translated by Peter Cole called, "J'Accuse". It was a challenging read for me, not because the material was unfamiliar or complex, but because the point of view as so very different from my own. Shabtai is a man who deeply loves his country and is harshly critical of his government's policies. He is an idealist who sincerely believes that Israel's best course of action would be to demilitarize, throw open the borders of the Territories, and to embrace those who shout for Jewish blood.

While I can empathize with his revulsion at the violence (he mentions only violence against Arabs, but it obviously goes both ways), I cannot comprehend the thinking that would assume a positive outcome for Israel if his way were made national policy. To me this is analogous to the United States inviting Al Qaeda and Taliban members to reside here so that they can see that American's aren't so bad.

No, some relationships are not reconcilable and romanticizing about a Disney ending to the Israeli-Palestinian tensions is, just like Disney, the stuff of fantasy.

Schott's Miscellany 2009

This tidy compendium of facts is an annual treat. Here are a few of the tidbits that I have learned from this year's edition:

* Bioengineers at MIT have created a wintergreen scented version of E.coli because they grew tired of spending the day in the lab with an organism that smells like feces.

* A noise greater than 200 decibels would rupture your lungs.

* Being stung by more than 600 bees at once gives you a 50/50 chance of survival

The Miscellany also reports that a study at Heriot Watt University suggests that certain wines are best consumed accompanied by particular selections of music. Here is a sampling of their findings:

Syrah is best drunk with:

Nessun Dorma by Puccini
Chariots of Fire by Vangelis
Orinoco Flow by Enya

Cabernet Sauvignon is best drunk with:

Honky Tonk Woman by The Rolling Stones
Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who
Live and Let Die by Paul McCartney and Wings

Interesting stuff....

Book Released Today!

The book to which I contributed a whopping six words was released today and is available at Amazon and other fine booksellers. The title of the book is: Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak: by Writers Famous and Obscure; I happen to be one of the obscure contributors. This and other six-word projects can be found online at http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/ .

Favorite Literary Character I

Though his last appearance on the literary stage was an absolute disaster, one of my favorite characters over the past twenty or so years has been Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Though he is a cannibalistic sociopath, he is also deeply complex and interesting. His epicurean perfectionism is a fascinating counterpoint to his baser instincts. For example, he dispatched and consumed the finer portions of a flautist to improve the quality of his local symphony orchestra. Is that the behavior of a madman or a devoted patron of the arts? A man of profound intellectual capacity, he organizes information in a complex mnemonic construct called a memory palace and retrieves it with impeccable accuracy. Capable of reciting Dante in Medieval Italian, preparing a rare gourmet feast, and deconstructing the subtle essences of delicate lotions from the tiniest exposure, Dr. Hannibal Lecter is an impressive, and lethal, personage.

Eulalia!!

After reading a dozen or more books from the Redwall series, there isn't a great deal of surprise in the general flow of each new tale that is published. Author Brian Jacques' newest contribution to the series is titled Eulalia!, after the battle cry of the warriors from the mystical mountain of Salamandastron. It tells the story of a young badger,Gorath, who was raised on a small farm in the rugged Northern Islands by his Grandmother and Grandfather. Life for them was hard, but peaceful, until a roving band of Sea Raiders paid them an unwelcome visit, destroying their farm and setting the young Gorath on the path to fulfill his destiny.

Though a bit formulaic, the Redwall books tell interesting tales pitting the peaceloving creatures of Redwall Abbey against all manner of brigands, invaders, and hooligans. Fortunately, the Abbey dwellers have the support of the mighty Badgerlords of Salamandastron and their army of fighting hares, the Long Patrol.  The lines between good beasts and evil are very clearly drawn and are rarely, if ever, transgressed. I have never regretted picking up a Redwall book and this one is no exception. It was a fine way to bring in the literary side of the new year. I would give Eulalia! 7.5 out of 10 servings of hotroot soup with warm October cider.

New To Read

I went to Island Books yesterday and picked up three new selections, all very different from one another. The first is the latest in the Redwall series called Eulalia! The title will inform any Redwall fan immediately that the Long Patrol is featured prominently in the telling of the tale; I look forward to digging into this one before school resumes on Thursday. I was surprised to see the second book on the shelves as I had thought that the author had retired from writing a couple years ago. It is called Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription, Notes and Asides from National Review, and its author is, obviously, William F. Buckley. This book is a collection of excerpts from the Notes and Asides feature of National Review Magazine, a greatest hits volume, if you will. I have read a few dozen pages so far and it is classic Buckley: witty musings about national and world events, arcane literary references and letter perfect erudition, and the infamous coups-de-plume that send detractors reeling. I am an unabashed Buckley fan and will enjoy every moment of this book, even if I understand only 3/4 of what he is talking about! Yesterday's third get was a book called Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic. This is a quick read about the subtle nuances of language, written by a woman who is a self-admitted language fanatic. She begins by telling a brief story about a misadventure she had in China after she had tried to teach herself Mandarin for over a year. The problem was that it is very difficult for English speakers to replicate the four tones in the Chinese language and doing so improperly can have unfortunate consequences. An example she cites is the fact that the word ma can mean mother, hemp, horse, or scold, depending upon the tone used when saying it. The differences in other tonal variations are not so innocuous however as the author quickly learned. It is a fun book and very informative for we logophiles out here. It will be one of the first entries onto Reyes Reads 2008.