The Elephant's Child

Gods, Graves and Scholars.

Gods, Graves, and Scholars: The story of Archaeology by C.W. Ceram was first published in 1951.  I'm reading the second edition, published in 1967. It's a wonderful introduction to the grand story of the great Archealogical finds of the modern age.  I'm enjoying it very much, even more so since I wasn't looking for a book on archeaology when I wandered back into the 500-600 numbers.  Surprises are nice, aren't they

Let's look at this excerpt, regarding the reasons behind the construction of the pyramids.

The power of belief prevailed over any political or moral consideration.  The pyramids of the Pharaohs [...] were the fruits of a tremendously hypertrophied egocentrism, a point of view in which the interests of the community simply played no part.  The pyramid-building urge was the exact opposite of the inspiration behind the great architectural monuments of Christianity.  The purpose of the cathedrals of Christendom was to serve the pious community.  ...[B]ut the pyramids served the Pharaoh and none other; his dead body, his soul, and his ka.  (pp. 142-143)

It's shocking, isn't it?  To think that an author would dare suggest that the motivation behind the building of edifices of an ancient, pre-Christian culture were somehow less pure than the motivations of those who built the great Christian cathedrals of Europe!

Perish the thought!

The other reason that I like reading old books is that in older books (you know, like ones published more than ten years ago) I don't have to put up with the "BCE" and "CE" retardedness.  "Before Christian Common Era?" Please. Isn't the intelligentsia smarter than this?  It's like people think that if you stop saying someone's name they just disappear from history! It's like magic! 

Oh, wait. 

I guess it does pretty much happen like that.

Ten Books.

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card.  Simply excellent.  A book beyond simply a good story, although it's that as well.

The Underground History of American Education, John Taylor Gatto.  The school model can't be "fixed" because it's actually doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Karen Seroussi.  A mind-blowing approach to treating some types of autism.  Completely changed my view of autism spectrum disorders.

The Beautiful and The Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I enjoyed this one more than the better-known The Great Gatsby.

Ethan Fromme, Edith Wharton.  I love Wharton almost as much as I love Fitzgerald.

The Chosen, Chaim Potok.  Potok is probably my favorite modern-day novelist.

Dune, Frank Herbert.  I credit Dune with teaching me to be a much better observer of small details and of human behavior, although I've yet to master the Voice. Think how useful that would be! Oh, and the Litany Against Fear works on snakes. I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer, fear is the little death that brings total obliteration...  Hello, my name is Jenny, and I Am a Dork.

Trinity, Leon Uris. There are several historical fiction authors I've learned alot from, but Trinity is the one I've re-read several times.

The Pilgrim's Regress, CS Lewis.  Actually, most of Lewis' books.  Also, The Problem of Pain and The Abolition of Man, which is a good accompaniment to John Taylor Gatto's book.

Sure Signs, Ted Kooser.  A good book of poems that "hang in the air."  You know what I mean, right? Poems that sort of hang there, after you're done reading them?  Do you know some like that?

If You Love Me, Read This Book.

 The House at Sugar Beach, by Helene Cooper.  (To Chris and to my family- that's "Cooper" as in "Cooper Clinic" in Monrovia.)

Helene Cooper grew up in Monrovia. She is Congo Liberian, just like my Liberian Grandma, Rosina Grimes.  Helene Cooper attended ACS, a freshman there the year I was in Kindergarten; her sister had the same first grade teacher as I did.   She swam at Caesar's Beach, ate hamburgers at Diana's, shopped in Waterside, and watched movies at the Relda.  She grew up in a house out past ELWA; their turn off was near the three-headed palm tree.

She grew up in old Liberia, just like I did.  She knows what Liberia used to be. And she has been back, to stand in the rubble and see that old Liberia wasn't completely obliterated by well over a decade of slaughter.

I've reviewed the book at Amazon. The book is also available in your local Starbucks.

The Pilgrim's Regress: The Landlord and The Rules.

Or, why our attempts to be a "better" Christian will always fall short.

"I think I see, sir." [said John]  "You mean that I am not my own man: in some sense I have a Landlord after all?"

"Even so. But what is it that dismays you?" [said the Man.] "You heard from Wisdom how the rules were yours and not yours.  Did you not mean to keep them? And if so, can it scare you to know that there is one who will make you able to keep them?"

"Well," said John. "I suppose you have found me out.  Perhaps I did not fully mean to keep them -- not all -- or not all the time.  And yet, in a way, I think I did.  It is like a thorn in your finger, Sir.  You know when you set about taking it out yourself--you mean to get it out--you know it will hurt-- but somehow it is not very serious business--well, I suppose, because you feel that you always could stop if it was very bad.  Not that you intend to stop.  But it is a very different thing to hold your hand out to a surgeon to be hurt as much as he thinks fit. And at his speed.

If we try better ourselves, we always stop before it hurts too much, don't we?  We always prefer our own little sets of rules, for those rules go as far as we want and no further.  And so the thorns remain.  The surgeon has a different idea, though.

The Man laughed.  "I see you understand me very well, " He said.  "But the great thing is to get the thorn out."   And then He went away."

Nothing New Here, Move Along.

During the course of CS Lewis' The Pilgrim's Regress, the protagonist John has a conversation with Mr. Broad, a Steward of the Landlord, during his journey to find the Island in the West.  John has not long come from his visit with Mr. Sensible, who is the epitome of worldliness.

"Poor Mr. Sensible, he is ageing (sic; British spelling) fast. I don't think he has ever quite forgiven me for having kept most of my hair!" [said Mr. Broad.]

"I should have thought his views differed from yours a good deal." [replied John]

"Ah, to be sure, to be sure! He is not very orthodox, perhaps, but as I grow older I am inclined to set less and less store by mere orthodoxy.  So often the orthodox view means the lifeless view, the barren formula.  I am coming to look more and more at the language of the heart.  Logic and definition divide us; it is those things which draw us together that I now value most -- our common affections, our common delight in this slow pageant of the countryside, our common struggle towards the light.  Sensible's heart is in the right place."

The Pilgrim's Regress was written in 1933, dear readers. Silly me, I thought all that avant garde "Let's re-invent the church!" and horrifed "We can't talk about doctrine! We'll offend someone!" stuff was a new thing.

Cheap Entertainment: Amazon Book Reviews.

From a review of The Pilgrim's Regress by CS Lewis, and I quote,

"Lewis said to Tolkien, there wasn't anything available of the sort of thing he liked to read, so he'd have to write it himself; arguably both Tolkien and Lewis wrote for readers who liked to read what they liked to read, and in so doing struck a deep vein and a lost chord."

So, how many metaphors might a man mangle if a man might mangle many?

A Little Housekeeping.

I've been typing out the Choral Vespers for Lent service that our choir sang and Mad Musician directed last Saturday night.  Since not all of you, my dear readers, are Lutheran, I'm taking the time to include the texts from the pieces we sang, as well as the liturgical bits in between.

In other news, I've been having trouble with my GoodReads account.  Following any visit to their site, I'm deluged with about two weeks of the sorts of spam that internet service providers are supposed to filter out for me.

So, even though it's rather handy to keep track of the books I've got on loan from Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock- Snake, I think I'm going to have to delete my list and account.  I've already started a new list on my sidebar carefully cataloging all the glorious paper-bound by-products of fact that my little brother is a single guy with no dependents and no permanent residence in which to stash his hoard personal library. Yay for me!

I Am Just a Tiny Person In Africa.

I had a farm in Africa...   Oops. Wrong book.  Wait... Ok, here we go.  From The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith:

"And she thought: I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own."

I didn't expect to like this book, as I'm not a big reader of fiction in general, and mystery and detective novels in particular. I have a high opinion, though, of the readers of my blog, one of whom asked me to read this book; and so I went outside of my normal prowling through the Dewey decimals and ventured forth into the regions marked "F." 

Why I love Kipling.

From the opening pages of The Jungle Book.  It's available free from Project Gutenberg.

It was the jackal--Tabaqui, the Dish-licker--and the wolves of India despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and telling tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish-heaps. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it dewanee--the madness--and run.

It's really too bad that the reading of Kipling has fallen by the wayside in this oh, so enlightened age of political correctness.  I think I've got to read more Kipling myself.  You should too, O Best Beloved.

Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, 'I'm hungry.'
And the small 'Stute Fish said in a small 'stute voice, 'Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?'
'No,' said the Whale. 'What is it like?'
'Nice,' said the small 'Stute Fish. 'Nice but nubbly.'
'Then fetch me some,' said the Whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail.
'One at a time is enough,' said the 'Stute Fish. 'If you swim to latitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West (that is magic), you will find, sitting on a raft, in the middle of the sea, with nothing on but a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders (you must not forget the suspenders, Best Beloved), and a jack-knife, one ship-wrecked Mariner, who, it is only fair to tell you, is a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.'

I already feel sorry for the whale, don't you?  Read the rest.  And never leave home without your suspenders.

Orson Scott Card's Speaker for The Dead.

Backstory: My review of Ender's Game, prequel to Speaker for the Dead.

Beautifully set up for a sequel of its own, Speaker for the Dead continues the story begun in Ender's Game.  While essentially a "first contact" story, I found myself more interested in the book's foray into another sub-genre in science fiction, the development of AI, or artificial intelligence; in this case, a female named Jane.

I think someday when we're faced with the specter (or first contact with, depending on your particular point of view) of artificial intelligence, we'll all be running to moldy used book stores looking for all the discarded sci-fi novels to try and figure out how to "manage" the "problem."

Of course, by then it will be too late...  but I'm scaring you, aren't I?  Bwahhaahhhaa!

I found Jane, the AI entity, err, the AI person...  You see the very beginning of the problem with the development of AI, don't you? AI might not like to be called "entities" and we, as flesh, may object to calling them persons. Anyway, I found Jane absolutely charming, and I hope Jane exists beyond Speaker.  Not only does Orson Scott Card have Jane come into being, but she loves, and two men love her. So, is that interspecies marriage or not? And if it is, is it "ok?" (Oh, I want the answer to be yes. I really do.) The character of Jane made me want to go searching for other science fiction that deals with the spontaneous development of AI.  Melissa Scott's Dreaming Metal and The Shapes of Their Hearts come to mind as two good examples. 

See, the spontaneous development of AI (as opposed to the intentional creation of AI) brings to light an amazing host of moral, ethical, and religious issues, doesn't it?  Did Jesus die for the sins of the likes of Jane? AI, almost by its very definition, has free will, but does AI have original sin?  I would argue that since AI was (will be) birthed out of the intelligence of man that it is by its nature sinful, just like we are.

Would we, as flesh and blood sentient beings, be willing to grant full rights to a being that has no body? What would murder of AI consist of, and would the penalties be the same as murder of flesh-and-blood?  Would it even be possible to "murder" an intelligence that exists in all the servers of the world? How would we put a malicious AI to death, then?