The final book on the list, which means it is also the final blog post for this class.
Initially I was not looking forward to this book, the entire thing was in black and white and was completely unappealing, it was large and bulky and made me dread reading it. However the material in the book was a lot more interesting than I had predicted.
Steve Jobs is famous in the computer industry for starting Apple, a company that recently surpassed Microsoft in number of computers being used by customers with their operating systems. Also the creator of the famous Ipod, Ipad, and Iphone, Steve Jobs is pretty much a household name. Less people know about Steve Jobs and his role in creating Pixar, and it seems likely that very few people know about how unique Steve Job's was and how it led him to be as successful as he was.
Steve Jobs had a unique personality in many ways, one was that he had little or no control over his emotions, he could be furious one second, overjoyed the next, and then suddenly be crying his eyes out, all in the course of a few minutes. He was verbally abusive to everyone he met, and would arbitrarily call someone's work worthless without even knowing what it was. Then he would be told what it was, and a week or two later come back to that person with their own idea and present it as his own if he liked it.
Steve Jobs was also a supreme perfectionist, everything about all of Apple's products had to be exactly as Steve imagined them, both internally and externally. This, combined with his aggressive personality and sharp tounge, caused a lot of problems over time and drove off many employees. It also made Apple's products a cut above everything else.
In all regards Steve was pretty much a jerk with OCD, but the interesting thing is, people followed him. He would abuse them, put them down, cause them endless grief with his antics, and they would still follow him loyally. Several of them described Steve's charisma as a "reality distortion field" that you were subjected to and couldn't help falling in line with. I found this phenomenon quite intriguing, my personality has some similarities to Steve's, similarities that I've tried to get rid of for obvious reasons. I have a temper that I have tried to reel in, and I'm rather bad at concealing my emotions. I have mood swings like Steve, albeit they are a bit less frequent than his are. So why does he have a reality distortion field and I just made a lot of enemies? What aspect of his personality is so different from mine so as to create such a different result? Perfectionism? Aggressiveness? This is something I am puzzled about and am unable to find an answer too. I feel like I would have to meet Steve Jobs and experience his charisma first-hand in order to truly understand how it works. Unfortunately if I ever meet Steve Jobs I don't think it'll matter that much to me anymore, I'll have much bigger problems to deal with.
Before I go any further, I'd like to point out that when I use the word charisma I am not using it incorrectly. Charisma is generally thought of as the ability to make people like you and follow you because they like you. Though this is generally what it entails, it is technically incorrect, charisma is only the ability to make people follow you, regardless of their opinion of you. It is in this sense that I use the word in reference to Steve Jobs.
Quirks of his personality and my inability to see how they work aside, the result of his personality is something to marvel at. The teams formed and managed by Steve Jobs are all made up of the cream of the crop employees. These are creative, skilled, passionate, and hard-working people who are confident in their abilities and can stand up for themselves. To work with Steve Jobs they had to be, anyone who was not all of these things wound up quitting or being fired from Apple. His practice of abusing his employees weeded out all of the B-list workers, leaving him with a team of A grade employees who were just as passionate about their work as he was. It's amazing that it worked, and the result is incredible as well. To top it all off, there is practically nobody else who can pull this feat off in their companies, making Steve Jobs and his teams unique. What I wonder about this is what will happen to Apple now that Steve Jobs isn't there to help it along. Historically when Steve Jobs was not in control of the company they performed poorly, so poorly in fact that they practically begged him to come back after being the ones to kick him out of the company in the first place.
Unfortunately I have run out of things to talk about now, I had hoped to make my last blog post the greatest of them all, but the well of ideas ran dry early and I have nothing left to say. So now I am going to end things here while I'm on a high note. For the final time, farewell, and be sure to read frequently, it's better for you than watching TV.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Life of Pi
Well this was a relatively enjoyable read, it was certainly more interesting than the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was.
I am unsure if this book was fiction or non-fiction, though I am inclined to believe it was fiction due to the incredibly unlikely things that happen in the story. On the other hand, when the main character recounts his story to reporters at the end of the book they make the same conclusion of the story being fictitious and press for the real story, which the main character is unable to provide them since the real story is what he had already told. During the conversation he accuses the reporters of not wanting the true story, but rather that they wanted a story that would confirm their existing knowledge of the world without expanding their horizons. In this sense I am forced to wonder if perhaps the unusual qualities of the story do not necessarily make it false. Granted it is miraculous to think that someone could survive in a lifeboat for nearly a year with a full-grown tiger as a passenger, but if things truly progressed as they did then it is not quite impossible.
I could discover if the story was true or not through some research, however I feel it is more satisfying to leave the nature of the story unknown in this case and enjoy the uncertainty. Now I can choose whether or not to believe the story is true based on my mood, rather than have to deal with the reality, whatever it may be.
Apart from that, I found the view of religion held by the main character to be quite interesting, as it is strikingly similar to my own beliefs. The main character practiced three religions at once because he felt all of them let him get closer to god. This led to a rather amusing scene as the priests of each religion (or appropriate substitute depending on the religion) all converged on him and tried to badger him into picking a single faith, at the same time attacking each other verbally with the zeal that can only be found in religious fanatics.
My own personal belief is that there is no organized religion that can truly claim to have all the answers and be the one true faith. I believe there is a supreme being(s), I believe he(they) did create the universe, but I don't believe that the Christians are the only ones who worship those beings properly, nor do I believe any other religion has the only correct method of worship. I've noticed that all religions share the same basic principals, namely their code of conduct, things like "thou shall not kill" are present in all religions (excluding Satanic ones, in which killing is glorified). Keeping this in mind, I feel that the best way to honor whatever "God" exists is to follow those things that are considered by every religion as morally correct. I don't need to go to church to know that killing people is wrong, nor do I need to go to any other place of worship.
Because of this belief, I despise most, if not all, organized religions. Particularly in the case of Christianity, organized religions are very eager to toss their beliefs out the window and use religion as an excuse for their depraved acts, namely crusades against other religions. In my opinion there is no religion that is justified in attacking another simply because they are different religions, it goes directly against the values that are supposed to be an integral part of the religions. I want no part of such corrupted organizations, so I do not go to church or any other religious institution.
It was interesting to find my view replicated in this book to a degree, whether or not there is actually a person out there who feels that way.
Apart from these things I have little to say about this book, so I think I will end here. This leaves only one more blog post to go before this ends, so soon I shall be saying farewell for the last time, but until that time farewell.
I am unsure if this book was fiction or non-fiction, though I am inclined to believe it was fiction due to the incredibly unlikely things that happen in the story. On the other hand, when the main character recounts his story to reporters at the end of the book they make the same conclusion of the story being fictitious and press for the real story, which the main character is unable to provide them since the real story is what he had already told. During the conversation he accuses the reporters of not wanting the true story, but rather that they wanted a story that would confirm their existing knowledge of the world without expanding their horizons. In this sense I am forced to wonder if perhaps the unusual qualities of the story do not necessarily make it false. Granted it is miraculous to think that someone could survive in a lifeboat for nearly a year with a full-grown tiger as a passenger, but if things truly progressed as they did then it is not quite impossible.
I could discover if the story was true or not through some research, however I feel it is more satisfying to leave the nature of the story unknown in this case and enjoy the uncertainty. Now I can choose whether or not to believe the story is true based on my mood, rather than have to deal with the reality, whatever it may be.
Apart from that, I found the view of religion held by the main character to be quite interesting, as it is strikingly similar to my own beliefs. The main character practiced three religions at once because he felt all of them let him get closer to god. This led to a rather amusing scene as the priests of each religion (or appropriate substitute depending on the religion) all converged on him and tried to badger him into picking a single faith, at the same time attacking each other verbally with the zeal that can only be found in religious fanatics.
My own personal belief is that there is no organized religion that can truly claim to have all the answers and be the one true faith. I believe there is a supreme being(s), I believe he(they) did create the universe, but I don't believe that the Christians are the only ones who worship those beings properly, nor do I believe any other religion has the only correct method of worship. I've noticed that all religions share the same basic principals, namely their code of conduct, things like "thou shall not kill" are present in all religions (excluding Satanic ones, in which killing is glorified). Keeping this in mind, I feel that the best way to honor whatever "God" exists is to follow those things that are considered by every religion as morally correct. I don't need to go to church to know that killing people is wrong, nor do I need to go to any other place of worship.
Because of this belief, I despise most, if not all, organized religions. Particularly in the case of Christianity, organized religions are very eager to toss their beliefs out the window and use religion as an excuse for their depraved acts, namely crusades against other religions. In my opinion there is no religion that is justified in attacking another simply because they are different religions, it goes directly against the values that are supposed to be an integral part of the religions. I want no part of such corrupted organizations, so I do not go to church or any other religious institution.
It was interesting to find my view replicated in this book to a degree, whether or not there is actually a person out there who feels that way.
Apart from these things I have little to say about this book, so I think I will end here. This leaves only one more blog post to go before this ends, so soon I shall be saying farewell for the last time, but until that time farewell.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Autobiography of Ben Franklin
I'm not sure what to say about this one, usually the biography type books on this list are interesting or provide some other thing for me to blog on, but this one was just outright dull and valueless for me.
The memoirs Ben Franklin wrote on his life were quite dull, partially because it seems he made a serious effort to make his life dull. He planned every part of his day, every day, in the exact same way, he'd wake up and eat breakfast, reflect on himself, work, eat lunch, work, eat dinner, reflect on himself again, and go to sleep... EVERY day.
The phrase "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" comes to mind here, if we replace "jack" with "Ben Franklin" we have an accurate description of this whole book. It is revealed in his letters that he viewed indulgences such as... well pretty much anything else other than working or reflecting on oneself... as wasteful and as something to be avoided. This was part of his philosophy, and he followed it to a fault. The result is that he did in fact become very rich, but he had nothing in his memoirs that was even remotely interesting.
The only interesting part of the book was in one of the non-biography parts added in by the author of this book about how Ben Franklin spent his retirement years. Apparently one of the founders of our country was a 60-80 year old man seducing 18-21 year old women... I'm not sure which is sadder, the fact that one of our founding fathers was a pedophile or the fact that I'm not all that surprised...
Well that's all I can say for this book really, there wasn't anything else interesting enough to continue writing about, so rather than bore everyone to sleep I'm going to leave things off here.
The memoirs Ben Franklin wrote on his life were quite dull, partially because it seems he made a serious effort to make his life dull. He planned every part of his day, every day, in the exact same way, he'd wake up and eat breakfast, reflect on himself, work, eat lunch, work, eat dinner, reflect on himself again, and go to sleep... EVERY day.
The phrase "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" comes to mind here, if we replace "jack" with "Ben Franklin" we have an accurate description of this whole book. It is revealed in his letters that he viewed indulgences such as... well pretty much anything else other than working or reflecting on oneself... as wasteful and as something to be avoided. This was part of his philosophy, and he followed it to a fault. The result is that he did in fact become very rich, but he had nothing in his memoirs that was even remotely interesting.
The only interesting part of the book was in one of the non-biography parts added in by the author of this book about how Ben Franklin spent his retirement years. Apparently one of the founders of our country was a 60-80 year old man seducing 18-21 year old women... I'm not sure which is sadder, the fact that one of our founding fathers was a pedophile or the fact that I'm not all that surprised...
Well that's all I can say for this book really, there wasn't anything else interesting enough to continue writing about, so rather than bore everyone to sleep I'm going to leave things off here.
Monday, March 19, 2012
On The Road
I didn't really enjoy this book, it was alright, but there didn't seem to be much purpose. Stories are supposed to have a problem that the characters work to solve throughout the plot, but in this book there was no conflict to base the story on, there were numerous minor problems, but the characters traveled pretty much on a whim. The whole story consisted of the characters hitchhiking across the country over and over again.
Seeing as there was no real plot, and the only character who might have provided some sort of moral or philosophical point to discuss here was insane (not just a personal opinion, it's actually stated in the book many times), I didn't manage to get much to post about here.
Thankfully I did manage to make one observation. At the beginning of the book the main character was heading to the West, the stories of how the West was a paradise filled with beautiful girls, easy jobs, and a guarantee of a fun-filled life were his motivation. However he meets a person heading East whose opinion seems to be the exact opposite. Whereas the main character believes the West is better than the East, the person he meets seems equally convinced the East is better than the West.
I suppose this is a classic example of the old phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side." Actually the whole book is kind of an example of that, none of the characters are ever satisfied in one place for long, so they head to the other side of the country, then they get bored there too and across the country they go again.
Well that pretty much sums up the book I guess, there really wasn't much to it other than that. A bit disappointing for a 52 book, but that's how it goes I suppose. Not every book on a list of this size can be amazing and insightful. So I suppose it's time for me to move on to my next book.
Seeing as there was no real plot, and the only character who might have provided some sort of moral or philosophical point to discuss here was insane (not just a personal opinion, it's actually stated in the book many times), I didn't manage to get much to post about here.
Thankfully I did manage to make one observation. At the beginning of the book the main character was heading to the West, the stories of how the West was a paradise filled with beautiful girls, easy jobs, and a guarantee of a fun-filled life were his motivation. However he meets a person heading East whose opinion seems to be the exact opposite. Whereas the main character believes the West is better than the East, the person he meets seems equally convinced the East is better than the West.
I suppose this is a classic example of the old phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side." Actually the whole book is kind of an example of that, none of the characters are ever satisfied in one place for long, so they head to the other side of the country, then they get bored there too and across the country they go again.
Well that pretty much sums up the book I guess, there really wasn't much to it other than that. A bit disappointing for a 52 book, but that's how it goes I suppose. Not every book on a list of this size can be amazing and insightful. So I suppose it's time for me to move on to my next book.
Monday, March 12, 2012
A Clockwork Orange 6
Here's the last forgotten blog post, luckily I remember things about this book so I don't have to replace it with something else or re-read it.
My memory of the details are a bit fuzzy, but I do remember the main moral issue was the experiment performed on the main character to make him incapable of doing bad things. A more accurate way of describing it would actually be that the treatment made him incapable of choosing to do bad things. It seems like this would be an ideal way to eliminate crime, but the result is less than pretty. When the main character starts getting beat up by a gang he finds himself unable to do anything but beg for forgiveness because he is incapable of choosing to fight back.
The moral issue here is if it's right to take away someone's ability to decide what to do, even if all they ever choose to do is commit crimes over and over. Is it morally correct to take people who compulsively commit crime and take away their ability to do anything negative? In theory doing so would benefit them as well as society, since instead of going to jail they would become a productive member of society and live a better life.
On the other hand, what about the problem with that theory, no matter how much you abuse someone who was changed like this they can never do anything about it. Is that fair to them, or a better question would be does it really help them?
My view is that to permanently take away someone's free-will, for any purpose, is wrong. The ability to choose what we do after evaluating our options is part of what makes us sentient, and our sentience is what makes us human instead of just another animal. So taking away free-will from a person is effectively the same as reducing them to something between animal and human. I don't believe we have the right to do that to someone, even if our intentions are good.
There might have been other things in this book that I could've blogged on, but I don't remember them, and this one issue was the theme of the whole story anyway, so anything else would just be a footnote. That said, my blog post for this book has reached its end.
My memory of the details are a bit fuzzy, but I do remember the main moral issue was the experiment performed on the main character to make him incapable of doing bad things. A more accurate way of describing it would actually be that the treatment made him incapable of choosing to do bad things. It seems like this would be an ideal way to eliminate crime, but the result is less than pretty. When the main character starts getting beat up by a gang he finds himself unable to do anything but beg for forgiveness because he is incapable of choosing to fight back.
The moral issue here is if it's right to take away someone's ability to decide what to do, even if all they ever choose to do is commit crimes over and over. Is it morally correct to take people who compulsively commit crime and take away their ability to do anything negative? In theory doing so would benefit them as well as society, since instead of going to jail they would become a productive member of society and live a better life.
On the other hand, what about the problem with that theory, no matter how much you abuse someone who was changed like this they can never do anything about it. Is that fair to them, or a better question would be does it really help them?
My view is that to permanently take away someone's free-will, for any purpose, is wrong. The ability to choose what we do after evaluating our options is part of what makes us sentient, and our sentience is what makes us human instead of just another animal. So taking away free-will from a person is effectively the same as reducing them to something between animal and human. I don't believe we have the right to do that to someone, even if our intentions are good.
There might have been other things in this book that I could've blogged on, but I don't remember them, and this one issue was the theme of the whole story anyway, so anything else would just be a footnote. That said, my blog post for this book has reached its end.
The Hunger Games trilogy (replacing Slaughterhouse 5) 7
This blog post is replacing Slaughterhouse 5 because I don't remember ANYTHING about it but it never got a blog post, leaving me in a hopeless situation at best.
The Hunger Games is the trilogy that everyone is talking about, it is about as popular as Harry Potter was, or it'll get there soon at least. I know this because I read the series when it was just a regular series of books that nobody really appreciated, I read it, loved it, and then moved on. Then a year later my mom starts reading it, my friends are all reading it, my friend's dad is reading it, there's a movie coming out for it, etc...
The books are great, and the movie boosted their popularity to incredible levels, but not everyone realizes the deeper qualities in the book. Most people probably just enjoy the cool scenes and romance stuff, which is fine, but those aren't what I'll be blogging on, my apologies to any Hunger Games fanboys/girls who wanted another outlet to talk about that stuff, I'm not doing that here.
There are a few things that strike me about the book, but I'm going to start with one of the big ones.
There is a striking similarity between the relationship between the districts and the Capitol of Panem and the relationship that is becoming more and more pronounced between the rich and poor of the USA. The whole rich vs poor thing is about how the rich are using their wealth to influence the government and gain more wealth, almost always at the expense of everyone else. In the Hunger Games the Capitol has complete political, economic, and military control over the districts, and it uses that control to exploit them and live in perfect comfort while everyone else lives on the brink of starvation.This ringing any bells for anybody?
Of course this is an extreme example of the situation we put up with now, things aren't really that bad yet. The question is if things could get that bad at some point in the future. With the government steadily taking away our rights, what is stopping them from setting up this situation for real? I don't know, maybe nothing, in the books one of the 13 districts was said to have rebelled, and they got bombed into nothingness, making the common belief that nothing was left there but radioactive ruins. If the situation in the trilogy were replicated in real life, would out government hesitate to bomb or otherwise slaughter any of us middle/lower class people who didn't like what was happening? I don't think they would, in that situation I think we would be given the choice of eternal poverty or death, and this situation might be becoming reality sooner than we think, what with all of the corruption and the complete lack of anything we can do about it.
Another thing to consider is Katniss's internal conflict about her decision to substitute for her sister. Most people who have only read the first book probably view her decision as selfless, but in the next books it is revealed that her decision might not have been as selfless as it seems. Katniss does a lot of things to save people because she can't bear to live without them. She herself questions her actions and wonders if they were really meant to save the people she saved, or if they were to spare herself the pain of losing those people. It's an interesting question to debate, whether or not Katniss is selfish or selfless, I'm not sure which it is myself. I think it's a bit of both, her desire to not lose people stems from her feelings for those people, so her decisions to protect them can't be entirely selfish, because she does care for them. On the other hand the feeling that drives her to act is not one of selflessness, but one of selfishly trying to avoid the pain of loss. So in the end her actions are both selfish and selfless, which is why she can't decide for herself what they are.
Those are the two most striking themes for me, there's also one more thing that when I think back might have had a deeper meaning, but I'd need to re-read the books to evaluate it and add it to the blog post if it actually did have a deeper meaning.
That's all I have for now, after I'm done with the 52 books I may go back and look into the possible addition, or I might not, but for now I'm moving on.
The Hunger Games is the trilogy that everyone is talking about, it is about as popular as Harry Potter was, or it'll get there soon at least. I know this because I read the series when it was just a regular series of books that nobody really appreciated, I read it, loved it, and then moved on. Then a year later my mom starts reading it, my friends are all reading it, my friend's dad is reading it, there's a movie coming out for it, etc...
The books are great, and the movie boosted their popularity to incredible levels, but not everyone realizes the deeper qualities in the book. Most people probably just enjoy the cool scenes and romance stuff, which is fine, but those aren't what I'll be blogging on, my apologies to any Hunger Games fanboys/girls who wanted another outlet to talk about that stuff, I'm not doing that here.
There are a few things that strike me about the book, but I'm going to start with one of the big ones.
There is a striking similarity between the relationship between the districts and the Capitol of Panem and the relationship that is becoming more and more pronounced between the rich and poor of the USA. The whole rich vs poor thing is about how the rich are using their wealth to influence the government and gain more wealth, almost always at the expense of everyone else. In the Hunger Games the Capitol has complete political, economic, and military control over the districts, and it uses that control to exploit them and live in perfect comfort while everyone else lives on the brink of starvation.This ringing any bells for anybody?
Of course this is an extreme example of the situation we put up with now, things aren't really that bad yet. The question is if things could get that bad at some point in the future. With the government steadily taking away our rights, what is stopping them from setting up this situation for real? I don't know, maybe nothing, in the books one of the 13 districts was said to have rebelled, and they got bombed into nothingness, making the common belief that nothing was left there but radioactive ruins. If the situation in the trilogy were replicated in real life, would out government hesitate to bomb or otherwise slaughter any of us middle/lower class people who didn't like what was happening? I don't think they would, in that situation I think we would be given the choice of eternal poverty or death, and this situation might be becoming reality sooner than we think, what with all of the corruption and the complete lack of anything we can do about it.
Another thing to consider is Katniss's internal conflict about her decision to substitute for her sister. Most people who have only read the first book probably view her decision as selfless, but in the next books it is revealed that her decision might not have been as selfless as it seems. Katniss does a lot of things to save people because she can't bear to live without them. She herself questions her actions and wonders if they were really meant to save the people she saved, or if they were to spare herself the pain of losing those people. It's an interesting question to debate, whether or not Katniss is selfish or selfless, I'm not sure which it is myself. I think it's a bit of both, her desire to not lose people stems from her feelings for those people, so her decisions to protect them can't be entirely selfish, because she does care for them. On the other hand the feeling that drives her to act is not one of selflessness, but one of selfishly trying to avoid the pain of loss. So in the end her actions are both selfish and selfless, which is why she can't decide for herself what they are.
Those are the two most striking themes for me, there's also one more thing that when I think back might have had a deeper meaning, but I'd need to re-read the books to evaluate it and add it to the blog post if it actually did have a deeper meaning.
That's all I have for now, after I'm done with the 52 books I may go back and look into the possible addition, or I might not, but for now I'm moving on.
The Kite Runner 8
Well it seems I'm NOT caught up on the blogs, I'm not sure what happened but three books kind of got lost in the shuffle and never received a blog post, but I had mentally crossed them off as blogged and when I was doing my blog post catch-up run they were overlooked... I've finally calmed down enough to start fixing the problem, so here comes another blog post.
This book was alright, I've forgotten a lot of it but I remember enough to cover the main issue that is worthy of blogging on to a degree...
The thing I remember most about the book was the conflict within the religion of the main character between two groups of people in the religion, the names of which I can't remember, the group that was being discriminated against was called a name that I believe started with an H, but I forget the whole name...
Anyway the hatred of the minority group used to be simply considering them inferior in all ways, they'd be picked on and abused, but it turned into a Holocaust like scenario, with the mass slaughter of innocent people being justified by religion. Apparently all religions share the common ground of being used to justify genocide, because that's what God wants... It's amazing how the sacred words of a religion are invariably twisted from things like "thou shall not kill" to "all members of this race must be exterminated in the name of God"
What's even more amazing is that not only can a few insane people twist religion in that way, but somehow they can make everyone else believe whatever sick twisted meaning they think they've discovered is the will of God. Then they can use these twisted ideas to gain power and wealth while they get people to slaughter each other.
I'm not sure how this happens, maybe people are all just really stupid, or maybe at heart we're all sadistic mass murderers looking for an excuse to reduce all we see to rubble. Whatever the reason, it doesn't change the fact that it happens way too often for my taste. The more I read about religion the more I believe that being an atheist is the best course of action, I still believe in God, but I don't think any currently established religion would bring me any closer to him/her/it. Religions as they are today seem like giant power ploys, no offense to any religious people who read this, but I have yet to hear of a religion that isn't seeping with corruption.
Well that's all I really have for this book, I'm not sure how the next two forgotten blogs will turn out, but it's time to move on to trying to do something about them.
This book was alright, I've forgotten a lot of it but I remember enough to cover the main issue that is worthy of blogging on to a degree...
The thing I remember most about the book was the conflict within the religion of the main character between two groups of people in the religion, the names of which I can't remember, the group that was being discriminated against was called a name that I believe started with an H, but I forget the whole name...
Anyway the hatred of the minority group used to be simply considering them inferior in all ways, they'd be picked on and abused, but it turned into a Holocaust like scenario, with the mass slaughter of innocent people being justified by religion. Apparently all religions share the common ground of being used to justify genocide, because that's what God wants... It's amazing how the sacred words of a religion are invariably twisted from things like "thou shall not kill" to "all members of this race must be exterminated in the name of God"
What's even more amazing is that not only can a few insane people twist religion in that way, but somehow they can make everyone else believe whatever sick twisted meaning they think they've discovered is the will of God. Then they can use these twisted ideas to gain power and wealth while they get people to slaughter each other.
I'm not sure how this happens, maybe people are all just really stupid, or maybe at heart we're all sadistic mass murderers looking for an excuse to reduce all we see to rubble. Whatever the reason, it doesn't change the fact that it happens way too often for my taste. The more I read about religion the more I believe that being an atheist is the best course of action, I still believe in God, but I don't think any currently established religion would bring me any closer to him/her/it. Religions as they are today seem like giant power ploys, no offense to any religious people who read this, but I have yet to hear of a religion that isn't seeping with corruption.
Well that's all I really have for this book, I'm not sure how the next two forgotten blogs will turn out, but it's time to move on to trying to do something about them.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Memoirs of a Geisha 9
Contrary to the expectations of my mom, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Well that's not exactly true, she didn't think I'd dislike it, but her reaction when I said I liked it was quite funny, so I had to make a comment on it here.
Joking aside, I did enjoy the book, I have quite an obsession with all things Japanese, culture, language, all of it. So I enjoyed getting a look at a part of Japanese culture that I had previously never heard of. Prior to this book being added to the list I didn't even know what a geisha was, now I have gotten a good view of how that whole system works.
I'd like to point out now that, contrary to the popular perception of geisha, they are NOT prostitutes. The funny thing about this is that when I asked what exactly a geisha was and the job was described to me, my first reaction was "so they're really fancy prostitutes... okaaaaay why am I going to be reading about this?" Those were probably not my exact words, but that's basically it. After that was cleared up I read the book and was amused to find that the author, when she talks to people about her profession, always comes across the same misconception.
As for the book itself, I can't think of many things that I learned that would really fit here, my personal interest in Japanese things isn't exactly a academic level topic. I did notice (not for the first time, but probably one of the more striking ones) that women are a lot more convoluted then men. The relationship between Chiyo and Hatsumoto is quite effective at illustrating this. When a guy hates someone we try to avoid said person, failing that we make our dislike clear in some simple and straightforward way or we put up with it and then avoid the person in the future. Women, on the other hand, are a lot more spiteful. As a guy, I can say with certainty that I would never go through the process of formulating and executing plans as extreme as the ones Hatsumoto and Chiyo (with the aid of others) used on each other. Honestly I couldn't really comprehend how anyone could be so malicious to another person, I can't really describe my reaction except with a picture.
Well I suppose all of the guy vs girl jokes had to come from somewhere...
So admittedly that wasn't exactly academic level material either, so now for something that is.
Towards the end of the book Gion, the city where all the geisha worked, was closed due to the Japan vs America war going poorly. The author makes a comment at one point when she sees American troops driving down the streets of Japan that goes something like "these Americans blew up two of our cities a few weeks ago and now they're driving down the street tossing candy to children?"
I found this comment interesting, it is true that we dropped our first nuclear nukes on Japan, then subsequently helped them to rebuild. It strikes me as odd that we would even bother trying to atone for something like that, we turned two major cities into craters, killing hundreds of thousands of people, and then we go and say "oh, sorry about that, please accept our apologies and let us help you fix those cities of yours and we can put all of this behind us."
Please refer to the previous picture for how I feel about that. Many people respond with anger, but the Japanese did decide to launch a surprise attack on us when we were trying to stay neutral, and during that attack they even went so far as to bomb our hospitals, which was an unforgivable offense on their part. So I can't really get mad that we retaliated with extreme measures after they set the bar that high, so I can only shake my head at the attempts to compensate for our actions and wonder what drugs our government was on back then.
To make things clear, I don't approve of our nuking two cities filled with people. However costly it would have been to invade via ordinary means, there were other options. For one we could have nuked an uninhabited area to demonstrate the power of our bombs, the Japanese would still have had to surrender to our unstoppable power, and a lot of lives would be spared. Or we could have decided to only bomb ONE city, why we had to bomb TWO cities within a few hours of each other is beyond me, blowing up the second city was simply overkill, that fact can't be argued even if you believe the first bomb wasn't already overkill. I don't approve of our actions, but I don't feel angry about it because the Japanese did pretty much start the war with a disclaimer that said "rule number 1, there are no rules, this is a no holds barred death match, so we're going to bomb your hospitals of sick and elderly people, have a nice day!" When you do something like that you have to own the consequences, no matter how extreme.
So, long story short, this book was quite enjoyable, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn a bit more about Japanese culture, or to anyone who wants an inside look at what they've got coming to them after making a young woman very angry, but that's about it.
I'd also like to call for a celebration, I am now officially caught up on my blogs! Now I have blogged on every book I have read, and so long as I don't fall behind again it shall remain that way. So hip-hip-hooray for that, and I'll see you all in a week or so once I've finished my next book and am ready to blog again.
Thank You For Smoking 10
This was a pretty good book, but I can't say it had any real blog-worthy material for me. This list of books was originally supposed to be 52 classics, then it became 52 books everyone must read, this falls into neither category for me. It's too modern to be a classic, there are no eye-opening revelations or earth-shattering discoveries in it, and there's nothing of its kind to compare it to like I did with "The Sisters Grimm."
I suppose this book might reveal a lot to people currently unaware of the fact that smoking is bad for you, but with all of the warnings and anti-drug programs these days it's safe to assume that there is nobody in a part of the world that has cigarettes to smoke that is unaware of that fact.
I've spent the last 40 minutes trying to think of something to write here, but I'm still coming up blank. I suppose I can link the behavior of the tobacco companies to the "revelation" about how corrupt the rich in the USA are, though I'm sure everyone knew about that before recent events, but now the rich are in a position of unlimited power and people are trying to save their skins because they were too complacent before when things could be solved without nation-wide protests.
Now that I have thought of that comparison, I am realizing just how similar the corruption in the book and the corruption we're putting up with are alike. The tobacco companies were perfectly aware they were selling poison and were killing people by the millions, and yet they incessantly tried to deny the fact and continued to advertise smoking to kids, all for the sake of making money. It really is sick how companies already rolling in wealth would go so far as to ruin the lives of children in order to make more, and that's what the rich are doing today. Using their "influence" in politics (a.k.a. pretty much complete control), the top 2% of the nation have been getting grafts, putting down protests, and steadily passing laws to nullify our constitutional rights.
Case in point, these are just two things I've personally noticed that positively reek of corruption.
-Occupy Wall Street was a peaceful protest, the type protected by the constitution, the government's response? Send in police to trap all the protesters in the parks they occupied and have them beat with batons while they were unable to leave. So the moment we protest against the rich being corrupt we apparently are not allowed to have peaceful protests anymore, that right only applies if we shut up and behave while the rich steal all of the country's money...
-The Patriot Acts issue, the amount of corruption here is revolting, these acts violate 6 of our rights either directly or indirectly, and the method by which they got passed is about as underhanded as you can get. First, the acts were slipped in to the military budget so as to avoid notice and to practically guarantee their being passed. Then it was claimed that the acts could only be used on non-citizens suspected of terrorist activities, but that claim was quickly proven false. Since the bill can be used to target regular citizens as well, and it gave the government unlimited power to arrest anyone they disliked for life without any evidence or trial, there was a huge uproar of protest. In response to this the president promised to use his veto on the acts, but while everyone was distracted with New Year's Eve celebrations the president signed the acts with a promise that they would never be used on American citizens, a promise that is not legally binding, and even if Obama intends to keep it (and who trusts a politician's promise?) the next president will not be bound by it.
For those who don't know, the acts I'm speaking of give the military the power to arrest any person they suspect of being involved with terrorist groups and detain them until the "end of the war on terrorism" without giving any evidence or a trial. The claimed intention of the bill is to let terrorists be arrested without warrants so that their plans don't have time to be executed. The effect is that the government can now arrest anyone they want, whenever they want, and that person will never be seen or heard from again. Which means anyone who protests against the corrupt activities of the government can now be silenced simply by dubbing them terrorists.
Wow I went overboard there, I didn't intend to drag on that long on that single topic, but the Patriot acts really make my blood boil. With those acts our right to free speech, right to bear arms, right to a trial, right to not be arrested without reasonable doubt, and more are all violated. We can't speak freely for fear of being dubbed a terrorist because we disagree with the corruption. We can't bear arms cause that might be enough to "justify" calling us terrorists who plan to use those weapons in an attack, it seems ridiculous, but that is the amount of power the government has now.
Back on the topic of the book... actually other than comparing the corruption in the book to corruption in real life I still can't think of anything... I suppose that it's time for me to wrap things up now, because if I get started on all the things the government does that make me angry again I'll be here for hours and I'm gonna be in a foul mood all day, and the second part of that might already be too late to avoid...
Anyway, that's it for this book, sorry if my government talk upsets you, it upsets me too, so I'll try and refrain from any more of it in my next blog posts unless it really fits, and I'll try and keep it in check then. So until next time, farewell!
I suppose this book might reveal a lot to people currently unaware of the fact that smoking is bad for you, but with all of the warnings and anti-drug programs these days it's safe to assume that there is nobody in a part of the world that has cigarettes to smoke that is unaware of that fact.
I've spent the last 40 minutes trying to think of something to write here, but I'm still coming up blank. I suppose I can link the behavior of the tobacco companies to the "revelation" about how corrupt the rich in the USA are, though I'm sure everyone knew about that before recent events, but now the rich are in a position of unlimited power and people are trying to save their skins because they were too complacent before when things could be solved without nation-wide protests.
Now that I have thought of that comparison, I am realizing just how similar the corruption in the book and the corruption we're putting up with are alike. The tobacco companies were perfectly aware they were selling poison and were killing people by the millions, and yet they incessantly tried to deny the fact and continued to advertise smoking to kids, all for the sake of making money. It really is sick how companies already rolling in wealth would go so far as to ruin the lives of children in order to make more, and that's what the rich are doing today. Using their "influence" in politics (a.k.a. pretty much complete control), the top 2% of the nation have been getting grafts, putting down protests, and steadily passing laws to nullify our constitutional rights.
Case in point, these are just two things I've personally noticed that positively reek of corruption.
-Occupy Wall Street was a peaceful protest, the type protected by the constitution, the government's response? Send in police to trap all the protesters in the parks they occupied and have them beat with batons while they were unable to leave. So the moment we protest against the rich being corrupt we apparently are not allowed to have peaceful protests anymore, that right only applies if we shut up and behave while the rich steal all of the country's money...
-The Patriot Acts issue, the amount of corruption here is revolting, these acts violate 6 of our rights either directly or indirectly, and the method by which they got passed is about as underhanded as you can get. First, the acts were slipped in to the military budget so as to avoid notice and to practically guarantee their being passed. Then it was claimed that the acts could only be used on non-citizens suspected of terrorist activities, but that claim was quickly proven false. Since the bill can be used to target regular citizens as well, and it gave the government unlimited power to arrest anyone they disliked for life without any evidence or trial, there was a huge uproar of protest. In response to this the president promised to use his veto on the acts, but while everyone was distracted with New Year's Eve celebrations the president signed the acts with a promise that they would never be used on American citizens, a promise that is not legally binding, and even if Obama intends to keep it (and who trusts a politician's promise?) the next president will not be bound by it.
For those who don't know, the acts I'm speaking of give the military the power to arrest any person they suspect of being involved with terrorist groups and detain them until the "end of the war on terrorism" without giving any evidence or a trial. The claimed intention of the bill is to let terrorists be arrested without warrants so that their plans don't have time to be executed. The effect is that the government can now arrest anyone they want, whenever they want, and that person will never be seen or heard from again. Which means anyone who protests against the corrupt activities of the government can now be silenced simply by dubbing them terrorists.
Wow I went overboard there, I didn't intend to drag on that long on that single topic, but the Patriot acts really make my blood boil. With those acts our right to free speech, right to bear arms, right to a trial, right to not be arrested without reasonable doubt, and more are all violated. We can't speak freely for fear of being dubbed a terrorist because we disagree with the corruption. We can't bear arms cause that might be enough to "justify" calling us terrorists who plan to use those weapons in an attack, it seems ridiculous, but that is the amount of power the government has now.
Back on the topic of the book... actually other than comparing the corruption in the book to corruption in real life I still can't think of anything... I suppose that it's time for me to wrap things up now, because if I get started on all the things the government does that make me angry again I'll be here for hours and I'm gonna be in a foul mood all day, and the second part of that might already be too late to avoid...
Anyway, that's it for this book, sorry if my government talk upsets you, it upsets me too, so I'll try and refrain from any more of it in my next blog posts unless it really fits, and I'll try and keep it in check then. So until next time, farewell!
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Sisters Grimm 11
I decided to do two blog posts today because both of them are on books that didn't do much in the name of providing good blog material, plus I'm behind on blogs and this is the only day of the week I don't have plans to go somewhere where I can't do this easily.
Anyway, this book was an easy read, it was a regular fantasy novel, the same kind I normally would read. It was also part of a series which I suspect has several more books in it, so it took a while to piece together what was going on.
The story was original and entertaining, but after reading it all I was forced to ask my mom why she had put it on the list, there was literally nothing that I could think of to blog on. Her idea for this post was to explore why "The Sisters Grimm" is so much more marketable than "The Brothers Grimm" was when it was released. It may seem like I'm cheating by just taking the idea of another for my work here, but I've put this post off and done several other posts and read even more other books while I tried to think of a different thing to blog about, now I only have one blog post left (not counting any books I finish this week) and nothing is coming to mind, so I'm just gonna go with it.
There are a lot of things that could account for the difference in marketability between the brothers and sisters Grimm. One is that "The Sisters Grimm" has been released into a different time and people may be more accepting of such things. In this era the fairy tales have become increasingly less dark and increasingly more stereotypical happy and simply stories. We've seen countless renditions of stories like Cinderella, and none of them come even close to an unhappy ending, the story has been watered down and aimed at little kids, the psychological effects of which are a whole other topic consisting of more articles, scientific studies, and theories than I care to go into here.
Perhaps a better example of this can be found with the "genie in a lamp" story, even in "The Sisters Grimm" the genie is depicted as a terrifying ancient being of awesome power. However, when most of us think of the genie in the lamp we think of the comical blue shape-shifting genie from Disney's "Aladdin." There's a BIG difference between "terrifying" and "comical" and how each image is received by people.
Another thing that may explain the difference is that after years and years of these mellow remakes of the classic stories a book that comes closer to the original stories and is a little bit darker is a nice change of pace. In the past "The Brothers Grimm" was a compilation of all the dark and scary stories passed down orally in families. There were no "fairy tales" as we know them today, just "tales." I don't know exactly when "The Brothers Grimm" was written, but it was a long time ago in a time where people were a lot less well off than we are today. Today the whole world is light and filled with opportunity and comfort and all that stuff that comes with technology. Back then a bad storm meant you were going to starve that winter, you had to work all day to make sure you survived to the next day, and the chances of you ever leaving the position you were in were about as close to zero as you can get. All things considered, it isn't exactly surprising that people wouldn't want to take time out of their daily fight for survival to read fantasy stories about how other people did poorly in their fights for survival.
Today darker stories are enjoyable because they are frighting and add a bit of excitement and fear into our comfortable safe lives. We can read these kinds of things and enjoy them because we know that when we wake up the next day there is still going to be food in our pantry, we'll be warm enough to not freeze to death, we can go to a doctor if we get sick, and nothing short of a natural disaster is going to change any of that.
I suppose both of those ideas are kind of similar, but they both deserved going into. That pretty much sums up my theory on the topic, maybe it's right, maybe not, I'm not a psychiatrist who can perform a detailed analysis of people's minds and confirm or disprove it, but this is what strikes me as the most likely explanation.
And with that another blog post ends, and now I'm almost done with this blog altogether, I believe there are 5 books left to read, one of which I am partially through already, and 6 blog posts to type. It won't be long before that's done, so the end of this blog is near... but it's not quite here yet, so until next time, farewell!
Anyway, this book was an easy read, it was a regular fantasy novel, the same kind I normally would read. It was also part of a series which I suspect has several more books in it, so it took a while to piece together what was going on.
The story was original and entertaining, but after reading it all I was forced to ask my mom why she had put it on the list, there was literally nothing that I could think of to blog on. Her idea for this post was to explore why "The Sisters Grimm" is so much more marketable than "The Brothers Grimm" was when it was released. It may seem like I'm cheating by just taking the idea of another for my work here, but I've put this post off and done several other posts and read even more other books while I tried to think of a different thing to blog about, now I only have one blog post left (not counting any books I finish this week) and nothing is coming to mind, so I'm just gonna go with it.
There are a lot of things that could account for the difference in marketability between the brothers and sisters Grimm. One is that "The Sisters Grimm" has been released into a different time and people may be more accepting of such things. In this era the fairy tales have become increasingly less dark and increasingly more stereotypical happy and simply stories. We've seen countless renditions of stories like Cinderella, and none of them come even close to an unhappy ending, the story has been watered down and aimed at little kids, the psychological effects of which are a whole other topic consisting of more articles, scientific studies, and theories than I care to go into here.
Perhaps a better example of this can be found with the "genie in a lamp" story, even in "The Sisters Grimm" the genie is depicted as a terrifying ancient being of awesome power. However, when most of us think of the genie in the lamp we think of the comical blue shape-shifting genie from Disney's "Aladdin." There's a BIG difference between "terrifying" and "comical" and how each image is received by people.
Another thing that may explain the difference is that after years and years of these mellow remakes of the classic stories a book that comes closer to the original stories and is a little bit darker is a nice change of pace. In the past "The Brothers Grimm" was a compilation of all the dark and scary stories passed down orally in families. There were no "fairy tales" as we know them today, just "tales." I don't know exactly when "The Brothers Grimm" was written, but it was a long time ago in a time where people were a lot less well off than we are today. Today the whole world is light and filled with opportunity and comfort and all that stuff that comes with technology. Back then a bad storm meant you were going to starve that winter, you had to work all day to make sure you survived to the next day, and the chances of you ever leaving the position you were in were about as close to zero as you can get. All things considered, it isn't exactly surprising that people wouldn't want to take time out of their daily fight for survival to read fantasy stories about how other people did poorly in their fights for survival.
Today darker stories are enjoyable because they are frighting and add a bit of excitement and fear into our comfortable safe lives. We can read these kinds of things and enjoy them because we know that when we wake up the next day there is still going to be food in our pantry, we'll be warm enough to not freeze to death, we can go to a doctor if we get sick, and nothing short of a natural disaster is going to change any of that.
I suppose both of those ideas are kind of similar, but they both deserved going into. That pretty much sums up my theory on the topic, maybe it's right, maybe not, I'm not a psychiatrist who can perform a detailed analysis of people's minds and confirm or disprove it, but this is what strikes me as the most likely explanation.
And with that another blog post ends, and now I'm almost done with this blog altogether, I believe there are 5 books left to read, one of which I am partially through already, and 6 blog posts to type. It won't be long before that's done, so the end of this blog is near... but it's not quite here yet, so until next time, farewell!
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