Hallway to Nowhere

  • Yet Another Entry On Immigration

    I’ve been reading with interest the recent articles on Europe’s struggle’s with their influx of immigrants. Angela Merkel ‘s ratings in Germany are lower than they’ve ever been and  the Christian Democratic Union recently suffered a defeat in a state election by an anti-immigration party. Denmark, which has long prided itself on its progressive policies, is suffering a blow to its self-image, as it deals with the realty of integrating newcomers who aren’t so readily adaptable to traditional Danish culture. France, with its very secular government, issues the burkini ban, though this has been overturned in the courts. And Britain exited the EU altogether, with immigration being one of the major reasons.

    In the U.S. Presidential candidate and Republican nominee Donald Trump is known for his hard stance on immigration. He has issued calls for bans on Muslims entering the U.S., said that he would build a wall between Mexico and the U.S. to secure the border, and deport 11 millions undocumented immigrants. This has been with widespread approval among his supporters, most of whom are Caucasian. When he appeared to be softening his stance, there was an immediate backlash.

    I live in a small Appalachian town in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. It’s usually voted one of the coolest small towns in America. We recently had one of many local Fests. Since these tend to get widely publicized and b/c we have visitors coming in for plays at the Barter, there were a LOT of people on the streets. I saw a number of Muslims, and the women were fully covered, including headscarves. I went out of my way to speak to them and welcome them to our town. My conversational Arabic is somewhat rusty, but I managed. When I left, though, I wondered where they were going to eat. We have no halal restaurants. Hell, we don’t have any kosher or vegan restaurants, either! This is strictly a town for omnivores! Had my apt been in better order, I would have invited them HERE for a meal, since I’ve had to go dairy-free/gluten free so I do a lot of vegan meals. (I do have a dog but would have confined her to bedroom.) My  pots wouldn’t have been halal, though, since I have cooked meat in them in the past.

    Why is there this fear/discrimination across Europe and in the U.S. against immigrants? In Europe it is largely against Muslims; here it is against Hispanics AND Muslims. Is it because they have darker skin? Different customs? Different religion?  This should not be viewed with FEAR! We live in a global society society now. Let us learn to respect that others have different customs and know that this can enrich our society. And as to a different religion, Muslims seem much less aggressive, institutionally- speaking, than do Christians. Among my Muslims friends, not a one has ever made an effort to convert me or told me I’m going to hell. I don’t see Muslim televangelists or find Muslim persecution-movies, such as God’s Not Dead. Yes, there ARE terrorist organizations such as ISIL, but those are run by extremists. As an atheist, I don’t support any religion and think all should be practiced privately, not state-supported in any way. But I do NOT want to see anyone discriminated against merely for holding certain religious beliefs.

  • The Senility Of Vladimir P By Michael Honig-A Review

    I am not as blown away by this novel as are other reviewers. Another Animal Farm it is not. Michael Honig Tells the story of Putin’s nurse, and indirectly Putin. as he cares for a Putin brought low by Alzheimer’s. Sheremetev is that rare man in this Russia-someone who is NOT on the take. But circumstances of family tragedy coupled with his growing awareness of his patient’s utter immoral  nature conspire to drive even him to break his ethical code. The lively cast of characters who surround Sheremetev at the dacha add interest to the book as their true natures and histories are revealed. Sheremetev and his crisis of conscience leads him to an unexpected act, but it is Vladimir himself and the Russia he created-venal, corrupt, and unscrupulous-that is ultimately to blame for what befalls Patient One. A very good novel, yes, very readable-but great? No.

    The Senility Of Vladimir P By Michael Honig-A Review

  • Wild Scrabble

    So I followed the World Scrabble Championship match Sunday with bated breath. Kudos to Brett Smitheram who won with “braconid” and thereby earned the game, trouncing his partner by a whopping 174 points with that one word alone. I f you are wondering just what the word means, it refers to a parasitic wasp. I love Scrabble and play online at the Internet Scrabble Club. Before I found that site, I played on FB but playing there was frustratingly slow, and the quality of players I would encounter were variable. Sometimes  the responses were downright bizarre. I had one person-(I assume this was a male but don’t know for certain)- demand that I take my clothes off before playing, telling me that “this was scrabble for the grown-ups, chickie.”  I declined to play this person. It traumatized me to the point where I shut down my FB profile altogether, something I had wanted to do anyway. I had found The Internet Scrabble Club, a MUCH more professional venue for serious Scrabble players and am very happy there.

    But let me recount my Scrabble adventures in RL! I mourn the loss of my Scrabble buddy to relocation. He was a colleague from work, a fellow librarian, and the only person I’ve found willing to play around here. We’d meet every Friday evening for dinner and a game. When I initially moved here, a friend who lives in a much larger city, suggested that I advertise on CraigsList for a Scrabble partner. Naive me, I did so. That might work in a larger venue. HERE, it only garnered me offers to play for kinky sex. I quickly took the ad down, horrified at the responses. I only wanted a plain vanilla SCRABBLE PARTNER. People apparently thought it was code for something else, but I’m still not sure what. SMH. I can’t find ANYONE who will play me. I’ve got a nice board, the latest edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary…..I’ll provide endless cups of very high quality hot tea to fuel the game! Of course, I DO play for blood and don’t consider a game well-played unless both players have scored well over 400 points.

    My landlord loves me. I pay my rent early.  I always inform him if there’s ever a problem (and he always gets it fixed). I look after his place, should his family go on vacation. My dog plays with his dog. I never throw bashes. A hotly contested Scrabble game is as wild as I get. What better tenant than a librarian with a non-barking whippet? (The whippet yodels, she rarely barks. And she has my landlord wrapped firmly around her front paw. He not only brings her steak scraps, he brings whole steaks, plus organic treats he buys specially for her from the vet’s office.) Now, if ONLY I could FIND a Scrabble partner!

    Wild Scrabble

  • Wild Scrabble

    So I followed the World Scrabble Championship match Sunday with bated breath. Kudos to Brett Smitheram who won with “braconid” and thereby earned the game, trouncing his partner by a whopping 174 points with that one word alone. I f you are wondering just what the word means, it refers to a parasitic wasp. I love Scrabble and play online at the Internet Scrabble Club. Before I found that site, I played on FB but playing there was frustratingly slow, and the quality of players I would encounter were variable. Sometimes  the responses were downright bizarre. I had one person-(I assume this was a male but don’t know for certain)- demand that I take my clothes off before playing, telling me that “this was scrabble for the grown-ups, chickie.”  I declined to play this person. It traumatized me to the point where I shut down my FB profile altogether, something I had wanted to do anyway. I had found The Internet Scrabble Club, a MUCH more professional venue for serious Scrabble players and am very happy there.

    But let me recount my Scrabble adventures in RL! I mourn the loss of my Scrabble buddy to relocation. He was a colleague from work, a fellow librarian, and the only person I’ve found willing to play around here. We’d meet every Friday evening for dinner and a game. When I initially moved here, a friend who lives in a much larger city, suggested that I advertise on CraigsList for a Scrabble partner. Naive me, I did so. That might work in a larger venue. HERE, it only garnered me offers to play for kinky sex. I quickly took the ad down, horrified at the responses. I only wanted a plain vanilla SCRABBLE PARTNER. People apparently thought it was code for something else, but I’m still not sure what. SMH. I can’t find ANYONE who will play me. I’ve got a nice board, the latest edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary…..I’ll provide endless cups of very high quality hot tea to fuel the game! Of course, I DO play for blood and don’t consider a game well-played unless both players have scored well over 400 points.

    My landlord loves me. I pay my rent early.  I always inform him if there’s ever a problem (and he always gets it fixed). I look after his place, should his family go on vacation. My dog plays with his dog. I never throw bashes. A hotly contested Scrabble game is as wild as I get. What better tenant than a librarian with a non-barking whippet? (The whippet yodels, she rarely barks. And she has my landlord wrapped firmly around her front paw. He not only brings her steak scraps, he brings whole steaks, plus organic treats he buys specially for her from the vet’s office.) Now, if ONLY I could FIND a Scrabble partner!

    Wild Scrabble

  • The Money Cult By Chris Lehmann-A Review

    Make room on your bookshelf next to Jeff Sharlet’s  The Family and C Street and Kevin Kruse’s One Nation Under God. The Money Cult offers yet another look at the entwined history of American Christianity and capitalism. Rather than the Weberian analysis given by Kruse, Lehmann takes the stance that the underlying foundation of  the American Protestant tradition is in fact a Gnostic one, which I found to be fascinating. He traces this back to Puritan times, then begins his history of economic Christianity. He does a very detailed job, including an explanation of Mormonism as the quintessential American religious experience. He does not neglect the modern evangelicals, and indeed the book begins with the popular Joel Osteen. If you are looking for a reason not to view Christianity with a  jaundiced eye, this book is not for you. He casts it, at least the American Protestant version, as not so much a spiritual pursuit as a thinly veiled economic and financial system that revolves around profits, power, and the creation of wealth.

     

    The Money Cult By Chris Lehmann-A Review

  • The Money Cult By Chris Lehmann-A Review

    Make room on your bookshelf next to Jeff Sharlet’s  The Family and C Street and Kevin Kruse’s One Nation Under God. The Money Cult offers yet another look at the entwined history of American Christianity and capitalism. Rather than the Weberian analysis given by Kruse, Lehmann takes the stance that the underlying foundation of  the American Protestant tradition is in fact a Gnostic one, which I found to be fascinating. He traces this back to Puritan times, then begins his history of economic Christianity. He does a very detailed job, including an explanation of Mormonism as the quintessential American religious experience. He does not neglect the modern evangelicals, and indeed the book begins with the popular Joel Osteen. If you are looking for a reason not to view Christianity with a  jaundiced eye, this book is not for you. He casts it, at least the American Protestant version, as not so much a spiritual pursuit as a thinly veiled economic and financial system that revolves around profits, power, and the creation of wealth.

     

    The Money Cult By Chris Lehmann-A Review

  • River Road By Carol Goodman-A Review

    Everyone has secrets, or so it seems in this novel by Carol Goodman. The main character, a professor who might or might not have a problem with alcohol, struggles to untangle both the web of deceit she finds herself caught up in and he rown knotty personal life. The book begins with a terrible accident, but Nan finds that nothing is what it appears to be. There are so many threads that could be followed in this plot that the novel loses its momentum and fails to follow any one of them successfully. It devolves into a college drug scenario (reefer madness, anyone?), pulls an unbelievable villain out of the blue, and throws in a town and gown romance for good measure. Don’t waste your time reading this one. I give it a firm thumbs down.

    River Road By Carol Goodman-A Review

  • River Road By Carol Goodman-A Review

    Everyone has secrets, or so it seems in this novel by Carol Goodman. The main character, a professor who might or might not have a problem with alcohol, struggles to untangle both the web of deceit she finds herself caught up in and he rown knotty personal life. The book begins with a terrible accident, but Nan finds that nothing is what it appears to be. There are so many threads that could be followed in this plot that the novel loses its momentum and fails to follow any one of them successfully. It devolves into a college drug scenario (reefer madness, anyone?), pulls an unbelievable villain out of the blue, and throws in a town and gown romance for good measure. Don’t waste your time reading this one. I give it a firm thumbs down.

    River Road By Carol Goodman-A Review

  • My Thoughts On Trigger Warnings

    I went  college in the 70s. I was 16 at the time. It was a state college, though I suppose  I was in a somewhat sheltered environment, as I was admitted to the Honors College. It functioned autonomously at that time, acting as a small private Liberal Arts College within the larger university. We Honors students were regarded (if noticed at all) by the other students as odd and usually kept to ourselves, though we occasionally played to this image by doing such things as  running one of our own for king during the student elections. But we-and our professors-would have been appalled, had anyone suggested that “trigger warnings” were deemed necessary or appropriate for us or the greater university at large. This would have been so, b/c first and foremost, this was a place where we expected to be met with ideas that could disturb, upset, challenge, and turn our world upside down. That was the entire POINT of coming to college! Second, we were part of the world now and didn’t want to be sheltered. We saw ourselves as emerging adults and wanted to engage with what we saw as important. (An example of this was our petition for our own dorm. It was rejected b/c the university had a policy of not allowing mixed-gender housing at the time, unless you were married. So we simply moved off-campus en masse and rented our own apartment building. We had contemplated a group marriage to satisfy the university requirement but decided to do this instead.) When I went to grad school, no-one said anything to me about what I could say in the classes I taught. It was assumed that I would teach them in a professional manner. Later, when I was a Phil prof, again, no-one said a word about the content of my classes. I would have laughed in the face of anyone who did so.

    I think that universities have to give their students a place where they can flourish academically and intellectually in physical safety. I AM against students carrying guns on campus. And I’m all for universities attempting to provide for their students’ emotional well-being. BUT a university is not a high school. Students have to realize that by attending a university, they are stepping out into the world and so will thereby be subject to things that might offend/upset/disturb or worse. Part of being a student is learning how to deal with that. It’s called growing up. Universities, with their many resources, offer wonderful places to do that. But that trigger warnings should be thought necessary? Are students really that much more sensitive and tender than they were back in the 70s? Or are these trigger warnings sent out in letters designed to placate anxious parents?

  • Fallout By Harry Turtledove-A Review

    The second book in his alternative history series featuring the Cold War has a United States where Truman is President, Stalin rules the U.S.S.R., and atomic bombs fly, as these two superpowers vie in a seemingly never-ending struggle. Europe is in ruins, as is part of the U.S. west coast from atomic bomb strikes. Moscow is no more, but Stalin escaped. And in Korea, where all this began, Mao’s army and allies fight the few U.S. forces left there without hope of reinforcement, since Washington is concentrating on the Russian front. As always, this book offers a gripping look at the war from several different characters. As we follow them through the books, we get a idea of life from the Russian, American, and German soldier’s point of view. Truman, also one of the wearied actors, reflects on the awful consequences of his use of atomic weapons but goes on  nevertheless as he leads the country though perilous times.The Hot War has just gotten hotter, and this book will gladden Turtledove and alt-history fans everywhere!

    Fallout By Harry Turtledove-A Review