Ishikoro

This Japanese word, meaning 'pebbles' and used to describe blogs that have been neglected or abandoned, certainly applies here. With bloggers falling away and gawker.com shuttering, it may be time for me to resurrect this. My six followers should be happy.

Two Not-So-Random Quotes

"A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression."

Edward Gibbon, referring to Theodosius I, in 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'. (Folio Society, 1995, Eleventh Printing 2000, Volume III, page 348)

"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls."

U.S. President Barack Obama, June 2013

The Tall Ships Come To Brockville

The Unicorn, Pride of Baltimore II, and Sørlandet

 

 The Peacemaker

 

Empire Sandy

 

Fair Jeanne

 



A Heggie Visits Scotland

Katie, Near Our Ancestral City Of Kirkcaldy

A Heggie Visits Thailand

Daughter Katie on the Mae Taeng River, Near Chiang Mai

Female Executives Unite!

From The New Yorker...

I find the backlash against C.E.O. Marissa Mayer's decision to end telecommuting at Yahoo and the many harsh reviews of Facebook C.O.O. Sheryl Sandberg's new book Lean In to be quite instructive.  In Mayer's case, I sense that the 'enthusiastic fools of the future' (as Kerouac called them) feel betrayed.  How dare you suggest that our glorious technological revolution may still require face-to-face human interaction?  Blasphemy!  And attempts to discredit Sandberg as some sort of privileged Davos Woman almost prove her point.  It may indeed be time for women to lean in a bit more. Mind you, I don't like the Davos Forum and what it represents; but the difference between her book's reception and that of, for example, Lee Iacocca's Autobiography is quite telling.

Dear PLA Unit 61398,

I'm not surprised but am nonetheless disappointed that the Empire of Heaven (Tian Chao), the Middle Kingdom (Zhong Guo), Cathay (Huaxia), however you prefer to be addressed, would feel the need to steal industrial, military and scientific secrets.  One would think innovation of all sorts would well up naturally from the descendents of the great Yan and Huang tribes. Guess not.

And if you NSA guys are watching the Chinese watch me - don't gloat.  The concept of U.S. exceptionalism is fast becoming laughable, almost pitiable, when one considers Citizens United, voter ID (suppression) laws, the NRA, Tea Party Republicans, the 'Texas Schoolbook Massacre', etc. etc. Then again, these abominations do suggest exceptionalism of a sort.

On a lighter note, following up on my last post, I came across this in Sir Walter Scott's 'Waverley':

"... for he and all his family are, and have been, time out of mind, Mavortia pectora, as Buchanan saith, a bold and warlike sept, or people."

Time Out Of Mind! That most excellent Dylan album from 1997.

It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there.

Those Irrepressible Saxons!

In the Dedicatory Epistle of Ivanhoe, his romance of the late Middle Ages, Sir Walter Scott tried to head off possible criticisms of such historical novels by stating that he had done his best to be historically accurate while at the same time being readable to his audience.  And if there were some anomalies?  It's an entertainment!  Enjoy!  It makes me think of criticisms, from within the academy, of works like Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell novels or the movie 'Lincoln'.  Also, in a subsequent introduction to the book, Scott said he wrote it, in part, in case readers were getting tired of his Highland romances.  In both pieces, from almost two hundred years ago, it's interesting to read authorial concerns so modern.

Winter Wonderland Interlude

Second Snowstorm In Three Days

Bangladesh Apparel Industry

As a follow-up to my last post, I was interested ('pleased' doesn't seem the appropriate word) to hear the reference (at about 4:40), in this PBS NewsHour story on workplace safety in the Bangladesh apparel industry, to the Triangle fire.  More interesting was the assertion that Bangladeshi industry representatives had tried to address safety concerns with some retailers. The business drive to keep costs low, indeed to relentlessly lower them, can be deadly.

Triangle Revisited

On March 25, 1911, a fire at the Triangle shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village left 146 people dead - 123 of them women.  The aftermath brought together the unlikely bedfellows Tammany Hall and labour reformers, leading to changes in workplace safety requirements.  On Sunday, a blaze at a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh - operated by Tazreen Fashions Ltd. - left at least 112 dead, most of them women.  So much for progress.  It's getting harder to cheer for capitalism when its rapacious exploitation of workers continues unabated.   The most recent disaster, within days of the Black Friday shopping frenzy, is sobering.  We should all take a hard look at our consumption habits.

Triangle shirtwaist fire, March 25, 1911

Tazreen Fashions Ltd. fire, November 25, 2012

 

Black Friday bargain hunters, November 23, 2012

There'll Always Be A Greece

After reading this article on Patrick Leigh Fermor in Greece, I was reminded of my thought during the height of the European financial crisis that, despite disruptions to so many lives, there will always be a Greece; and an England (there's even a song about that) and a Spain and a...  Men will always go down to the sea at Balaklava, at Tyre, at Cape Town, in New England, on Haida Gwaii and on Tahiti.  There are rhythms of life that economic cycles will threaten but will never expunge.

Mani, Greece

Homage to Daniel Shays

Upon reading of Gore Vidal's death I searched the web for one of his aphorisms or witticisms to share on facebook and Twitter.  But I found that either I thought this or that quote might offend a friend/follower or that I didn't really agree with his statement - as pithy or funny as it might be.  I've enjoyed his historical fiction and essays, where he fleshed out his ideas more fully.  I think that I've come to not care so much for cleverness, generally; and for the limits of things like Twitter, specifically.  Lately, I'm seeking more depth of thought and fewer sound bites.

Gore Vidal

BlackOutSpeakOut

Hopping On The Merry-Go-Round

I haven't posted recently, not because I haven't had thoughts and impressions to share but because I've had too many.  Like a child on the playground, I just couldn't decide where to jump on the merry-go-round:  The European debt crisis, the inability of the U.S. Congress to get anything done, the Occupy movement, the Cain Train, Newt, Hillary in Burma, Egypt & Syria, China insinuating itself everywhere.  I thought I had a way in with a quote from Jürgen Habermas, "Our politicians have long been incapable of aspiring to anything whatsoever other than being re-elected. They have no political substance whatsoever, no convictions."  Well, we've suspected that for a while.  But I think I may have found it in a quote from Catherine Mann of Brandeis International Business School on the PBS NewsHour this week.  She said, "Nobody is making investments in the stock market thinking they're getting a long term investment in the company that they're buying a stock for."  I've wanted to believe that the stock market is where companies go to raise capital to be used in productive activity which also advances the common good.  Maybe it never was.  But even Andrew Carnegie, ruthless cutter of operating costs and financial manipulator, left us beautiful libraries all over North America.  I can't imagine J. P. Morgan Chase doing anything comparable.  Now that I'm finally on the carousel, maybe it's time for me too to put my body "upon the gears and upon the wheels" and make Mario Savio proud.  It's just that, these days, it's so hard to know which part of the apparatus to start with.

My New Chair

But it has no arms!?  That's the genius of it.

Chai Teas All Around

Today I saw four ministers (of God, not the Crown; three men and a woman) sitting together outside Starbucks.  Although it shouldn't have, the sight surprised me.  I usually picture ministers alone, tending their flock.  To my thought, expressed in the comment thread of the previous post, about who mentors the mentor I could add who ministers to the minister?  Looks like it may be through peer dialogue.  For some reason the sight of them cheered me immensely.

Upon Further Reflection

It's definitely the name - 'Life' Coach.  Maybe if they called themselves Mentors instead?  Mentor was left in charge of Odysseus' son Telemachus when Odysseus went off to the Trojan War.  Yes, I think that's much better.  Now let's pretend, just for fun, that I were to hang out a shingle as a Mentor.  What would I advise my clients?  I'll mull that over for future posts...

Next!

Since writing my previous post, I have read articles on the Loeb Classical Library and the scourge of Postmodernism.  Based on these readings I am now prepared to throw off the chains of 'whateverness' and declare the 'Life Coach' to be a modern day mutation of the snake oil salesman; and to proceed, refreshed, in my search for higher meanings and things of permanence.

Send Me In Coach!

I have tremendous respect for the ancient schools of philosophy, particularly the Greek and Roman ones, where children (albeit, of wealthy parents and exclusively male) were sent, or from which tutors were sought, in order to develop their argumentative and speaking skills; and generally to learn how to live a better life.  On the other hand, nothing annoys me more than the unmitigated gall of a thirtysomething to build a website and hang out a shingle as a 'Life Coach'.  Are they actually much different, one from the other?  That's what I've been chewing on today.