RIP Christopher Hitchens

And let's remember him by appreciating and reading his book list for smart kids - of all ages.

The Hitchens Reading List  & more than that, a wonderful story of a generous encounter

Bookstore Binge

For Amelia:

-for her Lightning Lit course:
Frankenstein
Ivanhoe
& a new reading copy of Pride And Prejudiceas the one we have (& which she's already read more than once) is too big & cumbersome for study

-& for fun Cranford

For Hugo:

Martin the Warrior
Artemis Fowl: Arctic Incident
Stormbreaker
& Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (pictured with Hugo's arm if you look closely. He is reading it right now& only dropped it on the photo pile for a few seconds with a finger holding his spot)


For me:

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Odd Mom Out

What are you guys reading?

play time

Hugo has been playing with one of his presents. People can ride for free on the roof of the train like in a 3rd world country, while ticket holders get a seat inside.

I've been giggling about the train station. I'm told that blue round thing is a garbage can but I think (& I believe Lego man agrees with me), that it's a urinal. See how happy he looks & how purposefully he's striding towards it? He totally thinks it's an open air urinal.

We're all relaxing and playing and reading (& waiting for people to go back to school/work and get off our mountain so we can go snowboarding without a crowd).

Hugo has already finished the first Artemis Fowl (& of course wants to continue the series)  and is starting on Redwall . He also received Inkheart.

Amelia received a number of Patricia Wentworth, Georgette Heyer and Ngaio Marsh mysteries, as well as A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations: Two Novels (Oprah's Book Club)

As for me, I'm indulging myself in the third installment of Suzanne Brockmann's re-released SEAL books, Tall, Dark and Devastating

Roo has been reading whatever the kids hand him. Hugo set him up with the Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians series (we're all waiting to get our hands on book 4 asap!) and Amelia just gave him a vintage book from her bookshelf Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

I'm dragging my butt but it's time to start final prepping for our next term, which officially starts Jan 3. Back to schedules, calendars, course outlines and lots of sticky notes.

We unexpectedly stayed up last night. First we watched Star Trek (2009) which was great but then, instead of calling it a night, Amelia pulled out the Abba Gold Greatest Hits (Coll Ed) which she'd found under the tree, and we laughed hysterically at the music 'videos'. It's hilarious watching music videos from a time when people weren't quite sure what music videos would actually be. Before we knew it, it was close to midnight and I went out for a quick walk with the dogs -- who didn't like the firecrackers and other noise at all and wanted me to RUN, not walk, home -- and got home just in time to do the 10,9,8 countdown, and then called it a night.
  

Happy 2011 Everyone!!!! 

Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Sorry to interrupt Daisy's moment, but there is time sensitive stuff happening & this PoliSci grad can't keep her fingers off the keyboard about this subject.

This is a TED talk. Many homeschoolers are familiar with TED talks, mostly because Sir Ken Robinson keeps nattering on about schools killing creativity on TED & therefore, homeschoolers love to watch Sir Ken's videos. 

So, here on TED, is Julian Assange explaining WikiLeaks. (warning: there is brief footage of the Apache attack in Baghdad which kills Reuters staffers, among others.)




Noam Chomsky says WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership". Many do not know that Noam Chomsky was involved in helping release secret Pentagon papers regarding the Vietnam War. Government whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg got help from Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn to release the documents.

"We should understand -- and the Pentagon Papers is another case in point -- that one of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population. In the Pentagon Papers, for example, there was one volume -- the negotiations volume -- which might have had a bearing on ongoing activities and Daniel Ellsberg withheld that. That came out a little bit later. If you look at the papers themselves, there are things Americans should have known that others did not want them to know. And as far as I can tell, from what I’ve seen here, pretty much the same is true. In fact, the current leaks are -- what I’ve seen, at least -- primarily interesting because of what they tell us about how the diplomatic service works."

transcript of Noam Chomsky's discussion of wikileaks

video of the discussion

Essential Reading: chapters.indigo.ca: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media: Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky: Books

this & that

Sam Harris (author of Letter to a Christian Nation) has a new book. It's going in my TBR pile, looks like I won't get to it until December at the rate I'm going ......




Christopher Hitchens is dying. His cancer is stage 4 now & as he says, there is no stage 5..... He's still writing, as well as ever, as in this piece on Miss Manners & cancer. Curiously, the dateline is December 2010. Apparently the Hitch can bend time?



On the heels of my plug for Project Feeder Watch, important news that Bird Beak Deformities Show Big Rise.


And because this is all much too serious & glum, a plug for the Fantastic Mr. Fox



If you took the old Wind in the Willows stop motion animation & shook it up in a blender with Oceans 11 & laid on a smooth soundtrack (inluding the voices of George Clooney & Meryl Streep), Fantastic Mr. Fox is what you'd pour out. Lovely.

Dr Angela Merkel speaks

Merkel says German multicultural society has failed

If you're looking for some background reading on what is driving these conversations in Europe:

Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West
By Christopher Caldwell

Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom
By Bruce Bawer

While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within
By Bruce Bawer

Caldwell's book is the newest & he does an excellent job of especially discussing the demographics. With Europe's falling birth rates, the 'face' of Europe is changing, and changing fast. What implications will that have for Europe as a socio-political entity, when many immigrant populations do not assimilate, have no interest in the 'western' values of the countries they now inhabit, and wish instead to promote the values of their homelands?

Caldwell also very relevantly discusses the economics of immigration, & addresses the thorny issue of whether immigrants boost the economy or not.

Caldwell's book was blurbed by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the back cover.

Bawer's books drive me nuts because Bawer likes to veer off into anti-left rhetoric, blaming the 'bleeding heart liberals' for all the ills of the world. He also rabbit trails occasionally into US domestic policies. However - his exploration of how the Islamic communities in Europe are functioning, what their goals are, the political correctness which is paralyzing the European institutions in the face of these populations and their demands - that is unparalleled.

If you can read only one, start with Caldwell. If you can sneak in another, have a go at Surrender. While Europe Slept covers much of the same ground & is the one which I threw against the wall most often because Bawer took too many easy pot shots & veered off too much.

Science reporting

(OOOOOOPS - click on it to see the whole thing, while I work on my margins.)

This is from the very brilliant xkcd.com , source of one of my coveted items, a t-shirt with this



Readers who have been with me a while may recognize it from this post , which statcounter (which I check about once a year when I suddenly remember what the password is) tells me is my most popular page.

???????

Since no new peeps are commenting on that post, I can only guess that people are coming again & again to either also covet the shirt with this slogan (but why not go straight to the source?) OR, and this is an exciting possibility, to figure out what size I might like. Unisex Medium, people! Medium!!!!

Mwah.

In other funny science news, the Guardian explains how to write a science article for a news website:

This is a news website article about a scientific paper

In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?

You must go & read it. Really. You will plotz.

I was especially taken by the sub-headings.

This is a sub-heading that gives the impression I am about to add useful context.

None actually follows.

and

This subheading hints at controversy with a curt phrase and a question mark?
This paragraph will explain that while some scientists believe one thing to be true, other people believe another, different thing to be true.

In this paragraph I will provide balance with a quote from another scientist in the field. Since I picked their name at random from a Google search, and since the research probably hasn't even been published yet for them to see it, their response to my e-mail will be bland and non-committal.

"The research is useful", they will say, "and gives us new information. However, we need more research before we can say if the conclusions are correct, so I would advise caution for now."

I promise you, you will read all science & health reporting with a fresh eye having seen this template on how it's done.

And do stick around & check out the comments on that Guardian article because many are just as hilarious as the article itself - right down to mentions of Dawkins & Godwin's law, as well as grammar & spelling trolls.

In definitely not funny science news,

The federal government engages in "unacceptable political interference" in the communication of government science, says the head of a group that represents both government press officers and science journalists.

"Openness is being held ransom to media messages that serve the government's political agenda," wrote Kathryn O'Hara, president of the Canadian Science Writers' Association, in an opinion published online Wednesday in the international scientific journal Nature.

Read more

This is a government run by a control freak.

This: Harperland: The Politics of Control is going on my TBR pile.

"Harperland" describes Harper as a political success story but paints a portrait of a ruthless strategist and control freak who insists that he approve every move of his government.

"This is the most massive centralization of power of any government in the history of Canada," Martin said.

First though, I have to unclench my teeth from reading this:
The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada


Oh dear. That's taken the entire post in a depressing direction, hasn't it?

Let's cheer ourselves up:



Er.........

Reading and Watching

Amelia and I have been indulging our appreciation for period drama historically accurate film adaptations of important literary works.

Ahem. It's educational, people.

First, North & South. Amelia properly read the book first.

Elizabeth Gaskell's works are a part of any good survey of Victorian British literature.

I went straight to Richard Armitage.

Swooooooooon.

Then, Jane Eyre. Again, Amelia properly read the book first.

I've read it several times already & was happy to carry on straight to Toby Stephens.

Wonderful.

Both DVD's are 4 hour adaptations, with the North & South conveniently divided up into hour long episodes. Jane Eyre is on two discs & is not conveniently divided so you need to commit two hours at a time. NOT a hardship, I assure you.


For a fun diversion, if you've already seen North & South (because you don't want plot spoilers now, do you?) check out North & South summarized in motivational posters.

Feel free to chime in with recommendations. I'm thinking of Cranford and Wives & Daughters next .....

a great read

Amelia & I both enjoyed this book an awful lot.





It's one of those books you pick up thinking 'well, let's just have a small taste and then I'll see where to schedule it in my reading plans' and the next thing you know, you've finished the entire thing in almost one sitting, and you emerge hungry and thirsty, and with a flat butt.

It's the story of how the author, already involved in Search and Rescue, and already a dog lover and owner, decided to put the two together & get her own puppy to raise for SAR.

I enjoyed reading about the challenges this puppy presented, the training methods, the camraderie of the SAR team. Throughout the training, the author continues to volunteer on searches, assisting other teams & gradually, as she and her dog learn the required skills, handling her own dog. Many of the searches have happy endings, some are recovery missions, some are movingly tragic.

The book is frequently hilarious, sometimes sad, and always so wonderfully rooted in a deep appreciation for not only this special skill that dogs have, but also their willingness to work for us and with us. Trust the dog becomes an important echoing phrase. And the dog in turn, has to trust the handler.

I love her dog's name: Puzzle, & she dedicated the book to her dog - which tells you pretty much what you need know about the bond between them. "For Puzzle. Good dog. Find more."

And you don't need to take my word for how good this book is. Patricia McConnell is blurbed on the back with this lovely endorsement:

Scent of the Missing is not only a “stay up too late at night” story, it’s a brilliantly written book that should be on every dog lover’s bed stand. Her descriptions of her dogs are laugh out loud funny, and her use of language is so rich I’m not sure if I want to read her book or eat it.

Patricia B. McConnell, author of The Other End of the Leash and For the Love of a Dog

So there you go. Read it - you'll like it.

Also check out the Scent of the Missing Website

in which I shake my fist at DVD regions

One of the problems with the automatic amazon linkie thingie in my post about My Family and Other Animals is that both the American and the Canadian shops took you to different editions than the one I like.

I like the one with ISBN 0246132450. It was published by Grafton in 1987 and is an oversized hardcover, with a nice clear large font, some lovely old photographs of Durrell's family tucked into the text, and full page watercolor illustrations by Peter Barrett. The pages are thick and glossy, the binding is sewn, it opens flat nicely as your read. It's just a lovely edition, unlike some of the quick, whiz bang editions:  'let's republish this thing, it always sells well, print it on recycled toilet paper and stick a token photo of the author on the back' editions; yay! easy money!'

So there you go. If you want a nice edition, hunt that one. You'll need to go used, but it's worth it IMO. Search around on abebooks.com and there are a # of good copies with dust jackets available.

While I was looking up this edition, I discovered that in addition to the Masterpiece Theater adaptation which I mentioned in my previous post, there is a newer  250 minute BBC version which got rave reviews. In fact, in some of the reviews people  mentioned being relieved at how much better it was than the Imelda Staunton version which I adore! Shock.

I immediately said: I must have this! I must watch this! I must see if it's better!

And then I discovered that there is no North American edition. The BBC America shop doesn't have it. The BBC Canada shop doesn't have it. Zip doesn't have it. Amazon.com or .ca don't have it. It appers to not exist.

I could order it from the UK. Here it is. But since I don't have a Region 2 (or a region free) DVD player, I'm stumped.

This is the fist shaking part. WHY do they do this? What possible business sense does it make? Is it just to frustrate people?

So here I am, shaking my fist & yearning for a British DVD. If you have brilliant solutions, let me know.

may cause longings for Corfu

Hugo and I did Gerald Durrell's My Family And Other Animals as a read aloud a while back; then Amelia read it herself; now Roo is reading it. It is the (mostly true) story of a rather eccentric English family which moves to Corfu, told from the point of view of the youngest member of the family:  a boy named Gerald, who is fascinated with fauna and spends his days roaming around the country side acquiring specimens for his ever growing collection of live and dead animals.

It is also hilarious.

And this Masterpiece Theater adaptation is wonderful at accurately depicting the book.

Of course, as always when compressing a book into a film, some things are missing, and someone's 'best scene' is cut. But this movie really captures the feeling of the story, and through careful selection of dramatic events, truly conveys the world Durrell shared with us in the book.

Imelda Staunton as Gerald's mother is brilliant. In fact Mrs. Durrell is brilliant.

Spiro spices things up by sprinkling his conversation with the liberal use of the word bastards.

Lesley is always shooting things.

Margo lurches from one heart break to another.

And Gerry searches for specimens, builds his collections, and is given remarkably free rein to pursue his interests - kind of like unschooling at its best. And though he does have a series of tutors foisted on him eventually, the fact remains that Gerry was fascinated with fauna from a very young age, his interests were not only permitted but gently encouraged, and he became a renowned naturalist in adulthood.

At our home, this book and movie has become a source of numerous quotes and references, though I think our favourite is:

You are SO opinionated!!!!  (exclaimed very loudly, with much opinionated vehemence, of course).

Highly recommended for a family read aloud & then a family movie night.


(text only links are for amazon.ca customers; ad box links are for amazon.com)

Banned!

Ooooh. Bite me. I've been banned for misuse of tags.

Ah well. More time for me to finish re-reading this:

Summer read alouds

We've enjoyed a couple good read alouds recently.

The first was Jules Verne's Mysterious Island.

I have this edition, which includes an afterword by Isaac Asimov.



I have to admit Mysterious Island is a bit of a slog at times to read. For one thing it's bleeding long. But more importantly, the sentence structure in this translation is sometimes awkward. Sentences ended where I didn't naturally expect them to, or the syntax was so twisted that I lost the meaning while reading. There are some awkward non pc attitudes to the black member of the group (a freed slave who chooses to stay with his 'master') but it's nothing egregious.

And the story itself makes up for all that. If Hugo had had his way I would have read this non stop. It appealed tremendously to his imagination.

The book as a whole is a tribute to science, technology and a wonderful optimism of what man can accomplish. [Roo (a geologist) was rolling his eyes about the highly unlikely presence of certain minerals together in that type of landmass and Roo & I both were in disbelief at the pace of the work accomplished by the men on this island. They mined ore and established foundries in a few short weeks. They even made glass! I'm guessing it's because they didn't have the internet to distract them.]

A couple experiments resulted from this book: Hugo learned to make his own charcloth, and later he acquired a magnesium fire starter, and learned how to use these tools to make fires.

He wanted to learn to make explosives - the islanders manufactured & used explosives in a couple cases - but understandably I've been stalling him on that.



The other great read aloud was a translation of a Polish classic which I also own in the original Polish. It's called In Desert and Wilderness by Henryk Sienkiewicz (whom some of you might know from classical book lists as his Quo Vadis? often pops up there)



This is a story set in Egypt & Sudan around the time of the building of the Suez Canal. Two children of European canal engineers are kidnapped and trek through deserts and wilderness, overcoming challenges, escaping, trying to find their way back. It's an adventure story, a coming of age story, but there are also some other interesting themes: nationalism, independence, and faith. The kidnappers are Muslim and trying to use the kids as trade for some Muslim prisoners. This is the time of Charles Gordon, rebellion in the Sudan & the Mahdi uprising. There are camels, lions, malaria, and savage tribes. Again probably not very pc at times, but at the same time, Sienkiewicz had a great affection for this land and he conveys it.

We used the Lipinski translation which is the 'new' translation. I have to say that I thought there were a number of places where the language is a bit tortured. It's not just due to the 100 years old style - it definitely was a translation issue. I hear the same tortured syntax from some Poles. I'm going to try and get a hold of the older version transl. by Drezmal. One other thing - my old Polish copy has black ink drawings and some of the old Drezmal versions also have illustrations. The Lipinski has no illustrations.

There is also a newish movie version of it.



It's lushly filmed & quite beautiful. It is reasonably true to the story if I recall correctly - it's been a few years since I've seen it. I'm going to dig it out for us to watch soon. Purists do complain about the deletion of a key scene which did appear in the 1970's version; it is a pretty iconic scene so I would have liked to see it included there too. The DVD has options to view it dubbed or subtitled. The English dubbing was terrible & I think wrecked the film. If you go for it, watch it with subtitles.

I'm not scared of jiggly men thingies

Hugo got interested in Leonardo da Vinci's inventions recently (triggered I believe by a back issue of Calliope Magazine he was reading) so I dutifully put some books on hold at the library. (Note, this is one of the fundamental duties of a homeschooling parent: observe child intently for any sign of any interest in any subject, scour the library catalogues for that subject, and pick up at least 10, but preferably 20+ resources within a week of the first interest observation being made. If you wait longer than that, you run the real risk of the child having 'moved on'. If your child is less than 7 and/or ADD, you only have 48h to accomplish this task. You get bonus points if you manage to arrange a related craft/field trip/lego model within that same time period.)

I can heartily recommend this one:



We're still waiting for this one:


And when I was searching the catalogue, this popped up:

So I promptly requested it, it arrived next day, and Hugo barely made it through dinner that day in anticipation of the Leonardo video.

Mix one part history, with one brain from whoever came up with Junkyard Wars, and one part 'every reality tv type thing out there', and you get this.

All the melodrama.

Bob wants to use hickory. Steven wants to use oak. Will John be able to find a solution?

All the tension.

Jane isn't happy. The project is in jeopardy (cut to camera panning out of scene in a poignant moment, everyone looking sad and dejected).

The false sense of impending doom.

(narrator whispering) Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.

The terrible dilemmas.

(hushed narrator, in concerned tone) Bob is in a lumber yard. Looking at logs. Will there be a suitable log here?


And what is it all about? What matter of life and death is being determined here?

Um. Well, we have a couple groups of nerdy people who are building full scale projects of a) a giant crossbow and b) a glider, from drawings made by Leonardo. (Yes, that's how you refer to him. Leonardo. Not Da Vinci. Not Leonardo Da Vinci. Well, maybe just the first time. After that, it's just Leonardo. With an Italian accent please.

So apparently these teams have to use materials which would have been available in Leonardo's time and I think they're supposed to stick to the methods which would have been in common use at that time as well. Right away the crossbow team makes a decision to use laminated strips & I'm guessing they're using some fancy schmancy high tech glue so you can see how it goes.

You know, the show wasn't as bad as I'm probably making it sound but at one point, some director clued in that you could only show these wonderfully, plain, normal, nerdy, and very sweet but nevertheless rather dull people only so much on the screen before the viewer would change the channel. I mean, they're mostly sitting around thinking. And hammering. And looking at logs. With concerned faces.

So, off the director goes on a quick side trip of educational wonder to teach us all about how wonderful Leonardo is. And ooooooh, Leonardo was interested in anatomy. That will keep the audience glued! In fact, Leonardo was so interested in anatomy that he dissected corpses and made very detailed anatomical drawings of people! That's the ticket! Let's show the audience Leonardo hacking away at a really good imitation of a cadaver! Let's show him cutting up what looks remarkably like a human heart (& is therefore probably a pig heart). Yeah!!! That's the ticket!

The kids and I mostly missed the squelchy, blood spattery bits by hiding our faces.

Then it was finally over. But the boring teams were still doing quietly dull building so the director remembered:

For part of his anatomical studies, Leonardo sketched nudes!

Look! A modern art class sketching the human body. An old man standing in front of the classroom. He's nude. He's just standing there.

And from waist to knees he's pixelated.

Because you know how the jiggly man thingies might offend the viewer!

A cadaver with a partially dissected arm being hacked at by a bloody saw - bring it on!

But no naked flaccid penis! No naked old man buttocks!

No naughty bits at all, please. That would be too sensationalist.

Thanks PBS!

So. Which do you prefer? Dangly old man bits or squelchy dissection of a cadaver? Which (if either) would upset your kids more?

So who are the fools?

Just a warning that this is one of those rant type posts.

Also, I'm grumpy because it's snowing.

If you've been looking for a basic explanation of the banking crisis, look no more.
NPR did a fabulous one hour show on this topic on Feb 27, called Bad Bank (I find it fun to say it in a scolding manner. Bad, bad bank. Very naughty. Just sit there and think about how bad you've been.)

The collapse of the banking system explained, in just 59 minutes. Our crack economics team—the guys who explained the mortgage crisis, Alex Blumberg and NPR’s Adam Davidson—are back to help all of us understand the news. For instance, when we talk about an insolvent bank, what does it actually mean, and why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to rich bankers who screwed up their own businesses? Also, two guys go to New Jersey to look at a toxic asset.

Kids from around 10 and up should be able to follow it. They may even like it. Hugo was giggling at parts of it - it really is well done. I'm not grumpy about this show - I'm loving the show. Do check it out. BTW, it has a convenient break at just before the 26 min mark if you need to split it into two parts. (ht to SpyCar from the Well Trained Mind boards who told us all about this show! Thx SpyCar!)

From my perspective, two things about this fiasco stand out, only because they're just now starting to be talked about.

First, the fact that there's no free lunch. WE, the people, are going to be paying for this mess one way or another for years to come. It seems to me that there are still people who think this will all magically right itself, with only minor hardships for the average Joe & Jane. Well, that just can't be. You cannot incur these levels of public debt without repercussions.

Second, if this banking problem happened outside of the US, the IMF would have insisted the country nationalize the banks. Them's the rules folks! It's happened lots of times before in other places. But because this is the USA, all of a sudden the rules are different. (or it might still happen, late one Friday afternoon)

I think these points are important because they bring forward the underlying reasons for a lot of anger in the world against the US. Alexandra Szacka from the CBC is reporting a huge wave of discontent with the US in Russia where many people believe the US is trying to destroy their country. Globally, I believe many people are going to be increasingly dissatisfied with the US, a country which has been pushing de-regulation, free markets, capitalism RAH RAH RAH on to all other countries, often at huge costs to those nations, but with tons of reassurances that this was the way of the future, just growing pains you see, things will soon improve and you'll enjoy prosperity! And many countries followed the rules, did what they were required in order to secure loans, contracts, trade, access to markets. But when the shit hits the fan in the US - well, now, things all of a sudden are different and different rules are supposed to apply.

For example, CBC's Dispatches reported about the situation for Latvia's dairy farmers who saw boom times when Latvia joined the EU. They were encouraged to grow big and fast.

"farmers borrowed heavily to increase production for exports to free markets in the west"
"have seen demand and sales dry up. .... "

Farmers are on the brink of bankruptcy and want the government to help.

But "under the terms of a bailout loan from the IMF, the Latvian government has to do the opposite of what they're doing in the West: make big cuts in public spending."

Audiofile of the show is found here March9/15, 2009, in Part One as MP3 Headless statues, headless cattle and challenges to the survival of Latvia.

Stimulus packages are all of a sudden OK for us, but in developing countries numerous industries have been strangled by the prohibition of government subsidies. So, for instance, when it was convenient for the global agribusiness sector to have free markets, we were all for them and the little countries had to go along, slash farming subsidies and let their farms fail. Now when free markets are painful for our people in our major industries, we pull the plug on that idea. Oh it is ok for you little people to suffer the growing pains of free market capitalism; but not us, not at this scale, it's too big, and anyway, we're special.

I think a lot of people are realizing this, and with the rise of global communication, the message is getting out far and fast. People may not understand all the details but most people understand they're getting screwed. And that leads to anger. I think there are a lot of angry people out there, and the G20 protests are just the tip of the iceberg.

Some interesting reading:

I think I read this about a year or two ago and while there were parts of the book that I think should have been saved for either the confessional or the therapist's couch (a bit too much woe is me, I was a bad boy & I really regret it), the book is well worth reading. I think a lot of people will read it and say 'of course. We kind of knew this deep inside, right? But. Oh man. Shit."

Amazon.com description:

Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carré, except it's a true story.

Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens.

Also making me think recently is the issue of water. I just finished this

(btw, did you know there are some places where all you have to do is say "Maude Barlow" and people's foreheads bulge out with veins and they start sputtering and hollering? It's fun. Try it for example with anyone who has the Fraser Institute bookmarked and waits by their mailbox for the Fraser Forum)

as the 5th annual World Water Forum wrapped up with with recognition of water as a "basic human need" but not a "human right".

Water not recognized as human right in forum statement

Do we really need to think very long to figure out whom this benefits? Does it benefit Jane & Joe Average Public? Or does it perhaps benefit the big multinational industries who with the revolving door of business/government are hellbent on controlling certain assets? Gee, I wonder.

In other reading, check out Home Is..... the blog of a self-described 'doomer'. Wendy has recently been persuaded to keep the blog up, and she's been reposting some of her posts from last year - fabulous stuff about where to live and how to survive in the event of "the end of the world as we know it". Check it our for good, thought provoking stories, and links to such gems as the essays & blogs of FarFel who survived the economic & social collapse of Argentina & reports that: "that those with a small piece of land (on which to grow food or raise animals) and neighbors close by (for "group" protection) fared the best, i.e. those in the suburbs."

Now go plant your garden.

I wish I could.

Have I mentioned it's SNOWING??!!

How to Lose a Reader

In my case, it's simply a matter of not actually writing anything - LOL.

But this post is a little rant on the subject of a 'real' author, the kind with a book in bookstores. Presumably this author would like people to actually buy and read her book. She even went on a national radio program for an interview, which I happened to catch yesterday.

Now, I have to honestly say that this woman grated on my nerves from the get-go. She was awfully full of herself, with the over-dramatic, self-aggrandizing tone which I correlate with high school, and which I thought she should have grown out of by now. But still, I'm listening, I'm giving her a shot to tell us what she wrote and why she wrote it, and intrigue me enough to maybe even buy it.

I'm feeling pretty wishy washy about it, thinking this might be something to maybe check out of the library as opposed to buying it, until the interviewer makes a comment that the author's books have been described as "chick lit".

At which point the author has a complete hissy fit.

She says she feels demeaned by that term. She has the audacity to bring John Updike into the conversation in terms of explaining how she realizes she needs to deal with labels placed on her books.

She proceeds to say that even though she considers herself a 'chick' and her heroine, a single young woman carving out her own path, is a 'chick', neither of them would ever be caught dead reading "chick lit".

And that, my friends, is how you lose at least one reader, in just a few seconds. Nothing like insulting your audience, nothing like ignoring the fact that the biggest readers are cross-genre readers - meaning they read widely and copiously from a large variety of genres. Nothing like forgetting the fact that the majority of book buyers are women, and that the women who might have bought your book most likely have at some point enjoyed some chick lit.

It was especially grating perhaps because the person who preceded her on the show was a gracious, funny, charming man, who was genuinely excited about his book, admitted he was in a state of nervous anticipation about how his next release would do, and spent the majority of his allotted time telling amusing stories about other authors who mentored him along his way. Now on my to buy list is Linwood Barclay's No Time for Goodbye.

Reading, watching and falling

For our current read aloud, we've just finished The Mysterious Benedict Society



and have launched straight away into the sequel, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey



We also recently enjoyed a film adaptation of E Nesbitt's The Treasure Seekers



It's cheezy in a delightful English way.
A very young Keira Knightley (the DVD was released in 2000) is briefly in it and as usual I was struck by the fact that something about her mouth makes her look frighteningly feral, and that she looks so much older than she actually is. I would have guessed her now to be in her early 30's. I thought that in the Beckham movie she was in her late 20's trying to pass for late teens. Ooooops. She really is young which makes me wonder what it is about her that makes her look so aged.

Speaking of aged



That's yours truly, having decided to take a beginner snowboarding lesson last week.



This is the falling part, as promised by the title of this blog post.

It was fun, though the legs & butt did a lot of protesting. Our instructor was a young Australian boy. The Vancouver area mountains are staffed entirely by Aussies as far as I can tell. And it's a true sign you're getting old when everyone (except Keira Knightley) starts looking like they're too young to be doing their jobs, but I really wondered if he was old enough to be out that late at night.

The first 10 minutes of the class were agony and I was already mentally rehearsing how to excuse myself gracefully and extricate myself from the class, when things started to get just a teeny bit easier, and it stopped feeling like my knee bone was about to separate from my thigh bone and the thigh bone unplug entirely from my hip bone and slide down the hill without me.

Then of course we went to the big hill (well not really big; we started on a teeny knoll so going to the edge of the bunny slope was a large advancement) and things got difficult again but by then, it was also a bit fun. There was lots of giggling, and lots of big loud thumps as we fell again and again to the perennially cheery background Aussie tune of "Good on ya!" and "You right?" The butt and legs got numb and once I stopped feeling them, I could ignore their protests, though they did have something to say about it the following day.

I was totally slayed by the stupid tow rope which dangles low down by my ankles somewhere, which means that to grab it I have to bend over in half. The tow rope slope has also been groomed by evil gnomes into a series of olympic moguls. It's true, I swear it. Just when I got the hang of the damned rope and managed to hang on for 20 feet or so, I'd hit a colossal bump and fly off.

I did enjoy it all so much, that I'm going back tonight, just to goof off on the slope with the kids and my mom - yes, my mother learned to snowboard before I did.

I do get to check off a bunch of things on this year's to do list. You know those creativity lists which have you take up something new, do something silly, try something embarassing, something you're bad at, and challenge yourself a bit? Check, check, check.

What new things are you trying this year?

A blush and a book recommendation

About a year ago, a dear friend of mine recommended this book to me:



It's a series of essays from a variety of contributors, all about raising kids without religion. I read it then and meant to share here that it's a great book.

But I think I forgot to. So here you are now. Better late than never.

Especially, as yours truly was just recommended on a list of secular homeschooling blogs at the Parenting Beyond Belief blog.

Color me tickled pink. And go buy the book.

Recommended

Several things which we've enjoyed recently


This is a YA book which I picked up for myself and then convinced Amelia to read. She thought it was depressing but couldn't put it down. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Many of us prepare for localized emergencies - we live in an earthquake zone and have been making building emergency preparedness stashes in several areas of our property. Our preparations however are predicated on the emergency being limited to our area. This book considers the implications of a global catastrophe. It's in the format of a 16 yo girl's journal. Well paced and exciting. Warning - may cause strong desire to stock up on food, fuel and medicine.


This is a dramatic re-enactment of Einstein and puts his idea in context of the other scientists who came before and during his lifetime. Each of the elements of the e=mc² equation is considered separately, with a depiction of the scientists who were 'responsible' for developing that portion of our understanding of the world. History, drama and science, all wrapped up.


We listened to the audiobook last summer. Lots of adventure in this story about a boy who is left in the wilderness to keep his family's land claim in colonial US. It's a grand tale of self sufficiency, coming of age, and the tense relations but also some deep friendships between the native and white inhabitants. Hugo was enthralled.


The movie version of The Sign of the Beaver, in some places it was released as Keeping the Promise. Sensitively done, with a lot of the scarier elements of the original story omitted, it has a good mix of adventure and suspense. Hugo liked this a lot though he said he thought they made a mistake in focusing so much on what Matt's family was doing. He feels the story should have stayed with Matt and the tension in the book was derived from the fact that nobody knew whether the family would come or not. By showing the viewer the family, a lot of that suspense is gone. Worth watching. The DVD includes a brief history lesson.


Yup, the writing was on the wall.


And in my TBR pile:

What we're reading today

Amelia:

Hugo:

Me: