I want to get a quick blog post in this morning. I have a very busy day planned. It begins with a 9:20 AM appointment in Grand Rapids with the man who shot a laser into my eye to heal a tear. After that I have appointments with my boss and my piano trio. I also need to prepare and pack for my trip tomorrow to California.
The washing machine has gone berserk and stops mid cycle. This is problematic because it leaves the washer full of clothes soaking in soapy water. Yesterday it took most of the day for me to do two loads. I had to futz with it and experiment with starting it mid cycle or running different wash cycles. Yikes. Bad timing.
I finished Titus Groan the first volume of the Gormenghast triolgy by Mervyn Peake yesterday.
Published in 1950, the author has developed a prose style to match his subject. The opening sentence of Titus Groan is sufficient to illustrate this: “Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls.”
And that’s just a beginning of a description of the castle. The people are also fantastic (in the sense of imaginary and fanciful). I returned to this book recently when I read a description of its third volume in which Titus emerges from this fantastic isolated world into a world of the future. That remains to be seen. However it piqued my interest and I started reading where I had left off.
I also ran across a new concept in Van Doren’s The History of Knowledge this morning: ideonomy.
This word is not in the online OED which is funny because it means the science of ideas. This science is being developed right now. It doesn’t help its credibility that the first word in this html page describing it is misspelled. No wonder the OED has chosen not to include it yet.
1. Buddhist Mobs Burn Mosque and Muslim School in Myanmar – NYTimes.com
Bizzarely Buddhists on motorcycles terrorizing Muslims. There have been 44 deaths since March in this senseless idiotic violence.
2. Museums Mull Public Use of Online Art Images – NYTimes.com
Oh baby. Good stuff. The museum is actually encouraging use of free images of its collection. Excellent.
Here’s a link gleaned from the NYT article above where you can presumably access free images.
Another blog I have stumbled on. The author left a comment on the next link.
5. Bob Dole Misses His Republican Party – NYTimes.com
Hate and fear have emerged as popular driving political forces. Bob Dole muses about this. It looks seriously like the pandering of the Republicans in the latter part of the 20th century to has morphed into madness.
Roger Faires (in another online comment to this article) says it well:
“A lot, if not all of this wretched quandary this Tea Party addled congress has created in our country can be trace it’s roots back to the days of Dole, Reagan, Bush 1, Quayle and McCain. They kicked the doors down on a lot of issues that doors should have been left well enough alone. Deregulating the banking industry. Outspoken belittlement of the people and gains made in the environmental movement. The persecution of labor. The over re-militaryization of our nation (and planet). Introducing red herring issue after red herring issue for low info voters to think that’s what running a nation is all about; like abortion, guns and school prayer.”
Not to mention racism.
6. Addressing Medical Errors – NYTimes.com
A doctor steps forward to talk about his serious error in an effort to encourage a more humane and open attitude in his profession. Admirable.