Filed under: 80s, care bear cousins, classic, gijoe, heman, nostalgia, toys
The things that used to keep me up at night.
” . . .Although they’re not very tall,
inside, they’re anything but small.
They’re big as a sunny morning,
big as they sky above,
big as the biggest dream you have,
big as love.”
Canin’s best book so far, America America is a masterpiece of power, ambition, and the triumphant rise and tragic fall from political position. I’ll just say this, I’ve always liked the name Liam, (one of the main characters in the book), but now I’m sure what to name my someday future son. Way to go Canin; a tragic story told beautifully.
Read this article from the California-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association about how grateful the Utah Legislature is for all the dollars the California Legislature sends there way every year.
At the mention of the California Legislature, several members of the committee laughed. The Chairman grinned and said that “we love the California Legislature — they do more for Utah business development than anyone else.”
The message was clear. Utah’s healthy business climate was due in no small measure to California firms moving to that state or simply choosing to expand their existing business operations there and not in California. There are a lot of reasons why, compared to California, Utah is so attractive.
Filed under: Education, Foreign Aid, International Development, Journalism, NY Time, Pakistan, Politics, Schools, Taliban, War, obama
I’m a big fan of books and in the power of education in shaping one’s mind and in opening one’s view of the world. I guess Greg Mortensen thinks so too. Read this NYT article from yesterday’s Op-Ed Column by Nicholas Kristof.
I have a few thoughts myself. I think that Kristof makes more of what Greg Mortensen is doing in Pakistan, however noble and effective building schools there might be. The US military did remove the Taliban from power, liberating the people that are now attending/helping to build Dr. Mortensen’s schools. This was not done without force either; meeting radical despotism with violent conflict.
The other false assumption that Kristof makes about the heroic impact of Mortensen’s school building efforts there is the slight mention that “so far the Taliban have not bothered his schools.” So these anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-education cult radicals just let Mortensen build his schools without any trouble? I’m sure the Taliban recruit the poorest of the poor and the ignorant, like most of their counterparts in other parts of the world. And now an American comes in to their recruiting pool and says he wants to educate their girls and women? I don’t quite understand why they let him do that. My only suspicion is that Mortensen has agreed to only build the schools, and that the Taliban controls the curriculum, at least in part, along with the Pakistani education curriculum.
I don’t want to give the impression that I think Mortensen’s efforts in Pakistan are without merit and long-term benefits. I think that school building and other sorts of development is far more effective in the long run than the sporadic and costly military intervention. But I do think that there is room to say that each method, if you can separate them, has its time and place.
In a way I have to agree with what Charlie Wilson said, “Enlighten and enfranchise people and you don’t have to kill them. Much more cost effective, as well as moral.”
Filed under: BYU, Kiva.org, cambodia, feel good, finance, kiva, loans, microcredit, philanthropy, service
Chan Soben is a grocery seller in Sangke Meanchey Village, Siem Reap Province, while her husband, Mr. Kuy Mengleang, is a house construction worker. They have eight children, four of whom are married. One of their children works with Mr. Mengleang to help support the family’s expenses. Because of increasing transportation costs, Mrs Soben is requesting a loan of $400 which, when added to her savings, will permit the purchase of a motorcycle for use in her family, thereby reducing their expenses. Mrs. Soben’s husband is pictured.
Go here to help out.
I just found this new website Kiva.org where you can give small loans to needy entrepreneurs in developing nations. This is truly rewarding.
(OK, this one has been floating around the Internet. You may have heard it, but I thought it was funny.)
In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship and it was also before commercial fertilizer’s invention, so large shipments of manure were common.
It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by-product is methane gas.
As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, KABLOOOOM!
Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening. After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term “Ship High In Transport” on them which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.
Thus evolved the term “S.H.I.T.” (Ship High In Transport) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.
You probably did not know the true history of this word.
Neither did I.
I always thought it was a golf term.
Filed under: Aleksandar Hemon, America, Authors, Book Review, Chicago, Haulocost, Immigrants, Jews, Journalism, Pogrom, Police, Prejudice, Racism, Romania, The Lazarus Project, Ukraine, Writing
I just sent Aleksander Hemon this email, feeling compelled to express my thoughts to him.
To: sasha@aleksandarhemon.com
I just finished The Lazarus Project this morning and I had to drop you a line to let you know how much I liked your book. It was eye-opening for me to learn about the tragic life of Lazarus and other immigrants. I enjoyed escaping my ordinary, (white male, white-collar, suburban family) to experience the life of someone so different (and yet so universally the same) from mine. I like the “center of the soul” concept that Brik explores throughout the book. My soul is centered somewhere between the love I am consumed with for my beautiful wife and the sometimes overwhelming desire just run away from everything I know. I don’t even know you, but feel like you are a trusted friend.
A very interesting article in the WSJ today about political insults and the all-to-common brazen bigotry disguised as candor. Here’s the best clip:
But civility has a way of creeping into daintiness. If our candidates lose their willingness to spar, their sense of combative humor, will the contest grow more polite, or just less honest? The well-turned insult is a necessary and salutary force in politics, a spicy seasoning in an old, force-fed dish. It’s a check on pomposity, proof of democratic vitality, a relief from endless electioneering, and a show of intelligence and moderation. The dull and the bigoted are rarely witty.
During a campaign, Henry Adams reminded us, the air is full of speeches and vice versa. Nothing deflates like a happy insult.
Filed under: Book Reviews, Books, Ethan Canin, Ethics, Flickr, Morality, New York City
Ethan Canin is my new favorite author. I’ve read The Palace Thief and For Kings and Planets one after the other in the past two weeks, and I must say, Canin’s literary style is one of deep, clear, moral prose. I’ve read six books so far this summer, and his are easily my favorites. The Palace Thief is a collection of four stories, each one addressing a unique and fresh perspective on ethical dilemas and the psychology behind the players in such life-forming (or life-revealing) yet ordinary situations. Canin is insightful, smooth, interestingly candid. The forth of these stories is now a major motion picture The Emperor’s Club.
I just finished For Kings and Planets last night. Honestly, I’m sad it’s over. I felt like I had so much in common with the main character Orno, a vested interest in his future as if it somehow was related to mine. I don’t have that much in common with him circumstantially, however, psychologically I am a similar creature. The clash of cultures, small town-big town, east-west, ordinary-unique; Canin threads the binding of the book with such a battle scene. Orno is from a small, ordinary, midwestern farm town. He experienced a good, moral upbringing where he learned respect and the value of work. Then Orno questions everything he knows, or in a way, has what he knows and who he is revealed to him, as he attends Columbia University in the totally foreign, progressive and exciting culture of New York City. The book follows his friendships, his love, his choices, and is interlaced with introspect and self discovery. I must say it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.
I found this on The Onion.
A man who used several different bent sticks to hit a ball to an area comprised of very short grass surrounding a hole in the ground was praised for his courage Monday after he used a somewhat smaller stick to gently roll the ball into the aforementioned hole in fewer attempts than his competitors. “What guts, what confidence,” ESPN commentator Scott Van Pelt said of the man, who was evidently unable to carry his sticks himself, employing someone else to hold the sticks and manipulate the flag sticking out of the hole in the ground while he rolled the ball into it. “You have to be so brave, so self-assured, so strong mentally to [roll a ball into a hole in the ground]. Amazing.” The man in question apparently hurt his knee during this activity.
It’s funny because it’s true.
The Founding Fathers, specifically John Adams and others, knew that the two party system would serve as a check and balance within the legislative branch. But in a state like Utah, where being anything other than Republican is seen as evil and “worldly” by the general public, there really isn’t the two-party system that Adams had envisioned. A third party candidate, will probably never have a fighting chance in a state with a super-majority. Probably not even where there is a healthy proportion of both parties. This does seem limited, but that is just the way people think. People think:
Democrat= Pro Choice, New Taxes
Republican= Pro Life, Small Government
Any Other Party= Not good enough elected
The truth is that there is so much overlap that there might as well be no parties at all. That way policy is made on the issue, for the people not the party. Candidates are elected on the issues, not by party lines and politics. Times have changed since Adams, people have changed, issues have grown more complex than imagined. Government should change too.
For some odd reason, or maybe not so odd depending on your point of view, I’ve always been intrigued by prisons. I will always stay up late and watch that great prison movie on AMC, even if I’ve got to get up early the next morning. I get sucked in to the documentaries. I have never been inside any sort of prison, but have always had a secret desire to go there anonymously just to listen and observe the cultural nuances and the play for political power. Well, I think I am finally going to do something about my secret fascination.
Next semester I have enrolled in a Directed Research course, of which I get to pick a topic of research (pending approval) and produce some kind of research product. I think I’m going to chronicle my findings on a prison blog and then print it on Blurb. More to come. I’m excited.
