Each time I pick up The Canterbury Tales, I can't remember which tale is which any more, so here's a summary of each in 5 sentences or less (a work in progress):
The Knight's Tale
Knights Arcite and Palamon fall madly in love with Emily, duel to the death, for the noble cause of following their hearts and choosing the one they love. She nobly accepts the winner--but interestingly without any say of her own.
The Miller's Tale
Nicolas, boarding at old John the carpenter's house, falls in love with John's young wife Alison. He convinces gullible John that if he acts quickly and without questions, he will save him from a new Biblical flood, but it's just a ruse to get him alone with Alison. Absalom, the amorous parish, clerk interrupts their escapade and awakes John, who runs amok thinking the flood has begun. Poor gullible John becomes a laughing stock and branded insane by the villagers.
The Steward's Tale (or The Reeve's Tale)
Scholars John and Allen are cheated by a corrupt miller. It gets late so they spend the night in his 1-bedroom house. Through a combination of drunkenness, mischief, and mistakes in the dark, they sleep with his wife and daughter, fight the miller, and the wife knocks him out with a board. They escape at dawn with their silver and grain--and prove that cheaters will get cheated themselves in the end.
The Man of Law's Tale
The Emperor of Rome, trying to spread Christianity, gives his daughter, Constance, to the Sultan of Syria, but the Sultan's jealous mother has her banished to sea. With God's protection, however, as with Daniel, Jonah, David, and others before her, she arrives years later in Northumberland, where she marries the King and spreads Christianity there. The King's mother, however, also jealous, manages to get her banished again. This time she's found by a Roman Counselor, who takes her back to Rome, where he unwittingly reunites her with her father, the Emperor, and her husband, the King of Northumberland, who--thinking she was dead--was in Rome to see the Pope.
The Wife of Bath's Tale - coming soon
The Friar's Tale
A summoner, enforcing laws on morality, supplements his income by extorting "fines" from peasants for concocted accusations. Over-confident in himself, he joins up with the devil. On their way to extort a widow, they meet a peasant cursing his horses stuck in a rut. The devil ignores the peasant because he doesn't really mean his curses. Then they meet the widow, whom the summoner accuses of made-up crimes. When she responds with real curses, the devil takes the summoner's soul immediately!
The Summoner's Tale
A lying and conniving friar visits sick Thomas, the peasant, eats his food, molests his wife, and begs for gold. After making the friar promise he'll share it equally with his brothers, Thomas offers him any gold hidden in his pants, but all he has is a fart! Incensed, the friar visits a lord to complain, but all the lord offers is his servant's suggestion that a fart can be shared by passing it between the spokes of a wagon wheel.
The Cleric's Tale
Walter, the Italian Marquis, takes Griselda, the peasant girl, as his wife but only after making her vow obedience. Then he tests for deceptively for 12 years before finally confessing his cruelty was just a test and then they live happily ever after! The cleric then advises women to respect Griselda but not be so meek.
The Merchant's Tale
January, the old knight marries May, a young and beautiful girl. Then Fate makes January blind. After some discussion on the relationship between a husband and wife, Pluto restores January's sight in time for him to catch May in a fling with Damian, the squire, but Proserpine, Pluto's wife, gives May, and all women, the ability to talk her way out of any wrongdoing!
The Landowner's Tale - next
Reference:Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. ca. 1390. Trans. Burton Raffel. Modern Library. 2008.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
A walk along an Estuary - A Brush with Nature
One summer day I was walking on a boardwalk along an estuary. It was late afternoon. I didn't know how far it went, but it was easy walking, I felt like exploring, and it looked like it would take me away from the buildings and urban noises and into nature.
I kept walking. The vegetation got thicker and the urban noises began to fade. I started seeing more birds and colorful insects. I got to a point where there were no more buildings to be seen, but I could still hear their air conditioners. So I walked further and it got quieter and I began to hear more sounds of nature, even the water lapping.
The boardwalk ended, but a cement sidewalk continued at ground level. It started getting dark. I was alone and I became entranced with being one with nature. There was no moon or starlight--it must have been cloudy--but the sidewalk was straight and easy to follow and I had a flashlight, in case I needed it. I kept it off so as not to disrupt my solitude nor run down the battery.
Suddenly, the sidewalk ended. I stepped into wet grass, lost my balance, slipped around, got my flashlight on, but dropped it in the water. I fell into the water, too, but only got my legs and arms wet. Fortunately the flashlight floated, and I got it back, but I was beginning to panic, all alone, wet, in the dark, trying to find the cement. I made a few wrong turns and stepped into mud, but then I felt the cement, so weathered and rough, but also so solid and secure. I was so relieved to get back to something man-made and thankful for whoever put it there years ago!
I recovered myself, turned off the light, and started back towards town. It was still dark, but I could stay on the sidewalk easy enough to make my return back to civilization.
I kept walking. The vegetation got thicker and the urban noises began to fade. I started seeing more birds and colorful insects. I got to a point where there were no more buildings to be seen, but I could still hear their air conditioners. So I walked further and it got quieter and I began to hear more sounds of nature, even the water lapping.
The boardwalk ended, but a cement sidewalk continued at ground level. It started getting dark. I was alone and I became entranced with being one with nature. There was no moon or starlight--it must have been cloudy--but the sidewalk was straight and easy to follow and I had a flashlight, in case I needed it. I kept it off so as not to disrupt my solitude nor run down the battery.
Suddenly, the sidewalk ended. I stepped into wet grass, lost my balance, slipped around, got my flashlight on, but dropped it in the water. I fell into the water, too, but only got my legs and arms wet. Fortunately the flashlight floated, and I got it back, but I was beginning to panic, all alone, wet, in the dark, trying to find the cement. I made a few wrong turns and stepped into mud, but then I felt the cement, so weathered and rough, but also so solid and secure. I was so relieved to get back to something man-made and thankful for whoever put it there years ago!
I recovered myself, turned off the light, and started back towards town. It was still dark, but I could stay on the sidewalk easy enough to make my return back to civilization.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Tuxedo Park by Jennet Conant (2002)
A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II
This is a very well researched and fascinating story unfortunately embedded among lots mundane details. It's definitely worth reading, though, especially if you're interested in science, technology, history, and/or life among the super wealthy.
The three things I can add to the reviews already on the Internet, from an engineer's point of view, are:
Motivation (p. 187)
Science, technology, and innovation make their greatest strides when there is enough motivation. Before 1941, there was almost no American interest in radar, but the British were already fighting for their lives and making strides in the technology. Once America got involved and got motivated, however, the technology advanced and became mass producible the Allies gained a significant competitive advantage over the Germans.
The Radar program showed what could be accomplished with government-funded R&D and R&D has been a large part of defense spending ever since--but has it been as productive? Look at missile defense. Without an immediate threat, like before 1941, it seems like the US is taking a long time to build a reliable missile defense system. Israel, on the other hand, is facing an immediate threat, like Britain in 1941, and has independently developed Iron Dome, their own working, battle-proven missile defense system.
Requirements (p. 256)
There has always been a tendency for requirements specifications to omit the purpose or usage of the functionality. Engineers can implement the letter of the requirement, but with no knowledge of how the thing is going to be used, they don't always implement what the specifier really had in mind.
The radar developers had that problem with the specifications they got from the military. We still have that problem. It's especially prevalent in software engineering. Software developers can create a system that meets the requirements and passes acceptance testing, but still not do what the requester had in mind.
Start Ups (p. 261)
It seems that small companies have always been the better choice for developing something new. They are simpler, faster, and more eager for success than bloated established companies who are more interested in keeping the status quo and promoting their established ways and means. For this reason, early radar developers, tired of big companies re-engineering their designs, switched to using smaller companies.
And this still happens today. Look at the role of Silicon Valley start-ups. Contrast the early days of Microsoft and Apple to today. Look at today's giant government contractors taking forever to develop new weapons, air traffic, and accounting systems. Contrast that to all the new inventions that keep out of small startups.
Lee DuBridge (p. 284)
And here's an interesting quote from Lee DuBridge, the founding director of the MIT Radar Lab:
Radar won the War; the atom bomb ended it.
References
Jennet Conant. Tuxedo Park. 2002. Simon & Shuster.
Amazon. Tuxedo Park. web. 2013.
This is a very well researched and fascinating story unfortunately embedded among lots mundane details. It's definitely worth reading, though, especially if you're interested in science, technology, history, and/or life among the super wealthy.
The three things I can add to the reviews already on the Internet, from an engineer's point of view, are:
Motivation (p. 187)
Science, technology, and innovation make their greatest strides when there is enough motivation. Before 1941, there was almost no American interest in radar, but the British were already fighting for their lives and making strides in the technology. Once America got involved and got motivated, however, the technology advanced and became mass producible the Allies gained a significant competitive advantage over the Germans.
The Radar program showed what could be accomplished with government-funded R&D and R&D has been a large part of defense spending ever since--but has it been as productive? Look at missile defense. Without an immediate threat, like before 1941, it seems like the US is taking a long time to build a reliable missile defense system. Israel, on the other hand, is facing an immediate threat, like Britain in 1941, and has independently developed Iron Dome, their own working, battle-proven missile defense system.
Requirements (p. 256)
There has always been a tendency for requirements specifications to omit the purpose or usage of the functionality. Engineers can implement the letter of the requirement, but with no knowledge of how the thing is going to be used, they don't always implement what the specifier really had in mind.
The radar developers had that problem with the specifications they got from the military. We still have that problem. It's especially prevalent in software engineering. Software developers can create a system that meets the requirements and passes acceptance testing, but still not do what the requester had in mind.
Start Ups (p. 261)
It seems that small companies have always been the better choice for developing something new. They are simpler, faster, and more eager for success than bloated established companies who are more interested in keeping the status quo and promoting their established ways and means. For this reason, early radar developers, tired of big companies re-engineering their designs, switched to using smaller companies.
And this still happens today. Look at the role of Silicon Valley start-ups. Contrast the early days of Microsoft and Apple to today. Look at today's giant government contractors taking forever to develop new weapons, air traffic, and accounting systems. Contrast that to all the new inventions that keep out of small startups.
Lee DuBridge (p. 284)
And here's an interesting quote from Lee DuBridge, the founding director of the MIT Radar Lab:
Radar won the War; the atom bomb ended it.
References
Jennet Conant. Tuxedo Park. 2002. Simon & Shuster.
Amazon. Tuxedo Park. web. 2013.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Democrats and Republicans treat us like pets!
Democrats treat us like pets in cages. As long as we stay in our cages, run on our exercise wheels, and don't make too much noise, they'll feed us and give us shots as we need them (1). To me, that's pretty depressing.
Republicans will let us out of our cages and give us a chance to succeed, but they'll have cats out, too, ready to pounce on us in our ignorance and naivete (2), and that's just evil.
If the federal government will get the heck out of education and let schools teach 12 years of economics and finance, maybe we won't be so vulnerable if the Republicans let us out of our "cages"
I want to vote Republican, but I can't until public schools teach economics and finance. Until then, Americans are being set up to succeed at work 8 hours a day but fail financially 24 hours a day.
(1) For example, Democrat entitlement policies stifle individual innovation, encourage non-advancing worker-bee jobs, and force people to work for established corporations to get health care.
(2) For example, if Republicans privatize social security, 99% will be given a chance to beat the market, but none of them will have the training to do so. They will immediately lose their savings to the 1% that are adequately trained.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Quotes from Fahrenheit 451
If you've ever read Fahrenheit 451, then this list of quotes, in order, makes a pretty good summary of Ray Bradbury's novel:
p 5 ...the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them. Her dress was white and it whispered.
p 7 ...face bright as snow in the moonlight,...
p 7 ...two shining drops of bright water...two miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact...fragile milk crystal...strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle...
p 7 ...space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them.
p 9 My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days.
p 9-10 My uncle was arrested another time--did I tell you?--for being a pedestrian.
p 17 ...their laughter was relaxed and hearty and not forced in any way...
p 17 How are you supposed to root for the home team when you don't even have a program or know the names?
p 18 I don't know anything any more.
p 18 She was an expert at lip reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear thimbles.
p 20 What's the play about? I just told you. There are these people named Rob and Ruth and Helen.
p 27 Why? You got a guilty conscience about something?
p 29 It's just I haven't had time--
p 29 But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you?
p 29 more sports
p 30 They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park and bully people around...
p 31 People don't talk about anything ... They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and nobody says anything different from anyone else ... the same jokes most of the time...
p 33 Any man's insane who thinks he can fool the government...
p 36 ...swinging silver hatchets at doors that were, after all, unlocked...
p 36 You weren't hurting anyone, you were hurting only things.
p 39 ...her quietness a condemnation...
p 40 You've gone right by the corner where we turn for the firehouse.
p 43 Funny, how funny, not to remember where or when you met your husband'r wife.
p 44 ...a silly empty man, near a silly empty woman, ... How do you get so empty?
p 44 ...said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud.
p 49 What was on? Programs. What programs? Some of the best ever. Who? Oh, you know, the bunch.
p 49 We burnt an old woman with her books ... It's a good thing the rug's washable.
p 51 There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house...She was simple-minded.
p 56 The zipper replaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.
p 57 More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize and organize and superorganize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere.
p 57 Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs,...
p 57 The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy...
p 58 It didn't come from the Government down...
p 58 ...you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.
p 58 With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.
p 58 ...then all are happy...
p 58-59 ...[firemen] were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind...official censors, judges, and executors.
p 59 People want to be happy
p 60 The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle.
p 61 If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.
p 61 If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that let people worry over it.
p 61 Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information ... Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.
p 63 ...there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk.
p 63 The real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think.
p 65 Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet...I'm not happy.
p 66 We've got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we're in such a mess, you and the medicine nights, and the car, and me and my work. We're heading right for the cliff, Millie, God, I don't want to go over.
p 67 And men like Beatty are afraid of her. I can't understand it.
p 71 ...the cold November rain fell...
p 73 Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are?
p 74 Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much?
p 76-77 ...all the silly things the words mean, all the false promises, all the second-hand notions and time-worn philosophies.
p 79 Denham's Dentifrice, Denham's Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham's Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice,...
p 82 ...you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the 'guilty',...
p 82 Nobody listens any more. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me. I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls.
p 82 We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing.
p 82 It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in the books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today.
p 83 The magic is only in what the books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.
p 84 Leisure. Oh, but we have plenty of off-hours. Off-hours, yes. But time to think?
p 84 The televisor is 'real'...It tells me what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest...It becomes and is the truth.
p 84-85 Number one...: quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two.
p 86 ...when we had all the books we needed, we still insisted on finding the highest cliff to jump off.
p 87 Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.
p 89 I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths. No one wanted them back.
p 89 Those who don't build must burn.
p 92 I don't want to change sides and just be told what to do. There's no reason to change if I do that. ... You're wise already.
p 96-97 Let's talk politics ... President Noble. I think he's one of the nicest-looking men ever became president. Oh, but the man they ran against him! ... small and homely and he didn't shave too close or comb his hair very well ... little short man like that ... mumbled ... Fat ... No wonder the landslide was for Winston Noble.
p 99 Dover Beach
p 101 I've always said poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying and awful feelings, poetry and sickness; all that mush!
p 101 Silly words, silly words, silly awful hurting words ... Why do people want to hurt people?
p 101 Let's laugh and be happy now, stop crying, we'll have a party!
p 103 ... you were so recently of them yourself. They are so confident that they will run on forever. But they won't run on.
p 107 What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and they turn on you.
p 108 ... the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority.
p 109 Here we go to keep the world happy ...
p 113 Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's burnt his wings, he wonders why.
p 114 She didn't do anything to anyone. She just left them alone.
p 114 Alone, hell! She chewed around you, didn't she? One of those damn do-gooders with their shocked, holier-than-thou silences, their one talent making others feel guilty.
p 115 What is fire? ... Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibilities and consequences.
p 115 Now, Montag, you're a burden.
p 116 ... he had lived here in this empty house with a strange woman who would forget him tomorrow, who had gone and quite forgotten him already, listening to her Seashell Radio ...
p 118 Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he's the Lord of all Creation.
p 121 ... don't face a problem, burn it.
p 122 Beatty wanted to die.
p 123 ... burn them or they'll burn you, ...
p 124 [the highway at night] seemed like a boatless river frozen there in the raw light of the high white arc lamps;
p 124 [a gas station at night] a great chunk of porcelain snow shining there, ...
p 125 The police helicopters were rising so far away that it seemed someone had blown the gray head off a dry dandelion flower.
p 125 "War has been declared."
p 128 A carful of children ... had seen a man, a very extraordinary sight, a man strolling, a rarity, and simply said, "Let's get him," ...
p 128 For no reason at all in the world they would have killed me.
p 132 Even though practically everything's airborne these days and most of the tracks are abandoned, the rails are still there, rusting.
p 133 Tonight, this network is proud to have the opportunity to follow the Hound by camera helicopter as it starts on its way to the target--
p 139 ...thousands of faces peering into yards, into alleys, and into the sky, faces hid by curtains, pale, night-frightened faces, like gray animals peering from electric caves, faces with gray colorless eyes, gray tongues, and gray thoughts looking out through the numb flesh of the face.
p 140 He was moving from an unreality that was frightening into a reality that was unreal because it was new.
p 141 The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time.
p 142 ... a strange fire because it meant something different to him. It was not burning. It was warming.
p 143 He had never thought in his life that it could give as well as take.
p 148 Don't think the police don't know the habits of queer ducks like that, ... the police have had him charted for months, years. Never know when that sort of information might be handy.
p 152 Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end. It's not pleasant, but then we're not in control, we're the odd minority crying in the wilderness.
p 153 But you can't make people listen. They have to come 'round in their own time...
p 153 The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important, we mustn't be pendants; we were no to feel superior to anyone else in the world.
p 154 ... until another Dark Age.
p 154 But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing.
p 158 And the war began and ended in that instant.
p 158 ...yet the heart is suddenly shattered, the body falls in separate motions, and the blood is astonished to be freed on the air; the brain squanders it few precious memories and, puzzled, dies.
p 163 There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man.
p 165 To everything there is a season. [Ecclesiastes 3:1] Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
Reference
Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451. 50th Anniversary Edition. 1953,1979,1981,1982. Del Rey.
Ted Bogart, "Fahrenheit 451 and 1984", Book Block, 2012, web.
p 5 ...the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them. Her dress was white and it whispered.
p 7 ...face bright as snow in the moonlight,...
p 7 ...two shining drops of bright water...two miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact...fragile milk crystal...strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle...
p 7 ...space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them.
p 9 My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days.
p 9-10 My uncle was arrested another time--did I tell you?--for being a pedestrian.
p 17 ...their laughter was relaxed and hearty and not forced in any way...
p 17 How are you supposed to root for the home team when you don't even have a program or know the names?
p 18 I don't know anything any more.
p 18 She was an expert at lip reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear thimbles.
p 20 What's the play about? I just told you. There are these people named Rob and Ruth and Helen.
p 27 Why? You got a guilty conscience about something?
p 29 It's just I haven't had time--
p 29 But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you?
p 29 more sports
p 30 They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park and bully people around...
p 31 People don't talk about anything ... They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and nobody says anything different from anyone else ... the same jokes most of the time...
p 33 Any man's insane who thinks he can fool the government...
p 36 ...swinging silver hatchets at doors that were, after all, unlocked...
p 36 You weren't hurting anyone, you were hurting only things.
p 39 ...her quietness a condemnation...
p 40 You've gone right by the corner where we turn for the firehouse.
p 43 Funny, how funny, not to remember where or when you met your husband'r wife.
p 44 ...a silly empty man, near a silly empty woman, ... How do you get so empty?
p 44 ...said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud.
p 49 What was on? Programs. What programs? Some of the best ever. Who? Oh, you know, the bunch.
p 49 We burnt an old woman with her books ... It's a good thing the rug's washable.
p 51 There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house...She was simple-minded.
p 56 The zipper replaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.
p 57 More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize and organize and superorganize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere.
p 57 Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs,...
p 57 The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy...
p 58 It didn't come from the Government down...
p 58 ...you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.
p 58 With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.
p 58 ...then all are happy...
p 58-59 ...[firemen] were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind...official censors, judges, and executors.
p 59 People want to be happy
p 60 The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle.
p 61 If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.
p 61 If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that let people worry over it.
p 61 Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information ... Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.
p 63 ...there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk.
p 63 The real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think.
p 65 Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet...I'm not happy.
p 66 We've got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we're in such a mess, you and the medicine nights, and the car, and me and my work. We're heading right for the cliff, Millie, God, I don't want to go over.
p 67 And men like Beatty are afraid of her. I can't understand it.
p 71 ...the cold November rain fell...
p 73 Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are?
p 74 Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much?
p 76-77 ...all the silly things the words mean, all the false promises, all the second-hand notions and time-worn philosophies.
p 79 Denham's Dentifrice, Denham's Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham's Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice,...
p 82 ...you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the 'guilty',...
p 82 Nobody listens any more. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me. I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls.
p 82 We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing.
p 82 It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in the books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today.
p 83 The magic is only in what the books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.
p 84 Leisure. Oh, but we have plenty of off-hours. Off-hours, yes. But time to think?
p 84 The televisor is 'real'...It tells me what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest...It becomes and is the truth.
p 84-85 Number one...: quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two.
p 86 ...when we had all the books we needed, we still insisted on finding the highest cliff to jump off.
p 87 Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.
p 89 I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths. No one wanted them back.
p 89 Those who don't build must burn.
p 92 I don't want to change sides and just be told what to do. There's no reason to change if I do that. ... You're wise already.
p 96-97 Let's talk politics ... President Noble. I think he's one of the nicest-looking men ever became president. Oh, but the man they ran against him! ... small and homely and he didn't shave too close or comb his hair very well ... little short man like that ... mumbled ... Fat ... No wonder the landslide was for Winston Noble.
p 99 Dover Beach
p 101 I've always said poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying and awful feelings, poetry and sickness; all that mush!
p 101 Silly words, silly words, silly awful hurting words ... Why do people want to hurt people?
p 101 Let's laugh and be happy now, stop crying, we'll have a party!
p 103 ... you were so recently of them yourself. They are so confident that they will run on forever. But they won't run on.
p 107 What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and they turn on you.
p 108 ... the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority.
p 109 Here we go to keep the world happy ...
p 113 Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's burnt his wings, he wonders why.
p 114 She didn't do anything to anyone. She just left them alone.
p 114 Alone, hell! She chewed around you, didn't she? One of those damn do-gooders with their shocked, holier-than-thou silences, their one talent making others feel guilty.
p 115 What is fire? ... Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibilities and consequences.
p 115 Now, Montag, you're a burden.
p 116 ... he had lived here in this empty house with a strange woman who would forget him tomorrow, who had gone and quite forgotten him already, listening to her Seashell Radio ...
p 118 Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he's the Lord of all Creation.
p 121 ... don't face a problem, burn it.
p 122 Beatty wanted to die.
p 123 ... burn them or they'll burn you, ...
p 124 [the highway at night] seemed like a boatless river frozen there in the raw light of the high white arc lamps;
p 124 [a gas station at night] a great chunk of porcelain snow shining there, ...
p 125 The police helicopters were rising so far away that it seemed someone had blown the gray head off a dry dandelion flower.
p 125 "War has been declared."
p 128 A carful of children ... had seen a man, a very extraordinary sight, a man strolling, a rarity, and simply said, "Let's get him," ...
p 128 For no reason at all in the world they would have killed me.
p 132 Even though practically everything's airborne these days and most of the tracks are abandoned, the rails are still there, rusting.
p 133 Tonight, this network is proud to have the opportunity to follow the Hound by camera helicopter as it starts on its way to the target--
p 139 ...thousands of faces peering into yards, into alleys, and into the sky, faces hid by curtains, pale, night-frightened faces, like gray animals peering from electric caves, faces with gray colorless eyes, gray tongues, and gray thoughts looking out through the numb flesh of the face.
p 140 He was moving from an unreality that was frightening into a reality that was unreal because it was new.
p 141 The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time.
p 142 ... a strange fire because it meant something different to him. It was not burning. It was warming.
p 143 He had never thought in his life that it could give as well as take.
p 148 Don't think the police don't know the habits of queer ducks like that, ... the police have had him charted for months, years. Never know when that sort of information might be handy.
p 152 Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end. It's not pleasant, but then we're not in control, we're the odd minority crying in the wilderness.
p 153 But you can't make people listen. They have to come 'round in their own time...
p 153 The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important, we mustn't be pendants; we were no to feel superior to anyone else in the world.
p 154 ... until another Dark Age.
p 154 But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing.
p 158 And the war began and ended in that instant.
p 158 ...yet the heart is suddenly shattered, the body falls in separate motions, and the blood is astonished to be freed on the air; the brain squanders it few precious memories and, puzzled, dies.
p 163 There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man.
p 165 To everything there is a season. [Ecclesiastes 3:1] Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
Reference
Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451. 50th Anniversary Edition. 1953,1979,1981,1982. Del Rey.
Ted Bogart, "Fahrenheit 451 and 1984", Book Block, 2012, web.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Has Contemporary Liberalism Lost its Way?
I think so, and here's why:
We share our country with lots of people, so we can't do anything until more people realize what the problem is.
Please read Fahrenheit 451, make your own observations and conclusions, and decide for yourself. If I'm right, tell your friends.
References
Ted Bogart, "History of Liberalism", Book Blog, 2012, web.
"Liberalism", Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1975, vol. 10, pp. 846-851.
Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451. 50th Anniversary Edition. 1953,1979,1981,1982. Del Rey.
- In the Middle Ages, classical liberalism was a movement to liberate the fledgling merchant class from the authoritarian rule of monarchs and aristocrats.
- To do so, classical liberalism sought to reduce the power of the government.
- Over time, the aristocrats and monarchs lost power but powerful industrialists emerged from the merchant class.
- So in the Industrial Age, modern liberalism became a movement to liberate workers from the domination of industrialists.
- To do so, modern liberals enlisted the aid of democratic governments and expanded their power.
- Once again another power shift has occurred. The industrialists have gone overseas.
- Power appears to be in the hands of those who control information and knowledge.
- Contemporary liberals, however, are still focused on industrialists, government regulations, and labor. It's time to move on.
- Why do people believe what they see on TV?
- Why do people buy houses they can't afford?
- Why does anyone lease a personal car?
- Who does the math to see if refinancing really saves money over the long term?
- Why do people believe they own their homes when banks hold their titles?
- Why do people believe health care has been reformed?
- How were people persuaded to invade Iraq?
- Why are people convinced that trickle-down economics benefits them?
- How were people persuaded to pay for Wall Street bailouts?
- How were people convinced of "too big to fail"
- Why do people believe you can cut taxes and increase spending indefinitely?
- Why do people with no education in economics or finance think they can beat the stock market if the government privatizes Social Security?
We share our country with lots of people, so we can't do anything until more people realize what the problem is.
Please read Fahrenheit 451, make your own observations and conclusions, and decide for yourself. If I'm right, tell your friends.
References
Ted Bogart, "History of Liberalism", Book Blog, 2012, web.
"Liberalism", Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1975, vol. 10, pp. 846-851.
Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451. 50th Anniversary Edition. 1953,1979,1981,1982. Del Rey.
The 21st Century Economy by Randy Epping
This is an excellent survey of all the economics topics everyone needs to know right now. Every topic is introduced, briefly discussed, and related to current events and politics. While there's more to each topic than one book can cover, this one presents everything that everybody needs to know right now. Not only that, it has all the key words and names you need for further searching and reading on any individual topics of interest.
Unlike many books on popular economics, this one, while slightly left-leaning, is mostly even-sided and objective. Many others are conspiracy theories or one-sided political diatribes. (I do find the conspiracy theories kind of fun though) This book includes everything, including things like the United Nations and environmentalism. Whether you're a liberal or a conservative, though, these topics have an economic impact on current events, and that's what this book is about. Any survey omitting them would be incomplete.
The 21st Century Economy should be required reading for all high school seniors, college students, and voters. I doubt all the politicians making major economic decisions understand these topics. Voters need to realize this!!!
My own little diatribe:
American public education prepares students to become workers for 8 hours a day but completely ignores economics, which affects us 24 hours a day. Everyone needs to understand this so we can get an economics curriculum in schools where it's needed. What else explains why so many otherwise smart people make so many bad financial decisions? This book can help us fix that.
Reference:
Randy Charles Epping. The 21st Century Economy: A Beginner's Guide. Vintage Books. 2009.
Unlike many books on popular economics, this one, while slightly left-leaning, is mostly even-sided and objective. Many others are conspiracy theories or one-sided political diatribes. (I do find the conspiracy theories kind of fun though) This book includes everything, including things like the United Nations and environmentalism. Whether you're a liberal or a conservative, though, these topics have an economic impact on current events, and that's what this book is about. Any survey omitting them would be incomplete.
The 21st Century Economy should be required reading for all high school seniors, college students, and voters. I doubt all the politicians making major economic decisions understand these topics. Voters need to realize this!!!
My own little diatribe:
American public education prepares students to become workers for 8 hours a day but completely ignores economics, which affects us 24 hours a day. Everyone needs to understand this so we can get an economics curriculum in schools where it's needed. What else explains why so many otherwise smart people make so many bad financial decisions? This book can help us fix that.
Reference:
Randy Charles Epping. The 21st Century Economy: A Beginner's Guide. Vintage Books. 2009.
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