I have been here and there. Still alive.
I got to posting on LJ more than blogspot:
http://ryan-of-eris.livejournal.com/
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Now playing: Regina Spektor - Pavlov's Daughter
via FoxyTunes
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Sunday, October 14th
5:34 PM
UU Church in Flint
View Larger Map
We will have a free showing of the documentary Why We Fight and serve vegetarian friendly spaghetti! Discussion afterwards, hope to see yah there.
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Now playing: NPR - Jose Gonzalez in Concert 10-06-2007
via FoxyTunes
5:34 PM
UU Church in Flint
View Larger Map
We will have a free showing of the documentary Why We Fight and serve vegetarian friendly spaghetti! Discussion afterwards, hope to see yah there.
----------------
Now playing: NPR - Jose Gonzalez in Concert 10-06-2007
via FoxyTunes
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
I have been discussing with several different people today the question:
"Is there such a thing as a just war?"
WWII and Iraq II both were in the end means of removing a dictator.
There are those who would argue that both are just or unjust. It is curious how this divide forms. It would seem to me that to believe in a just war you must believe in punishment because a just war is ultimately a punishment of the wicked. To believe in punishment, particularlly corporal punishment one must believe in the relative value of lives and actions. That is to say, that taking a life now will somehow create a better future. I then have a few questions that struck me as would show whether someone can beleive in a just war.
would you kill one to save another, ten, a thousand, a million?
would you kill a friend to save ten stranger?
would you kill ten strangers to save a friend?
would you let one die to save your life?
would you let a thousand die to save your life?
Now of course this all lends to a larger question of where does the value of life stand on the hierarchy of values but it occurred to me interesting that the famous quote by Spock could somehow tie into Saddam Husein.
"Is there such a thing as a just war?"
WWII and Iraq II both were in the end means of removing a dictator.
There are those who would argue that both are just or unjust. It is curious how this divide forms. It would seem to me that to believe in a just war you must believe in punishment because a just war is ultimately a punishment of the wicked. To believe in punishment, particularlly corporal punishment one must believe in the relative value of lives and actions. That is to say, that taking a life now will somehow create a better future. I then have a few questions that struck me as would show whether someone can beleive in a just war.
would you kill one to save another, ten, a thousand, a million?
would you kill a friend to save ten stranger?
would you kill ten strangers to save a friend?
would you let one die to save your life?
would you let a thousand die to save your life?
Now of course this all lends to a larger question of where does the value of life stand on the hierarchy of values but it occurred to me interesting that the famous quote by Spock could somehow tie into Saddam Husein.
I noticed that you are still shivering...
I have a problem with Orientalism. I don't disagree that it happens. I don't disagree that it has lead to bad things. However, speaking about it like orientalism is some peculiar invention of the West as a response to the Middle East is another case eurocentricism.
I would like to adress the cause instead of the symptoms. The symptoms are that under argueably intentional means there has been a strong cultural divide between Europe and America with respect to The Middle East. The cause is a more complicated beast than a simple choice to hate people from one specific region.
The act of judging, perhaps intentionally, another people as lesser, barbaric, corrupt, or whichever adjective you choose is ancient and easily predates "The Orient." For instance Rome looked on the Germans as a barbaric people with no ability to maintain a government only to be conquered by Theodoric. Before them China existed as a pillar of civilization and looked on other lands with disdain even as they may well have been equals. Orientalism seems to be a smaller element of the Us and Them effect.
Sociologist have proposed that 49 people is the most that we can have intense regular contact with. After that it begins to strain ones abilities and there is of being overwhelmed. This concept that this a maximum number of people that the average human can feel close to inevitably leads to a segmenting of populations. The microcosm of high school gives excellent examples. The circles can cross but there is an almost necessary division of the students into cliques. The bizarre truth reveals when you can start to see rivalries and feuds form. One group decides the other groups is dangerous. The nerd/jock rivalry is epic enough that I need not hash it up but still if we can see a conflict over who can sit where in a lunchroom than conflicts over actual wealth seem very reasonable.
I could drag this further down but I think my general argument has all ready been presented; Orientalism would better be called xenophobia.
I would like to adress the cause instead of the symptoms. The symptoms are that under argueably intentional means there has been a strong cultural divide between Europe and America with respect to The Middle East. The cause is a more complicated beast than a simple choice to hate people from one specific region.
The act of judging, perhaps intentionally, another people as lesser, barbaric, corrupt, or whichever adjective you choose is ancient and easily predates "The Orient." For instance Rome looked on the Germans as a barbaric people with no ability to maintain a government only to be conquered by Theodoric. Before them China existed as a pillar of civilization and looked on other lands with disdain even as they may well have been equals. Orientalism seems to be a smaller element of the Us and Them effect.
Sociologist have proposed that 49 people is the most that we can have intense regular contact with. After that it begins to strain ones abilities and there is of being overwhelmed. This concept that this a maximum number of people that the average human can feel close to inevitably leads to a segmenting of populations. The microcosm of high school gives excellent examples. The circles can cross but there is an almost necessary division of the students into cliques. The bizarre truth reveals when you can start to see rivalries and feuds form. One group decides the other groups is dangerous. The nerd/jock rivalry is epic enough that I need not hash it up but still if we can see a conflict over who can sit where in a lunchroom than conflicts over actual wealth seem very reasonable.
I could drag this further down but I think my general argument has all ready been presented; Orientalism would better be called xenophobia.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
The Begining
The crew:
Charlie - Born and raised in Midland, MI. Genius at many things including math and languages. Occasionally an ass hole but only in the face of illogical people. Terrible at relationships and communicating. One of my best friends. Has broken one of my friends hearts. College at UofM, won the Churchill, now attending grad school in California.
Miranda - British. Interesting with good music taste. Studied linguistics at University of Reading. Absolutely in love with/hates Charlie depending on the part of the trip
Me - hmm, that is a good question. Homeless, how about that :-) not in the hobo kinda way, but, you know.
Backstory I
I and Charlie have been good friends for a long time now. In fact since we both were councilors at a boy scout camp (wow that sounds lame). We met because he was one of the people who played in the D&D game I was running (not getting any less nerdy eh?). Anyways we found we were similarly nerdy and witty therefore, good times.
Backstory II
Charlie studied a broad in Italy for a semester. Her name was Miranda. They had some fun but Charlie assumed it was over when they went to their respective homes. Miranda thought otherwise. Strife ensues. Somewhere along the way Charlie offers to show her America then calls me and says "Want to go on a BADASS road trip" "of course".
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Now playing: The Kingdom - I Am Constellation
via FoxyTunes
Charlie - Born and raised in Midland, MI. Genius at many things including math and languages. Occasionally an ass hole but only in the face of illogical people. Terrible at relationships and communicating. One of my best friends. Has broken one of my friends hearts. College at UofM, won the Churchill, now attending grad school in California.
Miranda - British. Interesting with good music taste. Studied linguistics at University of Reading. Absolutely in love with/hates Charlie depending on the part of the trip
Me - hmm, that is a good question. Homeless, how about that :-) not in the hobo kinda way, but, you know.
Backstory I
I and Charlie have been good friends for a long time now. In fact since we both were councilors at a boy scout camp (wow that sounds lame). We met because he was one of the people who played in the D&D game I was running (not getting any less nerdy eh?). Anyways we found we were similarly nerdy and witty therefore, good times.
Backstory II
Charlie studied a broad in Italy for a semester. Her name was Miranda. They had some fun but Charlie assumed it was over when they went to their respective homes. Miranda thought otherwise. Strife ensues. Somewhere along the way Charlie offers to show her America then calls me and says "Want to go on a BADASS road trip" "of course".
----------------
Now playing: The Kingdom - I Am Constellation
via FoxyTunes
going home is not coming back
I was intending to write about a specific letter but I changed my mind.
Travel is peculiar and few people REALLY travel. Driving or flying to a tourist trap and wandering down the marked paths IS NOT travelling. I shall for my own purpose define travel as the act of joining a new culture ((I am tempted to call this wayfaring instead.)) I have always been a traveller and my wanderlust is not fading with age.
Culture shock is the term they use for when you find yourself somewhere truly foreign. Then there is the reverse culture shock when you come home. I dislike both these terms. I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something unsatisfactory about them. Every summer, for as long as I could, I have traveled. By bike, car, bus, rides from strangers, or whatever. I feel a need to go.
This would not seem to be an initially bad thing, people praise the traveler "all the stories you must have." Allow me to reveal a little secret that many of the epic wayfarers keep; When you go, really go, you will never come back. It is like moving out of your parents house. That space will never be your home again. It will never feel the same. And once you have slept in enough beds, under enough stars, in enough parking lots, you will have no home.
This is not a bad thing. It just gives you a different frame to place things in. Everywhere you go there is a timer. No matter how moved in, it feels temporary because you know at some point you will be living somewhere else. This is isn't home yet.
I will confess, this might be a sysmptom that everyone feels. Maybe it is the aimlessness of being a mid-20 in USA. But I know travelling is what made me really feel it. Waking up in a distant cousins, friends house, sliding on your shoes and leaving a quick note then hopping the back fence. that is truly going. Walking barefoot down Carlisle in New Orleans bound for a coffee house where the people you met have become good friends for a week. And in 16 days you will be somewhere else. They are friends with a timer and it is a lifestyle with a timer. In 17 days you'll be on a bus bound for Memphis to see friends. Might just get an egg timer, that one will be counted in hours.
I am sorry I've lost focus somehow. and so I will now end this post and begin writing a travel narrative from my road trip the year before last.
Travel is peculiar and few people REALLY travel. Driving or flying to a tourist trap and wandering down the marked paths IS NOT travelling. I shall for my own purpose define travel as the act of joining a new culture ((I am tempted to call this wayfaring instead.)) I have always been a traveller and my wanderlust is not fading with age.
Culture shock is the term they use for when you find yourself somewhere truly foreign. Then there is the reverse culture shock when you come home. I dislike both these terms. I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something unsatisfactory about them. Every summer, for as long as I could, I have traveled. By bike, car, bus, rides from strangers, or whatever. I feel a need to go.
This would not seem to be an initially bad thing, people praise the traveler "all the stories you must have." Allow me to reveal a little secret that many of the epic wayfarers keep; When you go, really go, you will never come back. It is like moving out of your parents house. That space will never be your home again. It will never feel the same. And once you have slept in enough beds, under enough stars, in enough parking lots, you will have no home.
This is not a bad thing. It just gives you a different frame to place things in. Everywhere you go there is a timer. No matter how moved in, it feels temporary because you know at some point you will be living somewhere else. This is isn't home yet.
I will confess, this might be a sysmptom that everyone feels. Maybe it is the aimlessness of being a mid-20 in USA. But I know travelling is what made me really feel it. Waking up in a distant cousins, friends house, sliding on your shoes and leaving a quick note then hopping the back fence. that is truly going. Walking barefoot down Carlisle in New Orleans bound for a coffee house where the people you met have become good friends for a week. And in 16 days you will be somewhere else. They are friends with a timer and it is a lifestyle with a timer. In 17 days you'll be on a bus bound for Memphis to see friends. Might just get an egg timer, that one will be counted in hours.
I am sorry I've lost focus somehow. and so I will now end this post and begin writing a travel narrative from my road trip the year before last.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Joseph Pitts, A True and Faithful Bore
A True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans, with an Account of the Author's Being Taken Captive was without question one of the most boring and inexorably uninteresting pieces of literature I have ever forced myself to read. I would go so far as to claim the The Prince was a more engaging piece of literature.
The first chapter was passably readable and looked as though we were going to be treated to an interesting narrative of the journey of a bonded man into a strange land. However Joseph quickly did away with these hops and jumped to the heart of his writing, Tedium Incarnate. Let me give you an example:
"The Algerines, in the month of April, have three several camps go forth: one to the east, one to the west, one to the south, of which the first is the greatest and consists of about an hundred tents, each tent containing twenty men. The western camp consists of about seventy or eighty [of] the like tents, and the southern camp but of fifteen. Each of these divisions hath a bey, or general, who gives so many thousand pieces of eight monthly for his place to the dey, or governor of Algier, and moreover defrays the whole coast and charges of the camp and is to make due provision of bread, butter, oil, and also wheat to make burgu, and likewise flesh for them twice a week, and barley for the horses. It is to be observed that every tent have their allowance, which allowance is far more than they can dispense withal, and therefore they have the liberty to take what they think will serve them and rest in money, which they divide among themselves."
fun!
So, moving to the author; he managed to go to great lengths to insult the Algerians while relentlessly reminding the reader that they seem to be more devoted to their false god than the average Briton was to his. He is inconsistent through out the book on several issues including marriage and divorce practices, claiming that only a virgin woman could be married then mentioning that divorce and remarriage was common. He was by and large somewhat balanced in his recounting of his experience if not painfully precise. I have no question that historians surely find this an excellently engaging piece but I found it questionably more exciting than my book for Classical Mechanics.
Overall I was left sure that he is neurotically Christian and holds a severe grudge against the Islamic faith and a general derogation for the Islamic Faith.
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Now playing: Denali - Do Something
via FoxyTunes
The first chapter was passably readable and looked as though we were going to be treated to an interesting narrative of the journey of a bonded man into a strange land. However Joseph quickly did away with these hops and jumped to the heart of his writing, Tedium Incarnate. Let me give you an example:
"The Algerines, in the month of April, have three several camps go forth: one to the east, one to the west, one to the south, of which the first is the greatest and consists of about an hundred tents, each tent containing twenty men. The western camp consists of about seventy or eighty [of] the like tents, and the southern camp but of fifteen. Each of these divisions hath a bey, or general, who gives so many thousand pieces of eight monthly for his place to the dey, or governor of Algier, and moreover defrays the whole coast and charges of the camp and is to make due provision of bread, butter, oil, and also wheat to make burgu, and likewise flesh for them twice a week, and barley for the horses. It is to be observed that every tent have their allowance, which allowance is far more than they can dispense withal, and therefore they have the liberty to take what they think will serve them and rest in money, which they divide among themselves."
fun!
So, moving to the author; he managed to go to great lengths to insult the Algerians while relentlessly reminding the reader that they seem to be more devoted to their false god than the average Briton was to his. He is inconsistent through out the book on several issues including marriage and divorce practices, claiming that only a virgin woman could be married then mentioning that divorce and remarriage was common. He was by and large somewhat balanced in his recounting of his experience if not painfully precise. I have no question that historians surely find this an excellently engaging piece but I found it questionably more exciting than my book for Classical Mechanics.
Overall I was left sure that he is neurotically Christian and holds a severe grudge against the Islamic faith and a general derogation for the Islamic Faith.
----------------
Now playing: Denali - Do Something
via FoxyTunes
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