The Literary Sojourner

brief history of the caribean

2010-08-15T07:34:00.003-06:00

jan rogozinski

traveling along the northern coast of honduras and to the bay islands recently made me curious about the broader caribean. roatan had supposedly hosted 5000 english pirates at one time and also served as a deposit point for escaped slaves captured on st vincent island. when these garifuna arrived on st vincent, they adopted arawak customs that those now settled on the northern honduran coast still practice.

since columbus, much of the development of the caribean islands has been strongly influence by wind. the trade winds from africa in the east enter the caribe at its southeast, around barbados. they then flow clockwise, to the north on approaching the central american mainland around nicaragua/honduras and continue north skirting along the eastern coast of the yucatan. excepting another clockwise pattern in the gulf, they winds heads back to the east between florida and cuba, climb up north to the carolinas, and then back east to europe. these winds facilitated the arrival of the european and africans as well as the shipments back to spain of gold and silver from mexico and peru. by the 1700's, they enabled the "triangle trade" route which sent sugar and rum from the caribe to europe, guns and manufactured goods from europe to africa, and slaves from africa to the caribe. this idea was taught to me in elementary school (4th grade?) and again in world history in high school (10th grade) but has new meaning to me since i've learned to sail myself and understand winds.

most islands were inhabited by arawak and/or the more warlike carib. these groups had come from the south america and practiced an agricultural method called conuco. in this system, a section of brush was burned, the ashes piled into mounds, holes poked in the mounds, and cuttings from various root vegetables placed in the holes. crops included arrowroot, peanuts, peppers, gourds, tabaco, maize, beans, and squash. fruits included pineapple and guava.

while the spanish initially dominated the caribe, by the later 1500's, english and french pirates began to challenge spanish control with attacks on convoys and port cities. pirates at various times operated out of the bahamas, haiti, jamaica, and some of the smaller islands. constant wars between the european powers meant ownership of the islands often changed hands. well-fortified islands could fend off attacks as long seiges usually failed as the european seigers often had to withdraw due to disease epidemics.

sugar was first successfully grown in barbados in the 1640's where the first plantation society emerged, characterized by intensive african slavery. sugar production was widespread across the caribean islands by the 1700's.

slavery on the sugar plantations was brutal and slaves escaped to form maroon colonies, often in the non-arable mountain regions of islands like st vincent, dominica, jamaica, hispaniola, guadeloupe, and cuba. utilization of the conuco system kept them fed. slave rebellions were common and the largest occurred in saint domingue in 1789 and resulted in the black republic of haiti.

in the 1800's, programs of amelioration and emancipation were carried out and sugar production consequently lessened. trinidad opted to bring in thousands of indians as indentured servants to work its plantations during this time.

the main events of the 1900's in the caribe involve the independence of most of the islands from their former european rulers. some countries followed socialist courses and others dictatorial ones. many ran up debts and had to privatize in order to get IMF assistance. sugar became less important economically as the industries of tourism, off-shore banking, oil refinement, and drug smuggling grew.

the lost colony of the confederacy

2010-07-19T13:50:00.002-06:00

eugene harter

the result of the civil war was, of course, the abolition of the economic system based on slave labor but also the weakening of the economy due to destruction of crops, infrastructure, housing, etc. faced with this dire economic situation, hopelessness for future economic improvement, and harassment by (and forced subordination to) the political system controlled by northern interests, many southerners (mostly white, some black) decided to emigrate in the following 10 years or so. while some went to mexico, a larger group (perhaps 20,000) set sail for brasil (literally; some of the ships that took them from new orleans or mobile to the port of rio de janeiro lacked powered engines).

many groups went as part of colonization societies. often these were led by religious ministers. typically a scouting party would find and buy land in brazil before returning to the US to arrange transport to the colony for the recruits.

though slavery was still legal in brazil, few of the immigrants purchased slaves and this is discredited as a motivation for relocation to brazil by the author. the presence of cheap labor, however, was attractive. slavery was abolished peacefully a few years later through a system that compensated former slave owners for the monetary investment their slaves had represented.

the confederates contributed technical knowledge to brazilian agriculture as well as introduced the watermelon to that country.

over time, the separate and isolated enclaves of the confederates largely dissolved as its members moved to urban areas and generally merged into brazilian population.

Shame of the Nation: the Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America

2010-03-15T14:40:00.002-06:00

Jonathan Kozol

Much of the inequality among schools and many of the problems with public K-12 education in the US stem from the way in which schools are largely funded from local funds. Somewhere around 45% of these funds are collected from local taxes by my last knowledge. I remember this being something of a revelation when I was a 22 year old teacher but now I have accepted it and feel like most people are aware that the system is structured in this way.

Kozol does not propose taking money from richer districts and redistributing to poorer districts outright. However, he does ridicule the idea of the funding of poorer districts being raised to an "adequate" level. This may be where I disagree with him. I think bringing inadequately funded schools to a funding level adequate to allow students and teachers to fully prepare for the accountability-based tests that have since even before no-child-left-behind would be a huge victory for education. Of course, it is ridiculous that this is not the norm.

However, the subject of this book is not primarily funding inequalities. Instead, Kozol hammers away at the point that in the inadequately funded, urban school systems that were once integrated racially and now lack white students, the black and hispanic students are not being prepared to be successful in a country in which whites are the majority because they are not learning how to interact with whites in their formative years. on the one hand this seems like common sense and on the other it would seem hard to prove empirically.

I highly recommend this book as it does what good books do: provoke a lot of thought and contemplation on possibilities and make one think that something could possibly come of you reading it.

Don Quijote, Volume II

2009-10-28T12:43:00.002-06:00

Cervantes

From reading the two volumes in college, I seemed to remember that I felt the second was better; more solid. Written about 10 years after the first volume, Cervantes obviously takes the criticism he received from the first volume into account in writing his second. To me this means less chapters where a wandering shepherd quijote and panza meet on the road tells an unrelated love or adventure story and more dialogue and adventures where DQ and PS take part. These last bits are what makes the novel funny and deep.

One brief observation on Volume Two regarding the age-old analysis of these novels and the give-and-take between reality and fantasy. Throughout the novels, the characters see DQ as crazy and so play games to make him think he is actually sane. In the last few chapters as DQ approaches death, he "becomes" sane. The surrounding characters try to convince him of the reality of fantastical claims/events/etc. This is very clever by the author because at this point he has made DQ sane and all the rest crazy.

The Amazing Potato (Milton Meltzer)

2009-02-22T12:33:00.005-06:00

(A Story in which the Incas, Conquistadors, Marie Antoinette, Thomas Jefferson, Wars, Famines, Immigrants, and French Fries All Play a Part)

This short book renewed my appreciation for the humble papa (the Spanish word came from Incan). It's a New World food, first found in 1530s Peru, in many varieties. It crossed the Atlantic to Europe on Spanish ships, put on board to feed the sailors. Although the Spanish were fond of it, it took a while for the potato to catch on in Europe. The Irish embraced it in the wake of war with the English, as it kept them from starvation. They brought the potato to North America when Irish immigrants planted potatoes in New Hampshire in 1719. So dependent were the Irish on the potato that the blight in 1845 caused a famine which one historian called the end of Old Ireland, because so many Irish either died or left the country.

Today the potato is the fourth most important food in the world, after wheat, rice, and corn. Russia is the top grower, followed by China. By weight it is the fourth most important food in the American diet. Idaho grows the most, followed by Washington State, Oregon, Maine, and North Dakota. However, potatoes are grown all across the country.

Wonderful nutrition is to be found in a potato: the average spud has 100 calories and is virtually free of fat and sodium. It also provides 50% RDA of vitamin C; 20% of vitamin B6; 15% of iodine; 10% of niacin, iron, and copper; 8% of folic acid, phosphorus, magnesium, and thiamin; as well as zinc, pantothenic acid, and riboflavin. Additionally it contains potassium and fiber (which lowers cholesterol). It has better-quality protein than the soybean.

The International Potato Center (CIP) is located in Peru. Its mission is to preserve "the full genetic diversity of the potato." In North America, for example, 80% of potatoes grown are one of six varieties. It is important to ensure that the other varieties continue to exist, so CIP has identified over 5000 native potato varieties in Latin America which it maintains either in the field or in storage. (The Shining Path attacked a busload of CIP workers in 1988, even killing one. The next year, three storage buildings were dynamited. Now there are storage locations in two other countries.)

So, go out and eat a potato - a FRESH potato. It's good for you! Also, I learned from this book: store them in a dark, dry place, NOT the fridge, because cold turns the starch to sugars. But too much warmth can cause them to sprout and wither. Happy potato eating!

Reading Magic by Mem Fox

2009-02-20T06:07:00.003-06:00

Apparently "experts" say that children should hear 1000 books read aloud before they learn to start reading themselves. One thousand may sound like a lot, but literacy guru Mem Fox points out, it's easy - just read three books a day, and in a year, you'll reach that number. The ideal three books are one favorite, one familiar, and one new. If you start early and follow a routine, your child will most likely be reading on his/her own when he/she starts school.
So the best thing you can do for a young child's development is easy and fun - read books with and stories to him or her!

Milton Meltzer

2009-01-31T05:46:00.004-06:00

Milton Meltzer is the author, not the title.

I first got to know of him when I read Hear That Train Whistle Blow! How the Railroad Changed the World (Random House, 2004) for my adolescent literature class a couple of months ago. I enjoyed the book, loved the writing style, clear and with a populist bent. It called to mind Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

Now that I am finished with the course and off the required reading treadmill, I have read a couple more of his books- he's apparently written around 100 books for young adult readers. It's the perfect level for me, not overly in-depth like those scholarly adult audience tomes, but not juvenile and generalistic as a child's book may be. In the middle, just right. And makes for relatively quick, informative reading.

I just finished Ten Queens: Portraits of Women of Power. Before that I read - you gotta love this title - Gold: The true story of why people search for it, mine it, trade it, steal it, mint it, hoard it, shape it, wear it, fight and kill for it.

If you want to read some quality history on interesting topics but don't want to spend half the year on one book, I recommend you check out the work of Milton Metzer.

AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

2009-01-29T09:05:00.002-06:00

hoping to drum up some internal enthusiasm for doing some hiking in the southeast this spring, i read this guy's writings about hiking the appalachian trail from georgia to maine back in the 1970's. interesting, the book is narrative but not told chronologically as would be assumed in recounting hiking a trail but rather topically so that one chapter might be about animals he encountered and another chapter about the various aches and pains he would get.

by contrast, "a walk across america" is a great chronologically-told hiking narrative that really grabbed my attention when i read it. i think this guy really shot himself in the foot by not writing like jenkins.

the impression that the book left me with was a fragmented one that makes me not want to hike the AT now despite the guy praising his experience every few pages. humorously, he includes the time after the "thru-hike" when he felt out of place in society, could not find a job, had to live with his parents, and got really behind on his career development.

Rapid Review: Pathology

2008-12-05T22:22:00.002-06:00

Edward F. Goljan

since H has been complaining that i have not written in this blog for a year or whatever, i will write about the book i am currently reading and will be for many more months.

the rapid review series are a "must have" for any medical student. i own most of the subject books...i prefer them to BRS (board review series) because i like the font and the layout better. they also come with board exam practice questions...perfect for the standardized tests that we have to take to pass our classes. there's also a wonderfully easy to navigate online component. (the online component to the BRS series is quite lacking and difficult to click through to say the least.)

the pathology book is the big boss of all the RR series...at a full 1-inch thickness, it sure does pack a ton of information. the chapters are divided into diseases of different organ systems. the info is in an outline format with "high yield" notes in the margins. it comes with full color photographs that will embarrass you in public if you turn the page and there is a "private part" staring at you. alas, the knowledge i must learn.

the current chapter i am reading, "hepatobiliary and pancreatic disorders", has proven itself to be delightfully charming, yet tasteful. the illustration of the nutmeg liver captivated my senses, and the fine detailing of alcohol-related liver disorders is quite touching. i highly recommend this book to all med students and pathology enthusiasts.

a people's history of the united states

2008-12-01T21:29:00.002-06:00

howard zinn
having recently gotten a typical history degree from a typical university, i felt i needed a little more radical education before being proud of my degree. in fact, how could one get such a degree without ever having considered american history told from the perspective of the unpriviledged (the lower 99% of the population as zinn says)?

eight years turned out to be the perfect amount of time between readings. i picked the book up again when i realized i could not explain how the electoral college worked or how a president could be elected with only 45% of the votes in the country, or how mississippi could elect a governor who got only 49% of the votes, or why ralph nader constantly had to defend himself from those who said he was the "spoiler".

i can answer these questions now and i am ashamed that our system has been contorted such that the solutions to each of these situations are not the logical but the more bizarre of the possible solutions.

while i have not yet written "my congressman", this book leaves me with the feeling that there are actions i can take besides voting to express my content/discontent with governmental policies and that while my individual actions may be ignored, enough actions by enough folks cannot.

and not to be too vague or too "jaded", i have already started my list of policies that i believe should change and actions that i think should be encouraged, funded, implemented, etc for the betterment of the folks in our society...

anyone interested?

how to build a house

2008-09-09T08:45:00.002-06:00

larry haun (habitat for humanity)

for probably about six years i have been looking for a book that describes how a typical house is built. these are surprisingly hard to find (i had to travel to portland). many treat specific niches: pole-construction, energy-efficient housing, etc. since HFH builds solid houses cheaply and uses unskilled, voluntary labor, it makes sense that they would publish a guide that could be used by potential workers and that deals with the materials and methods they use. and this is as close to a general house construction book as you can get.

during the months i read this (because of information density, i would only read 3 or 4 pages a day), i found myself studying the techniques work crews used on buildings going up on the way to work and studying the interior trim work in friends' houses and apartments. when a book can induce heightened awareness in the reader even when not being read, its worth multiplies.

a few other points:

an interesting read for old-timers since this guy talks about the techniques used in the past, their inadequacies, the current techniques that replaced the old, and their advantages.

applicable in all parts of the country (usa) since the guy discusses regional differences in materials and techniques.

nicely complements actually doing HFH work because the book explains the why's and how's that folks on the job site don't have the time or will or knowledge to explain.

interestingly (to me) this guy shares a surname with family of mine that also practice carpentry. part of the great german haun diaspora i reckon.

the history to me it will absolve

2008-01-01T09:27:00.001-06:00

fidel castro

as any occassional student of latin american history, politics, philosophy, culture, etc or, of course, any resident of latin america could tell you, the influence of the cuban revolution and of the ideology castro espouses on the continent has been great.

how an ideology inspires a person and how that person acts either truly in accord with the ideas or hypocritically (which may not be apparent to them) has always interested me. to better understand the results of castro's thinking in broad terms and on the level of the individual, i decided to read this book as well as listen to what others had to say.

recently i traveled to latin america and found myself the sole representative of the "imperio" in a talk given by the publishers of some books dealing with castro and the che.

the manner in which the talks were given and the substance of them were telling. fifty years later and out of context, that is, outside of the cuban situaion, what stays with people seems to be the confidence with which castro gave the trial defense which is recorded in this book as well as his belief that his group would come to power (as they did). these talks were given reverently and with machismo. this is to say it seemed that the speakers were awed by the fact that someone had an ideology and acted on it.

but what of the substance? the speakers did not get into details. in the book itself (or in the defense, better stated), castro enumerates 5 laws that will be enacted when his group inevitably takes power. reinstitution of the constitution, expropriation of foreign-owned lands, part ownership of the utilities by the workers, better payment for work in the sugar production, and confiscation of the lands of cohorts of the then government. only three pages contain the details out of the 150 page transcript.

much of the transcript is a rehash of the military events which occurred when castro's band of 150 or so ( i cannot remember the number) men attempted to wrest control of several towns from the cuban army of the dictator batista. denunciations of the treatment of castro's men when captured (most of the prisoners were tortured and killed) also makes up much of the transcript. this being the defense at his trial, this makes sense. if you want to know what castro's plans at that pre-revolutionary time for transforming cuban society were, you have to look elsewhere.

J. K. Rowling

2007-12-29T15:15:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I picked up from the library's sale shelf a copy of a random book: J.K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter. I'm afraid it's not "literary sojourner" material; it's a silly book intended for grade schoolers. However, it answered a question I had: how did the first Harry Potter book surge into our literary landscape so quickly and with such intensity? Having worked in the publishing industry, I knew that there was some serious marketing involved. But why? What moved the publishers to propel an anywoman's story to the top, granting an ordinary person such fame and fortune??

My first encounter with Harry Potter was in the fall of 1998 when living in Manhattan, a girlfriend sent me her copy of Sorcerer's Stone. I was not impressed. Having read many fantastic stories as a child, I could not see anything novel about this one. I couldn't make it through more than two chapters. It was OK, but not particularly captivating to me. I mean, what about Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time? Brillliant. I passed the book to a younger cousin.

The answer to my question is this: when the book was offered to the American market, the publication rights were auctioned, and unheard of figure of $100, 000 was the winning bid. Because so much money had been pinned to the project, understandably the publisher did everything in his power to make the book successful. It was already a great success in the U.K., and it came to be the same in the U.S. the buzz just grew, paving the way for future books.

After a failed marriage in Portugal, Rowling returned to the U.K. with a baby to care for and spent a year on public welfare while she finished up the first Potter book and obtained an agent to represent her. Her gamble paid off: an agent agreed to field (? what's the right word?) her manuscript, and much later it was accepted by a small publisher.

I still haven't read any of the Potter books and don't know if I ever will. My husband has found them entertaining and says they get better as the series progresses. Apparently Rowling wrote the first two and was then commissioned to write a total of seven books. It was at that point that she planned out what would happen in each.

J.K. Rowling as an individual seems to be still quite ordinary, except that she is now very well-known and rich. I was interested to learn how she went from nobody to superstar. (Forbes named her the first to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books). Now, she is selling handwritten stories for millions of dollars...

el otonyo del patriarca

2007-09-14T06:43:00.000-06:00

even in the midst of a book purging (i finally let go of "the land and people of algeria"), it is not possible to get rid of copies of faulkner or garcia marquez no matter how hard to read they can be or how unlikely it is you will ever read them.

i defied fate and read. if each GM novel matched up to an F novel, this would represent the counterpart to "the sound and the fury" not because of any common theme but because of style. two obvious points to the reader of both: the use of stream of consciousness throughout (each chapter consisted of ~ 3 sentences with not a paragraph break in the entirety) and the use of arbitrarily shifting narrators. each time the story begins to be told from the first person, i (the reader) would think "ah ha!- now i understand who is narrating" only for the book to shift back to a half-conscious third person ramble of thoughts, some of which would repeat from time to time.

i am here

2007-09-13T10:15:00.000-06:00

I want to start out by saying that I am currently reading Neil Gaimon's "Smoke and Mirrors" a collection of short stories and "Radical Brewing" by Randy Mosher.

You're Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

by Mark Twain

With an affinity for floating down the river, you see things in black
and white. The world is strange and new to you and the more you learn about it, the less
it makes sense. You probably speak with an accent and others have a hard time
understanding you and an even harder time taking you seriously. Nevertheless, your
adventurous spirit is admirable. You really like straw hats.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I just took this quiz. Interestingly enough I just completed re-reading this book about 3 weeks ago.

PS: after reading this article (slate.com) I got down for a while but then i learned to "love the bomb"
PPs: cobalt is such a lovely color.

2007-09-05T19:19:00.000-06:00

I was surprised by this. Given these results, I'm interested to know what book Huitzi is.

You're One Hundred Years of Solitude!

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Lonely and struggling, you've been around for a very long time.
Conflict has filled most of your life and torn apart nearly everyone you know. Yet there
is something majestic and even epic about your presence in the world. You love life all
the more for having seen its decimation. After all, it takes a village.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

what book am i?

2007-09-01T11:01:00.000-06:00

this being a literary blog of sorts, i decided to take this quiz. here are the results, and while i agree that i'm not the societal norm, i don't think i'm a sexual deviant because that is just weird. though i did wear shoes like the one on the book cover in elementary school.

and maybe the other people who participate in this blog could see what book they are. that could be interesting.

You're Lolita!

by Vladimir Nabokov

Considered by most to be depraved and immoral, you are obsessed with
sex. What really tantalizes you is that which deviates from societal standards in every
way, though you admit that this probably isn't the best and you're not sure what causes
this desire. Nonetheless, you've done some pretty nefarious things in your life, and
probably gotten caught for them. The names have been changed, but the problems are real.
Please stay away from children.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

angels and demons

2007-06-28T18:30:00.000-06:00

dan brown

i finished reading this book in 2 sittings: the first being 1 hour long, and then the second when i was at work just setting around. it's a quick read, and a nice mystery novel. it's the prequel (sort of) to the da vinci code, which sparked all that unnecessary controversy. (people, it's FICTION!)

the protagonist of the book is a religious icon professor with weird character tics and is helplessly drawn into a crazy murder/revenge plot to overthrow the vatican. it also involved some crazy physics and science theories. since i find christian religious history to be quite fascinating, and also mysteries to be fascinating, and also also science fascinating, it was easy to follow along and also try to think of what would happen next. there were moments of "oh my gosh this is so cheesy" but then again, it's a nice book to read if you wanted to get "used to" the idea of studying more of that kind of history. (for example, after i read da vinci code, i read some books about the holy grail and the knights of the templar.)

conclusion: this book is probably not worth buying, but you should definitely check it out of the library for a plane ride or something. it's a quick read and time really did fly by. and at the end of the book, i had a "wow" moment. and that was good.

anna karenina, tolstoy

2007-02-14T14:31:00.000-06:00

maybe i picked this novel up thinking that if tolstoy were as good a writer as dostoievski, i should not be ignorant of that. or maybe i just wanted to flex the old biceps.

dont read this book unless you are really bored. i got to page 500 then found a synopsis on the internet and so i didnt feel like i had to read the remaining 400 pages.

tolstoy's style did remind me of dostoievski except that dostoievski's stuff actually has really great content to it. i wont ever doubt dostoievski again.

omnivore's dilemma, part 1

2007-02-11T11:16:00.000-06:00

michael pollan

all i can say is "wow". i finished this book this morning, and it took me approximately 3-4 weeks to read. i can certainly say that i've learned so much about food and what goes into food that when i was done, i felt sad because i just wanted to read more and more. with all that said, let me do a brief synopsis...

the book is divided into three parts illustrating pollan's quest for the "perfect meal", or at least tracking how food ends up on his plate. the first part talks about the commercial food industry, how corn shows up in everything that we eat that is pre-processed (corn is cheap and full of calories), and how cattle are raised in CAFOs. the second part talks about organic food and how it's not as organic as one would like to imagine, and compares it to local farming, and how local farming pretty much trumps everything else in the quest for "good food". lastly, he talks about hunting and gathering his own food, which in my opinion he feels has been the most perfect meal to date.

once i have more time, i will write my opinions on the book and how it's made a big impact in my food life. i'll just let you know...i check ALL labels for traces of corn now...!

curious incident of the dog in the night time, 2

2007-01-09T11:16:00.000-06:00

an author's main aim in writing a story from the first person perspective is for the reader to identify with the protagonist. at least for this book.

besides recognizing many of the traits (which the reader associates with autism but, as another poster noted, are actually based on non-autistic persons' quirks) exhibited by christopher in myself, i also came to view truth (the result of applying logic to situations) in his almost mathematical-proof-proving method.

the use of dramatic irony in "curious incident" versus "animal farm" is noteworthy, i believe. in both novels, the reader knows more than the characters and is pained to see them not be able to explain their actions logically as christopher demanded or to forgot rules and their reasons so fast that they are easily misled by napoleon. i think this effect in both books makes them not only entertaining page-turners but also inducers of logical thought and action in the reader's life.

and what more can you want?

Animal Farm, Take 4

2007-01-07T02:22:00.000-06:00

You all inspired me to read ANIMAL FARM again. The first time was when I was about 8 or 9, I found it on my dad's bookshelf - Hey! A book about animals who take over a farm! and it was simply an enjoyable story with something of a dark side.
In 9th grade we read it in school, but with an ignoramus for a teacher the first nine weeks, all I remember is his misspelling terms related to the book and getting things thrown at him when he turned to write them on the board. He was not teacher material and was soon replaced (taken away by the dogs, ha). Actually if I were him I would have quit which is possibly what happened.
Back on track: I read it again this afternoon. I cant get past reading it as a critique of Stalinist Russia in the manner in which Orwell intended it. But in that way it is informative. It is a detailed allegory arising from Orwell's convictions developed though his personal experiences of fighting in the Spanish Civil War and working as a propagandist for the BBC's Indian and East Asian arm.
Sidenotes (perhaps I cant get back on track after all): did you know that Orwell was born in Bengal, India? And his father worked there for the opium department of the Civil Service? What exactly does that entail? Did you also know that in 1954 Animal Farm was made into an animated feature film, a project funded and overseen by the CIA? THAT sounds interesting.

So Ive been thinking about what I can say about this book. It's a great allegory, both in the specific way in which the author intended it, but also in the way that alex and huitzi related it to our times. I can distinctly remember when the Bush machine started the spin on how 9-11 should be pinned on Saddam Hussein - I was in the apartment on First Avenue - pardon my French, but I couldnt fucking believe it. It would never fly, I thought. But it did ...and it went on and led to war. Donald Rumsfeld was like Squealer, wouldnt you say? Turning words around, etc. I had friends who participated in protests and marches but for nothing. That war still goes on. No good can come of it. It's like an evil scheme laid by Napoleon.

We've been watching old episodes of Da Ali G show here, and the performer Sasha Baron Cohen points out that "it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic."

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

2007-01-03T18:44:00.000-06:00

I remember when this book came out (back in 2003) because I heard it reviewed on NPR. It stuck in my memory then. I am glad to have now had a chance to read it.

According to one reviewer of the book on Amazon.com who is autistic, the author does a good job portraying life through the experience of an autistic person. However, wikipedia notes that some with Asperger's disagree with the depiction. Asperger's is a mild form of autism. Haddon once worked with autistic individuals, but claimed to have drawn most of the main character's quirks from "normal" people he knew.

I like books in which I can learn something while being entertained by the story. This was one of them, and on different levels. Big picture: a view into autism (Asperger's) . Zoom in: the protagonist Christopher, who is enthralled with maths and science (especially astronomy), is continually providing the reader with explanations of natural events and logic problems. Here is a simple example:

"I went out to the balcony to find out whether I could see any stars, but there weren't any because of all the clouds and what is called light pollution, which is light from streetlights and car headlights and floodlights and lights in buildings reflecting off tiny particles in the atmosphere and getting in the way of light from the stars."

They get much more complicated and in depth. I just had to accept some of the math problems on faith. (Ha!)

This debut novel by Mark Haddon was well done and I would be interested in finding out if his subsequent work A Spot of Bother is equally charming.

I recommend this book as an entertaining and quick read (I finished it in two sittings). Thanks for the inspiration, frylime!

Here is a link to sources of free/in the public domain books online:
http://www.booksforabuck.com/general/pubsources.html

Animal Farm, 3

2007-01-02T13:59:00.000-06:00

I read Animal Farm a couple of moths ago, and I felt that my opinion was overdue, but I hadn’t had the time to write it down and it wasn’t until the past week that I spent long hours in airports when I had just the much needed time…

......

Though Animal Farm is George's Orwell criticism of the abuse of power and use of patriotism-propaganda committed in Russia during the early years of the revolution in name of “egalitarianism”, the tale depicted in Orwell’s book is still much relevant.

Orwell makes an excellent job identifying actions that could make a well intended idea go wrong: The use of subjective numbers and figures, personification of the physical space, change of the law to legalize actions previously considered illegal, the use of an external (usually subjective) enemy, cuts that directly affect the well being of citizens (education, health) in order to increase military expenditures, etc. These actions have seen not only in Russia but they are still happening and now more close to home.

I believe Animal Farm’s open ending is Orwell’s way to tell us that, its citizens’ responsibility to keep checks and balances on power and that the official story is not enough. It doesn’t matter if the tag line of the policy is "spread democracy", "fight the imperio", "keep our nuclear deterrent", "4 good 2 bad"...... Democracy is only possible when there is a real commitment from their participants.

ANIMAL FARM, 2

2006-12-20T18:18:00.000-06:00

ANIMAL FARM
jorge orwell

first let me say that i wish all americans would read ANIMAL FARM given the situation in our country over the last 5 years or so. i will not say they Should read it because, after all, this IS america, the land of freedom. it is convenient that the "elected" officials of our political system benefit from this system in which an individual has to freedom to remain in ignorance or the freedom to choose not to read literature which may challenge their view of the moral purity of their nation's leadership.

enough with the vagueries. let me compare situations in this novel to situations in our country now.

on this communal farm, the pigs assume the leadership roles and can justify special privileges they receive with questionable assertions. for example, they alone out of all the animals can eat apples and drink the cows' milk because they need this food for mental nurishment since they are the ones that have to plan all the work for the animals to do.

if the other animals insist on questioning such privileges or such stances, fine, there is a justification. however, questioning these in the first place potentially can be disastrous since this would be seen as a weakness in the unity of the farm which could be exploited by outsiders or internal dissidents. it is better not to question.

why is "america" at war? or better put, why did the american politicians decide to send american military to invade and occupy another country? hmmmm.....

why were the pigs always trying to increase the productivity of the farm? in order to show that animals can run a farm better than corrupt humans. their motto was "four legs good, two legs bad." later, the motto becomes "four legs good, two legs better." at this point, the animals no longer remember the reason for increasing productivity and in fact, the reason has dissappeared. nevertheless, the animals are still worked.

why did america go to war? let's admit that the real reason is never discussed. the rhetoric says the reason was to disarm the WMD's. the war starts, no WMD's are found. yet the war continues and damage is done. why? the rhetoric says it is to install democracy in irak. so they had an election about a year ago, isn't that democracy? the war continues. why? the rhetoric says in order to win the war. this is an empty idea- no one defines what they mean by "war" and no one defines what they mean by "win." now the reason for the war is to win the war. great.

animal farm makes me appreciate the word games the politicians and the media use to try to describe the absurdities of this war. it makes me see that they can hand out cute slogans and many american people just swallow them up.

to tell the public that questioning the war will cause the american forces to lose is to enlist the public in the unquestioning ranks of the side that is not necessarily the good side.

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

2006-12-18T07:14:00.000-06:00

mark haddon

finished this book up yesterday. took me about half the day? i think? i highly recommend this book to any math or logic inclined person out there who's interested in a light read. the main character is autistic, is obsessed with math and prime numbers, always tells the truth, and has other personality quirks that he periodically explains throughout the book, because he feels like folks should explain themselves to be logical. but he also goes into the lives of his parents, and portrays how they react to him and whatnot. it's quite insightful, to say the least. and haddon keeps you interested because some new information is being thrown at you at every which-a-way, a sort of stream of consciousness if you will, and exactly the kind of book that i like to read. (it keeps me interested...) for example, if christopher (protagonist) talks about a certain math puzzle he's been thinking about, like the pythagorean theorem, he'll write the equation out and write out what he was thinking. he also shows the reader what kind of patterns are on fabrics, a picture of a cow, etc, etc.

unlike my post on "animal farm", instead of going off on some politico-inspired rant (i reread it this morning, and WOW, i must have been angry about something!), i think i will post a quote that really jumped out at me:

"Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them."

there were many notable quotes in the book, but this is the most important one in my opinion. to me, it just makes very good sense and is quite true. and plus it deals with numbers, and i really like numbers. you can explain the world in numbers!

Animal Farm

2006-12-17T17:20:00.000-06:00

George Orwell

an interesting book, i read it last weekend or so in about 2-3 hours. i will start with it because it's the first book officially read at the start of my sabbatical.

small book, but incredibly interesting. i will definitely keep this one around so that i can read it from time to time to remind myself of why it's important to not remain complacent in regards to the powers-that-be, whether it be the national government or a future career.

for those of you who've never read the book, i will try to be vague enough, but for those of you that have read it, i believe you'll understand what frustrations i had!

whilst reading, i kept finding myself hoping that someone, human or animal, would come to the farm to rescue everyone from the pigs. i kept thinking, "well, sooner or later the hero is going to show up and save the day". ha! or not. then the next thought was "well, maybe something bad will happen to them, like a tornado or something". well, we know what happened when that happened.

some of the other frustrations i had were the stupity of some of the animals. for instance, the ones that couldn't read, or the sheep "four legs good, two legs baaaad!", or that darned horse boxer. but we've all been those animals in at least a few instances in our lives, and we clearly can point out the people we've come into contact with that are the sheep, or are boxer, or also napolean and snowball, etc. and then when you think about it, there are people who are born and raised in the united states who can't even say the pledge of allegiance, nor do they know the national anthem. another pet peeve of mine are people who don't keep up with current politics. i don't care if you classify yourself as "apathetic" and also choose not to vote (which that is a different argument in itself), but just know what's going on. and i definitely fall guilty to this, for in the past i couldn't tell you what was going on to save my life, but since mending my faulty ways, i feel like i'm a better citizen for doing so.

an example of what i just complained about: this morning i read a ny times article about how the chilean president legalized the prescribing of the morning-after pill at state run hospitals for free so that any girl can go get the pill if she needs it. people are in uproar, from conservatives to liberals, because they're freaking out that 14 year olds can now go get "abortions" without telling their parents. some background: president bachelet is a former pediatrician, i.e. she used to be a DOCTOR so obviously she knows what she's talking about, and i respect what she has to say about MEDICAL things because she's a DOCTOR!!! and now, the morning after pill is not ABORTION. and isn't that what people are told? conception happens not in the womb itself, but rather in the ampulla, or one of the fallopian tubes, and the zygote then travels down to the womb, still developing, still dividing cells at a trememdous rate, a process that takes a few days. and then the blob cells implants itself onto the uterine wall (it's called a blastula when it does implant), where it stays to keep growing and growing into a baby. what the morning after pill does is just keeps the blastula from implanting onto the uterine wall, therefore it just comes right on out. the morning after pill does NOT kill anything, it just prevents implantation. it is NOT abortion. now the social ramifications are not what i'm concerned with. i'm just pissed that people are calling it an abortion pill, when obviously, it is not. it is a "prevent implantation onto the uterine wall" pill. i just wish people would get their facts straight. this precisely illustrates that the government are the pigs and we are all the silly sheep that cry out "MORNING AFTER PILLS ARE ABORTION PILLS!". wrong.

so all of that, my dear friends, was inspired by reading "animal farm".

feel free to share your thoughts, or correct me if you like.

a past love, reawakened.

2006-12-17T17:14:00.000-06:00

dear friends,

i'm sure many of you have been keeping up with my medical progress on the other blog, and know that i've been talking about reading more books now in my "sabbatical". so therefore, to encourage me to keep reading and keep trying new things, i have decided to post what books i have read or am currently reading, and some sort of critique of the book as well. hopefully this will help me create a log of what i've done, and to maybe provide some sort of discussion board for others interested in the books or what i've had to say about the book. a good debate is always wanted!

and to further that debate, and open more doors of discussion, i have invited my good friend huitzilopochtli, the sun god, to post his thoughts on literary sojourns as well. between the two of us, and maybe more as time goes on, i hope you will find your minds stretched beyond your imagination! ok, that was quite corny, but you get the point.

hope you enjoy,

frylime