What I’m Reading

She tells the truth, but tells it at a slant. Emily Dickenson said that. Kingsolver writes it.

This is deep. A good read, in my opinion.

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Excerpt from Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver – Harper Collins – Page 260
“You’ve grown extremely bold in your critiques of Landis, these last months. ‘The Prince Travels Abroad, Hoping to Eclipse Her Royal Majesty.’ Even the captain’s wife is not spared. I have to say . I’m impressed:’

“The loudest horn does nothing to move deaf ears.”
“You’re being modest. Your paper has its subscribers, I trust.” “A fair number, it would please me to say. And also its detractors.” “Naturally.”
“Naturally. It doesn’t always go along lines you expect. The peasants don’t like hearing how they’ve been used, paying for land that will go back to Landis the day they lose their first crop. They refuse to believe they’re getting tricked into building wealth for the masters of this town.”

“No man wants to hear he has been a fool.”

“But they hear it, and still they persist. Landis passes around his bill of sale, this egalitarian Vineland where every man stands an equal chance, and they lap it up like cats at the dish. They are all for the great captain, while he indentures them and eats their souls and property. Somehow he gets them to side against their own.”

Grandfathers

Stories
 by Stephen Dunn 

It was back when we used to listen to stories,
our minds developing
pictures as we were taken into the elsewhere
of our experience or to the forbidden
or under the sea.
Television was wrestling, Milton Berle,
Believe It Or Not. We knelt before it
like natives
in front of something sent by parachute,
but when grandfather said “I’ll tell you a story,”
we stopped with pleasure,
sat crosslegged next to the fireplace, waited.
He’d sip gin and hold us, his voice
the extra truth
beyond what we believed without question.
When grandfather died and changed
what an evening meant,
it was 1954. After supper we went
to the television, innocents in a magic land
getting more innocent,
a thousand years away from Oswald and the shock,
the end of our enormous childhood.
We sat still
for anything, laughed when anyone slipped
or lisped or got hit with a pie. We said
to our friends
“What the hey?” and punched them in the arms.
The television had arrived, and was coming.
Throughout the country
all the grandfathers were dying,
giving their reluctant permission, like Indians.

"Stories" by Stephen Dunn from Local Time. © Quill Press, 1986.

A Digital Diet

A month or so possibly
Maybe a week
Without the mind candy that all of us seek.

A bit is okay
To eat every day
But never take too many bytes
With so many looks
And not enough books
To keep us up late every night.

Online Talk is Cheap

Taken from: Trust Psychology – Nautilus Nov/Dec 2017

“Totalitarian societies know the power of common knowledge very well. When the Institute for Quantitative Social Science reveres-engineered the Internet censorship practiced by the Chinese government, they found that the government cared less about insults and criticisms than one might expect.

What it censored aggressively were social media posts making plans to meet in person. Online talk is cheap; but face-to-face people can build common knowledge.”

                                                                                                                         Stuart Firestein

Postcard from Ellie - August 2018

 

Well, I have to tell you, in case you were worried. We made it to Finland. Mio and I had our first boat ride, a long one—about 13 hours I think. (I don’t wear a watch. I’m not into useless jewelry, but I do have an expensive collar, and some winter shoes in the closet.) I must tell you, neither Mio or me pooped on the whole boat trip.  I am so proud, and it wasn’t easy. Oi! There was a place to poop on the ship, they call it the poop deck. I think most ships have them, or they used to. I don’t like bathrooms. They seem so unsanitary.

Here’s the best thing, I won 1^st Place. Best Bitch! That is so cool. My first International. I am totally pumped, and Mio got a best junior ribbon. He is still young, but I’m helping him along.

It’s time for bed, and another contest tomorrow. Lighting does not often strike twice, but I don’t care. I am a happy hound. Best Bitch, I love it. Music to my ears. The tune does not grow old with reputation.

Online Talk is Cheap

Taken from: Trust Psychology - Nautilus Nov/Dec 2017

“Totalitarian societies know the power of common knowledge very well. When the Institute for Quantitative Social Science reveres-engineered the Internet censorship practiced by the Chinese government, they found that the government cared less about insults and criticisms than one might expect. 

What it censored aggressively were social media posts making plans to meet in person. Online talk is cheap; but face-to-face people can build common knowledge.”

                                                                                            Stuart Firestein

What Women Want - Susan Pinker Comment

Susan Pinker developmental psychologist and author of The Sexual Paradox.

There’s good research showing that, as a society becomes more egalitarian, the gender differences become much more obvious. One of the studies showing this paradoxical effect is led by David Schmitt, and it shows that gender differences in personality are way larger in cultures that offer more egalitarian gender roles and opportunities. This is not what one would predict if men and women’s preferences were exclusively constrained by cultural forces. Assuming that women are imply a tamped down, smothered version of men—and would always choose what men choose if they only had a chance—is neither respectful of women’s autonomy nor supported by data.

Taken from Nautilus  Nov/Dec 2017