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Monday, September 29th, 2008
 Johan Huibers, a creationist who lives in Schagen, Netherlands, has built a working replica of Noah's ark ("working" should be taken with a grain of salt here: two key benchmarks that I don't believe have been passed are (a) loading it with pairs of every animal species and (b) launching it in a 40-day inundation) "as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible." It is 1/2 scale (so I guess would only hold half the world's species, or a singleton of each species), which is still quite incredibly large. He has populated it with stuffed animals, which seems a bit like cheating...
posted afternoon of September 29th, 2008: Respond
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Ellen has written an update for Lola's Diary, about Lola's old age.
posted morning of September 29th, 2008: Respond
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Friday, September 26th, 2008
(Warning: not-completely-coherent post by upset and angry blogger:) The Republicans have scuttled an agreement to address the crisis in our banking system. Paul Krugman (whose blog The Conscience of a Liberal is absolutely vital reading right now) notes an interesting exchange between Henry Paulson and Nancy Pelosi: In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to "blow it up" by withdrawing her party's support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.
"I didn't know you were Catholic," Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson's kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: "It's not me blowing this up, it's the Republicans."
Mr. Paulson sighed. "I know. I know." So the point is, if he knows, why isn't he -- why aren't responsible Republicans -- doing something about it? They have been spending the last 30 years building up and enabling and empowering the most vile, reprehensible elements of their party. Change at this point is their responsibility and their burden.
 Note: and as far as, "What can we-who-are-not-'Responsible Republicans' do?", it seems to me like all we can do is concentrate the power of the Republican party in the hands of the irresponsible crazies -- the Republicans who can be forced from office by Democrats are more likely to be of the "RR" type, is how it seems to me anyways. Kind of paradoxical but giving power to RR's is giving power to those they enable.
posted morning of September 26th, 2008: Respond
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 The Apostropher links to photos of an abandoned train station in Abkhazia (originally posted by LiveJournal user zyalt). Just beautiful. Reminds me a bit of the beautiful (if not nearly as ornate) abandoned train station in Liberty State Park, in Jersey City.*
 The ru_sovarch community at LiveJournal has lots more photos of old architecture in and around Russia. *Note: Hm, it just occured to me I should specify that said station is not really that beautiful anymore; for about the last 10 years it has been converted into a park building, with a new floor put in and is basically unrecognizable now.
posted morning of September 26th, 2008: Respond
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Tonight we're going in to the city and listen to Spike Lee and James McBride discussing their new movie, Miracle at St. Anna. The talk is sold out! Exciting -- I'm looking forward to that star-struck feeling I get from being in the same room as an author whose work I respect. This movie looks like it's going to be really interesting! Afterwards we will meet up with my sister and who knows? Maybe watch the presidential debate. If McCain succeeds in cancelling it we will just hang out and commiserate about the times and the mores.
posted morning of September 26th, 2008: Respond
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Thursday, September 25th, 2008
Saramago says (apologies for the roughness of the translation):
I suppose that in the beginning of the beginnings, before we invented speech, which is as we know, the supreme creator of incertitude, no serious doubt tormented us about who we were, about our personal and collective relationship with the place where we found ourselves. The world, obviously, could only be that which our eyes see at each moment, and furthermore, as important complementary information, that which our remaining senses -- hearing, touch, smell, taste -- appreciate. At this initial hour the world was pure appearance and pure superficiality. Material was simply rough or smooth, bitter or sweet, sour or bland, sound or silent, smelly or odorless. All things were that which they appeared to be, for the simple reason that they had no motive for appearing some other way or for being some other thing. ... I imagine that the spirit of philosophy and the spirit of science were manifest on that day, when someone had the intuition that appearance, being the external image that consciousness could capture and use as a map of knowledge, might also be an illusion of the senses. It is more often used in reference to the moral world than to the physical, the popular expression that says: "Appearances can be deceiving." Or illusory, which is more or less the same thing...This scribe has always been preoccupied with what was behind mere appearances, and now I'm not talking about atoms or subatomic particles, which, as such, are always the appearance of something that is hidden. I speak, yes, of current issues, routine, everyday, for example, the political system we call democracy, one that Churchill called the least bad of all known systems. He did not say the best, he said the least bad. For that which we are seeing, which it seems that we consider more than sufficient, and that, I believe, is an error of perception, whether we recognize it or not, we will be paying every day of our lives. Let us return to the matter.
posted evening of September 25th, 2008: Respond
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Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
I found a really well-written, informative review of Stroszek at Pajiba's Twisted Masterpieces. Recommended. Also, in comments thereto, the information that Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis killed himself after watching this film.
posted morning of September 24th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
After the event this evening I made my way over to where Mr. Pamuk was sitting and said "Thank you very much for your books." I felt uncomfortable and more than a little star-struck; but he was very gracious and thanked me for saying it. And signed my book! -- Other Colors, that is; he signed it, as I asked him to, on p. 110 at the head of the essay "On Reading: Words or Images", which has made a very strong impression on me. (Unfortunately my plan where he would say, "Oh, you're the fellow who's writing so much about my work in his blog! listen, I was very taken with your reading of..." didn't pan out. Oh well, maybe next time...)
posted evening of September 23rd, 2008: Respond
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Just a few things that caught my attention. Tonight marks the first anniversary of the September 24th demonstration in Rangoon and the regime's ongoing brutal response. Part of the program was a film of that day's events -- the scene that remains in my head is of a wounded protester lying on the pavement crying, "Don't retreat! Let them wash their feet with our blood!" Joseph Lelyveld spoke about the difficulty of printing news in Burma and the actions of the censorship board -- with visual aids of a newspaper laid out for printing, with six out of nine stories struck through by the censor's pen. He told us about author Saw Wei, imprisoned this spring for a Valentine's Day poem containing the acrostic statement that "General Than Shwe is crazy with power." (The poem references acrostic poet Walter Arensberg.) Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro spoke about his meeting with U Win Tin, who at 79 is the oldest political prisoner held by the Burmese regime. Earlier today Win Tin had been released, ostensibly as part of an amnesty of political prisoners by the regime. He is refusing (if I understand correctly) to be considered as part of a larger amnesty and says, "I will keep fighting until the emergence of democracy in this country." Pamuk and Kiran Desai conducted a readers' theater in which Desai read first-person accounts from victims of Cyclone Nargis, and Pamuk read state-sanctioned reporting of the same events. The articles from the state press were just unbelievable -- total disregard for the truth, totally condescending toward the subjects of the reporting -- one piece was a column about the trees being back in leaf, noting that the trees had not needed any tarpaulins or bottled water or chocolate bars distributed by international relief agencies.
Pictures of the event at MediaBistro and at Tricycle.
posted evening of September 23rd, 2008: Respond
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Hey anybody who's around NYC tonight and has no plans or easily changeable ones: this event is going to be well worth your time and the price of the ticket. Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie and several other authors will be reading from their work at a PEN benefit for victims of the cyclone and for freedom of expression in Burma. 7 pm at Cooper Union. If you can make it, drop me a line and we can meet up.
 Update: Not "from their work", not sure how I got that idea -- readings were from the work of imprisoned Burmese dissidents, as would make more sense given the nature of the event. What an amazing evening!
posted morning of September 23rd, 2008: Respond
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