Notelets for 2005.11.30

I'm intrigued that Lynn points to some articles from Wired since I myself am a subscriber to the magazine:

Anyway, Wired had some great articles including "Why $5 gas is good for America"

and

Reinventing 911: How a swarm of networked ­citizens is building a better ­emergency broadcast system.

Stan Berenstain, Children's Book Author, Dies at 82 - New York Times. I learned about the Berenstain Bears by hanging out kids the last eight years.

Kansas Prof. Apologizes for E-Mail:

Mirecki's e-mail was sent Nov. 19 to members of the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics, a student organization for which he serves as faculty adviser.

"The fundies (fundamentalists) want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category mythology."

Mirecki addressed the message to "my fellow damned" and signed off with: "Doing my part to (tick) off the religious right, Evil Dr. P."

The inventor of stuffing

Ruth M. Siems, Inventor of Stuffing, Dies at 74 - New York Times:

Ruth M. Siems, a retired home economist whose best-known innovation will make its appearance, welcome or otherwise, in millions of homes tomorrow, died on Nov. 13 at her home in Newburgh, Ind. Ms. Siems, an inventor of Stove Top stuffing, was 74.

I had never thought of stuffing as having been invented by a single person, let alone someone who was still alive until this month.

Notelets for 2005.11.23

Late yesterday afternoon, my left ankle started to hurt after I got up from sitting at my desk for an hour. I thought it strange since I walked a lot yesterday with no problem. Had I sprained my ankle without even being aware of it? At any rate, I am trying to put into practice the treatment suggested at Ankle Sprain - treatment and exercise and hope for the best.

Underground, but not unconnected -- BART offers wireless service to riders. I myself wasn't able to connect via the SprintPCS service on Tuesday. Hmmm.

On Sunday, I enjoyed reading:

• The Prodigy Puzzle - New York Times

• Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan - New York Times

• San Francisco's Mission District: Eclectic, Eccentric, Electric - New York Times

Salon.com - Daou Report:

THE STRAW MEN OF IRAQ: Ten Pro-War Fallacies
Friday's hastily staged congressional vote on withdrawal from Iraq may have been designed to embarrass John Murtha, but the raucous session offered valuable insight into the various rationales for war and the tactics used to attack Democrats who oppose Bush's Iraq policy. A parade of House Republicans went after the Dems and laid out a surprisingly weak case for the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. Here, in my view, are ten of the leading pro-war fallacies...

Gopnik on Lewis in The New Yorker

As we gear up for Narnia-mania, I was not surprised to see in The New Yorker, PRISONER OF NARNIA by ADAM GOPNIK (How C. S. Lewis escaped.). Here are some choice quotes:

It seemed like an odd kind of conversion to other people then, and it still does. It is perfectly possible, after all, to have a rich romantic and imaginative view of existence—to believe that the world is not exhausted by our physical descriptions of it, that the stories we make up about the world are an important part of the life of that world—without becoming an Anglican. In fact, it seems much easier to believe in the power of the Romantic numinous if you do not take a controversial incident in Jewish religious history as the pivot point of all existence, and a still more controversial one in British royal history as the pivot point of your daily practice. Converted to faith as the means of joy, however, Lewis never stops to ask very hard why this faith rather than some other. His favorite argument for the truth of Christianity is that either Jesus had to be crazy to say the things he did or what he said must be true, and since he doesn’t sound like someone who is crazy, he must be right. (He liked this argument so much that he repeats it in allegorical form in the Narnia books; either Lucy is lying about Narnia, or mad, or she must have seen what she claimed to see.) Lewis insists that the Anglican creed isn’t one spiritual path among others but the single cosmic truth that extends from the farthest reach of the universe to the house next door. He is never troubled by the funny coincidence that this one staggering cosmic truth also happens to be the established religion of his own tribe, supported by every institution of the state, and reinforced by the university he works in, the “God-fearing and God-sustaining University of Oxford,” as Gladstone called it. But perhaps his leap from myth to Christian faith wasn’t a leap at all, more of a standing hop in place. Many of the elements that make Christianity numinous for Lewis are the pagan mythological elements that it long ago absorbed from its pre-Christian sources. His Christianity is local, English and Irish and Northern. Even Roman Catholicism remained alien to him, a fact that Tolkien much resented.

[....]

Yet a central point of the Gospel story is that Jesus is not the lion of the faith but the lamb of God, while his other symbolic animal is, specifically, the lowly and bedraggled donkey. The moral force of the Christian story is that the lions are all on the other side. If we had, say, a donkey, a seemingly uninspiring animal from an obscure corner of Narnia, raised as an uncouth and low-caste beast of burden, rallying the mice and rats and weasels and vultures and all the other unclean animals, and then being killed by the lions in as humiliating a manner as possible—a donkey who reëmerges, to the shock even of his disciples and devotees, as the king of all creation—now, that would be a Christian allegory. A powerful lion, starting life at the top of the food chain, adored by all his subjects and filled with temporal power, killed by a despised evil witch for his power and then reborn to rule, is a Mithraic, not a Christian, myth.

[....]

It is tempting to say that Lewis, in the dramatic retellings of this story, becomes hostage to another kind of cult, the American cult of salvation through love and sex and the warmth of parenting. (She had two kids for him to help take care of.) Yet this is exactly what seems to have happened. Lewis, to the dismay of his friends, went from being a private prig and common-room hearty to being a mensch—a C. of E. mensch, but a mensch. When Joy died, of bone cancer, a few years later, he was abject with sadness, and it produced “A Grief Portrayed,” one of the finest books written about mourning. Lewis, without abandoning his God, begins to treat him as something other than a dispenser of vacuous bromides. “Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think,” he wrote, and his faith becomes less joblike and more Job-like: questioning, unsure—a dangerous quest rather than a querulous dogma. Lewis ended up in a state of uncertain personal faith that seems to the unbeliever comfortingly like doubt.

It's good to recycle your computers

It's good to recycle your computers
Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

We recycled a lot of our dead electronics at the Alameda County Computer Resource Center.

working feet

working feet
Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

Someone working on the new fried chicken place coming into the El Cerrito Plaza.

The programming mania

I woke up this morning, tired but excited to be energetic enough to program what I had plotted in my mind late the previous night. The downside of this programming obsession is that so many other important things fade into the background, seeming so unimportant. It's also tough to stop!

Six months and going :-)

Laura and I celebrate 6 months of wedded blissful happiness today!

Picture selection from Nov 4, 2005

Today's pictures

Yesterday's pictures

Notelets for 2005.11.01

Why Race Isn't as 'Black' and 'White' as We Think - New York Times:

The test results underscore what anthropologists have said for eons: racial distinctions as applied in this country are social categories and not scientific concepts. In addition, those categories draw hard, sharp distinctions among groups of people who are more alike than they are different. The ultimate point is that none of us really know who we are, ancestrally speaking. All we ever really know is what our parents and grandparents have told us.

Interesting that the Berkeley Public Library chose The House on Mango Street for "Berkeley Reads Together".

Tele-Care

The third Saturday of every month, I make telephone calls for Tele-Care. Tele-Care is a free-of-charge service which has been in existence of about 35 years and reaches out to elderly shut-ins or others who are limited in mobility. We call to make sure they are doing ok. We also call to express our concern and affection for our clients. For many Tele-Care clients, the daily phone call is the only regular form of human contact.

I have been a volunteer for about six years. I've often said that I don't forsee ending my volunteering until I either move out of the area or pass away. I've not tried to recruit my friends into volunteering just yet -- but should they be interested I'd be glad to tell them more.

Several months ago, the SF Chronicle ran an article about the Tele-Care program on the occasion of a great luncheon: East Bay: Lunch brings Tele-Care volunteers and clients face to face.

Reading the New York Times

I like reading the New York Times on a more or less daily basis. Although its columnists (such as Tom Friedman, Nicholas Kristoff, and Paul Krugman) are no longer available for free, I remain an avid reader. There's hardly a day in which I can't find a piece that is either useful or interesting or both. Here are some recent pieces that I've enjoyed:

• Researchers Look to Create a Synthesis of Art and Science for the 21st Century on what Larry Smarr is up to at UCSD in the building of Calit2, which some have likenedd to the MIT Media Lab.

• Learning Everything About an Apartment  As an apartment dweller, I find apartment hunting advice helpful, even if it is specialized for NYC.

• Is It Better to Buy or Rent? covers a topic of perennial interest in the Bay Area.

• I usually find stories like Saying Goodbye California Sun, Hello Midwest interesting because I like many in the Bay Area don't want to be driven out by high real estate prices but wonder whether life elsewhere might not be just as rewarding if we leave.

Hmmm....there's a real estate theme in this list, isn't there?

Which version looks better?

or

peaceful spot at the GTU bookstore

peaceful spot at the GTU bookstore
Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

It's been a long time since I spent any time at the GTU Bookstore. Since I walked up to the northside of campus for lunch yesterday (Thursday), I decided to stop in. I didn't remember the couch next to the window, which is a winning feature of the bookstore. How wonderful it would be to contemplate one's life, relationship with the cosmos, with other humans, and with God surrounded by the companionship of books.

Bamboozled by bureaucracy

The last several days, I was unable to write on my weblog because I was engaged in an epic and draining battle with bureaurcracy. The time I would have spent writing was devoted instead of calling officials who were putting parts of my life on hold. I plan to write more about the specifics once I'm completely out the woods. (I've experienced enough unexpected turns for the worse to make hesitate in declaring closure.)