Observations of a wanderer

Political Questions, Part 3c – How big is the need for health-care reform?

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:22:05 GMT

Now that several of these entries have been about the same issue (health care proposals), and I doubt that I will get back to other political questions, perhaps I should re-name this series. But it probably isn't worth the bother.

One of the strangest objections (in my opinion) that I heard to President Obama's health care proposals came in the last couple of days that we were in the States. One reason given for the scheme has been the large number of uninsured or under-insured persons in the United States. One person we visited questioned whether that figure was really as significant as it has been made out to be.

I think the person MAY have been partly questioning whether the numbers were really that large but what came across was not so much the question of the numbers per se, but the question of how many of the uninsured really want to be insured. According to this person, there are many who could afford medical insurance but who choose not to have it.

If he had been saying this was because they had religious or ethical scruples against insurance, I would have probably doubted that there were so many, but would have accepted that as a strike against an insurance-based scheme. But that actually didn't seem to be his argument. Rather, he seemed to be saying merely that many people prefer for private reasons not to be insured, even if they could afford it.

I couldn't understand what he thought these people's motives were (since it didn't seem to be religious qualms). And even if it were true, I'm not sure how relevent it is. I don't like paying the high premiums I am forced to for medical insurance that will cover me in the U.S. Since I have little or no need for it here in H.K., I have often been tempted to dump it. But I do travel to the U.S. every couple of years, and our mission directors insist that we have insurance to cover whatever major medical expenses we might have while there. So does the fact that a person has chosen not to spend his/her money on expensive insurance premiums necessarily mean that the person would not carry insurance if the premiums were signficantly cheaper? And what about measures to try to make medical care cheaper and more easily available in general? Who would not want that?

Most of the objections I heard to health care reform had to do with such related concerns as the following:
* fears that the new schemes involve a "death committee" that would determine which people with serious health problems should live and which would be allowed to die. (I can't remember if anyone raised this idea with me face-to-face. I know I received it in at least a couple of forwarded e-mails before going to the U.S.)
* Fears about long waiting lists -- that everyone would be dealt with in strict order of having gotten in line, with people with serious problems dying before they could be dealt with because the lines were too long
* Dissatisfaction with the mere idea of possibly having to wait for treatment that is now available on demand.
* Resentment at the possibility that illegal immigrants might benefit from the provision of more general and affordable health care.
* Fears that some treatment options might no longer be available if they happen to be more expensive.

I'll try to comment on these next time.

Political Questions, Part 3b – Why one and not the other?

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:01:24 GMT

This one will be relatively short. (I promise.) I have actually referred to this point before, but wanted to elaborate on it. But it doesn't fit very well with what I want to deal with in the next section, so I decided to give it a short section of its own.

The U.S. is not totally a free enterprise system. There are certain services provided to the public out of the government purse. This includes some services that have in certain countries and in certain periods in history been paid for by private enterprise, with the provider then charging for the service – such things as public highways and public education. (As I mentioned in Part 3a, no one refers to these as “socialised”, even though opponents to public health care persist in referring to that, in a pejorative way, as “socialised medicine.”)

I think the U.S. was one of the world's pioneers in providing education for its population that is both free and compulsory. Today, this is something taken for granted in most countries. Complaints and criticism of public education in the U.S. are common, but I don't think I have ever heard anyone question its basis – that the government has an obligation to provide affordable education (FREE education up to a certain level) for the population.

To me it seems paradoxical that people should assume that education should be provided by the government, but at the same time resist any serious involvement by the government in providing affordable health care. (Unfortunately, I don't know how the people I talked to would react to this argument because I didn't even think of this myself until after I returned to Hong Kong. I guess that shows how conditioned we become to certain arguments.)

Rowling vs. L'Engle

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:48:14 GMT

I still have more I want to say about the conversations we had in the U.S. regarding Pres. Obama's health care proposals, but there is another matter I want to write about that has connections with a particular date and I want to write before we get too far past that date.

It was just a little earlier than this last year that lametiger posed “A challenge for Madeleine L'Engle's birthday” (Nov. 29) (http://lametiger.livejournal.com/64354.html). Someone had drawn his attention to something Madeleine L'Engle had said about the Harry Potter series of books: "I read one of them. It’s a nice story but there’s nothing underneath it. I don’t want to be bothered with stuff where there’s nothing underneath." (I think I may have been the one who drew this to his attention, but I can't find the evidence now.) As a die-hard Harry Potter fan, he strongly disagreed, and used the occasion of Ms. L'Engle's birthday (which happens to coincide with his own -- belated Happy Birthday, Bro!) to invite a comparison of the two writers.

I responded, but he objected to my comments on two grounds. One was that I had responded to one of his questions somewhat tangentially rather than phrasing my comment in the strict terms of his question. The other was that I admitted that I had not read the Harry Potter books – though I had read numerous reviews, had seen all of the movies produced up to that point, and had read portions of several of the books over the shoulders of people sitting next to me, etc. I admitted that I was not qualified to comment on some aspects of the books, but I felt that I knew more than enough to make the comments that I had made and proposed to make. He disagreed. I could have argued the point. (Do I need to read/view pornography to decide that it is potentially harmful to society?) But I know how tenacious he is on such points and decided it was easier just to read some of the books. So I read three or four of the HP series (the first two or three and the last one). Since it had been many years since I last read any of Madeleine L'Engle's books, I also re-read some of hers that I had previously read and read a few I had not previously read, so that my impressions of both writer's books would be equally current.

Basically, my previous impressions were not only confirmed but strengthened. Having read both writers side-by-side, I feel the difference between the two is like night and day. It is exceedingly obvious which is the better writer.

For now at least, I'm not going to bother to respond in detail to lametiger's specific questions. A couple seem unnecessarily picky and a couple seem like red herrings that just distract away from more significant issues. I think the questions of how the two writers compare as writers and how much of real substance (how much there is “underneath”) in their respective writings can be better addressed in more general terms.

When I was growing up, there were a lot of British weekly magazines for boys and girls (usually separately). These were often combined into annuals at the end of the year. I don't know if these still exist or not. If they do, they have probably changed considerably along with changes in society. The ones of my youth (and previous decades, judging by some annuals my father had) generally contained comics, short stories, serial stories, articles about hobbies, articles about current events of interest to young people, etc. Often the serial stories were set in boarding schools. (One famous example from many decades past is the stories about Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School.) I think some of Enid Blyton's books were serialised in some of these magazines. I am most familiar with the Famous Five stories, which I think were generally set in various locations visited by the Five while not in school, but she also wrote two or three other series that were set in boarding schools.

The Harry Potter books fit firmly in this genre of writing, and I couldn't find anything, apart from the gimmick of the school being a school of magic (and perhaps their length) to distinguish Ms. Rowling's books from these others. For those not familiar with boarding school stories like these, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books have a similar style, similar level and similar “feel” to them.

Ms. L'Engle's books, by contrast, are much better written. The writing flows much more smoothly; Ms. Rowling's tends to be choppy and uneven. J.K. Rowling's books made me feel she has written “down” to her juvenile audience. Madeleine L'Engle's fantasy books (she also wrote in other genres) feature juvenile heroes/heroines and are written in simple enough prose to be understood by a juvenile audience, but do not have the feel that they have been consciously written “for” that age group; the quality and style of writing is such that it easily appeals to adults as well.

One of the interests I list on my LJ User Profile is “thought-provoking books.” I find Madeleine L'Engle's books (at least the fantasy and sci-fi ones – I haven't read the romances) definitely thought-provoking; J.K. Rowling's definitely are not.

Most of the themes in the Harry Potter books should be familiar to readers of the kinds of books I have compared them to (i.e. boarding school serials, some of Enid Blyton's books, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, etc.) – heroic teenagers, with the occasional assistance of sympathetic adults, stand up to bullies of their own age and to somewhat over-drawn adult villains. Virtually all I could find to distinguish these from other such books were the mixing in of magic and the supernatural (very trendy these days!), death as a significant factor (although not necessarily a really final one), and the fact that few of the characters were as sharply black or white as they would probably have been in previous generations. The good people had flaws (but generally minor ones) and some of the baddies had redeeming qualities). But that is pretty “PC” and/or “post-modern.” There was little that was not predictable to those familiar with such works.

Madeleine L'Engle's books, by contrast, were far from predictable, and posed some serious questions about the meaning of love, loyalty, progress, responsibility, etc. None of the issues she raised were unusual in themselves – they are all pretty basic issues – but the questions she raised were often quite complex. lametiger posed an additional question about whether someone who read Ms. L'Engle's books as a child and re-read them as an adult would find the same attraction in them. I didn't read any of her books until I was an adult, so I can't be sure how they would have struck me as a child. Knowing how I reacted to other books when I was younger, I suspect I would have felt similar if I had read them then, but I probably see layers of meaning in them now that might have escaped me then.

Is Ms. L'Engle being correct and fair in judging Ms. Rowling's works as having “nothing underneath”? I felt she was when I first read the comment, and I agree with the comment even more strongly now. How do Ms. Rowling's own works compare? I would definitely recommend hers as being interesting, thought-provoking, and for having something substantial “underneath.”

Political Questions, Part 3a – “Socialized Medicine”?

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:57:26 GMT

I had intended to group together several observations about the conversations we had with various people about President Obama's health care proposals, but I'm having trouble finding time to write very much at once. Rather than wait indefinitely, and maybe never getting to it, I decided to do a bit at a time. Even if I never finish, at least part of it will be out there.

One thing I noticed was that the word “socialized” came up in most of these conversations. Either we were asked about our experiences with “socialized” medicine, or Obama's proposals were referred to as “socialized” health care, or both.

In the circles in which these conversations took place, the word “socialized” is normally used in a pejorative sense. In some of these conversations, it was obviously used with pejorative intent. In a few cases the intent may not have been negative, but I felt the fact that that word was used prejudiced the conversation. No matter how much good there might be in the system (in either these other countries or in Obama's plan), it already had a major black mark against it in that it was “socialized” medicine.

Technically (according to a strict dictionary definition), it may be true that such systems of health care are “socialized”, but I think there are several major reasons for not using the term in this debate (apart from the fact that it prejudices the debate before it even gets going).

First, while my experience is far from comprehensive, I do have some limited knowledge of the health care systems in three territories where the system could be described as “socialized.” I know the most about Hong Kong, of course, but I know a little, through reading and the experiences of friends and relatives, about the situations in Canada and the U.K. As far as I can remember, the ONLY people I have heard refer to the health care systems in any of these three territories as “socialized” are American critics. It is not the normal way that the people in these territories refer to their systems.

Second, either according to the dictionary definition of “socialized” or by a comparison with so-called socialized health care systems, or both, the United States has other systems that could be called “socialized”, yet I have never heard the word used about such things: the highway system, the postal system*, public education, etc. I have heard a lot of conservatives express a lot of complaints about the current state of public education in the U.S., but I have never heard the fact that it is “socialized education” mentioned as one of them.

(*I know the USPS has been privatised to some extent, but it was originally a government system and is still somewhat of a hybrid. But that's what the proposed health care system would be – a hybrid. I haven't heard of any intention in the near future to do away with private medical systems – only to tweak the system enough to make sure that affordable medical care is available to all.)

Third, from what I have heard of President Obama's proposals, I'm not sure to what extent it qualifies as “socialized medicine.” I may be wrong on this, since I have not studied it out in any significant detail, but the main aspect I have heard about is NOT that medical care will be provided for the public at large out of the public purse, but RATHER that the government will make sure that low-cost medical insurance is available so that all can be covered by insurance they can afford. That seems like a different animal to me.

More another time (I hope) on other aspects of my conversations with Americans about the Obama plan for health care.

Political questions, Part 2 -- General opinions of Pres. Obama

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:17:50 GMT

How did we answer the questions people peppered us with concerning current U.S. politics? Perhaps I'd better give a little background first. Our whole trip was made within or just outside of what is sometimes called the “Bible belt.” All of the people with whom we had these conversations were Christians, specifically conservative Christians, and all were politically conservative. For the most part I managed to avoid getting into discussions of the last president, but I suspect that most of the people we talked politics with probably feel G.W. Bush was a great president. Most of them expressed, in various ways, the opinion that Pres. Obama is driving the country to ruin.

The more general questions were perhaps the easiest to answer, though the answers were plainly not what people wanted to hear. I refused to say what my own opinions of Obama are, but I did relay some of the common opinions I have run across here in Hong Kong.

Most people in Hong Kong are not white; most of the world's population is not white. Many people here were favourably impressed that the U.S. would FINALLY elect a non-white president. Many Chinese and many Filipinos found it almost unbelievable that it could ever happen. They thought U.S. society was too incorrigibly racist for it ever to be possible. They were favourably impressed with the U.S. that it finally had happened. Most of their other opinions about him took second place to this big factor.

Secondly, much of public opinion that we come into contact with here believes that the war in Iraq is unjustified and immoral. (Many also believe that is true of Afghanistan and the way the “War on Terror” is being waged.) Such things as the Abu Ghraib scandal, the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, the suspension of habeas corpus for people accused of terrorism-related offences, bombing of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombing targets in Pakistan, the use of torture or near-torture techniques on suspects and attempts by high-ranking U.S. government officials to justify the use of such techniques, etc., etc. have severely tarnished the reputation of the U.S. The U.S. has definitely lost the “moral high ground” it once enjoyed. President Obama has vowed to end such abuses and to bring an early end to the war. People overseas rejoice at that – friends of the U.S. as much or more than traditional critics.

As I said, though, it was only in the early stages of our trip (mainly in our first week, in Ohio) that we were asked these general questions. The rest of our trip all the questions had to do with health care. For a review of those conversations, stay tuned for part 3.

U.S. trip and political questions

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:09:22 GMT

I think all my LJ “friends” know that I live in Hong Kong. Most of our relatives, though, live in the U.S. – my wife's parents (mine passed away a few years ago, but they had retired there), our kids, most of our siblings, most of my wife's cousins and most of my cousins on my mother's side of my family (most cousins on my dad's side of my family are in Canada). And we have many friends there. So we visit the U.S. periodically, and we spent 6 weeks there this past July and August.

When we visit the States I usually try to avoid getting into political discussions. My experiences and what I see and hear in the news are too different from those of my U.S. compatriots for us to find much common ground. Normally it is not too hard to avoid such discussions, as long as I keep my mouth shut. When political matters do come up, most people are more interested in telling me their views than in asking for mine. This past summer, though, a lot of people did ask our views, so we got into a lot more political discussion than we usually do.

We started in Ohio and worked our way westward through Indiana and Illinois to Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma. I don't know if this was coincidence or if there was some reason, whether temporal or geographical, but the questions changed as time passed and as we got further west. At first the questions were general, e.g. what did we think of “Obama”? (I can't remember anyone calling him “President Obama”), or what did people in Hong Kong or in Asia think of Obama? Later they became more focussed: what did we think of Obama's health-care plan? or what had our experiences been like with “socialised medicine”?

So how did we answer? If you are interested to know, please stay tuned for parts 2 and 3.

Irritating Mobile Mania

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:15:03 GMT

I've been musing about trends in what questions people ask when they want to know how to contact you -- especially the impersonal "people" who work for companies you are dealing with, who don't know you personally and therefore are probably following set routines.

"Address" is to be expected, as is "e-mail address" now that that means of contact has become so common. So I won't say anything about those -- at least not for now. I do get irked by the forms provided on computers by companies based in the U.S., but that's something for another time.

"Phone number" has always been a normal question for my lifetime. When fax machines became common, they often asked for "fax number." Interestingly, that seems to have passed, and I seldom get asked for that any more. But it was understandable while it lasted, because the regular phone provided for voice communication, while the fax machine allowed almost instantaneous transmission of written materials.

Then cell phones became increasingly common, and people started asking for "phone number" PLUS "mobile number" or "cell number." That was still understandable, because a "land line" number was limited to times when you were physically present in the same place as the telephone. The mobile or cell phone theoretically allowed contact when you were "out of office" or away from home, as the case might be. And by having both numbers, the ones asking for the information could try first one, then the other, increasing the chance of reaching you at one or the other. (Prior to the advent of cell phones, some companies would ask for a second number, or for both "home" and "office" numbers, for the same reason.)

Recently, however, I have had quite a few people ask ONLY for a cell phone or mobile phone number -- often, here, just abbreviated to "mobile?"

This irritates me. My wife and I do not have cell phones, don't want to have cell phones, and hope we are never forced into getting one. If we ever are forced to give in to the onward march of Technopoly and get one, we expect to leave it turned off most of the time and only use it when we need to contact someone or be contacted when we are out of reach of land lines for some reason, such as on a hike or something like that. So WHY should anyone assume that a cell phone number would provide a more reliable way to contact us? Janhaih chi sin!

The ubiquitous Irish?

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:21:36 GMT

Today is St. Patrick's Day -- as I was reminded several times, yesterday and today. Some, at least, of the reminders came from people who, as far as I know, have no Irish blood. And it is not that they are showing polite deference to my cultural roots, because I'm not Irish either . . . or at least, if I have any Irish blood in the cultural mish-mash of my background, it is so tiny that no-one is even sure of it. The biggest component is Welsh. Wales has a patron saint too: St. David. And St. David also has a saint's day. It was just over two weeks ago, on March 1. I didn't see or hear ANY recognition of that, ANYWHERE, except that my wife and I wished each other a Happy St. David's day.

Why is it that EVERYONE is expected to recognise St. Patrick's Day, and is expected to wear green on that day or risk being pinched, yet hardly anyone (even, in many cases, those who share these ethnicities) remembers St. David's Day (Welsh), St. Andrew's Day (Scottish), St. George's Day (English and a host of other countries in Europe), or others? (I guess the Scots prefer to celebrate Burns Night, but no-one but the Scots themselves celebrates that either.)

Better late than never?

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:41:21 GMT

I think everyone on my friends list who wants to do this meme has probably already done it long ago (at least in terms of blog time). I would have done it sooner myself, but things have been hectic lately, and it took me awhile to get completely through the list. Having done so, I may as well post it even if it is late.

Others have pointed out, at length, the factual errors in the original heading/explanation. So I'm leaving it out, apart from the instructions. The same people and others have also pointed out problems with the list itself -- inconsistencies, duplication, and the like. I won't change the list, but I also won't bother to repeat the criticisms. Despite the flaws, it was fun to do. Marking the ones I have read or attempted myself was an exercise in nostalgia, and it was also fun to see how the reading tastes of my friends agree with or differ from mine.

I have not had time to count how many I have read, either wholly or in part, but (as with everyone else whose answers I have seen so far) it was considerably more than the estimate of six in the original instructions. (Is that because the write was way off in his/her estimate, or because the people most likely to do a quiz like this are the ones who read more?) Interestingly, there were a number of books (more than six for this too, I think), that I have read more than once -- some of them several times.

Anyway, for what it is worth, the list is behind the cut.

Instructions: Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started, but didn't finish.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (I THINK I finished it -- I'm not sure)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (in full, consecutively, from beginning to end, two or three times -- most parts of it many times)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (a couple of times, I think)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (several times)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (at least two or three times)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (several times)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (rubbish, but I had to read it because so many people were asking my opinion of it, and it was exciting if you could suspend disbelief in a dozen or so areas)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (several times -- we studied it in secondary school English Lit)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (at least twice)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola (? -- I know I read one by Emile Zola, and I THINK this is the one.)
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (several times)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I've read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories at least once, and most of them several times)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Beatles earworm

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:59:26 GMT

Well, strictly speaking, not really Beatles as such, but . . . .

About a month ago, camillofan asked her readers what our favourite Beatles' tunes are. I don't know if I would call this my "Favourite" (though it is "a favourite"), and, as I said above, it isn't, strictly speaking, a Beatles number -- but it is by one of the Beatles and I always associate it with them, and it has been going through my head repeatedly for the past several days.

I think the reason it has been going through my head is because of all the news these past few days out of Gaza. The ongoing conflict in Iraq may reinforce it.

The song is Give Peace a Chance, written by John Lennon, recorded by him, and issued under the name of the Plastic Ono Band.

(Note: In case anyone saw the original draft of this, I edited it to remove a related comment that I think I will save for another time.)

A further thought on the "Serial Comma"

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:55:48 GMT

camillofan posted a poll about the use of the so-called "serial comma" (also known as the "Harvard" or "Oxford" comma) -- http://camillofan.livejournal.com/193345.html. Even if you, like me, had never heard these names for it before, most people would know what it is. When you write a sentence with a list of three or more objects, you separate them with commas, then put an "and" before the final item. But do you put a comma between the next-to-last item and the "and"? (When it is used, it is called the serial/Harvard/Oxford comma.) I normally use it, but a lot of people don't. Wikipedia has a good article about the pros and cons of using it, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma, and you can also read the discussion in camillofan's LJ.

I have a follow-up question. For those people who prefer to leave out the serial comma -- if you end a list with "etc", do you put a comma before the "etc"? If you do -- why?

Interests "Meme", part 3

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:47:54 GMT

Instructions: Leave a comment and I will choose 7 of your LJ profile interests for you to explain/write about in your journal.

(Note: If anyone wants to comment on what I have written without being obligated to participate in the meme yourself, just say so.)

* * * * * * * * * *

lametiger requested my comments on the following -- C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Thought-provoking Books, Indian Vegetarian Food, Cajun Music, Reggae, and Middle Eastern Music.

He also specfied the following: "With most of these, it is a question of 'Why list these particular picks?' and for number 3 it is a matter of definition 'What books in particular have you recently found thought-provoking?' Don't let me limit what you want to say about any of these, however."

As for, "why list these particular picks?" -- I have very broad interests, and could have listed a lot more. Some of these are among my top interests. Othere are just ones I happened to be thinking of when I signed up and entered the list. I also write under a couple of other persona, and while there is an overlap, I have some additional interests listed with those user profiles.

1. C.S. Lewis

I think C.S. Lewis was one of the great Christian thinkers of the 20th century. Having not converted to Christianity until he was an adult, he wrote persuasively about evidences for Christianity. He tackled, and wrote well, about some of the difficult issues of the Christian Faith, such as pain and miracles. He was not afraid to challenge the status quo, either, writing about problems in popular culture and educational theory.

In addition to having found a lot to think about in his books (including help with some issues that troubled me personally), I also admire his skill in communication. Although he was undoubtedly a man of great learning (who taught at both Oxford and Cambridge), he doesn't seem to have felt a need to show off his ~~erudition~~ learning. Instead, he excelled at taking difficult and complex subjects and explaining them, with simple vocabulary, in ways that made them understandable to the ordinary person. I would not dare to compare myself with him in terms of either breadth or depth of thought, but I do aspire to emulate this quality of making difficult subjects understandable to others.

2. Dorothy Sayers

(See my earlier answer to camillofan.)

3. Thought-provoking books

As I said to camillofan with reference to "thought-provoking movies", "I like ideas. I like logic. I like to think about possibilities. I like philosophy, though I have not yet studied it as deeply as I would like to." lametiger also asked specifically, "What books in particular have you recently found thought-provoking?"

The books I find thought-provoking really fall into two categories. There are the ones that I turn to intentionally, when I'm looking for further information and insight into some subject that I'm already interested in or that I need to know about for some reason (e.g. for leading the church, for teaching in the church or Bible college, etc.). Sometimes these don't provide any more than I expected in turning to them; and things I had already considered. At other times they bring out some aspect I had not yet thought of -- something that throws new light on an old subject or gives me a fresh perspective -- and it is these that I particularly appreciate. Then there are the "serendipitous" ones -- the books that I go to expecting one thing, and find something unexpected that makes me rethink some whole category -- something that may not even be on the particular subject that made me choose the book.

As for your request for some specific examples, I don't mind giving some, but that would make this longer than it is already, and thinking of a good representative list would delay me in posting it, so I think I'll do that as a separate entry. If I don't get to it reasonably soon, feel free (anybody) to remind me.

4. Indian vegetarian food

(See my earlier answer to camillofan.)

5. Cajun music

(See my earlier answer to camillofan.)

6. Reggae

(See my earlier answer to eliskimo.)

7. Middle Eastern Music

As with the Cajun music and the Reggae, there's no great mystery here. I like a wide variety of music, and like to sample all kinds of "world music", i.e. music from many different cultures. In the process I have found a few varieties of music I don't like very well. There there are a lot I'm neutral about. Cantonese opera, for example, I'm not very fond of. I like to listen to a little gamelan music occasionally for the novelty, but would not want to listen to it very often. But some I like very much. Another I like, which I should probably add, since it makes an interesting companion to the Middle Eastern (i.e. mostly Moslem) music, is Klezmer.

Some years ago Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) featured a series of programmes from the transcription service of the BBC on music of the Moslem world. Most of it was Middle-Eastern. And I liked it. This is another category of music that I don't own any of -- except for a couple of tracks, one Syrian and one Turkish, on a CD called On the Way to Bethlehem (Music of the Medieval Pilgrim), which is mostly medieval and eastern European music -- but I listen whenever I have a chance on radio, etc.

Heraldry and flags

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:16:40 GMT

Those of my LJ friends who are interested in heraldry might find the following interesting, as may others with an interest in the U.K. and/or Wales specifically. The U.K. is in the process of establishing its first true supreme court for the whole country, which will take over the functions of several other bodies, including the "Law Lords" of the House of Lords. (See the Wikipedia article for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom. The heraldic emblem for the new body has recently been announced, and some Welsh nationalists are outraged that Wales is not better represented in the emblem. You can read about this at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/11/19/noindex/welsh.xml.

I found a bit of a puzzle in the comments section of another Telegraph article about this (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/19/dl1903.xml), where there were seemingly contradictory comments made about the Welsh flag.

The most recent comment (as of when I am writing this), posted by Leo Jones, says, "After world war two . . . the Queen declared a national flag for Wales . . . ." But an earlier comment by Rod Morris says, "Wales possesses the World's oldest National Flag."

So which is it? The "world's oldest national flag", or a relatively new one, adopted after WW2? I have already given the question to my brother Dan (lametiger, who lists "vexillology" (the study of flags) as one of his interests, but I thought I might as well see if anyone else can beat him to an answer or provide additional information.

Interests "Meme", 2nd installment

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:29:58 GMT

What to do:

Leave a comment and I will choose 7 of your LJ profile interests for you to explain/write about in your journal.

* * * * * * *

eliskimo's choices for me to write about were: cajun music, dorothy sayers, folk music, mysteries, oregon, reggae, indian vegetarian food

Cajun Music: (See my earlier answer to camillofan.)

Dorothy Sayers: (Likewise.)

Folk Music:

I came of age in the late '60s and early '70s when it was practically obligatory to listen to Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, Pete Seeger, and a host of similar singers. A lot of the folk music and "folk-style" music these people sang spoke to the spirit of the time, and to my concerns of the time (anti-war, etc. -- I'm surprised there hasn't been a big comeback recently). We also learned traditional British folk songs in music class at my British-oriented high school in Hong Kong. I enjoyed the music as music (as well as political protest). I liked some of the stories the songs told. I liked the images evoked by some of the songs. Most folk music is easy to sing (which is one reason the songs become folk music), and I liked that. I enjoy singing, but don't have a really wide vocal range. I accumulated quite a few LPs, cassette tapes and CDs of folk and folk-style music and I still play them.

Mysteries:

I've always been a voracious reader, and I tend to read widely, in a lot of different fields. In my fiction reading, I have sampled a great many different genre. I used to go on binges. I would read and decide I liked something that was of a certain type or by a certain author, and would then go on to read everything I could of that type or by that author. I don't remember my first exposure to adult* mystery stories as being all that positive, but as I read more I came to appreciate both the craft that goes into writing a good mystery story and the tremendous variety there is of different settings, different detectives, etc. I like puzzles, and many of the better mysteries can be looked upon as puzzles. Can you figure things out before the protagonist does? If the writer plays fair in giving all the clues, you should be able to, but if you can figure it out too easily, it isn't interesting. Ideally, you should figure it out just about the same time as the fictional detective, but not too much before. They also can be among the most moral forms of fiction writing, since there is usually some clear evil to be fought -- but because the detectives are human and can be flawed themselves, the moral dilemmas involved can be quite thought-provoking. One memorable passage, to me, was Lord Peter Wimsey in dialogue with Harriet (Vane) at the end of Busman's Honeymoon agonising over the fact that the murderer he has caught will be executed. Over the years I have gradually drifted into "specialising" more and more in reading mysteries, and reading fewer and fewer of other types of fiction.

(*By "adult mystery stories", I don't mean "X-rated" or anything like that. I'm just distinguishing books written for adults from those written for younger readers, e.g. such series as the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Sugar Creek Gang, etc.)

Oregon:

My mother's father was a Christian Church minister in the teens and twenties of the last century. He served a number of churches in Oregon, Idaho and Washington. After he died, while my mother was in high school, the family settled down near Eugene, Oregon. I grew up mainly in South Africa (ages 6 months to 11 years) and Hong Kong (14 to 18 y.o.), where my parents served as missionaries, but we spent 3 years in the U.S. between leaving S. Africa and going to H.K. Most of that time was spent in Oregon. Today, Oregon is my favourite state, but at that time I really hated it.

The area where we lived in S. Africa, which I loved, was hot, arid and flat. Oregon was cold, wet, and mountainous (especially on the coast, where we spent our first year there). But I guess it "grew on me", because years later I found myself missing it. I paid one short visit to Oregon when I was in college. Then, after I had graduated from Bible college and my wife and I were preparing to go to Hong Kong ourselves as missionaries, we spent about three months or so in Oregon (on the coast again!) and I grew to appreciate it much more than I had before. Now I love it. We have received some mission support from Oregon ever since, which gives us an excuse to return. Oregon has a distinctive climate, distinctive topography, and a distinctive history and culture, all of which I have come to appreciate in my many visits. I have also come to feel it is where my roots lie, for my mother's side of my background. (My roots on my father's side are in Wales and Canada.)

Reggae:

I'm not sure if I would ever have become aware of reggae if it hadn't been for a few "crossover" groups and artists in the late '70s and the '80s. I think my first exposure to reggae was By the Rivers of Babylon, by the German group, Boney M. I liked that well enough that when I saw an album (LP) by them that featured it, I bought it. Later I bought a couple of their other albums on cassette tape. They didn't sing only reggae, but enough of their songs were reggae that it gave me an introduction. At around the same time as I was getting acquainted with Boney M, I heard Blondie's version of The Tide is High, which I also liked. I'm not sure what purists think of those. Over the years I have looked at some LPs/cassettes/CDs by such "true" reggae artists as Bob Marley and the Wailers, but they were usually priced beyond what I felt I could afford. So I've had to content myself with listening to my Boney M albums and, now that it's possible, tuning in to reggae channels on online radio.

Indian Vegetarian Food: (Again, see my earlier answer to camillofan.)

Interests "Meme"

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:46:16 GMT

What to do:

Leave a comment and I will choose 7 of your LJ profile interests for you to explain/write about in your journal.

* * * * * * *

I didn't realise, when I signed on for this how much time it would take or how self-revealing it would turn out to be. I guess I could have just whipped through them with a sentence or two each, but that would not have been as honest or (I think) as interesting. I invited three people to give me lists for this. All three did. I originally planned to do all three together, but it would be longer before I post any of it if I do it that way, and it would make an extremely long entry. So I changed my mind and will do it one by one.

First to ask me was camillofan, who asked me about -- apologetics, cajun music, dorothy sayers, hong kong, indian vegetarian food, thought-provoking movies, wales

Apologetics

You probably know, but for the record and for anyone who doesn't, apologetics is a reasoned defence of some belief. The word is most often used with reference to defending the Christian faith from attack and/or trying to persuade non-believers to believe. I have noticed that some of the best writers on apologetics have something of the "fervour of a convert" -- they started as atheists or agnostics, or went through some kind of crisis of belief themselves, before they were persuaded to believe by an examination of the evidence. C.S. Lewis is a good example. I would not put myself in the league of such men -- not by a long shot! -- but my own interest in apologetics reflects a little of this "fervour of the convert", in two ways. At first, I didn't see much value in apologetics, but I came to value it. Apologetics also helped strengthen my own faith in Christ.

When I was in high school and then in my first couple of years of college, almost all the apologetics I saw (knowingly) was aimed at disproving evolution. (I say "knowingly" because someone had given me a copy of Mere Christianity by Lewis, which I had read and found helpful, but I didn't realise at the time that that too was apologetics.) In the Bible college I attended, the "Defenders" organisation held a yearly "Science-Scripture forum", and the topic every year, for at least my first few years, was defending Creationism and Young Earth beliefs against evolution. But those issues were not problems to me. I believed that if there is an all-powerful God, he could as easily create by fiat as through evolution; on the other hand, I could see ways to reconcile belief in evolution with the Bible record. Apologetics was a required class, but since that's all I expected from it, I put off taking it for as long as I could.

Meanwhile, although I grew up in a Christian home and always believed in Christ to some extent (and always wanted to be a missionary), my faith for awhile was more an existential faith along the line of Pascal's famous wager. I had serious questions -- mainly somewhat philosophical questions about knowledge and things like that (how can we KNOW there is a God? how can we know that what we know is true knowledge? etc.). When I finally did take the class, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the class (as it had become by that time -- I don't think this had been the case earlier) did deal with the questions I had. The class helped me to be more sure of my faith. That and subsequent studies on my own have left me with a profound appreciation for apologetics, at least apologetics that goes beyond the superficial questions of the Bible versus evolution and deals with these more fundamental issues.

Cajun Music

I didn't expect this one, yet three of you asked about it. There's nothing really profound or any long story here. I have fairly wide tastes in music, and could have put down several other kinds besides what I did. Radio 4, the "Fine Music" channel of Radio Television Hong Kong plays a lot of "world music", which has introduced me to many kinds of music. A few years ago they had a presenter who played a lot of Cajun music. I liked it and have sometimes sought it out since then. I don't have any records or CDs of Cajun music. (Am I showing my age by even mentioning records, even without listing them first?) But I sometimes listen to radio stations online that feature cajun music.

Dorothy Sayers

I have always read widely, but over the years I have gradually focussed more and more on mysteries for my fiction reading. (For more about that, see my response to eliskimo after I finish and post those.) I stumbled onto the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by chance. I think the first one I read was The Five Red Herrings. I liked it, sought out more, and eventually read the whole series -- most of them more than once (especially the ones with Harriet Vane). That led me to an interest in Dorothy L. Sayers, the woman. (I understand she always insisted on the "L" herself.) She was quite a person and a writer of several kinds of literature, including a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. She was a devoted (Anglican) Christian and wrote some Christian plays and a lot of essays, many of them on Christian subjects. I have two or three of her books of essays. I think they compare well with C.S. Lewis's Christian essays.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is where I live and where I have spent the largest part of my life. I was first in Hong Kong as a baby, but I don't remember that. We came back when I was 14. I went through high school here,. During that time, I hated it here. (Why I felt that way is a big topic that I won't take time for now.) When I went away to college, I didn't expect to return. But "absence makes the heart grow fonder", and after I graduated from college I returned here, along with my wife, whom I married while in college. We have been living here and working here (as missionaries and leading a church) ever since.

MKs (Missionary Kids) and other TCKs (Third Culture Kids) grow up between cultures -- often not quite fitting in in the country where their parents work, but also not quite fitting in in their parents' home culture. Often they feel most at home in places where there is a mixture of various cultures. One article I read about this cited Hawaii as an example of the kind of place where such TCKs often feel more at home, and I know other MKs who have ended up there. Toronto is another such place. And so is Hong Kong, which I think is probably one reason I was drawn back here I love the cultural diversity here.

Indian Vegetarian Food

I did expect someone might ask about this one, and all three of you did. My earliest food memories are of refusing to eat any kind of meat, which made me gag. (Whether that was an actual physical reflex or only a psychological one, I don't know.) I considered myself a vegetarian (but always an "ovo-lacto-vegetarian", never a vegan). Gradually, over time, I grew to like most meat, and by the time I got to college I had a fairly normal appreciation of most meats, although I have always disliked liver and unseasoned pork, and I have never cared much for poultry, especially turkey. (So much for the traditional American Thanksgiving fare!) For the first half of my adult life, my diet was pretty normal, with some meat at least once every day. But some years ago (about the time I got into my 40s, I think), I started feeling bloated a lot of the time. At about the same time, I read a number of articles that suggested that Americans eat too much animal protein and would be healthier if they cut down. I decided to cut down, and Karen (my wife) was agreeable. We still eat meat. (She eats more than I do, but even I have not stopped completely. But instead of once or twice every day, it is more like three times or so a week. My semi-vegetarianism has never been a matter of religion or ethics, but merely a matter of taste ("de gustibus . . . .", and in more recent years, a health matter. I feel a lot better, physically, since we cut down on meat again than I did for years prior to that.

As for the Indian food side of this, Hong Kong has a lot of Indians (and Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, etc.), a significant number of my classmates in high school here were Indians and Pakistanis, and there are lots of Indian restaurants here. So I have had a long exposure to Indian food and liked it from the first. (I think I generally have a taste for spicy food. A couple of my other favourite cuisines are Mexican and Italian.) I do eat Indian food made with meat, but my favourite Indian food is vegetarian and my favourite vegetarian food is Indian vegetarian food.

Thought-provoking Movies

I like ideas. I like logic. I like to think about possibilities. I like philosophy, though I have not yet studied it as deeply as I would like to. I like movies generally, and have favourites in most genre, but the ones I like best in any genre are almost always the ones that raise some question I've never thought of before -- questions of existence, moral and ethical issues, scientific possibilities, philosophy, etc. I am tempted to give examples, but I'm afraid there would be no stopping. Maybe some other time.

Wales

"Land of my fathers." My father was Welsh -- born in a small town in South Wales, near Cardiff, of almost pure Welsh stock. (He believed he had a little Scots blood, though some relatives have disputed that. Some think there was some non-Welsh blood, but that it was not Scots but English -- Horror of Horrors!) Family tradition says that we are descended from the famous Welsh pirate (and later governor of Jamaica), Henry Morgan. I used to think this was only a family legend, but one of my cousins has told me that one of my other cousins has copies of the evidence. The family emigrated to Canada when my dad was 14, but settled in a coal-mining town in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta where there were a lot of Welsh people. Some of my cousins are active in "Saint David's Societies" in Canada. My dad remained proud of his Welsh heritage all of his life and passed that on to his children. I have never lived in Wales, but have visited a few times (at long intervals). I love Welsh music, especially Welsh male voice choirs singing traditional Welsh hymns and folk music. The flag I use as one of my "userpics" is the Welsh flag. I hope someday I have the opportunity to "get more in touch" with my Welsh roots.

(By the way, "Land of my fathers." is the Welsh national anthem. You can read about it, and listen to a historic but rather scratchy 1899 recording of it here , or read the words (in Welsh and English) and listen to a much better recording, by the Pontypridd Male Choir, here.)

Excuses! Excuses! (about giving blood)

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:04:18 GMT

larmer has written to encourage people to donate blood. (See http://larmer.livejournal.com/252378.html.) I first posted the following as a comment directly on his LJ, but then decided it might be better to put it here instead.

Since I live in Hong Kong, my donating blood would not affect the Canadian blood supply, but the need for people to donate blood is a world-wide one. I used to give blood quite regularly -- and have a T-shirt and a plaque to show for it. I haven't donated for several years, though, for two reasons.

The blood donation centre I used to go to, which was very convenient for me, closed. None of the permenent centres they have open now is anywhere near where I live or where I have other reasons to go. I still actively watch for when they will have a "bloodmobile" in an area I frequent, or when they will be taking donations at some nearby community centre, but that always seems to happen on some day when I can't go for some other reason.

The other reason is that they have always had trouble finding a suitable vein to take it from me, and this seems to get worse the older I get. Sometimes they have had to try several times, which can be quite painful. I used to think it was because my blood pressure used to be a little on the low side. (My mother, whose blood pressure was always low, never could give blood, for that reason.) Recently, though, mine has been on the high side, and when I had my last medical check-up, the nurse had more trouble than ever before taking blood for tests.

Having said all that, I still believe in donating blood, and I haven't given up yet. larmer's comment, and my writing this have prompted me to resolve to try again the next opportunity I have. I hope those of you who are able will do likewise.

Church Anniversary

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:37:37 GMT

I'm not sure how many of you I told that our church, of which I am minister/elder/pastor, celebrated its 27th anniversary yesterday (Sunday, 9 November). I know I asked at least one of you to pray for it. Preparation for that has taken a good deal of my time for several weeks.

I think the celebration was a success. In the morning we had an outdoor gathering in a public park near the YMCA where the church has its regular meetings. It is difficult and can be expensive for a group like ours to book a place like this for our exclusive use, so we just use it on a first-come, first-priority-in-use basis like everyone else. It is right next to a large mosque, and last year when we did this in the same place, we had competition from a group of ladies from Indonesia chanting their Muslim prayers or scriptures on the other side of the little amphitheatre. This year we had the place almost entirely to ourselves for almost the whole morning. We had singing, a message, Scripture readins, a couple of games, etc.

At noon, they brought out the food and had a feast of Filipino food and continued fellowship.

In the afternoon we were back in our usual meeting room in the YMCA. The room is officially rated for around 80 or 90, though they can squeeze in a little over 100 chairs if necessary. Recently we have only had it about half full (with around 50-55 people) for our regular meetings; yesterday, even with extra chairs brought in, all chairs were full and we had a half dozen or so standing. We had another message (mainly in Tagalog) from the guest preacher, plus singing, several musical specials, a testimony from one of the original members about how the church began, the Lord's Supper (communion/eucharist) as usual, a short challenge from me concerning the future of the church, and more.

The guest preacher, brought from the Philippines (with his travel expenses paid for by private donations from some of the members), was Vic Dungo, the minister of the Roxas Church of Christ, Roxas, Isabela, Philipppines.

All in all, I think things went well, and we appreciate the prayers of any/all who did pray for it.

Priceless!

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:02:55 GMT

I've never done this before on LJ, so I hope it works.

The cartoon (which I will embed here if I can, or will provide a link to if I can't) is from Madam and Eve, by Stephen Francis & Rico, a South African comic strip.

The main site for the strip is at http://madamandeve.co.za/index.php.

Post Script

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:43:28 GMT

This is a postscript to my earlier entry about "Mistranslations." As my brother pointed out in his comments on that, the picture with the article referred to there included a picture of another famous sign in Welsh, but NOT the one the article was actually about.

A picture of the ACTUAL mis-translated sign, blog comments on it, and a link to a BBC report about it can be found at http://salvationssongs.blogspot.com/2008/10/lost-in-translation.html.

Enjoy!

And a postscript to the postscript: The BBC report also has the (correct) picture, plus a list of some other notable mis-translations, mostly also Welsh-related. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm.

Mistranslations

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:13:58 GMT

I'm not sure who this would appeal to most

-- those interested in Wales and things Welsh?
-- those who appreciate the sometimes humorous miscommunication that can sometimes happen across languages and across cultures?
-- those who live in places where two languages are used together and where it may be mandatory to provide translations? (like Canada?)

Anyway, I found it priceless.

Go to http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20081101/tuk-welsh-road-sign-lost-in-translation-a7ad41d.html. (And I would suggest going soon, since these news items don't stay around forever.)

NOT the first woman!

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:00:37 GMT

I just heard it again -- this time on the news! The commentator was talking about all the things that have made this U.S. presidential campaign unique -- all the superlatives and firsts, etc. He said it was the most expensive campaign in history, the longest, the first black candidate . . . AND THE FIRST WOMAN! I'm not quite sure if he meant Mrs. Clinton or Mrs. Palin. My wife and I both had the impression when we heard it that he meant the latter.

If he did mean Mrs. Clinton, a lot depends on how you define things; if he meant Mrs. Palin, he is totally in error!

First of all, the ballots for some past elections have included women candidates (and black candidates too), not just for vice-president, but actually for president! They have been "third-party" and independent candidates, but they were candidates and (unlike Mrs. Clinton), did get on the ballot.

If we limit ourselves to the major parties, Hilary probably came closer to winning nomination for president than any other woman so far. I'm not sure, though, that she was the first to ever try. (Maybe someone else can verify that, one way or the other.)

As for Sarah P. -- she is definitely NOT the first major party candidate for that office. She was preceded (by TWENTY-FOUR YEARS! a whole generation!) by Geraldine Ferraro, who campaigned with Walter Mondale in 1984, only to be defeated by Ronald Reagan and George Bush I.

We have voted!

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:43:37 GMT

Well, my wife and I have voted. We cast our votes in the U.S. fedeeral election about 10 days ago. (If anyone wonders how we voted about two weeks before the election, we live outside the U.S., vote by absentee ballot, and have to fill out and return the ballots before the day of the election itself.)

Four years ago, in the last presidential election, we didn't vote, because we couldn't, in good conscience, vote FOR either of the main candidates. (We had both voted for Bush2 in the previous election, but the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, and the Iraq War had caused us to drastically revise our opinion of him.) Having voted in every other presidential election since we were old enough to vote, we were determined not to abstain from voting for two elections in a row, so we wrote off for our ballots. Unfortunately, the closer the election got, the worse each of the two main candidates seemed to us. There were a few things we liked about one of the candidates; we find it very hard to find anything we liked about the other except that he stood against a few things that we are against. Unfortunately, though, EACH of the main candidates had a few policies that would normaily lead me to decide I could not vote for him.

Karen and I toyed with the idea of agreeing to vote for opposite candidates so we could say we voted, but our votes would cancel each other out. But my conscience rebelled at voting FOR either of them. I could happily vote AGAINST either or both of them, but not FOR either. Other people suggested deciding which was the "lesser of two evils" and voting for him. But which was which?

Eventually, we started looking into some of the other "third party" and independent candidates, of which there were several listed on the Arkansas ballot. We couldn't find any candidate that we agreed with completely, but I listed some of the issues that Karen and I feel are "non-negotiable" -- issues that make us feel that we cannot support a candidate because of his or her* stand on those issues. (There are a couple of female candidates for president -- not just VP, like Sarah P.) I then looked to see if there was a candidate that we could support, rather than oppose, on all the issues most important to us. And I found one. In fact, I found two, and I chose the one I liked better in other ways.

After I had made my choice, I discussed it with Karen. Emotionally, she kind of wanted to vote for Obama, so that if he wins she can say she voted for the first black president. But she disikes some of his policies enough that she didn't want to vote for him unless I voted for McCain so my vote would cancel hers. I was finding that hard to square with my conscience, even if I knew my vote would not count. So she also voted for the same third-party candidate I did.

I know some people deplore third-party and independent candidates as "spoilers" whose candidacy tends to hurt the main party candidate that he/she is closest to in policies. But in this case the one I am voting for has policies DIFFERENT to each of the main party candidates, but in different areas. Also, it can't be worse than not voting at all or the two of us voting for opposite candidates so that the votes cancel each other out.

I was going to list what our "Faith Priorities" are (to use the term suggested by Jim Wallis in his "God's Politics" blog at http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/?p=3166), but I have run out of time. Perhaps another time.

Global Warming is Back!

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:27:53 GMT

Last winter, during or after major ice storms in North America and, I think, Europe, someone wrote in LJ that no one could possibly believe in global warming after that, or that anyone who did was a fool, or somthing of the sort. I thought about responding, but didn't. Most likely it was just from lack of time, though it may have been because we had a longer cold spell earlier this year ourselves than we have had for a few years. Or possibly . . . if the writer is who I think it might have been, I've been banned from posting on his blog because of a misunderstanding (and his irrational rush to judgement) that I have discussed elsewhere.

Anyway, over the weekend, the Hong Kong Observatory announced that this past October was the hottest October since they began keeping records over 100 years ago. In the face of overwhelming evidence like this, I don't see how anyone can possibly doubt that global warming is real. (Tongue firmly in cheek!)

Seriously, though . . . I don't know if the several schools of thought on this issue will ever reach consensus, but I have noticed something interesting among my friends. The reactionaries, who either don't believe that global warming is happening or don't think it warrants taking any action all seem to live in places that have experienced some kind of extreme in cold weather in recent years. I don't know anyone who lives in Hong Kong (where we have been experiencing a steadily warming climate for the past 30 years or more) who doesn't believe that global warming is real, and that even if it is partly due to natural cycles it is at least partly due to human activity, and therefore people and governments should do everything possible to avert it or at least slow it down.

Obviously, this kind of "evidence", based only on our own limited experiences, proves nothing, but I have noticed that the reactionaries (no global warning) tend to be extremely scornful of those who do believe it happens. Perhaps they should be more tolerant since they too are influenced in their beliefs by their own experiences.

"Christmas is coming . . . ."

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:29:38 GMT

When I was younger I used to be quite active in drama. Unfortunately, that interest has gotten somewhat crowded out of my life in recent years. Our church usually has a major musical programme for Christmas. This year, they decided NOT to do that, so the officers were considering what to do for a special Christmas programme instead of the usual concert. I suggested having a few musical numbers and a short play, and I volunteered to direct the play. It looked like a good opportunity to get back into drama again, even if only short term.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble finding a suitable script. Many years ago, I wrote three short Christmas plays myself, but I can't find them now. I've done some looking online, but I haven't found much and everything I've looked at so far is not suitable for some reason.

What we need is:
* Something simple -- no elaborate sets (the room we have is essentially a large classroom, and we only have it for three hours a week), simple vocabulary (for most or all of our people, English is their second or third language), not too complicated a plot (mainly also for language reasons), simple costumes (neither time nor budget for anything elaborate), etc.
* Not too long, not too short -- longer than a 5 minute skit, but shorter than a full-length play. Fifteen to twenty-five minutes would be ideal.
* With a Christian message -- not necessarily Biblical (in fact, modern dress might be better), but something more than just a seasonal "feel good" theme.
* Free or very low cost. Our church is mainly made up of overseas domestic workers, working for salaries of under US$450 per month. The church budget is around US$1,400/month, with 55% of that going for the rent of the room.
* That we can get very quickly, because we should have started preparation before this. We need something that we can download from the internet or that we can receive by e-mail. I doubt if we have time to wait on "snail mail" -- even airmail snail mail.

Can anyone reading this help?

Character Meme

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:00:34 GMT

1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

eliskimo gave me "M"

I wonder if that has anything to do with my kids (whom she knows) being Matthew and Megan.

Four of mine are doubles, in their respective ways, so I could use that as an excuse to not give so many, but I'll play fair and give five names, thus making nine (or ten?) "M"s altogether.

1. Maria -- I had recently re-watched Paint Your Wagon (with the song, "They call the wind Maria") and West Side Story with a character named Maria and the song, "I just met a girl named Maria." (One name, two "characters.")

2. Mary Morstan -- A character in the Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of the Four, whom Holmes's associate, Dr. Watson, marries. (One character, two "M"s.)

3. Meg March -- From Little Women, a book I read several times when younger, but haven't looked at for years. (Another single character with two "M"s in her name.)

4. Mark Anthony -- Strictly speaking, he is a historical figure, but he does figure in fictional works, including at least two of Shakespeare's plays. The first of Shakespeare's plays I ever read in full was when we studied Julius Caesar in high school. We read the play aloud in class and I often got assigned to read Mark Anthony. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears . . . ."

5. Marian -- Both "Maid Marian" of the Robin Hood legends, and "Marian Warner", the love interest in Zane Grey's The Vanishing American, which I think is a powerful and much-underrated (because it is by Zane Grey?) tale of cultural clashes, "culture shock", etc., though written, I'm pretty sure, before "culture shock" had a name (Again, two characters with the same first name -- three "M"s if you count the two in "Maid Marian.".)

Hey, this didn't take as long as I feared. I may even beat some of the others she gave letters to along with me.