Tim Tokaryk

2011-11-19T20:53:00.000-08:00

Jeanne Kaufman

1947-2011

How to write. At times I am as perplexed with this idea as always. For in the beginning scribbles will dictate, often (if you let your mind to it) the eventual pace and direction of the statement you want to carry. But it’s the subject matter, an idea, a person in this case, that is the most troubling. For how do you construct a soliloquy of sorts about another person?
I knew Jeanne mostly as my “editor”. After parting with the little creation manifested by my wife, Jacquie and me, Jeanne wanted me to continue to contribute. My essays, rants, scribbles, and mumbles found a follower. I had at first thought this as a passing wish, one of those almost obligatory statements that usually have no definite time or purpose like, “sure, we should get together”; and it never materializes. But Jeanne reiterated her wish. She was serious. Serious, in fact, that she wanted to pay me a few coins for my troubles. Yes, she was resolved, but also - stepping back a bit - about contributing to our community.
Over the course of her tenure as owner of the Edge, she would never harp on an overdue article, or the contents of any submission. She trusted my meanderings which covered religion, politics, the arts, and the humanities. But when I was able to submit I was sure that it would soon appear. Our ‘relationship’ was for the most part, mostly that. But what I can observe, other than the immediate dealings we had, was something that is never spoken. For it was only by example that it becomes clearer. For, amidst the rapid pace of life, she cared considerably for the community.
I must first take a step further back in time, when we came to the heartbreaking decision to sell the Edge, for there was one discussion that is relevant now. We had wondered whether if a potential buyer would be a notable, long time resident; or, one of the more recent “Eastenders” – a person who fell in love with the community not only for what it is, where it is, but of its potential. A potential seen on a larger canvas than most are agreeable to. And when Jeanne bought the Edge, we found that it was the latter of the two. Someone who uprooted themselves and re-created a home, here.
Jeanne was committed to the diversity of the Arts and Culture that Eastend and area provide, regardless of whether it was home-grown, or from someone who was transplanted. In addition, with her own observations writ large and small in the pages of the Edge, she had a vision that was strong, sympathetic, and caring. She understood the community and said it was grand. But she also knew that it could also be better, for one of the greater unwritten sins is complacence. No one should accept that this is as good as it gets. For in these hills, in these ancient voices that echoes through the valley, in these hands that have toiled in the soils for seed, or wrestled herds of undisputed beasts, there is always hope for something better. For these were the demands set upon all our fore parents, and their parents before them, for they too, uprooted themselves, to come, and settle here.
I think now of Jeanne as my own personal pioneer, though I am certain it would be something she would rebuke. For her path was true and original. I wish, upon hindsight, that I would have learned more about her, from her. This is the sin of all of us, for we often take advantage of the living, believing that tomorrow another chance will come. We learn the most difficult truth that this is not always true.
Jeanne liked words; and so did I. For example, hagiography is a term used to describe saints. In broader parlance, it’s a form of writing that is filled with too much endearing emotion, rather than a view moderated by time, and space – a view less biased. Too close, too soon often provides a skewed view of a person.
I didn’t know her like I should, and this will be something I will always regret. But I will wrap myself in my hagiographic vision, and find comfort that she touched many of us here in Eastend and area. She found something here worth more than gold itself. In Eastend, amongst these people, amongst these hills, amongst these stories, she found friends, she found love, she found a home.

Blind leading the sighted

2011-04-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 2007, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 4-6. In a comparison with the review process in Behavioral Ecology (BE) and Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology (BES), two similar journals, an interesting trend emerges. BE favours a double-blind review process, where both author and reviewers are not identified, whereas BES prefers the traditional single-review process, where the author does not know the reviewer. The result is that in the double-blind review, a "7.9% [increase] in the proportion of female first-authored papers", and further, "represents a 33% increase in the representation of female authors". The standard single-blind review process may be a now quantifiable "bias" impeding "the progress of women to more advanced professional stages". Critics of the double-blind review note the increased administrative load that this policy engages in, and that in fact, they believe they are able to identify the authors anyways. The latter is in fact incorrect, and as the authors of this study show, with the former, who cares. "The ... compelling issue is whether double-blind review makes a difference" towards achieving a more unbiased policy. It does. So, why aren't more journals implementing this policy?

"At Large And At Small, Confessions of a literary hedonist" by Anne Fadiman

2011-03-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

There are distinct times, when the world is grey and drizzly, a slight chill in the air that creates a day of inner wants. Moments of selfishness that are required for self preservation. It is on these days that a book becomes the sacred object near the heart. To find that soft spot in the house, and curl up with: to find that safe haven. Anne Fadiman's At Large And At Small is the type of book you would want to let in.

A collection of essays that plays at the edges of those who find reading central to their being. Not just the manufactured collection of words, but the simple production of words by people. Even those we can find in letters. Her father's day "had not truly begun" until the post arrived. "[T]o many tame citizens like me the morning mail functions as the voice of the unpredictable and keeps alive for a few minutes a day the keen sense of the unplanned and the unplannable" he would write. I agree.

The essays vary from the personal youthful endeavors of collecting nature and discovering the literary connection with author Nabokov to the dichotomous delight of discovering the owl and lark in some relationships. The ones who have not attained the level of awakening until the wee hours of the morning, and those who find the same at the moments of light, the minute of creation.

Without looking I purchased this volume, knowing already that author and reader, me, had a connection. Her earlier work, Ex Libris, was full of bookish wanderings and wonderings. But I suspect that I am of a minority. Bookishness is not a seller, which is possibly why I found At Large and At Small in the remainder bin. But I like discovery, if only under my own terms. Tweaked on something I like, I allow myself to wander through a collection of essays, not all of them hitting the mark for me, knowing that something will be appealing. And yet, stumbling in full light of day, on something I hadn't considered. For this is the experience of becoming aware.

#0900

"Caught in the Web of Words. James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary"

2011-03-02T08:03:00.000-08:00

Oddly enough, there is little in the way of biographies of the celebrated lexiconographer. This one, Caught in the Web of Words by K. M. Elisabeth Murray (Yale Nota Bene, 2001) is only one of a very few. It happens, by all accounts, to be one of the better ones as well. The trials and tribulations of the formation of the now standard English reference, and the early pursuit was no simple matter. To maintain the high standards in a consistent manner over decades would have been trying by any one's account.

Murray is equally concerned with the man, James Murray, as she is with the production of the OED. His early interest in science would, in hind-sight, be a pivotal trait for the development of the OED and author Murray explores James's early contacts with science. From his earliest points, "whatever he acquired he carefully identified and classified, and the discipline of closely observing and analysing the likenesses and differences of similar objects and deciding how to arrange the he found valuable when later he had to trace the complex history of the various senses of a word" (p. 34). Specifically, geology played a significant role, including publishing small pieces of geo-poetry and geological knowledge in local, small newspapers. Currently, I am on the hunt for a bibliography of James Murray, one that includes his early attachment to geology, archaeology, and other areas of natural history.

His work on the OED would come later in life, one spent early on as a teacher. Yet his urning to learn and express new knowledge, including languages and local history would take him elsewhere. At a time when understanding and curating dialects and languages was emerging, James knowledge, almost entirely self taught, would lead him towards a dictionary. One that was shouting out to be done in a country that claimed for itself the pinnacle of civilization.

In 1879 he issued An Appeal to the English-speaking and English-reading Public to find words of the earliest point, and their quotations. These would come out as "slips" of paper and would eventually mount into the 10's of thousands. Each one had to be arranged, verified, and written up. "Black" for instance "had taken his best voluntary helper...three months, a Scriptorium [the place where all was being produced] assistant another three weeks, and he himself a week more to master" (p. 255).

His vanity would get the better of him at times. His early isolation from the London center of all intellectual activity, and his work amongst the dons of Oxford made him sensitive to his self-taught past. At one point, "conscious of his humble origin and lack of university background, felt he must [at times] defer to the 'great men' at Oxford [for advice, wanted or not], exaggerating their authority and attributing to them the arbitrariness of a remote hierarchy" (p. 209).

Author Murray has done well with all the remaining slips of Murrayography with a balanced and thorough understanding of her grandfather. Certainly, the more recent books by Winchester (Professor and the Madman, 1998; and The Meaning of Everything, The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, 2003), Shea (Reading the OED, One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, 2008), or Mugglestone (Lost for Words, The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary, 2005), cover the entertaining or academic side of the pivotal document, the OED, but not of the idiosyncratic individuals who gathered all that is known and placed it into something that in itself is singular, readable and a reference. Author Murray has shown some of this in Caught in the Web of Words but I can't help that there is more to learn. More aspects of Murray's life for example to come to light.

No. 0899

German Palaeontology Poetry

2011-02-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

Eduard Morike (1804-1875) is described by the Chambers Biographical Dictionary as "weak, hypochrondrical, unhappily married and lazy." Still, he was to make a fossil collection of about 500 specimens, and at a time when professionalism and avocational was still somewhat blurred, without formal education he still wanted a post in the natural sciences. He did make a small mark, however, in the literary arena. Carolin Duttlinger (2007, Oxford German Studies, vol. 36) examines two of his works, Der Petrefaktensammler and Gottliche Reminiscenz in Moricke's Fossils: The Poetics of Palaeontology.

Unfortunately, neither are translated in this review [Furtrher, I lack any ability to comment on matters poetic. Yet, it is quite interesting to examine from strictly historical perspectives the intertwine of science and literature, especially in the 19th century.], but Duttlinger expresses that "Fossils played a dual role" for Morike, "while they underlined the fleetingness of transience of human life, they also embodied a reassuring sense of permanence and stability in their ability to preserve the past and transcend historical change."

After his Vicar service, the intellectual pursuits led him to science, particularly palaeontology, which provided for a brief time a "therapeutic function" in retirement. Morike's poetry in conjunction was able to include scientific terminology, the blend of the aesthetic and the scientific, forming imagery that was quite unique. Further, as in Gottliche Reminiscenz, the blending of Christian thought into the mix was threatening, some "arguing that the motif of Jesus holding a fossil entails a confrontation between theology and palaeontology."

His poems reflect "on the visual art, its capacities and shortcomings, both in relation to literature and against the wider backdrop of a world whose rapid expansion of knowledge is reflected in changing conceptions of time and history."

Another one of those interesting characters who experimented with literature and science, or the oddly conceived aesthetics of scientific objects.

Prairie Atheneum - EDGE

2011-02-06T14:54:00.000-08:00

Our local weekly, the Eastend Edge, at times offers me space to write pretty much what I want. Here is an example from February 7th issue.

**********

Prairie Atheneums
The cultural makeup of any given prairie town is far more diverse than most people think. When we see the dotted towns along the highway we don’t think of what they may contain. We know there is a rink, perhaps a curling rink as well. There will be at least one bank, restaurant (support for at least one male-dominated ‘coffee row’), and one grocery store, all fronted by a discontinuous line of pick-up trucks. And that’s it. That is our perception of a typical prairie town. But this would be a lie. Hidden in the recesses of coffee row, or in the living room of some nightly venture, a gathering of sorts occurs. An atheneum of thoughts are on the table.
An atheneum is a place of discourse and knowledge. We could in fact re-name libraries, if they were used beyond the myopic sources for lending books, as an Atheneum. Maybe, by this action, a library wouldn’t be so pejorative to many a young mind. “Atheneum” resonates as something higher, or at least more than a “library”. Atheneum is an activity of intelligent discourse as well as a physical store house. Atheneum is something that each town should aspire to. Atheneum is an ideal.
In an atheneum, the formality, like a book club of sorts, would only be loosely structured for discussion. The source for topics would be endless, thanks to the flooding of information through the internet. For example, in the January 14th issue of Science, the leading scientific publication in the world next to Nature, a multi-authored report on identified trends in human thought over the last 200 years. For the first time these trends are measurable and go beyond the subjective, anecdotal or suggestive. This is thanks to the internet search-engine giant Google’s digitization of over 5 million books, representing only about 4% of books ever published (there are over 5 billion words in these books). We now know that in 1900 there were 544,000 words in the English language; 597,000 in 1950, and 1,022,000 in 2000. Also, by examining the trends in the English language we are now able, for the first time, to ask questions with tangible answers like the evolution of grammar. Or, in the same issue of Science, another study showed that by simply writing down one’s worries about a high pressure test, moments before writing a test, actually improved ones test score.
The discussion points of any loosely constructed atheneum can broaden ones expression of knowledge, beyond the simple trivia collecting. And, within the small communities that which are prevalent on the prairies, the influence of expanding perceptions and thoughts will certainly manifest itself in how the community operates and its perception of itself in the world. For, rather than fitting the stereotype or the community’s history into the mass culture of a group, even a small community can create its own period of Enlightenment.
The reason why I dilly-dally down this road of discussion is that my previously held assumptions are no more. I had thought that the idea of an atheneum was only to be seen as a big city phenomena. An atheneum-like structure of skeletonized pillars, supporting the foreboding book-lined walls of a cavernous room, instantly reducing a visitor to a bowed moment of humility. But no. For the past five years there has been an Atheneum Society in our own neighboring metropolis of Medicine Hat. As I am told, it is a casual affair: “On a quarterly basis, we meet for a very nice meal, and a guest speaker”, pulling from the professional resources in the area. It can be a simple as that.
Whether in an idea form, or a physical structure, atheneum’s have existed for centuries. The exchange and discourse that occurs has led to some of the greatest advancements of thought, whether in the form of material and technology, or in the expressions, through art and literature. A vehicle to which we can consider what it means to be human in this period of time and in this little dot on the map.

The Undermining of Science

2011-02-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

"The data reveal a pervasive reluctance of teachers to forthrightly explain evolutionary biology" the authors Berkman and Plutzer reveal. "The data further expose a cycle of ignorance in which community antievolution attitudes are perpetuated by teaching that reinforces local community sentiment" Rhetoric? No. Just the results of a recent study in Science (2011, vol. 331, p. 404-405) where biology teachers wherewithal's come under scrutiny. As one would expect, in a survey of the practices of biology teachers, there are the extreme ends of what biology teachers teach. It is no surprise that 28% of those surveyed follow consistently the (U.S.) National Science Education Standards, where evolution not only is taught, but "unabashedly" so. And in this era of blatant, hard right fundamentalism, that 13% surveyed "explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design" in their biology classroom. But the focus of the authors wonderment is the group in the middle: the nearly 60% who really don't care one way or another, or, who are unable, and untrained to deal with the impending questions that evolution brings to the classroom.
These teachers deal with the issue in three ways; some teach evolution as only applicable to molecular biology (in absence of macroevolution of species), or as a necessary evil in teaching, or, and is more often the case, they teach "all positions - scientific or not." Remember, this is a biology classroom, not after school religious club meeting. Because of this lack of gumption and authority "The cautious 60%" the authors maintain "may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists."
Its really no surprise that those teachers who have taken evolutionary biology classes are more likely, statistically, to favor teaching the subject. Those who haven't had the classes are more apt to be in the fence-straddling 60% group. "Many nonresearch institutions lack the resources to offer a stand-alone evolution course regularly, however, and such institutions educate many high school science teachers [emphasis added]." By improving the requirements for the teachers, like evolution, is essential to improving high school biology. Though the teaching of the potential teacher is not the be-all, end-all either. In the U.S., there are several national science organizations that provide resources to teachers on issues like evolution. Making a stronger connection between the teacher and the recent advances in evolutionary studies is imperative.
But maybe we should just let the kids decide, our 15-17 year old. They can explore on the Internet, have the skill set and maturity to sift through the good, the bad, and the really ugly science. They should have some say on whats being taught. Oh, wait. They are students, not teachers.

Feeding a Rex: Dead or Alive

2011-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

A scavenging T. rex may diminish the real and cultural ferocity of this extinct dinosaur but that was a reasonable assumption in recent years. Would a T. rex pass up a free meal; or would he prefer the chase? A new study led by Chris Carbone, Intra-guild competition and its implication for one of the biggest terrestrial predators, Tyrannosaurus rex (also see http://www.livescience.com/animals/t-rex-hunted-prey-110125.html ) suggest that the food supply favors a hunting rex, restoring the king to its esteemed position, rather than the dumpster-diving reptile. Based on an estimate of body-size of herbivorous dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous, nearly half were in the small kg range where small theropod dinosaurs would be in direct competition with T. rex. Avoiding the challenges of competition, "T. rex and other extremely large carnivorous dinosaurs...would have primarily hunted large vertebrate prey, similar to many large mammalian carnivores in modern-day ecosystems."

A book token is worth a thousand words (or more)

2011-01-18T06:11:00.000-08:00

From the Guardian website, the favor of books instead of toys is supported by the long history of 'book tokens'. "Book tokens are like money, but better - you can't be distracted by spontaneous non-book purchases that you'll only regret later..." writer David Barnett glee's. And, quite aptly notes, that "Buying a book "cold"," - buying one as a gift for someone who is only modestly biblio inclined - "is like buying underwear as a present - you either completely ace it or get it spectacularly, shame-inducing wrong." Book tokens to the rescue.

Closing the Books

2011-01-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

"Up to 800 - a fifth of the total - [librairies in the UK] could close as local authorities look for savings," according to the Guardian.

Ammonite Food Viewed by X-ray Eyes

2011-01-16T14:02:00.000-08:00

Authors Kruta et al (2011, the Role of Ammonites in the Mesozoic Marine Food Web Revealed by Jaw Preservation, Science, vol. 331, p. 70-72; also see Tanabe, 2011, The Feeding Habits of Ammonites, Science, vol. 331, p. 37-38) utilize synchrotron x-ray microtomography, the newest wonder-tool of palaeontology - to examine the innards of a small handful of Baculites, a squid-like creature with an external shell, extremely common in Late Cretaceous deposits of North America but with a much earlier origin. What they find is the buccal mass - the upper and lower jaw, and radula - which is considerably less preserved. Within one, they "document a larval shell of a gastropod and three fragments of crustaceans." Based on jaw morphology (which is often related to diet) they are able to determine that "are incompatible with biting and tearing large prey". The "buccal apparatus in Baculites" they contend "is an adaptation for capturing and eating small organisms in the water column" rather than the more aggressive snagging and consuming large prey. Favoring small organisms may have been their downfall at the end of the Cretaceous Period with "the marked ... decline in several groups of plankton."
It will be interesting to see if 1) synchrotron x-ray microtomography has the same capabilities across a wider spectrum of ammonoid species, and 2) if the feeding strategy remains the same. Whatever, this new 'paleo-toy' has great potential.

Paleo Murder Mystery - But does it work?

2011-01-09T10:33:00.001-08:00

According to the Washington times, The Dinosaur Hunter by Homer Hickam places paleontologists, murder, police detectives into a mixing bowl to create something that is completely inedible. That said, as a collector, it will still be something I'll get; for those dreary, rainy days in the summer where a book and a comfortable couch or bed will do just nicely.

The Oprah Chilling Effect

2011-01-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

An article by New Republic columnist Hillary Kelly laments some of the impact Oprah Winfrey has on literature. Particularly when Oprah delves (rarely) into the classics. In December she chose two Dickens classics, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities as books to cozy up with with hot chocolate, reading by the fire. A quaint scene for sure. The problem is, she hadn't read them when she boasted her recommendations in that typical "scale-climbing voice." Kelly's critique is that "she has asked millions of people to follow her into some of the more difficult [and dark] prose to come out of the nineteenth century - prose she knows nothing about." With angst of an English teacher her choice and influence with regards to these two titles provides "no real guidance" to readers who "cannot grow into lovers of the canon."

For (Paleo) Art's Sake.

2011-01-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

The creator of the most iconic images in 20th century evolutionary history was artist Charles R. Knight (1874-1953). While working for, under contract, the American Museum of Natural History, Knight's artistic vision was at times in contrast with the largest figure in early 20th century evolutionary thinking (and possibly one of the largest egos to match), that of Henry F. Osborn (1857-1953). In a recent article in History of Science (Seriality in the Making: The Osborn-Knight Restorations of Evolutionary History, 2010, vol. xlviii, p. 461-481). M. Sommer proposes that "Osborn established a serial workflow. Most of all, the definition of a series of working steps aimed to ensure that the paintings transmitted what for Osborn was the educational message of evolutionary history." However, as Sommer clearly shows, "the cooperation of 'science' and 'art' in the [mural] projects reveals that neither the series of working steps codified in contracts to steer production, nor the message communicated through the serial exhibit of the final murals, could be entirely controlled."
Photo: AMNH

Now Available: Did Dinosaurs Eat People?: And Other Questions Kids Have About Dinosaurs

2011-01-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

Not quite available, but to be released soon. "Could dinosaurs swim? How big were their teeth? What color was their skin? You’ve got questions about dinosaurs, and Kids’ Questions has answers!"

Oh, the humanities....

2010-12-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

Biochemist Gregory Petsko wants your help. He wants you and me to help save the humanities from the growing "spectre [that] is haunting higher education: the spectre of the market", where significant sectors of university education are being reduced, or cut entirely. In this one page commentary in Nature (2010, vol. 468, p. 1003) he observes "the humanities are a victim of two pernicious trends that have crept into the management of universities in the past decade or two, based on the idea that market forces should control what happens in education...". First, it is the running of universities as a business. "Nothing could so undermine the mission of a university as the misguided principle that all parts of it must make a profit" he says. The second "damaging trend is the growing mantra of student choice." He pounds hard by emphasising that "students have neither the wisdom nor the experience to know that they need to know." Petsko, to who I heartily agree with, understands that depth and breadth of education is the most rewarding, and students nor business minded bureaucrats appreciate.
"There is only one market that has any place in higher education: the marketplace of ideas". For if not, universities, the lobby for all the doors to unimaginable breadth of knowledge, are simply closed, making room for the myopic technical schools.

Big Swimmer with Big Pics

2010-12-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

BBC reports Colossal pliosaur fossil secrets revealed by CT scanner.
"The X-rays are helping to build up a 3D picture of this ferocious predator, called a pliosaur, which terrorized the oceans 150m years ago. The 2.4m-long (7.9ft) fossil skull was recently unearthed along the UK's Jurassic coast, and is thought to belong to one of the biggest pliosaurs ever found. The scans could establish if the giant is a species that is new to science", according to the report which includes some video of the skull and CT scanning.

More News about Paper and their bound Distributors

2010-12-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

In the continually changing world of print or "print", or book or "book", a recent article in the Huffington Post provides more fuel to the burning book question of whether the traditional book will survive. In Print Books (and Bookstores) Aren't Dead, But the Book Business Is about to Change one commentator laments the decline in print book sales is inevitable and probably irreversible.

China, We Have a Problem

2010-12-26T07:52:00.000-08:00

A recent article in Science by R. Stone (Altering the Past: China's Faked Fossil Problem. Science, 2010, vol. 330, p. 1740-1741) shows "that many composites and fakes are now finding their way into Chinese museums, especially local museums" who often do not have palaeontologists on staff. Some of these fossils include large marine reptiles, supposedly early Cheetahs, and the now infamous "Archaeoraptor". There are several suggestions to at least reduce the amount of alteration of fossils but for the most part this is still "too lucrative".

More Discoveries From China

2010-12-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

New Fossil Site in China Shows Long Recovery of Life from the Largest Extinction in Earth's History
From Science Daily

2010-09-17T05:19:00.000-07:00

Below is a piece of correspondence submitted (and rejected) to Nature.

Being weighed, measured and still found wanting
The recent editorial in, “Do Scientists really need a PhD?” (Nature, 464, 7; 2010), suggests a relatively novel approach to higher learning than is traditionally accepted in western nations (in light of some measures in China). The editorial characterized this as the title implies, but more specifically as an “increasing rigidity and length of Western academic pipeline”, in light of possible progressive alternatives currently offered by Beijing Genomics Institute.

What the editorial did not consider, which is in lock step with any research program, regardless of Eastern or Western, is ‘Where is the money coming from?”, and more specifically, “Who is going to judge an non-traditionally trained researcher and his/her proposal, against one that is support by a PhD?”

Our academic culture is one of steps on ladder, rather than one of an apprentice in a guild. Funding agencies, whether NGOs, provincial/state, or national, almost certainly have the PhD stipulation, implicit, if not implied for any applicant. As one who has not been formally trained but has modestly made some contributions in my field, and as head of my institutional program, this is a perpetual quandary. Though I have recently found an adjunct alliance with a moderate size university (again, the larger ones wouldn’t even consider this possibility), this still does not allow access to any of these traditional funding sources. What is hoped is that some organizational leadership evolves where the practice of science is determined on the demonstrated history and the reasonably expected results.

Commentary: The Planned, the Intended, and the Real.

2010-01-25T18:34:00.000-08:00

To provide apologies at the beginning of an essay is not standard, yet, the circular, elongated route I am taking may seem extreme. But imagine that the stray path, though requiring more time, also provides a dynamic, unexpected vista, making any detour seem worthwhile.

Imagine a world where smog and other pollutants filled the air and your lungs. Where dampness was a year round infliction; your living space like moist, cobbled cells. You were free but only in a state of mind. The labor you endured was tortuous. The sewers were the streets you walked along. This was a time when a medical man like Peter Roget had to create mental barriers for his own survival as he applied his trade amongst the less fortunate class. His belief in the good of all man was complicated by his own crippled mental, privileged state, expressed in what one would today call OCD – obsessive, compulsive disorder. But the early 19^th century England would have viewed Peter as only odd, in service for the betterment of man.

Peter had a lively medical practice, but with a scientific mind, sought causes of some of the common maladies he saw living in a class state, where factory workers in the industrial areas were over flowing. This was the contrary of a typical medical man at the time, where practice alone brought in financial security. Not tinkering with ideas. As a practical approach, he worked with the public health causes, calling for improved personal hygiene, airier living quarters, to which to a larger populace, in sorts, perceived him as a righteous sort.

As stated, Peter was a man of science. Early 19^th century allowed men of scientific training (or of a priestly background) to wander between disciplines of knowledge, from botany to zoology, to geology, to politics, to literature. He was a man of training and knowledge. A privileged place indeed. He was a strict follower of Linnaeus, the cataloguing of nature who created the binomial classification we still use today. Homo sapiens, italicized with capital at the genus Homo, and sapiens the species. “I classify, therefore, I am” he once wrote in his youthful period. This would seem a reasonable expression considering his OCD. Besides, the study of natural history, in its more scientific rather than theological genre, was just beginning. Always ready for a thought, one day he observed a horse drawn cart roll by his vertical slat-shaded basement window. The wheels' spokes seemed distorted through the blinds as the cart moved on. Curious, he ran out of his house, paid the driver a few coins to continue back and forth in front of his windows at different speeds. He was noting how the eye, specifically the retina sees still images as a continuous picture moving. He notified the scientific elite with a publication, “Explanation of an Optical Description in the Appearance of the Spokes in a Wheel as Seen through Vertical Apertures,” which immediately drew the attention of other scientists. What Peter described was the theoretical structure of what we would later call motion pictures. The movies.

What is thought as a life achievement in ones own time, history may have other plans. Peter’s major work in science was the contribution to a series of very popular books call the Bridgewater Treatise. These were to describe the works of God as seen through the natural world. Peter’s contribution, summed up in two volumes, was the physiology of animal and plants. It was a best seller in the 1830s where a hungry population were eager to learn, and explain the wonders of nature in light of reveled religion.

But history has an odd way of twisting the final outcomes of a life, for Peter was no singular man. His psychosis was strong, heavy on the anxiety from the time of a child. Some of his immediate relatives had deep psychological issues that were manifested in Peters own home environment. His relationship with his doting mother was abhorrent. To save himself, to finally have moments of sane control over his life, he secluded himself writing lists of words. Organizing and comparing them. We would call these a list of synonyms, words that have similar meaning. Throughout his life, in small packets of time, he would add to this growing list for practical, almost therapeutic purposes. “The process of verbal classification” he once wrote “is similar in principle to that which is employed in the various departments of Natural History.”

After a successful career in medicine, his retirement brought further anxiety. Idle hands were not his habit. With some nudging by his family, he dusted off his list of words, thousands in total, and began further organizing them, not just for personal distraction and play, but for actual publication. Published in 1852, Thesaurus of Words and Phrases by the author, Peter Roget first entered the populace. As one biographer noted, “Roget looked to words as an essential tool in the fight to advance human knowledge”.

The 21^st century has come to know Peter not for his dedication to medicine or science, or even the instigator of the movies. But for his thesaurus. Though still in in print, with numerous editions, history has not been so kind to Roget. Some critics today find the thesaurus, and all its versions and types as cheats to the English language. “It brings words to the mouths … where words were not earned by a breadth of reading.” Further, the substituted words provide “no context, [a] standard requirement of intellect.” As an earlier critic wrote, the thesaurus “accelerates the tongue without accelerating the faculties.”

Still, the thesaurus persevered, but only for one reason. It's usage was ‘accelerated’ thanks in part to New York World newspaper in 1913 with a game called “Fun”. Fun was the precursor to the crossword puzzle. And here, the thesaurus became almost essential as the game spread across North America, and elsewhere.

Critics of the Peter Roget’s thesaurus in the 1850s were already ringing the alarm bells, however. An American essayist, Edwin Whipple believed that this book of synonyms “was certain to spread contagion of literary mediocrity” by shortening the act of naturally acquiring language and words. Securing the “results without imposing the task of labor.” Whipple saw the cheat right away.

And here comes the end. In an austere, progressive, humane world today, with all the possibilities of learning and acquiring knowledge through digital means, or at least the allusions we have about how great we are with our digital media, what would Whipple think of the internet? Despite infecting all of the current generation and most of us in the earlier segment of life, with EVERY need, want, and desire, the internet as an educational tool has a failing grade. At least according to the numerous surveys and studies. It provides access to almost everything….and almost no one is using it in this fashion. It provides texts and studies, yet most users go for the crib notes. It provides an avenue for short cuts, without the act of reading the sources themselves [the cut and paste generation as I call it]. And as many studies have shown, hasn’t helped our children learn [comparative assessment of grades and reading skills of today compared to 20, 30 years ago have remained the same, if not fallen].

If this sounds like an old curmudgeon blowing his horn about days gone by, listen to the more youthful J. J. Abrams, film producer of TV shows like LOST, and the latest STAR TREK movie. “Earning the end game”, the short cuts, whether computer games, or in life, “seems so yesterday, especially when we can know whatever we need to know whenever we need to know it” [emphasis mine]. Peter Roget’s thesaurus was meant to provide structure to the English language. Its usage was then twisted for the easy way out, of amplifying ones knowledge and intellect when there was less so. In parallel the digital age of options, “aps”, and solitary social media is to me, somewhat striking.

TTT

"The Man Who F rgot How to Read", by H. Engel

2010-01-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

"The Man Who F rgot How to Read" is a surprisingly even tempered, unemotional memoir of a rare condition called alexia sine agraphia - the ability to still write but would almost immediately forget what he or she wrote or read. Compounded, the author, Howard Engel is, by profession, a writer (if something like this could be compounded in any profession).

Its hard not to wonder, 'if that were me', how emotional and angry the natural reaction would be. Engel too said as much but maybe by maturity he was able to find alternative routes to the same ends; It probably says more about my own immaturity. "I was beginning to feel like an eunuch in a harem" he once thought, working with authors and writers before he himself finally put pen to paper creating his own novels. "I saw the trick done every day, but I wasn't doing it myself". But then to have this happen later in life would have been almost unbearable to most. But Engel's stoic determination can only be marvelled at.

This memoir travels through much of his time up to, during, and the recovery of from his stroke. Alexia by definition is "word blindness" which seems somewhat counter-intuitive "for one thinks of reading and writing as going together...that someone should be able to write" and read what they have just written. The the brain is a funny piece of hardware, illustrating that something we take for granted as operating in sync with each other, actually uses different parts of the brain.

As a source of inspiration "The Man Who F rgot How to Read" is essential reading for anyone who may for a moment takes for granted what may seem like a natural, air breathing exercise for the bibliophile.

No. 0885

"Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus" by J. Kendall

2010-01-16T12:52:00.001-08:00

"There really was no such thing as a synonym, because no two words can mean exactly the same thing" Tell that to Peter Roget, the early 19th century polymath. Kendall's biography elucidates a life that, like the proverbial cat, had many lives. Successful doctor, public health reformer, inventor, scientist, and as we know him today, a creator of list.

We would also refer to him, if we were to dig a little deeper as Kendall has, as one who was afflicted by OCD - obsessive compulsive disorder. Whether by nature or nurture, certainly the latter had some influence. With a family who suffered from neuroses and psychosis, his excessive doting mother caged Roget almost since birth. "Burying himself in words was the only survival strategy available to him", Kendall notes. His escape was making lists of words, even as a young child. "I classify, therefore, I am" was his childhood motto.

As a man of medicine, thus with some privileges in a society of quasi obedient social structure, he fought for the humanity and future of the people he served, ensconced in a pollutant, poor, industrial state. Personal hygiene, and clean quarters, were of some practical utility that we would take for granted today, and public need, which Roget would preach. Meanwhile, nature and science, in his day called "natural theology", formed the basis of further classifying and study. So much so, he was asked to contribute to the serial publication of the Bridgewater Treatise; a collection of summations of science, for the glory of God. This was a time when science was edging in on the morals of theology. "He simply could not abide by the new paradigm" Kendall states "in which God was becoming increasingly irrelevant." His writings were very successful, and if one were predict history's final outcome, this volume would be a likely candidate.

However, time and history have a way of choosing it's own personal trait. After leaving medicine, retirement for one so prone to anxiety and fear of idle mind and hands, Roget momentarily struggled for his own fate. By mid-19th century in a glorious, proud nation like Great Britain created a populace that were hungry for learning. Literature and its structure, were amiss with theory and discord. Dictionaries and useful guides like a book of synonyms were cheap, and unsatisfying. They weren't consistently critical and structured. Urged on by family Roget dusted off his book of lists, something toyed with over his life, and spent several months refining the eventual treatise we come to know as Roget's Thesaurus. The stated purpose: "The appropriate terms, notwithstanding our utmost efforts, cannot be conjured up at will. Like "spirits from the vasty deep," they come not when we call."

Though successful in his time, the thesaurus was a regional volume. American editions popped up that sliced and diced the English to appease the American taste for language. But the thesaurus never took off until years after Roget died. In 1913 a New York newspaper created a game called "Fun". We would know it today as the first crossword puzzle. And as any crosswordian knows [I am sure there is some, single creation in the Oxford English Dictionary for one who is, if not addicted to the crossword, a 'professional' at the crossword. If they have come up with a word for those who create these puzzles - a cruciverbalist - then dam it, there should be one for the the addict who fills in little white boxes using a pen no less], one of the essential tools of the not so pure form of doing crosswords is the use of a thesaurus.

Biographer Kendall has dug deep into the life and lives touched by Roget. I was so enamored by the man (as I am with most polymath's) that the included references were gone over with a fine tooth comb. So much so, I wrote an essay based mostly on Roget's life for a local 'weekly' which I hope to post after it is published in the upcoming week or two.

No. 0868

Evolution Education Outreach journal

2009-12-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

Evolution: Education and Outreach will promote accurate understanding and comprehensive teaching of evolutionary theory for a wide audience. Targeting K-16 students, teachers and scientists alike, the journal will publish articles to aid members of these communities in the teaching of evolutionary theory.
For now at least, all the articles are accessable FREE.

Purpose-driven life: evolution does not rob life of meaning, but creates meaning. It also makes possible our own capacity for creativity.

2009-11-29T11:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/spring-2009/

Evolutionary thinking has lately expanded from the biological to the human world, first into the social sciences and recently into the humanities and the arts. Many people therefore now understand the human, and even human culture, as inextricably biological. But many others in the humanities--in this, at least, like religious believers who reject evolution outright--feel that a Darwinian view of life and a biological view of humanity can only deny human purpose and meaning.
Does evolution by natural selection rob life of purpose, as so many have feared? The answer is no. On the contrary, Charles Darwin has made it possible to understand how purpose, like life, builds from small beginnings, from the ground up. In a very real sense, evolution creates purpose. ....

A Readers Summary

2009-11-15T13:24:00.000-08:00

Since August, 30th, 2009, I have been rather busy. I have taken on new challenges, some I've been hoping for a shot at for a long time. Busy, of course is a relative term. We are all busy. But we each have loads we hoist on our shoulders that challenge us more so than the day before. We are all Atlas's. Sometimes its worth noting that as we heave the world on our shoulder....nearby, there are 6 billion other worlds being held on respective shoulders.
That said...I haven't forsaken my mental food. The following are just brief snippets of tomes consumed for the betterment of my own health.
Christopher Hitchens Letters to a Young Contrarian [No. 869], is as the title claims a series of letters. Written to a hypothetical young mind who is in want of path of reasoning. And in our world of spin and victorious history writing . "One must have the nerve to assert that, while people are entitled to their illusions, they are not entitled" Hitchens professes "to a limitless enjoyment of them and they are not entitled to impose them upon others." And if one has ever read a Hitchens volume being the antagonist is something he seeks, for as he aptly puts near the end of this little volume: "Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.
Dan Brown's much anticipated sequel to The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol [No. 870], is a let down. Possibly because of exactly that, that it was much anticipated. A sad reality of success. Let's hope that his next one will be more original. Not much can also be said of Claude Izner's Murder on the Eiffel Tower [No. 871]. Suckered in by a bookseller involved in a murder mystery, I was sorrily disappointed in this little tale set in the late 19th century of Paris, France where murder is afoot in a poisonous sort of way. Not even the scenery of the early days of the Eiffel Tower were all that alluring.
The works of fiction that are extremely entertaining are Alexander McCall Smith's trilogy, Portuguese Irregular Verbs [No. 862], The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs [No. 863], and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances [No. 866]. The trilogy marks moments in the life of Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Iglefeld, the purveyor of all that is known in Portuguese Irregular Verbs, a weighty tome that was the result of the realization that as "[t]he crudities of the modern world were simplifying or even destroying linguistic subtleties." The professor would save the day. McCall's tales, however, are not serious treatises. The three look at the humour of academia. The irrationality of a specialist hanging his hat on one so minuscule point of knowledge, and that as such, honor and awards must befall such a brave intellectual. Academic narcissism is all too prevalent and McCall takes perfect aim with style and grace. I would be the first to find humour in certainty or alleged certainty; and would be the first to take a shot at my own (I just have to remind my self to un-clench the fist when I take the shot). These books are highly recommended; the convergence of events in "The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs" nearly resulted in peeing the bed as I rolled over laughing.
The polar opposite of the above is Chris Hedges latest volume, Empire of Illusion, the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle [No. 0867]. This is a brutal book. A step back to see the flamboyantly frivolous western culture has become...and continues to be directed. And it is so hard to step back when we are travelling at the speed of light, in a ship constructed by "oligarchs, corporations, and a narrow, selfish, political, and economic elite...". The intellectual sphere, born out of the Enlightenment, creator of much of the essence of the moral and ethical structure we hope is there, is continuing to be shattered and torn apart. It is easier to flick the next channel with the remote; it is easier to forgo reason and intellectual rigour for a glittered cardboard world that we are sold. We want others to be devastated by personal mishap. We want the trust broken by the next scandal. And we want it NOW. On our TV and computer screens. We see no reason to remember the past. "Those who suffer from historical amnesia, the belief that we are unique in history and have nothing to learn from the past, remain children. They live in an illusion." And they are everywhere. If one were to pause for a second and take a step off the train for a moment, would we want our children to live in an world where functional illiteracy becomes closer to the norm than not; or the commercialization of all that is life, and even death has a place on 'social networks'? Or that the word intellectual becomes a pejorative? Can we enjoy and absorb this train ride if we were in control? Or are we just passengers, blindly absorbed in our own belly buttons, occasionally hoping that someone is actually at the helm? Empire of Illusion is a burning book, one that not too long ago in our history would have been just that; burned.
Jesus, Interrupted [No. 0865] by scholar Bart Ehrman is a book about contradictions and reading. The subtitle is "Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them)" and harbors the belief that most people read the Bible in a devotional manner, for that is how it is presented by church leaders. This is a linear reading, one page at a time, or at its worst cherry-picked for the flavor of the day. The historical-critical reading of the Bible, taught in secular seminaries and classes, is one of comparative analysis and literature, and in their original historical context. And there is much to say about the contradictions in the Bible (the separate creation stories for one). Ehrman is careful, however. "I should stress that scholars and students who question such passages are not questioning God himself. They are questioning what the Bible has to say about God." For Ehrman, like many other scholars, the Bible is a human construct, written by many, many authors over centuries of power, wars, and struggles. Ehrman's agnosticism, a growth from a very powerful believer in his youth, is tactful, and passionate. He does not want to offend those who hold the inerrancy of the Bible, but the only critical way to go beyond oneself is to be critical and thoughtful of your own footing. "For me" Ehrman says "it's just one of the mysteries of the universe: how so many people can revere the Bible and think that in it is God's inspired revelation to his people, and yet know so little about it."

"Holy Moly" by B. Rehder

2009-08-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

A simple novel of a planned megachurch....an unpaid Las Vegas mafia team.....a paleontologist with another kind of secret.....and a collector of dinosaur bones with a sexual proclivity that is.....well, tied up in costumes.....the same old stuff.

I got the book as a inexpensive remainder copy....made more valuable because it was signed. As cheap novels....it was ok as a bedtime read, but nothing more.
# 0853

"The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period" by W. St. Clair

2009-08-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

It is not a simple read, if one were to define a text by its mere volume. And at 765 pages, its a monster of a book. But even if you were to remove the hefty appendices, the breadth of research still comes to the fore with a fluid hand. "The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period" identifies a time of transition, between the mid-18th century, and that of the early to mid-19th century and how this would define not only a nation but the printing strategies and cultural, societal milieu to come. Not a simple book indeed.

The book industry was, for so long, a patronage/cartel run business for much of its early stages. "The romantic period was to see the last sustained attempt by the British state to control the minds of the British people by controlling the print to which they had access." In the manuscript age, where texts were manually produced, church and government had control, in terms of content, and to some extent distribution, and price. The print age created a strong tie with state and business. "Only those members of the [book] industry who were sworn members of the official English church, and whose loyalty to the state was unquestioned, were permitted to" engage in the industry. The steps to modern publishing, and intellectual property rights began, in essence, with the abolition of state censorship in 1695. From there it was still a troublesome path.

Once the church and state broke ties with the book industry it "was now effected by the weight, [and] price". Further "the industry, by building up vested interests in the supply of certain favoured titles, and by its constant awareness of the need to maintain the share price of these properties by rationing the supply, encouraged a tendency towards cultural as well as towards technological obsolescence." The industry, by its control and greed, froze a nation. This lasted for nearly a century, at least up to 1774 when further legislation was enacted; meanwhile other nations developed new printing technologies, and authors were less taxed or at least could be published in another country. This is perhaps the most troublesome discovery of St. Clair's book. In effect, "the losses", by limiting the variety of texts, and propping up the prices so only the higher echelons of society had access, manifested "less literature of all kinds being written and published, less reprinting, less reading, a slow-down in the pace of the diffusion of new ideas, less access to the discoveries of science and medicine by those at the lower tranches [levels] of the book market, less education, more obsolete education, more illiteracy, more ignorance, more unwanted children."

The relationship between author and publisher would evolve. But by looking back at the actually production numbers of books, one can gain a clear impression of the state of the author in his or her time, rather than rely on 21st century historians interpreting "the classics" [by the way, this term originated as a framework of considerate, tender titles and texts suitable for cultured women to read, not the anthological listing of our impressing of literary giants]. For St. Clair access the actual production numbers of works of Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Austen and such reveal that Sir Walter Scott "whose verse works were sold in the largest numbers." Shelley, Keats and company, works we now think of a canonical, actually had less of a societal impact when published.

Meanwhile, the United States were only mildly scorched by the brutal heat of the British system of industrial monopoly. Their production was wider [more titles] and less skewed toward aristocracy. A reading populace is an educated populace. "The post-independence intellectual property regime helped the United States to become one of the most modern countries in the world."

In all "The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period" is full of discovery and thought. How the book industry affects a nation is often only brushed over. St. Clair anchors this idea with multitude of facts, not anecdotal quips. If you want to bite into something a little more textually and intellectually engaging, and had a sense of history with a purpose, this not-so little volume would be fulfilling.
#852

"Melancholies of Knowledge. Literature in the Age of Science", M. A. Safir (ed.)

2009-08-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

Frankly I have a limited knowledge base of "literature" and what is popularly considered the same. Sometimes I wonder if literary criticism, at times, is more about creating much ado about nothing, than simply enjoying a good book. That said, I do have some interest in how science is portrayed in the public sphere, as in literature. But who knows anything about Michel Rio and his assemblage of literary takes on science and how it plays in the broader human arena of experience? His books are not commonly in print in English, which makes it even more difficult. Yet, editor Margery Safir obviously does, assembling noted writers of culture, including a scientist or two, to pick apart a Rio's books to see how it all plays out - science and literature.

Frankly (again) I only read the introduction and one chapter. I agree with her that "Rhetoric, textual analysis, questions of style, and modes of expression are recognized in History and Philosophy of Science as crucial to the life of scientific concepts." Science is beyond white lab coats and test tubes. It is a human construct to understand the world around us. However, I disagree with Safir that science has special status in culture. That literature has to make up ground. "Are authors of fiction" she asks "seeking to share in the power and authority that contemporary society accords science?" Because of our collective ignoring of science, as a society, this is simply not true (a rant best saved for a specific essay).

Still, I wanted to hear what Stephen Jay Gould had to say. A follower of his, one who appreciates learning through his digressions on science and culture, I found his essay on Rio's Dreaming Jungles. Gould states the obvious of literature and science: "This form of "iffy" history [the incorporation of the two - I won't say cultures] can be so fascinating as a source of conjecture about alternative plausible pathways for our cultural lives." Where I found pause to concern is his final statement. "We need the integration of our disciplines, the end to false and extreme dichotomizations, the recognition that we cannot grasp human uniqueness unless we both practice art and understand science." That we as a society must all participate in art, but only understand and not participate in science. Here again a scientist has lofted science to a higher status. For this is a failure of society: to appreciate the technological and basic science that surrounds us, and a failure too of scientist in successfully translating and incorporating the ACT of doing science.
#0856

"Lempriere's Dictionary" by L. Norfolk

2009-08-05T19:11:00.001-07:00

There are reasons books are remaindered, returned to their publishers for disposal. Some of these still are good works, with no fault to the authors. Others are obvious. And, after 152 pages, about a third of the book, I had no choice but to 'remainder' the book myself, thanks to the author. From the beginning, a thread was hard to pick up. There seemed no reasoning for the story....no pick up between the tales that were spun. You knew that somewhere there was a 'dictionary', something I had hoped that would start to tie the threads together (even loosely) .....but no. After 152 pages of abbreviated scenes...there was no choice but to find a dusty place on the shelf, and squeeze in another title. For this is my remaindering pile.
#0850

"Cemetery Dance" by D. Preston & L. Child

2009-08-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

Not their best work. The two began this series with Relic, about things that go bump in the museum night, with a small character, FBI agent Pendergast. Reminiscent of an X-File case, the character has blossomed through nine books. Each one peeling away another layer of this mysterious, rogue-ish character, except for this latest. Cemetery Dance is a straight-on storey with cultish dimension, a story that could have been written on card board. Hopefully the authors will return in years time (usually in August) with a new tale with a strong subplot. One that suggest revealing another Pendergast layer.
#0851

"Thornton and Tully's Scientific Books, Libraries and Collectors", A. Hunter (ed.)

2009-07-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

The vehicle upon which scientific ideas are delivered have changed somewhat over the centuries. This volume articulates this evolution from ancient script and scribe, through the earliest moments of "book" publishing, through to the 20th century. This may seem like a specialist niche of inquiry, and it likely is. Yet, it is an often overused cliche of "if it weren't for this" the importance and cultural nuance of the printed word would not be understood.

This volume contains jewels of discoveries much like the efforts of understanding nature and universe itself. Without dissecting each chapter, the breadth of science can be picked apart. Linnaeus's binomial creation in biology was done "originally as a means of economizing ... paper [my emphasis]." Anyone familiar with Linnaeus would have understood the economy of naming but they likely would not have understood the paper aspect.

Or Johannes Kepler usage of the book as a means to a less altruistic end, beyond the delivering of scientific ideas. "Kepler's willingness to give away copies of the book indicates that he saw the book's value not necessarily as monetary, but as an important tool in obtaining patronage and positions." Even as we move forward to the 19th century the characterizations are still valued. "The communication of novel scientific knowledge in the nineteenth century between scientific practitioners can be characterized, without overly great simplification, as the move from books to papers." Journals began taking over in the delivery of the scientific printed word.

There is still a significant diastema between historians of science and scientists as historians. I never understood this because as a practicum for my own learning, I learned through the history of science, and then through my own particular branch of science. I am fortunate, I guess, that my science is a 'historical science', never able to get away from the men (and indeed), women who created the parameters of my own activity. For that I am blessed (if I can use that term), for I am both. "Thornton and Tully's Scientific Books, Libraries and Collectors" satisfies my own inquisitive nature in this regard, and likely historians of science as well. Sadly, scientists as historians have the likelihood (based on one of the studies presented) of passing this up, for the basis of the history of science is 'the book', and scientists are less likely to collect 'the book' or understand its significance and role in the development of society. To me, this is a sad reality. And as we move to a more digitial age I worry for the printed word. Will the book be an article of inquiry like the natural history of the dodo?
#0849

"According to their Deeds" by Paul Robertson

2009-06-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

My addiction is pretty plain and simple. It is books. It always has been, likely always will be. For that, if anything, is illustrative of some consistency in my life. I am enamoured with writing, how authors compose sentence structure and arguments. I marvel more so at the pre-20th century writers where conviction and prose matter most even if their words, in sum, amounted to only a hill of beans. Very dry, pruned beans at times. And yet, I wonder at how they do it.

My addiction, and there is no other way to explain it, leads me to buy and read books about books. Their history as an object, their evolution, their impact on culture and society. For this books are written about. But I also found a niche of fiction; of booksellers' unwittingly caught in a web of intrigue and danger. And this is harder to find. Yes, there are exceptions. There are a few authors who have capitalized on this genre, if it's meagre size qualifies as a "genre", and who have likely made some good coin on it. Paul Robertson, however, won't be one of them. According to their Deeds is a cardboard, thinly put together tale of a bookstore owner who discovers a few items in a book that lead him to discover and offer forgiveness to a blackmailers list and the soul of the blackmailer. For this to work the characters are in need of some depth beyond simple dialogue, in need of fleshing out, in need of forgiveness by the reader. And Paul Robertson sadly fails.

There was potential. A thread of flashback scenes between the saintly protagonist and the spider laying his web of deceit. Here they meet, unwittingly of one, across an aged chess board, the dichotomy of good and evil, in game, and in words. Philosophers are argued, their lives summed up, their worth measured and weighed. Here was Robertson's potential to explore and develop a heartful plot. Here, across a chess board, life and lives could have been explored. Instead, we endure the booksellers pun-ish nature with a past that would have been punishingly heavy if were allowed to unfold.

And instead, my craving moves on. Pleading forgiveness for my bookish sins (and there have been a few), now myself even wary of the absurdity of wanting to read everything I can. Something I couldn't say at a bibliophile anonymous meeting a few years ago. I have other titles to go to. And there certainly are other literary fictions in want of a reader. And I would certainly recommend others to avoid this one. Another sin awaits behind another dust jacket.
No. 0848

"Almost There" and "Are You Somebody" by Nuala O'Faolain

2009-06-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

The O'Faolain books are wonderful diversion from the heady stuff in life. But only for a moment.

"Are You Somebody", her first autobiography, is a summation of who she was. A middle aged Irish woman, writer for the Irish Times among others, at the rim of celebrity status, as a writer only can. The title, "Are You Somebody" speaks to that position; on the rim of public awareness. Her life, from family and onwards, was trying for sure. Abandoned in spirit, anyways, by her father, a small "c" celebrity in his own right, and by a mother whose attachment to her was always suspect. Her savior in all this strict anti-woman Catholicism was her reading. "The most useful thing I brought out of my childhood was confidence in reading."
Breaking through the Irish stereotypes and maleness of 60s and 70s culture was no small feat. She explored the culture of writing and the arts with the uncertainty of belonging; of knowing that at any one moment, this was her life. One of her mentors, a historian Raphael Samuel, "was a pioneer of the interdisciplinary approach. He believed that anyone who had done a specialist degree had been trained in incuriousity about everything else. He believed in starting again, from ignorance. I was rich in ignorance" O'Faolain writes. "I count it as one of the great lucky things in my life...".
It is probably this complete lack of hubris that make O'Faolain interesting. If you Google her name you will inevitably come across some radio interviews she did. And the sense of wonder, humor, and the purpose of literature is beguiling. Her second autobiography, "Almost There" is more of the present journey to where she wants to be. "Middle age is the least talked about of all the seasons of life, and yet it seems to me the most exacting. It is adolescence come again at the other side of adulthood - the matching bookend - in its uneasiness of identity, its physical surprises and the strength it takes to handle it." The book is less literary and more personal. Excluding the numerous and numerous times pointing to her first autobiographical volume "Almost There" is about finding place; of having a bit of breathing room; and the societal clumsiness of not being wed or having (or wanting) children. "It has been shouted at us for so long that we're second rate if we're not in a pair with someone else, that we've come to deeply believe it."
The two books are as much a cathartic experience for O'Faolain as anything else, the "needing to shed ballast for the rest of the journey", as she put it. And likely so as most writers of self and fiction, and artist do. And yet, the purpose or hook for reading any one of these books might be suspect. Maybe there is no "hook". I would suppose if you were a young male with a preoccupied here-and-now view of life there would be no experience enjoyed in reading these. If you're middle-age (man or women), a woman of youth or experience, or cross both gender boundaries and are literary minded, then, the O'Faolain autobiographical volumes should be consumed.
#0844 and #0846

"Darwin's Sacred Cause. How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution"

2009-06-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

The tandem of Adrian Desmond and James Moore have a lengthy history in deciphering the inner depths of archives, libraries, museums, and literature. Both have contributed with numerous books and journal articles to the workings of science and culture, specifically that one exists in the other. Their latest challenge is no different. "Darwin's Sacred Cause" is also, however, a significant challenge.

The premise is that evolution, particularly human evolution, as Darwin would come to understand it and contribute to, was in part do to his own misgivings of slavery, both in England, but also in America. "We aren't out to prove the uncorrupted purity of Darwin's corpus" they write, "...or indeed deify his corpse." "The real problem" they argue "is that no one understands Darwin's core project, ...No one has appreciated the source of that moral fire that fuelled his strange, out-of-character obsession with human origins."

Thankfully, Darwin provided much of the original material for this project as one of the most notorious note-takers of the 19th century; the authors reviewed over 15,000 letters, plus all the drafts of publications to be, as well as those of his close family. And it is here where it all begins. His family, and later the in-laws, many of whom were abolitionists in their own right, provided an atmosphere of the unity of all men and women. Emma (nee Wedgewood) was a singular force in Darwin's life and with religious piety helped center Darwin (but let's not forget, many of the arguments for the plurality of human origins comes from the same good book).

Much of the evolution of Darwin's abolitionist nature, from boy-hood, through the discomforting trials aboard the Beagle voyage, at times seeing humanity shredded, to his more reclusive days can be documented. The problem the authors face, however, is the certainty of the early influences on Darwin. Too often Desmond and Moore bridge suppositions with 'must haves' and 'likely's". Yet "Sacred Cause" is a thorough going of the relationship between British and American rationality and irrationality. Though racism was an integral part of both countries (the Brits through trade, the Americans, through labor), the sensibility, at least on paper, was born earlier across the pond than on American soil. And on this soil, the challenger to abolitionism (and evolution by natural selection, but more so sexual selection), whose "long arm unsettled Darwin", was in many ways headed by the renowned Harvard zoologist Louis Agassiz. And it is this interplay that is the most interested for much of the American 19th century racism rest equally so on the 'science of the day.'

"Darwin's Sacred Cause" is a wonderful tour of 19th century science and how two countries, one emerging, the other at the peak of its colonial game, began to intertwine. That alone is worth reading. How much did Darwin's abolitionism influence his views? The authors show time and again the Darwin spared the public with his views on the unity of humans until he was sufficiently armed with evidence and a mechanism. And the problem is that Darwin, even amongst his thousands of correspondence, never is sufficiently clear. And the problem with 15,000 pieces of authored paper is that it only fuels the need for more. More questions for the few answers.
#0845

"Against All Gods" by A. C. Grayling

2009-06-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are familiar with this line of discussion A. C. Grayling's "Against All Gods, Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness", a slim volume, should sit nicely beside Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion" and anything by Christopher Hitchens.

Grayling's premise and passion is obvious. That any form of religion is a special interest group, nothing more, just the same as a rotary club, or another; and that as a religion, belief in the supernatural is "...the negation of thought". Don't get him wrong. Even though those that are religious are given, without thought special status, it doesn't mean they deserve disrespect. It just means that "[i]t is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, ...". And that [e]veryone is free to believe what they want, providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others; but no one is entitled to claim privileges merely on the grounds that they are votaries of one or another of the world's religions."

One has to consider the specific words here; "providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others." Grayling argues that coercion begins young, long before "mature" minds prevail. This is similar to Dawkins line of thinking.

"Against All Gods" is not strictly an anti-religion polemic. It is a statement of an even more stronger root. That if the supernatural is lifted (a category of all religions according to Grayling) a stronger unifying force can blossom. A humanitarian approach. For it is in this view that "we can have a proper discussion about the ethical principles of mutual concern, imaginative sympathy and courageous tolerance on which the chances for individual and social flourishing rest. We need to meet one another as human individuals...in a pubic domain hospitable to us all..." (p. 38).

Grayling makes many strong points but it comes down to this. Who am I to judge? And with the power invested in me by the evolutionary line that I come from, riddled with chance and circumstance, I have, in this 21st century, Youtube, hyped up sensationalism, the ability to finally turn the off the tube, or not read this book. Or, one can dare to read something outside their comfort zone.
#0847

"Up From Methodism. A Memoir of a Man Gone to the Devil"

2009-03-18T16:36:00.000-07:00

It's hard not to like Up From Methodism. Well, for me it is easy. Yes, it was written in the 1920s (and recently reprinted in paperback), and yes there is a tinge of vernacular than would fall on the political incorrect list (and others certainly fell on the same list back then). But when you grow up in a strong, strong Christan community - that is Christian with a emblazoned "C" - he had some standing to counter his up-bringing, fraught with bigotry, hypocrisy, and irrationality - all of the religious kind. "I became increasingly annoyed not only by the mental mannerisms of these people" he twanged in that southern intellect, "but their physical mannerisms as well. Not only did they walk as if their soles were greased, sliding and slipping about, but they talked as if their tongues were greased also. Their language was oily; they poured out their words unctuously, with much roundabout phrasing and unnecessary language."

Growing up in small town Missouri was trying for many people. Jobs were hard to come by, communities harder to fit in. There were rules to living here or there, even if they weren't written. And if you didn't believe,...I mean BELIEVE...well, there was no hope for you; but not for want of trying. "Religion poured down my throat in dose that strangled me and made me sick of the soul" Asbury laments. What ever religion he had was soon choked out of him. Old time Methodism was at the fore for prim and proper to the nth degree. An atmosphere today we would describe as not only strict, but cultish as well.

Up From Methodism is a knee-slappingly painful (if those two descriptors can be slapped together) picture of a struggle for being. One full of preaching, sin governed by mere mortals, or hell fire damnation. With a smile and a twinkle, Asbury triumphs: "Without religion I thoroughly enjoy the business of living". And in that all so rare slap-stick repertoire familiar to readers of H. L. Menchken (commentator, among other trophy's, of the Scopes trial, another southern, rural debacle), Up From Methodism at least - the very least - provides the last laugh of irrationality. "[F]ew things can destroy religion quicker than a hearty giggle." Amen.
#0414

My Ignorance is No Longer Bliss

2009-02-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

In Canada, we do not have “separation of Church and State”, but rather a mention in the Preamble of the Canadian Charter of Rights that states “Canada is founded upon the principles that recognizes the supremacy of God.” Is it the timidity of our Canadian culture that allows this? Can anyone say with a straight face that the God in this statement is not a Christian God?
Is anyone else affronted by mandatory prayer before public meetings? This is accepted in this country (see http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2004/2004canlii13978/2004canlii13978.html). Is anyone else insulted by statements by public officials broadcasting their versions of religiosity onto others?
What if you were a Buddhist? Agnostic. Atheist, or even a card carrying member of any of the other traditional religions, that wasn't part of the 'Christian Nation”? You certainly wouldn't hope to win an election.
I've searched high and low to find some understanding. There really is none. At least none that define a secular humanist approach on a national level, never mind regional. But on this score, there are many counts of sabotage from the Christian right. Yes, we can certainly hear from that end of the spectrum. For the Christian right it is time “to stake out a clear Christian position, and to use this Christian position to take back confidently and relentlessly the ground stolen by Secular Humanists in their campaign to become the driving force and establishment voice in Canada” (see http://www.christiangovernment.ca/book_intro.php for a good laugh; people will have to assess whether this, and comments like this are only from an extremest view, or more closer to the norm that we could possibly admit).
For myself I am ashamed of my ignorance and timidity. I am sincerely despondent of the void beyond my simple ramblings, though for certain I know I am not alone. It is our collective acceptance and complacency without mature, healthy dialogue that worries me even more.

Passion for Collecting. Some thoughts.

2009-02-17T17:47:00.000-08:00

I can not say I have much in common with Charles Darwin (1809-1882). The weight of his research has not only lasted 150 years (one of the two celebrated anniversaries this year with the publication of On the Origin of Species), but it has spawned all manners of research, far beyond his imagination. However, unbeknownst to me (at least I never put the two occurrences together before, until recently), we do share a passion at least in methodology.
In his Autobiography, he writes about this passion for collecting. “I will give proof” he writes “of my zeal: one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! It ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one” (p. 21).
The use of the mouth as temporary storage containers likely has been 're-invented' many times. Since my earliest days collecting fossils, the sites that contain hundreds if not thousands of little bone and teeth fragments (called microsites) has always been exhilarating. Little pieces of the past just sitting there, each one likely representing a different taxonomic beast from the other bone fragment just inches away. Collecting these sites means literally crawling the surface on your stomach, watching out for cacti and other intrusions, your face just inches away from the ground. For me, because of strained sight, retaining as much focus as possible without the distraction of putting each little fragment into a plastic vial, I just pick up the fossil fragment, retaining focus on the ground for the next bit, and put it in my mouth. I do this until the site is fully scoured, or I need to finally regurgitate cheek-fulls of saliva coated fossils into a vial. Unlike Darwin, however, I have never put anything poisonous into my mouth, but that is not to say that over the years a few relatively modern gopher bones did get wedged between cheek and gum.
I reminisce about this because this year marks both the birth of Charles Darwin (the second of the anniversaries), and of his publication. I ponder the breadth of his idea, and how it has influenced all manners of life, from medicine, art, philosophy, literature, and of course all the various avenues of science. But a recent article in the New York Times has clearly stated, we have to separate Darwin from evolution. That Darwin created the modern idea [for in fact evolution is much older than Darwin], pulling together a mass of information (his zeal for collecting was knowledge base, not just life's trophies), and since then, since the publication in 1859, evolution has evolved. It has answered, through the endeavors of the scientific community all over the world, many of the questions that Darwin could not answer. Genetics, DNA, ecology, further fossil discoveries, have all enhanced the theory of evolution. Science has moved beyond Darwin. Thus “Darwinism” is a misnomer. As the New York Times article states “”Darwinism” implies an ideology adhering to one man's dictates ... And “isms” [like Marxism, Fascism] are not sciences.” What Darwin did was solely science.
So the question is, do we “kill” Darwin for the sake of evolution? Can evolution overcome the social connotations of Darwinism if we leave the old man behind? Or do we take the effort to educate ourselves, appreciating the distinction between the historical aspects of Charles Darwin [despite my hagiographical tendencies], and the current understanding of evolutionary theory? Do we make the effort?
The diversity of places, institutions, large and small, that are celebrating the Darwin anniversaries can be found at www.darwinday.org. Take note, however, besides the obligatory biographies of Darwin, many will highlight the current developments in evolutionary theory. Many will illustrate the separation between Darwin, and evolution, utilizing local examples, and the scientists responsible for that particular research. “Darwinism” rarely comes up. When it does, it is often in a social context (depending on which insitution is presenting the respective event), or in fractured light of those who have little sense of what science is. Often in the guise of “creationism”, they lack the "zeal" of collecting - specimens or knowledge - and understanding.

The Devil in Dover. An Insider's Story of Dogma V. Darwin in Small-Town America by Lauri Lebo

2009-02-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

One can not but be impressed with Lauri Lebo. Small town reporter in Dover, Pennsylvania, in the midst of one of the more impressive trials in state history, weighing not only the merit of a new brand of scientific creationism, intelligent design, as it pertains to public education, but also the merit of her own town. “Dover”, she says “is like every small town. It has stories of startling beauty and secrets of profound ugliness” (p. 88). In The Devil in Dover, the reader witnesses both.
In 2004, the Dover School Board District, an elected group, decided to incorporate their version of religious doctrine, their brand of fundamentalist Christianity, into the local public education system. Of contention was the attempt to utilize “Of Panda's and People”, a religious text dressed up as science. Making matters worse was the public exclamation by some of its members (later to be denied despite the recorded evidence) to incorporate scientific creationism into the classroom. A nation defined, in part, by the separation of Church and State, upset the apple cart of small town relations; that casual howdy, passive existence paced by a sun dial rather than the digital clock.
Lebo takes as much personal risk as the local journalist documenting the affairs. Daughter to a myopic born-again Christian radio station owner, her own travails are on the table. “The truth is” she says, despite my religious ambivalence, I envy people of faith. I picture their sleep so different from my own – secure, uninterrupted by fear and doubt, unspoiled by images of our mortality” (p. 32). Her theological/scientific fights with her father only exasberated the situation further. Even as a reporter, pressure mounted, as the case unfolded, the deceit unveiled, that the exploitation of “fair and balanced treatment” also was challenged. “[S]omewhere along the line, we as journalists have gotten confused by a misguided notion of objectivity. It is our job to inform readers of the truth, not just regurgitate lies, even if it means the stories are no longer “balanced.” “(p. 158).
The idea of intelligent design goes back further than these recent legal events. Whereas some books only accumulate dust on the shelves, William Paley (1743-1805) does not have this disservice. My own copy of his Natural Theology is in a four volume collection, leather bound, published in 1819. His central thesis is:
“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there. I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever...”
“But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given...”
“...the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch much have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer: who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.”
In other words....the complexity of life could only be motioned through the hand of designer. The premise, dressed up in 21st century scientific lingo, becomes “intelligent design”, fostered by the Seattle based Discovery Institute, and used as a wedge by all those in favor of a creator, literalists, or not.
Lebo's story, is her personal journey (unlike, I presume, Gordon Slack's The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA). She discovers the sincerity and grounding by those who search in reality, and those who are committed to intelligent design as an “airy confection, ultimately no more substantial or satisfying than cotton candy” (p. 153). She also wonders “What would it be like to go a week without being judged?” (p. 185), a product of living in a small community, enhanced by those who practice judgement as an action of belief. Of the parents who fought, the plaintiffs, she finds them a motley consortium, some more concerned with the private practice of religion, others not so, but together, united by a vast team of legals who see this clearly as not only a case of the intrusion of fundamentalist Christianity on the state, but simply anti-science (intelligent designers, failing their science, try to redefined what science is; if you can't beat them, change the ground rules).
The eventual outcome of the trial was brutal on the school board. “The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident” Judge Jones states in his ruling “...which has now been fully revealed through this trial.” [The Memorandum Opinion can be found in full at http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/educate/ktzmllrdvr122005opn.pdf] Further “The Board brazenly chose not to follow the advice of their only science-education resources as the teachers were not included in the process of drafting the language adopted by the Board Curriculum Committee.” The school board lost on both counts: intelligent design is a theological argument; and as such, it infringes on the guardian of the U. S. Establishment Clause.
For the many months while arguments were laid in court as well as across Dover's picket fences, Lebo understood that “this was about this country”, not just Dover. This is between “The believers and nonbelievers.” Meanwhile “Neighbors turned their backs on each other, pretending not to see each other from across their backyards. Others stopped taking evening walks to avoid the cold stares and unreturned waves. People learned to keep their heads down at the grocer store” (p. 92-93). And then came the hate letters. And who can forget preacher Pat Robertson's proclamation after the ruling was announced: "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city" (quoted from P. 180).
The Devil in Dover provides a rare glimpse of a small community, bereft with tension and religious bigotry mixed with the sincerity and kindness of those living in the here and now. Lebo and the others survive, move on. The sun rises and sun sets, for this is certain, just as the scientists over the centuries were able to explain, despite what the Bible says.
No. 0842

"The Cypress Hills, An Island By Itself" by W. Hildebrandt and B. Hubner

2009-02-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

The Cypress Hills is a beautiful spot for certain. You can feel that it is special as you rise in elevation, ever getting closer. It should, for it sits about 600 metres above the prairies. It is withing these 600 metres that everything changes. What was once prairie is now an ancient forest, a left over from the last glaciation. It is a place that was occupied at least 10-12,000 years ago, and has ever since drawn the attention of all who have travelled in its shadow.
This new volume, The Cypress Hills, is a dry documentary of primarily the last 200 years or so of life on the Cypress Hills. Repeatedly, the voices echo, the documents show systemic greed, racism, and inhumanity by the intruders. Of people, in some cases the Nakoda people who suffered the 'Cypress Hills Massacre' in 1873, were falsely guaranteed rights and resources. The forced turn from nomadic hunters to agricultural based living, allocated in reserves far away from their traditional lands provided only humiliating and deadly results.
It was through these white pre-21st century eyes that we learned the half-truths and lies about a culture quite alien to westerners. Overlooked was the unique relationship with the land and the pivotal role women played in their cultures and lives. The Cypress Hills remedies some of this by examining the records of American and Canadian trappers, explorers, the Hudson Bay Company and early settlers, and later the North West Mounted Police, but also the scant voices of the First Nations and Metis peoples, and boldly records history as it is, and was.
We have stretched our dignity as a species far too much to have history repeat itself. The injustices served should not be relinquished to past memories. These stories, of a place,...of a island once called "The Thunder Breeding Hills" should be clearly in front of us as paths mistakenly chosen.

"Hitler's Private Library, The Books That Shaped His Life" by Timothy Ryback

2009-02-06T21:02:00.001-08:00

I am a sucker for anything "library". I detest war and anything involving it, or its historical glorification. So puzzle me this. A book of Hitler and his library. Do I buy it, and let it rest in a pile of other unread volumes? Do I not buy it and save my resources for another day of bibliophile fishing? Or do I do the former and actually read it? With some trepidations I do the last.
Ryback has to bring history into the library setting. This is Hitler's library, albeit what remains of it after it was dismantled, dispersed, and in some cases destroyed. Ryback is thorough, however, recreating the missing volumes, or at least some of them by searching relevant documents across the globe of what remains of Hitler's correspondence, as a private citizen, and the leader of the Nazi party and military machine; the man we've come to love to hate was also a bibliophile. Now long gone is the passive, retired pop image of a book person.
Witnessed by few, the self-proclaimed literary consumer searched through the classics for a self determination of what he professed. Emerging out of the First World War, the solitary Hitler soldier could do no other but read, for the alternative his personality could not digest.
I have to stop there...for it is difficult to walk the rope that the author of Hitler's Library did. The author's question is; this is not a glorification of the man, or either of the works in his library. But if we judge people by their library, what literary fuels they require to sustain themselves, we are ultimately left with questions of how and why; of some of the severest acts of human conduct and ...evil every enacted on the human soul. Is there one book that changed Hitler? Ryback answers no. Racism and self-aggrandizement was Hitler and the times and place that he was in. Yes, "I regard [Henry] Ford as my inspiration (p. 71), he once espoused, the automobile Ford being among other things anti-Semitic, but there were many, many others including Fichte, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. In addition...his Catholic upbringing also added to his soup of political, racial angst, though this would morph into his own personal cherry-picked religious creation - a "creative force".
Unlike most books I read, I thoroughly pencil underlines for significant thoughts, fill margins with quips and suggestions...but not this one. Hitler's Library allowed me to learn about German philosophy and thinking during the early 20th century, some of the German political events leading up to and during the Second World War and of a person I only visualized as a card board cut-out of evil. Ultimately, I learned that anything can be used as a weapon...even a book.

"Why Read? by Mark Edmundson. Bloomsbury, 2004.

2009-02-02T21:41:00.000-08:00

This little volume, picked up recently in a bargain bin for two little coins, is a beautifully strong surprise. Author Edmundson is passionate about the punches he pulls: What happens now and in the future if our most intelligent students never learn to strive to overcome what they are? What if aspirations to genius, and to contact with genius . . . become silly, outmoded ideas? What you're likely to get are more and more two-dimensional men and women (p. 139) who will live for the easy road of money and the status quo. This is the projected life without the passion to read and think, and not just gather information that our consumer consumptive culture is creating now thanks in part as this generation is glued to the web. The recipe of this book is heavily sprinkled with poetry, but Why Read? is also history, fiction, and more. As Edmundson poignantly states You can learn history from books, or life will teach it to you more intimately (p. 118).

Edmundson's passion is clear; that a liberal education has much to offer our children. That teachers have to transfer their love of reading to their students, a literary begatting in spirit if not in books (I they don't, their disservice should be noted). To open their minds to discover who they are and not how much money they can earn. A healthy respect for the written word is at least required. Quoting another author whose introduction to literature was tentative for sure: Some of these books at first rejected me; I bored them . But as I grew older and they knew me better, they came to have more sympathy with me and to understand my hidden meanings. Their nature is such that our relationship has been very intimate (p.46, emphasis added). Whereas in today's 'show me now' culture, the usual response to the introduction of literature is boooooring (p. 47).

Big things can be gained from small packages. Big thoughts from small books. Despite it's slim 140 or so pages Why Read? is in fact a very, very big book.

My number 0840.

An Introduction

2009-01-31T13:26:00.000-08:00

I am by nature a bookman. I would sooner bend my nose towards a book or a bookshop than be assaulted by much of the consumer consumptive society today. Fortunately, I am married to a sweet heart who understands my at times solitary trek into the literary world. I further claim that my own grasp of "literature" is limited. I forsake the parameters of "fiction and poetry", but would expand it to all forms of the written word, especially the underrated writings in science. Yet, I will emphasise my ignorance for this allows unhindered pursuit of almost everything.

For years I have been attempting to catalogue my library. This has followed a Gouldian trend [Stephen Jay Gould's co-created Punctuated Equilibrium where the history of life is documented in spurts and stints]. But of late, progress is being made not only with cataloguing but truly dissecting the literary works as they are seen to me. What follows below is some of this endeavor; of recent titles, but also of the more ancient texts (in this sense of current culture, anything older than 20 years).

I am by nature also a defender of not only the written word, but also of rational thinking bending towards liberalism (to an extent), and appalled by the arrogance of ignorance. Particularly, at least at this moment, those who cherry-pick science to favor their own non-rational views (religion), and at times creationists specifically.

Since I am also somewhat naive as to the inner workings of this technology,...I also beg your indulgence, for what follows is some words from books that I found of interest, or of wisdom far greater than I can create.