05w05:4 Mumbo Jumbo Posted February 6th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 5 number 4 (mumbo jumbo) ——————————————————————— Atheism and children | Natalie Angier http://www.cfimetrony.org/natalie.html “But seriously. I’m here to talk about why my husband and I are raising our daughter as an atheist. The short, snappy answer is, We don?t believe in god. The longer, self-exculpating answer that is the theme du noir is, We believe it is the right thing to do. […] I can understand the literary and metaphoric value of any number of characters from mythology and religion. […] Yet however legitimate it may be to view any of our religious books as we would the works of Shakespeare or Henry James , I don’t take them seriously as descriptions of how the universe came to be or how any of us will re-be in some posthumous setting, or what god is or wants or whines about. So I am an unalloyed atheist by the standards of the mainstream sects.” Counting Sheep? | Seema Sirohi http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5190 “Are American Christian evangelists using the devastation wreaked by the tsunami to spread the word of God – their God? Disturbing stories from the region and fund-raising appeals from religious leaders in the US who want to ‘plant Christian principles as early as possible’ in the orphans of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India have raised profound questions about proselytisation of vulnerable people in times of tragedy. […] ‘This kind of proselytisation demeans the idea of religious conversion, for it uses helplessness to spread a religion,’ says Ashutosh Varshney, political science professor at Michigan University. ‘A genuine change in conviction remains the best basis for religious conversion and should not be stopped. Few people in abysmal distress can exercise sound judgement.'” For Tsunami Survivors, A Touch of Scientology | Peter S. Goodman http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43291-2005Jan27.html “‘Volunteer Minister,’ Meyers’s yellow T-shirt proclaims. You do not know the sound that a tree makes when it falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it. You cannot imagine the sound of a wave big enough to clear coconut palms and smash houses into bits. But you now know the sound of a Scientology minister tending to survivors. ‘Feel my finger,’ Meyers says, as he touches the ankle of a man with back pain. ‘Feel my finger,’ he says again as he touches the opposite ankle. ‘Feel my finger,’ he says for hours unending as he probes points of which you were only vaguely aware.” Fool Me Once, Shame on You. Fool Me Twice… | Mark Federman http://tinyurl.com/6dyhx “What is actually revealed here is the willingness of so many people to accept at face value, the ‘truth claims’ we are exposed to each and every day, in almost every facet of our lives. Our education system teaches in a particular way, based on a particular syllabus, because, we are told, this is best for the children. Our business organizations are organized in a particular way because, we are told, it is most efficient, effective or provides the best service to our customers. Political decisions are made that affect hundreds of millions of people all around the world because, we are told, this is the way to emancipation, freedom, liberty, and prosperity for all. The operative phrase in all of these – and many more examples that I could suggest – is ‘we are told.’ “ Creative Psychology | Timothy Comeau http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2005/01/creative-psychology.html “We tell ourselves stories to explain our actions, but those actions are being processed beneath or above the threshold were the ‘PR person’ gets a hold of them. In Zorn’s case I would say that his musical facility means that a portion of his mind has great facility with music, and when it comes time to compose, this is brought to the awareness of the PR person and the part of his mind that directs writing and all that. However, the PR person is at a loss to understand just what is happening, because it doesn’t have the language to explain it. The only thing it has available for his ‘Coke story’ is to fall back on the mystical stories inherited from the time of Socrates.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Sunday 06 February 2005 @ 2:27 PM
05w05:3 Self-Transformation Posted February 5th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 5 number 3 (self-transformation) ——————————————————————— Hack Yourself | Anonymous http://www.bloodletters.com/hackyourself.shtml “You can be happy. You can live the life you want to live. You can become the person you want to be. This is what I’ve figured out so far. “ The End of My World as I Knew It | Seth Mnookin http://slate.msn.com/id/2111510 “I was 25 and had spent the years since I graduated from college focusing all of my desperate energy on my career as an intravenous drug addict. I was 6 feet tall and weighed less than 150 pounds. That entire year, I had cleared $3,192 in legal income. I worked for a coffee shop and a liquor store and a couple of bookstores, never lasting at any job for more than a couple of weeks. At one point, I gave confused, occasionally incoherent English lessons to Japanese academics visiting Harvard. (My eternal apologies, Mr. Kobayashi.) I hadn’t done any real writing in years, and the last time I’d traveled on anything resembling a magazine assignment had been the previous summer, when Details had shipped me off to Mexico for an experimental, two-day rapid detox program that was supposed to miraculously cure my heroin addiction. It failed spectacularly. Now I was on my way to Delray Beach with a bag of clothes, a bag of books, and an admission ticket to a long-term treatment center.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Saturday 05 February 2005 @ 1:50 PM
05w05:2 Transcriptions Posted February 4th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 5 number 2 (transcriptions) I managed to get a couple of transcriptions done this week, which I’ve posted on my blog goodreads.ca/commentary. – Timothy ——————————————————————— Canadian Art | Ydessa Hendeles http://tinyurl.com/5lqcl “Regardless of the challenge of changing economics, contemporary Canadian art provides a valuable heritage that provides a resource of insight into the course the country has traveled in its relatively short history. Though more submerged in the international dialog then would be preferred, it is there, and still gives those of us who seek it out a perspective on what it means to be here and indeed, where is here, an especially difficult notion to identify besides the behemoth below the border. The good news is that our history is becoming known internationally, as more and more people from here are interacting with there and sharing what has and is happening here. It is no longer necessary for artists to flee to reside in a major art centre outside the country to be visible and join into the dialogue. It is now appreciated that one can live in Canada and still be on the world’s stage, one can finally function from here. I think it is important to add to the fabric of the art world, expanding its realm, to radiate from the historical global centres.” The Story Telling Problem | Malcolm Gladwell http://tinyurl.com/6wzn6 “We don’t have access to our unconscious, we don’t know what these thing are coming, where they’re come from that bubbles up from the recesses of our brain. So what do we do? Well, we have a behavior that we just did, we just made a decision of a certain kind, we don’t really know where it came from, so we come up with an explanation, we make up a story. And we’re really really good at making up stories. I call this The Story Telling Problem. And this is something that happens over and over again.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Friday 04 February 2005 @ 8:53 PM
05w05:1 Gay Marriage Posted February 2nd, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 5 number 1 (gay marriage) This morning’s The Current was awesome, so today’s Goodread is a link to their shows’ archive. The show is available in 3 seperate Real Audio clips. ——————————————————————— Gay Marriage | The Current http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2005/200502/20050202.html “I’m encouraged by the majority in favour, particularly the Catholic majority in favour of the legislation, but [through] my own work as an oral historian … I see everywhere and always that life is much more complex richer and diverse than pollsters and some politicians and ever some journalists … would like us to think. And I think some people want to control that complexity and richness, to restrict and limit it but it’s my impression living in the country that nature doesn’t take kindly to that, that it loves the exuberance of diversity. Having said that, I can acknowledge that there are certainly people in rural areas in my experience who are slow to adapt changes, frightened by change, but I think that also true (I’ve certainly encountered people) in the cities who are similarly afraid of change. And I think, to me that’s more of what this divide is about. It’s about fearing diversity and unpredictability and the sort of chaos of nature versus embracing it. “– Micheal Riordon, 12.27/24.00 of Part 2 —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Wednesday 02 February 2005 @ 3:40 PM
