Reading and 'Working'

Work has been really, really, really quiet lately. Especially this week. Few people and fewer phone calls. I can't complain.

I've found myself lately doing something I never do and never want to do; juggling several books at once. I am currently reading 4 books, and I don't like it because everything just drags out. What takes a week to finish takes four. It doesn't help that the books I am reading are goddamn huge. I am reading Journey to the West, which comes in four 600 page volumes. I am reading the second Drizzt collection, to try to get into fantasy again (more on that in a bit) which is three large fantasy books in one. Looking for Alaska is the third book, and it's actually short and pretty easy to read so far, but my Kindle I was reading it on froze up the other day and I haven't been able to fix it yet. Finally, as research for my novel that I will never write, I am reading Red Pine's The Diamond Sutra translation and commentary. That is a good 500-600 pages.

Anyways, fantasy. I used to love the crap out of fantasy books. I still love Lord of the Rings, but that's where my fondness starts and ends for fantasy. Those were books about characters, before the terrible genre standbys had infiltrated the genre. I know I am generalizing when I talk about fantasy, but after trying to get into it several times, I just got tired. Tired of racial attributes, black and white morality, stock characters and storylines. I think I lost faith a good 7-8 years ago when Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, which started so good, literally became arguably the worst piece of literature I had ever read in my life. That is not hyperbole. It is that bad. Imagine a writer devoting entire pages to the strength of one's tea, or the floral pattern on a dress, while simultaneously creating a plot in which literally nothing happens, and every single character becomes an incredibly one dimensional sex fiend. Words can not describe my dislike of that series.

So, I tried in recent years. I picked up some Forgotten Realms books, and outside of R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Collection (which manages to be somewhat morally complex and character driven and well written) I have had no luck. Darkwalkers on Moonshae? Kill me now.

I picked up a Magic: The Gathering book, having loved the card game in middle school and really digging the lore. I read about 10 pages then shelved it indefinitely.

As I am writing this though, I realize I am having the same struggle with another genre that has been near and dear to my heart in place of fantasy; sci-fi. Now, I am about as anti-nostalgia goggles as it gets. I wouldn't go so far as to say everything modern is always better, but I am a big fan of modern cinema and literature. I don't see the complete decline in quality that some say is occurring. Perhaps it's just because we haven't had decades to weed out the bad, maybe it's rose-tinted glasses, whatever. But I have been totally without sci-fi for months now. I picked up some short story collections of some award winners in the genre and didn't really like most of them.

Most of my sci-fi favorites; the first book in the Dune series, the early Foundation books, Brave New World, We, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Fahrenheit 451 and various Ray Bradbury short stories, are several decades old, or more. I have even thought of picking up a Star Wars book again, before convincing myself that everything wrong with Star Wars literature is what frustrates me with fantasy. I remember finally giving up on it early in high school with some weird bug alien invasion series. Plus, I don't like Star Wars nearly as much as I used to.

I guess it's good that I am enjoying what I am reading now, then. Perhaps I am just more of a drama guy now. I am enjoying my time with Journey to the West. It has a lot of things in it that professors will tell you not to do. Fight scenes are generally vague and short. The narrator makes frequent remarks to the reader about continuing to find out what happens next. But it all adds to the whimsical feel of the book so far (I am about 200 pages in is all). The Monkey King who played center stage up until lately was a wonderful character. He was rambunctious, devious, greedy, and yet, strangely strong and admirable at times. The fight scenes were larger than life and exciting, even if characters always avoided death. The cast of characters as a whole has been interesting, even if you have to mostly imagine up what they look like.

The second Drizzt Collection picked off where the first one left off; pretty good but not extraordinary. The villain is not very compelling, sadly, as he basically amounts to some mystical source of massive magical power being unearthed after hundreds of years dormant. Stop me if you've heard that one before. But Salvatore has an eye for breathing life into anything and everything; giving towns and people characteristics and traits that make them seem at once familiar and exotic. By the time he is done, the characters feel about as real as they can be.

In the meantime, away from literature, I have started watching several animes. I am giving Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex a third try. It sounds like something I should love. Sci-fi, cyberpunk, strong female lead, great soundtrack and atmosphere, and politics. What a show! But I have seen it through one and a half times and remained unimpressed each time. I am now on episode 8, and so far, I am finding it much better this time through. I am not sure what changed.

I also started Casshern Sins, and will be watching Megazone 23, Nitaboh, and Howl's Moving Castle in the coming days to review on the anime blog I am a part of. Megazone 23 is horrible. But, it's so bad it's funny in some respects. We'll see how it all goes. Howl's is one of my least favorite Miyazaki works, but I want to give it another shot.

My gaming side of things has been quiet still. I was playing Dissidia 012 for awhile as well as The 3rd Birthday, but now I am going dormant again. Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection and Prince of Persia HD Trilogy are in the mail, but I don't know if they will get me back into things. I guess I just find myself drifting more towards music and movies and anime and reading instead of games, when I have free time. Not sure what's up.

Oh, and the weather here sucks. It's 40F and raining. Man, I need to live somewhere tropical.

Anyways, I am not too sure why I wrote this whole thing. I was bored at work and just started rambling and decided to go with it. It's a very self-indulgent piece but I felt like writing it up. I'll spare you from reading anymore though.

-GoodEnoughForMe .

Biblical Literalism

I recently found myself lurking on a forum that contains a fairly prominent Young Earth Creationist member. Before you snicker, this guy is a decent person. He just appears to be under a misconstrued opinion of both The Bible and Christianity at large. And he wants morality to be based on The Bible entirely. But I digress...

This got me thinking on why YEC and Bible literalism is such a prominent minority (and perhaps majority in some areas) in America, while I will explore, briefly, how it is in direct conflict with the true intent of The Bible and Christianity. This will deal quite a bit with Christian theology, as a heads-up, and it should be noted that I do not believe in God or any higher being. With that out of the way, let us begin.

Biblical literalism has it's roots in an evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture and Protestant fundamentalism, and often results in people taking Creationism, Noah's Ark, etc., as actual, literal truth. The only case that allegory or metaphor is being used in The Bible is when it is explicitly stated, according to most literalists. I am going to ignore the overwhelming body of evidence that goes against The Deluge or Creationism, because most literalists don't accept that in the first place, and instead view this from a theological standpoint.

Literalism shares a bit of common ground with the "pick and choosers" as some people call them; people who pick and choose passages from The Bible to support their worldview, while ignoring others. The most mainstream application of this, perhaps, is in the diminished role that The Old Testament has in modern Christianity, to the point where many Christian theologists and Christian laymen make little apologies and simply say it is not reflective of true Christianity. However, like Literalism, we often see certain allegory still constrained to the belief that it is not allegory.

To cut to the chase; the act of picking and choosing, or in computer terms, cutting and pasting passages from The Bible is inherently lopsided. Christianity was never supposed to be represented in that way. Christianity was never founded under the pretense that the Bible is a source of infallible knowledge, or scientific knowledge. What it is supposed to represent is reason, and said reason can be based, when accurate, on scientifc knowledge. Look at the opening verses of John's Gospel; Logos/Jesus. He is the Word. Logos is a Greek term meaning reason. Thus, Reason made the world, and the world was made through Reason. Therefore, the world is inherently rational. As Logos also is a part of all humans, humans are also inherently rational (that is an entirely different can of beans).

The idea of reason/rationality being a fundamental part of Christianity was espoused by the likes of Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria. The Trinity itself was developed through assumed "rational" meditation, and goold ol' fashioned debate.

This idea continued well into the 4th and 5th century by the likes of Basil of Caesarea, Ambrose of Milan, Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo, among others. The understanding of Christianity was drawn from secular information at the time. The idea that God is rational and humans are rational led them to use morality implored by modern, secular reasoning. There is no contradiction between what Christianity showed and what human reason showed. And while at times many theologians thought that the latter needed to be corrected by the former, there was no inherent conflict between recognizing both of them as integral to Christian morality and knowledge.

So, in effect, Protestant fundamentalism and YECers are directly opposed to what Christianity was originally supposed to be about. They essentially deny that Christianity is reasonable, by allowing interpretation that directly goes against all reasonably and rationally developed evidence and consensus. It leads us to believe that they are saying that all scientific consensus is not just wrong; but fallicious, and deceitful. It pits religion against the reason it was originally founded to represent. They are, ultimately, saying what many atheists and agonstics have been saying for years; that religion is unreasonable, without really knowing that that is what they are portraying. They are pitting their religion against the world.

True Christianity was never about following the Bible in all cases all the time. So what if Paul thought creationism was true? We now have the information that shows that it isn't; he did not. Why do literalists cherry pick that bit of information, but casually dispose of the fact that Paul also probably thought that the sun revolves around the Earth? Very few people are willing to argue against the Earth actually rotating around the sun, so why is creationism still such an issue? If Paul had ostensibly said that the Sun revolves around the Earth, would modern Christians take that at it's word? Probably not (well, not most of them, at least). So then why still take creationism so literally?

Actual Christianity is about incorporating many facets of knowledge, not just the literal word of The Bible. YECers and Protestant fundamentalists are bastardizing the religion, essentially. This is why, just like modern scientists ignore YEC claims, so to do Christian theologists. It is, quite simply, not a legitimate interpretation of Christianity as it was set out to be.

Perhaps ironically, these Protestant fundamentalists share more in common with Muslims than other Chrstians, because Muslim theology is built on the fact that the Koran is an unfallible source of knowledge that contains God's direct teachings to man, and that the Koran has everything we need to know; we just need to learn to interpret it. This is not a very different world view from Protestant fundamentalists.

Review: Ergo Proxy

As I very, very slowly make it through watching and reviewing my latest anime disaster (.hack//Liminality), I felt it appropriate to share a much more positive write-up of an anime; one Ergo Proxy.

The New American Radical

(older writeup from last year)

In November 2008, a rebuke was given to the American conservative movement, one that had been building amid anger at an unpopular War in Iraq, a new recession, and displeasure with Bush and his fellow Republicans. The rebuke came in the form of a Democrat held Congress and President. It was, by all appearances, the biggest blow to the conservative movement in decades, and the remaining Republicans tried in vain to distance themselves from Bush and the old guard.

Nobody said it was the end of the conservative movement in America, just perhaps the movement as we knew it. The Rush Limbaughs, the George Bush's, the time of the brash and at times obnoxious conservative was being replaced by a more moderate, humble one. One that would work together with Democrats to get things done, one that could swallow their pride and admit they or their party was once wrong.

But strangely enough, something different happened. As the recession lingered, people began to turn their focus to the Democrats and Obama. For better or worse, they were tied inexorably to the economy; see a recovery, and the party would continue to win elections, see it falter more, and prepare to be voted out. Even if the actual power of the Democrats over the economy was somewhat limited, it could both be their saving grace, or their doom.

The GOP has long had a history of out talking the Democrats. Even in the worst of times, the party has long been held as the gold standard of promoting their own interests.

So, as 2010 plowed forward, with the economy still in the dumps, and a Democratic legislative and executive branch ratcheting up the national dept, the GOP realised that their return to glory was at hand.

Yet, it wasn't about being moderate or humble. It wasn't necessarily about actual public policy either. It was about being angry. Angry at spending, angry at health care reform, angry at a still bad economy.

So, what did the conservatives do?

They drifted. Even farther to the right. As one political pundit said, "moderate Republicans are dead."

And indeed they are. As the Tea Party makes strides and gets representatives elected, and conservatives run on the old dialogue of cutting spending and cutting taxes, they are catching on. A Tea-Party candidate got elected to run for Congress in Delaware, a liberal, or even generally moderate conservative state. The fact that O'Donnel, said Tea-Party representative, and one who has previous ties to witchcraft, and religiously driven MTV anti-masturbation campaigns, tells you all you need to know about the state of the American conservative movement.

And yet, the movement gathers steam. Everyone in the country is angry. Most voters don't really understand exactly what that the Tea-Party stands for. Everybody is "mad" though, and the idea of voting for the anti-establishment guy or gal is emotionally attractive. As one political pundit put it:

"If you polled Americans about whether they want to abolish the Department of Education, which includes the incredibility popular PELL Grant system and subsidized college loan program, most Americans will tell you no.

If you polled senior citizens (which make up a disproportionate share of off year elections), and asked if they want to privatize social security, most will tell you no. Same with Medicare, or National Parks. These are tenets of Tea Party candidates.

What voters HEAR though is that TPers are against Bailouts and Federal Spending. Well sure, that sounds good! When you dig into it though, you'll find support for policies that are outside the American mainstream."

And yet, people like Rand Paul of Kentucky, a representative running for Congress, has said that the Departments of Education and Energy need to be eliminated. Another extreme right winger, Alaska's Joe Miller, has said on national TV that unemployment benefits are unconstitutional. Marco Rubio of Florida has campaigned almost solely on one issue; repealing health care reform.

One has to wonder where the Tea-Party was when Bush skyrocketed the national debt. Nary a single protest was seen or heard about his spending from the party, because it didn't exist until Obama came about. Perhaps it is because, while preaching small government, many of these same Tea-Party supporters are those wishing to increase the role of faith in the government, as is Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, and end things like abortion and the gay rights movement. Small government doesn't seem to apply to areas of personal life with them. They can't touch your money, but they can stick their paws into your personal life.

This November will mark another rebuke of the politicians in Washington, and anti-incumbent fervor for both Democrats and Republicans is running high. The Republican party though has found a new way to enlist the masses, and is riding sky high on polls and studies that indicate their fall from grace is over and done with. It may be the end of conservatives as we know it, but instead of moderating, we are left with something much, much scarier.

The new American radical.

Man's End

(this is now an old post that I'm not sure reflects my point of view. I feel this post still might be a bit too gendered or binary or some such. I can't even really read it, anymore. Long story short, skip this post and destroy all men)

No, not the end of Man or anything like that. Rather, the end of man. The end of "the age of testosterone" as one writer put it. The end of socially created and accepted male dominance. It's a long, slow road to equality, with a lot of work ahead of us, and to say that men and women are on even or nearly even footing is false, but progress is in steady motion.

For thousands of years women have been repressed. Dating back to religious stories where women were at fault for Man's fall, and even before that, female representation and equality has been missing.

But now, that world of alpha male breadwinners and "manly" men holding all the keys is ending.

Decades from now, the leaders, the breadwinners, the famous researchers and policy makers will be made up of more women than men.

In some places, that change has already happened.

Earlier this year, women, for the first time ever, made up the majority of the workforce in the US. This population shift has been accelerated by the recession; 75% of jobs lost were held by men. It should come as no surprise; areas in which men typically constituted the vast majority of workers; construction, manufacturing, etc., have been hit the hardest.

Men still hold the cards at the very, very top, most notably CEOs and politicians, but even that is slowly changing. Female CEOs largely receive higher pay and greater bonuses than their male counterparts. A recent study of 1,500 top US companies from 1992 to 2006 revealed that companies with women in higher positions performed better, particularly in positions or firms where “creativity and collaboration may be especially important.”

Similar trends continue elsewhere. Clinics that offer sex selection for children in the US are reporting across the country that demand for boys is at an all time low, a stark change from a time as recent as 1985, when half of all women said they “must have a son." That number is now only 15%.

Physical strength is no longer the barometer of success that it once was, and slowly but surely not accepted to come only from men. Communication and thinking are the prime motivators of success. No longer are jobs as restricted to one gender or the other by societal roles.

The OECD Gender, Institutions and Development Database reveals that countries that have more power held by women are doing better, with very fex exceptions, economically. Pirates and climate change? Perhaps, but striking nonetheless. Countries that are lagging behind in women's equality in the workforce are losing out. The 2007 Economic and Social Survey by Escap came to the conclusion that the Asia Pacific region is losing as much as 47 billion dollars a year because of restrictions on women’s access to employment opportunities.

Predictions are saying the same thing. 13 of the 15 job positions predicted to see the most growth over the coming decade are held primarily by women. For every two US men who get a college degree this year, three women will get one.

As women continue to pass men in areas of employment and education, it is perhaps ironic that the very thing that hampered them is now hampering men. After years of discrimination and secondary roles, women were taught to be adaptable and receptive to change. Men held a much more comfortable, less dynamic roll. Head of the family, no ifs, ands, or buts. As the equal rights battle rages on and equality gaps start shrinking, that adabtability for women has proved crucial. That's not to say sexism was a net positive for women; far from it. But it is an interesting twist.

Even in media old trends are breaking. Gone are the days of movies like The Expendables being released once a week. Gone are the tough, brawn over brain, non-introspective lead roles. Up in the Air even managed to make actor George Clooney, long a representative of male sex and strength, portray a broken man "too old to be attractive," as rebuked by one coworker in the film, and merely a pawn in another women's affair. This postmodern breakdown of "man" is representative perhaps of many men who are uncomfortable being a househusband, or making less money than their female spouse. Many are seeking identity in a changing world.

This is not a cry for female superiority. Indeed, modern third-wave feminism's closest thing to a rallying point is the end of gender roles. And while feminists fight for the end of gender roles in regards to women, they'll be glad to tell you they also want them ended for men. Women have been down the road of inequality for thousands of years, and know it's not sustainable or right to try to "flip the tables," so to speak.

While there are certainly physiological differences between the two sexes, and we still grapple with the idea of nature vs. nurture, neuroscience has demonstrated that experience can change brain structure and function. Early experience can completely and permanently change the chemistry and function of genes inside of cells, causing significant effects on behaviour, as reported in a recent special issue on the male and female brains in Scientific American Mind. The article states that gender differences and roles are often exaggerated and flamed by society and culture, not innate predisposition.

Perhaps if society stopped with silly rules stating that men should never cry and should be less apt to emotional display, we could foster more attuned, compassionate, sensitive, and expressive men.

It may be increasingly a woman's world.

But that doesn't mean men can't contribute too.