I picked up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I stated in the Comments on Andrew Klavan’s review (he didn’t like it a lot) that I had a bet with myself that the most conservative, religious character in the book would prove to be the murderer.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that I was wrong. I feel morally obligated to post that for the record. Continue reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
Someone save us from the pseudo-scientists! One U.K. company is fining and rewarded employees based on their carbon output.
Britain’s first employee carbon rationing scheme is about to be extended, after the trial demonstrated the effectiveness of fining people for exceeding their personal emissions target. Unlike the energy-saving schemes adopted by thousands of companies, the rationing scheme monitors employees’ personal emissions, including home energy bills, petrol purchases and holiday flights.
Commenter Chris Bock, whom I assume is British says, “Right now hardly anyone is standing up and fighting for civil liberties in Britain. People want to accept being herded and prodded, their lives micromanged and filmed to the minute, their lives compounded by ever increasing fines and taxes for minor everyday infractions of local and national laws designed to generate such income. Britain will wake up one morning and realize they are a democratic society in name only and anyone crowing about civil liberties and individualism will be deemed Enemies of the State.”
Looks very much like The Village in Patrick Mcgoohan’s show The Prisoner. Perhaps if the once great British would return to their God, preaching the gospel in Canterbury and London, they would stand up for themselves again, defend their families, protect their neighbors, and put away the corruption of the world. But I probably shouldn’t talk like that. It’s undefined, too general, and I just sound like a religious nut. [via Sweetness & Light]
Is there any tension between the goodness of God and the fear of Him?
“Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you,
in the sight of the children of mankind!” (Psalm 31:19)
Two interesting bits from Dr. Gene Edward Veith of Cranach today.
He links to an article by art historian Birgit Schwarz in Spiegel Online. She makes the interesting (and very intriguing, it seems to me) point that Hitler saw himself as an artistic genius. And we all know what modern western culture thinks about artistic geniuses, right? They aren’t subject to ordinary moral rules. They have a duty to themselves to express their genius in shocking and transgressive ways. I can’t see this analysis getting much traction in the media, but I think there’s a lot in it.
Dr. Veith is also kind enough to praise my work in this post, on bad bestselling writers (obviously I don’t qualify for that description, on at least one count).
Sorry about not posting earlier. I was in Tech Support Purgatory in regard to my antivirus program. Because it’s late, I’ll just give you this picture to enjoy, of the battle reenactment on Saturday. I’m the one in the white tunic, meditating on man’s inhumanity to man, and whether there’s any loot to be had.
(Thanks to Mrs. Lais for the picture.)
The Greensboro News-Record dropped it’s book pages a while back, probably following the lead of other newspapers. No doubt the decision was made by a secret cabal of news editors and producers who hate independent thinkers and truly want to crush reading throughout the country, at least reading outside the approved list. But readers still live in Greensboro. This editorial explains some of the popular demand that brought the book pages back to the newspaper.
More than 150 book clubs are affiliated with the Greensboro Public Library and dozens more operate on their own in dens and living rooms throughout the Triad.
Greensboro’s One City, One Book initiative ranks among the most successful community “read-ins” in the country.
The Barnes & Noble store in Friendly Center is one of the chain’s highest-volume stores in the Southeast.
I doubt this will become a trend. Everyone knows people who read newspapers don’t read or care about books.
More or less–it’s probably closer to being inside of Washington staffer’s office. You have to ask, “What is this, a cruel hoax?” (inside joke, see the article)
The National Book Award wants you vote for the best of six award winning choices.
I won’t tell you who was winning when I voted, but I will say it was the one I picked.
Adam Gopnik says maybe the reason so many want to read Dan Brown’s books is their niceness. Ancient conspiracies, secrets which must be kept in the dark, crazies with bad skin, and safe plots with modern conclusions. Gopnik writes:
Much of it is bogus, to be sure—though modern Masonry borrowed some oogah-boogah from the Egyptian past, it was an Enlightenment club, whose greatest product was “The Magic Flute,” and which was about as sinister, and secretly controlled about as many governments, as the Royal Order of Raccoons in “The Honeymooners.” But Brown is having fun. And the book is full of activities; there’s more to do with a pencil and safety scissors than in any Highlights for Children.
And what to do about restlessness in humanist terms. In biblical terms, this answer is incomplete, but it’s still good.