I got a Kindle for Christmas, generously given by my kids. It was something I asked for, with mixed emotions.
You see, I am a bibliophile. I like having a physical book in my hand...love the smell of a used book store. Love the feel of an old leather-bound book to the touch. I love the excitement of gently cracking the spine of a brand-new book, rather like the excitement of opening a treasure chest. (Well, at least, I assume it is like that feeling, since I've never opened a treasure chest.)
Anthropologists are fond of citing examples of how we differ from the "lower" animals. They talk about speech, and tool making, and sexual mores. How I think we differ from lower animals is that not only do we have speech and tool making but we use tool making to speak to each other, over distance and time. We can speak of philosphy and how-to instructions and stories and political thought and scientific discovery.
I can read, if I so choose, Galileo's treatises. I can look at Da Vinci's notes and drawings on manned flight. I can read the latest novel by a Swedish thriller writer. I can travel in my mind to Hogworts. Or a galaxy far, far away. Or James Bond's British intelligence agency. Or wherever and whenever I darn well please.
Yes, whales and other cetaceans can communicate over long distances. But my guess is they are either saying, "Come on over for a deep sea banquet...food plentiful here." Or "You want to see my etchings?" Or some such. But they can't communicate over time. They can't communicate with Captain Ahab's whale.
That alone is Man's/Woman's abilty.
I like reading books even when I think the author is full of shit. (I've even read Sarah Palin's book.) Even then, I can read a thought espoused by the author and say to myself, "I know better than that...this author doesn't know what s/he is talking about."
So why did I ask for a Kindle? Well, for starters, there are actually many more new books/best sellers available there, for less cost, than I can either find at my local library or at Barnes and Noble. Yes, I'm one of those geeks who is a library patron and I even go there for the books and not for the Internet access. And when I, as an environmentalist, think of how many trees are killed annually to publish all the great books and all the drek, it does make sense to send an author's thoughts through fiberoptic lines rather than Guttenburg's press.
My kids' generation will no doubt see the demise of the printed book and their kids will probably view books as something akin to how we viewed the stereopticans and buggy whips of our grandparents' generation. I tell my kids to hang on to my library after I'm gone until books gain in value as oddities of history and then sell the suckers for beaucoup bucks. It will be their inheritance.
I'm not the most technologically savvy of individuals. Even in my generation, I'm not exactly knowledgeable about all the ins and outs of computers and iPads, iPhones and Blackberries. I don't own a PDA and I don't like being so available to any yahoo who wants to contact me at any time of the day or night in any location.
I have to have my kids explain to me, when I see a device touting "3G" capabilities or gigabytes of this or that, what that all means. Because, honestly, it sounds like Swahili to me. It could be that everything I've ever learned about computers and technology has been on my own, without benefit of instruction. As a matter of fact, I've learned alot about technology by...wait for it...reading real books. Irony, that.
(Irony, according to the Black Adder, is "kinda like goldy or bronzy but made of iron.")
As I have frequently said, I don't have to know how a microwave works to heat food with one. I just need to know which buttons to push.
I worry that my kids' generation will get so used to Facebooking and texting each other that they will forget how to talk face to face, being able to read nuances of face and hands. Body language doesn't digitize very well.
And of course their kids won't have those skills in the first place. They will never know the thrill of browsing a book store or library and happening on to a book that they would never have thought would interest them. Amazon.com requires one to request the title of the book or subject matter or author's name. One can't really browse.
I'm not a Luddite. I do believe in advancing technology and its ability to enhance our lives. I don't want to go back to the good old days, which in matter of fact were the bad old days. When people died of curable diseases and missed Christmas because their horse threw a shoe and became blacksmiths because they couldn't go to college way far away.
So I keep one foot in the 21st century by reading my Kindle, while cherishing my beloved books. When I turned on the Kindle, lo and behold, the "sleep" mode uses an illuminated hand-written text as the screen saver.
Sigh.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
A Christmas Memory
No, this won't be nearly as well written as Truman Capote wrote his Christmas memories. But it is one of the many memories I have where I wish I could say it turned out better.
Years ago, when our children were small, we bundled them up on Christmas Eve and took them out through the snow to the Cathedral, where midnight mass was being held. No, we're not Catholic, but a friend was singing and we thought a celebration of the season was just the thing to put us in the mood for Christmas.
It was. So about 1:30 on Christmas morning, having gotten our sleeping children bedded down for the night and finished last minute wrapping and stocking stuffing, we prepared for bed ourselves. (correction: we assisted Santa in stuffing stockings and wrapping gifts...on account he's so busy, don't you know!)
Just as we were turning out lights, we realized that there was a fire truck just four doors down on our street. This neighborhood was one that city planners like to call "transitional"...that is, it was "transitioning" from crack houses and whore houses to gentrification. The houses in our neighborhood were all architectural masterpieces, with lots of wood carved staircases and mullioned windows. We were part of the gentrification, not a part of the crack houses, just for the record.
So my husband put on boots and tramped through the snow to see what was going on. He discovered a woman and her daughter, both in house slippers and nightgowns, with blankets thrown over their shoulders, standing in the freezing snow. They lived in the apartment next to the fire, but had been evacuated in case the fire spread.
He invited them to come to our house, where at the very least, they could be warm. They came, but the woman insisted on sitting on the boot bench in our front hall, her blanket regally clutched around her shoulders, back ramrod straight.
I offered coffee, hot chocolate, anything warm. She declined, not wanting to "be a bother." From the condition of their clothing and their apartment building, they were obviously not a part of the gentrification of the neighborhood.
I went into the living room and turned the tree lights back on, for the entertainment of the little girl, who couldn't have been more than six. Her eyes twinkled in the tree lights, her mouth forming an "O". "We don't have a tree, 'cause Momma says we can't afford it."
My heart sank. My mind quickly searched the wrapped packages I'd just placed under the tree (correction: Santa had placed), rejecting them all because they were trucks and little boy flannel shirts and army guys. Nothing even remotely appropriate for a girl child.
This woman, asking for nothing but a warm place for her and her child to wait for the Fire Department to complete their work, stayed only an hour or so. She didn't say much, though the child chattered in the way of a child who knows no stranger. I offered more blankets. Declined, with dignity.
The little girl eventually fell asleep on the sofa, tired no doubt by all the excitement of the evening. My husband carefully bundled her up in the thin blanket and carried her home, her mother expressing gratitude just for the warm place to sit on a frigid, snowy Midwestern night. She wouln't take anything else from us.
But til the day I die, I will always regret not having had anything under that tree that a little girl would have liked. I would have told her that Santa, in his infinite wisdom, had dropped off the package for her, knowing that her apartment was filled with smoke and water.
Every year, I donate to Toys for Tots. Let that be my penance.
Years ago, when our children were small, we bundled them up on Christmas Eve and took them out through the snow to the Cathedral, where midnight mass was being held. No, we're not Catholic, but a friend was singing and we thought a celebration of the season was just the thing to put us in the mood for Christmas.
It was. So about 1:30 on Christmas morning, having gotten our sleeping children bedded down for the night and finished last minute wrapping and stocking stuffing, we prepared for bed ourselves. (correction: we assisted Santa in stuffing stockings and wrapping gifts...on account he's so busy, don't you know!)
Just as we were turning out lights, we realized that there was a fire truck just four doors down on our street. This neighborhood was one that city planners like to call "transitional"...that is, it was "transitioning" from crack houses and whore houses to gentrification. The houses in our neighborhood were all architectural masterpieces, with lots of wood carved staircases and mullioned windows. We were part of the gentrification, not a part of the crack houses, just for the record.
So my husband put on boots and tramped through the snow to see what was going on. He discovered a woman and her daughter, both in house slippers and nightgowns, with blankets thrown over their shoulders, standing in the freezing snow. They lived in the apartment next to the fire, but had been evacuated in case the fire spread.
He invited them to come to our house, where at the very least, they could be warm. They came, but the woman insisted on sitting on the boot bench in our front hall, her blanket regally clutched around her shoulders, back ramrod straight.
I offered coffee, hot chocolate, anything warm. She declined, not wanting to "be a bother." From the condition of their clothing and their apartment building, they were obviously not a part of the gentrification of the neighborhood.
I went into the living room and turned the tree lights back on, for the entertainment of the little girl, who couldn't have been more than six. Her eyes twinkled in the tree lights, her mouth forming an "O". "We don't have a tree, 'cause Momma says we can't afford it."
My heart sank. My mind quickly searched the wrapped packages I'd just placed under the tree (correction: Santa had placed), rejecting them all because they were trucks and little boy flannel shirts and army guys. Nothing even remotely appropriate for a girl child.
This woman, asking for nothing but a warm place for her and her child to wait for the Fire Department to complete their work, stayed only an hour or so. She didn't say much, though the child chattered in the way of a child who knows no stranger. I offered more blankets. Declined, with dignity.
The little girl eventually fell asleep on the sofa, tired no doubt by all the excitement of the evening. My husband carefully bundled her up in the thin blanket and carried her home, her mother expressing gratitude just for the warm place to sit on a frigid, snowy Midwestern night. She wouln't take anything else from us.
But til the day I die, I will always regret not having had anything under that tree that a little girl would have liked. I would have told her that Santa, in his infinite wisdom, had dropped off the package for her, knowing that her apartment was filled with smoke and water.
Every year, I donate to Toys for Tots. Let that be my penance.
Constitution/Schmonstitution
I'm deeply amused by the people, mainly Tea Baggers, who claim that the Congress needs to go back to the Constitution and limit its activities to those powers Constitutionally allowed.
Really?
So I guess that means that Congress can't limit drug usage, because I see no authority granted by the Constitution for those august bodies to do so. That would put paid to the illegalization of drugs. Let's all go smoke a bong.
Nor can Congress call baseball players before it to grill them on steroid usage in sports. It isn't in their Powers, as enumerated by our Constitution. I always wondered why, when there are so many really serious problems in our nation they claim not to have time to put to a vote or even to read bills addressing those problems, while they do have time to delve into baseball, our national pasttime.
Witness the new START treaty, which was negotiated April 2010, yet with all the minutes they spend doing their jobs, followed by hours of campaigning, they have been so busy, they can't possibly have read the darn thing. Let me repeat: They haven't had time to read one measly treaty. Since April.
The FCC and the FTC are not mentioned in the Constitution, so let's throw them out. No regulation at all of our airways or our commerce. So what if TV and Radio become all porn all the time, or if any yahoo can start a bank and rip people off. Bernie Madoff, eat your heart out. For that matter, why do we need an Ag Department? So what if the food we eat is contaminated? Congress doesn't have the Constitutional power to regulate that.
They only have to meet once a year, according to the Constitution, so maybe their 120 days of actual work on the business of the nation is sufficient.
The Constitution also states that Congress can't prohibit slavery. You know, where it says that Congress can't prohibit the "Importation" of persons, although it can put a duty on such persons. In other words, you can't pick up a slave in a duty-free shop. African-Americans, beware. Going back to the original powers of Congress means you might be picking cotton in the near future.
These Tea Baggers are very fond of the idea of getting rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, yet that is a Constitutional authority. The framers of the Constitution specifically said that the Congress was to "promote the Progress of Sciences and useful Arts."
In fact, Congress has the authority to make laws in the exercise of these Powers, including laws governing departments or officers of the United States. Which would include the NEA, the Department of Education, the NEH and any number of departments which the Tea Baggers think aren't part of the Constitution.
One could indeed argue that, the power "to provide for the General Welfare" might possibly include education, but evidently the Tea Baggers don't think an education is important to the "General Welfare". I guess they want a populace who is totally ignorant, or am I misreading this?
Oh, and how many Post Roads has Congress built lately? I think they are falling down on the job in that respect. Unless you count a Bridge to Nowhere as a "Post Road". Maybe that's what the Bridge to Nowhere was for.
The Tea Baggers see themselves as Insurrectionists and Revolutionaries, which means that Congress has the right to raise a Militia to suppress their meetings. Wonder what the Tea Baggers would say if the National Guard broke up their demonstrations? Would they still see the need to stick to "Constitutional" powers only?
When Senator John McCain, opposed to "Don't Ask Don't Tell" after he was in favor of it, claimed that "organizing, arming and disciplining" the Armed Services was up to the generals, he evidently hadn't read the Constitution, which provides that power to the Congress.
I'll admit, I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I can read. Unlike Christine O'Donnell who claimed to have studied the Constitution, yet didn't seem to be aware of the clauses in the Constitution which provide for the separation of church and state.
But I am an intelligent person, capable of Googling "US Constitution" and reading for myself what it says in that document. Which is more than I can say for Rep. Jim Diment, who wants every bill read aloud on the Floor of the House. I guess he's trying to hide the fact that he is illiterate and wants every bill, no matter how lengthy or arcane, turned into "Books on Tape".
The Constitution doesn't provide for electronic voting on bills, and, in fact, insists on voice vote: "votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays." At least that's how I read it. Oh, and they are required to record their vote for posterity, yet aren't requred to put their names on earmarks and amendments.
I am also deeply amused by the fact that members of the most presitious body in the world can throw people in jail for lying to Congress, yet they seem to not follow the same law. They stand in the Well of the House or the Pit of the Senate and lie their asses off, yet never do time.
In the original Constitution, the President was elected by the Congress, not by the Electoral College or popular vote resulting in Electoral College votes. So I guess we've been conducting our elections totally wrong all these years.
Look, you can't have it both ways. Either we indeed go back to yesteryear and adhere strictly to the Powers listed in that document...ALL of them. Or, we recognize that the beauty of our form of government is the fact that we can tweak it, amend it and generally update it to fit our current needs.
I'm for the latter, in case you couldn't tell.
Really?
So I guess that means that Congress can't limit drug usage, because I see no authority granted by the Constitution for those august bodies to do so. That would put paid to the illegalization of drugs. Let's all go smoke a bong.
Nor can Congress call baseball players before it to grill them on steroid usage in sports. It isn't in their Powers, as enumerated by our Constitution. I always wondered why, when there are so many really serious problems in our nation they claim not to have time to put to a vote or even to read bills addressing those problems, while they do have time to delve into baseball, our national pasttime.
Witness the new START treaty, which was negotiated April 2010, yet with all the minutes they spend doing their jobs, followed by hours of campaigning, they have been so busy, they can't possibly have read the darn thing. Let me repeat: They haven't had time to read one measly treaty. Since April.
The FCC and the FTC are not mentioned in the Constitution, so let's throw them out. No regulation at all of our airways or our commerce. So what if TV and Radio become all porn all the time, or if any yahoo can start a bank and rip people off. Bernie Madoff, eat your heart out. For that matter, why do we need an Ag Department? So what if the food we eat is contaminated? Congress doesn't have the Constitutional power to regulate that.
They only have to meet once a year, according to the Constitution, so maybe their 120 days of actual work on the business of the nation is sufficient.
The Constitution also states that Congress can't prohibit slavery. You know, where it says that Congress can't prohibit the "Importation" of persons, although it can put a duty on such persons. In other words, you can't pick up a slave in a duty-free shop. African-Americans, beware. Going back to the original powers of Congress means you might be picking cotton in the near future.
These Tea Baggers are very fond of the idea of getting rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, yet that is a Constitutional authority. The framers of the Constitution specifically said that the Congress was to "promote the Progress of Sciences and useful Arts."
In fact, Congress has the authority to make laws in the exercise of these Powers, including laws governing departments or officers of the United States. Which would include the NEA, the Department of Education, the NEH and any number of departments which the Tea Baggers think aren't part of the Constitution.
One could indeed argue that, the power "to provide for the General Welfare" might possibly include education, but evidently the Tea Baggers don't think an education is important to the "General Welfare". I guess they want a populace who is totally ignorant, or am I misreading this?
Oh, and how many Post Roads has Congress built lately? I think they are falling down on the job in that respect. Unless you count a Bridge to Nowhere as a "Post Road". Maybe that's what the Bridge to Nowhere was for.
The Tea Baggers see themselves as Insurrectionists and Revolutionaries, which means that Congress has the right to raise a Militia to suppress their meetings. Wonder what the Tea Baggers would say if the National Guard broke up their demonstrations? Would they still see the need to stick to "Constitutional" powers only?
When Senator John McCain, opposed to "Don't Ask Don't Tell" after he was in favor of it, claimed that "organizing, arming and disciplining" the Armed Services was up to the generals, he evidently hadn't read the Constitution, which provides that power to the Congress.
I'll admit, I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I can read. Unlike Christine O'Donnell who claimed to have studied the Constitution, yet didn't seem to be aware of the clauses in the Constitution which provide for the separation of church and state.
But I am an intelligent person, capable of Googling "US Constitution" and reading for myself what it says in that document. Which is more than I can say for Rep. Jim Diment, who wants every bill read aloud on the Floor of the House. I guess he's trying to hide the fact that he is illiterate and wants every bill, no matter how lengthy or arcane, turned into "Books on Tape".
The Constitution doesn't provide for electronic voting on bills, and, in fact, insists on voice vote: "votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays." At least that's how I read it. Oh, and they are required to record their vote for posterity, yet aren't requred to put their names on earmarks and amendments.
I am also deeply amused by the fact that members of the most presitious body in the world can throw people in jail for lying to Congress, yet they seem to not follow the same law. They stand in the Well of the House or the Pit of the Senate and lie their asses off, yet never do time.
In the original Constitution, the President was elected by the Congress, not by the Electoral College or popular vote resulting in Electoral College votes. So I guess we've been conducting our elections totally wrong all these years.
Look, you can't have it both ways. Either we indeed go back to yesteryear and adhere strictly to the Powers listed in that document...ALL of them. Or, we recognize that the beauty of our form of government is the fact that we can tweak it, amend it and generally update it to fit our current needs.
I'm for the latter, in case you couldn't tell.
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