dimpenumbra (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dimpenumbra) wrote,@ 2005-02-17 13:09:00 |
|
General update
As usual, I'm busy with plenty of stuff, though at the moment (knock on wood) I'm making more progress than usual. Some brief updates:
* Some sources say that article about mandatory prostitution in Germany isn't true. So, never mind: Germany's doing just fine.
* I've been reading some of the Christian Reconstruction documents a kind commenter pointed me to. The jury is still out on how extensively stoning is advocated among this set, and how its advocates square it with Jesus' apparent distaste for it. I wonder... could Christian Reconstructionism be the big idea mentioned, but not revealed (at least not that I noticed), in Shuteye Town 1999's "Writing Ameria Down?" I kind of doubt it[1], though CR does offer an optimistic alternative to the "The Omen" school of Book-of-Revelation-interpreting (or Christian eschatology if you want to get fancy about it). Plus, "Bahama Bull" on the Boomer Bible website seems to suggest that the author of "Writing Ameria Down" fled to the Bahamas for a life of ease, which is also an interesting idea, though you would have to learn to speak Bahamian.
* I finally got a couple books that Winston Sith tipped me off to: Peter Novak's books on "division theory." Nifty stuff. I'm finished with one (aimed mainly at Christian audiences) and I've just started the other (aimed at audiences with an interest in near-death experiences and whatnot). I don't know if it's true or not, but it's aesthetically pleasing.
* Last night I picked up a nice thesaurus, "Roget's II: The Synonyming." Actually it's called "Roget's II: The NEW Thesaurus." Out of a large selection of thesauriates on display, I picked this one for its moderate price, its ease of heft, and the pretty blue spots on the edges of the pages. After one evening of use, I am quite satisfied with it. At the same time, I also picked up a copy of The Boomer Bible for a friend in Oklahoma who gave his away to a minister friend of his. At the checkout, the cashier pointed to it and said, "This is really funny." (Or something along those lines.) So there.
[1] Update: Perhaps I should expand on why I "kind of doubt it." Too bad for you that I don't have a good answer. From what I've read so far, reconstructionism -- at least the first phase of it -- wouldn't do much more than restore American society to, say, the dominant values of the mid-nineteenth century (with some notable exceptions, like no slavery [I assume reconstructionism isn't calling for that to be reinstituted -- at least I haven't seen a call for it yet]). Since I've proposed this idea before myself, when I suggested a copper-consuming virus or nanotechnology (which strictly speaking would only restore the technological level, but I imagine the values would follow), I can't find too much fault with that; whatever flaws mid-nineteenth-century America might have had, it was a far cry from living under the Taliban.
In fact, on the whole, "free thinkers" had it pretty good then -- and not only then, but really in most of the past several centuries, provided that they exercised a certain amount of discretion (which you could argue is completely contrary to the notion of being a "free thinker," but then, how many more hundreds of "art" exhibits of religious symbols [smeared with | immersed in | rendered by] human [fluids | secretions | by-products] do we really need? Honestly?).
So, I guess I've pretty much undermined my own point. On the other hand, the second phase of reconstruction doesn't sound quite so idyllic, but then, I doubt Americans would stand for it anyway.
As usual, I'm busy with plenty of stuff, though at the moment (knock on wood) I'm making more progress than usual. Some brief updates:
* Some sources say that article about mandatory prostitution in Germany isn't true. So, never mind: Germany's doing just fine.
* I've been reading some of the Christian Reconstruction documents a kind commenter pointed me to. The jury is still out on how extensively stoning is advocated among this set, and how its advocates square it with Jesus' apparent distaste for it. I wonder... could Christian Reconstructionism be the big idea mentioned, but not revealed (at least not that I noticed), in Shuteye Town 1999's "Writing Ameria Down?" I kind of doubt it[1], though CR does offer an optimistic alternative to the "The Omen" school of Book-of-Revelation-interpreting (or Christian eschatology if you want to get fancy about it). Plus, "Bahama Bull" on the Boomer Bible website seems to suggest that the author of "Writing Ameria Down" fled to the Bahamas for a life of ease, which is also an interesting idea, though you would have to learn to speak Bahamian.
* I finally got a couple books that Winston Sith tipped me off to: Peter Novak's books on "division theory." Nifty stuff. I'm finished with one (aimed mainly at Christian audiences) and I've just started the other (aimed at audiences with an interest in near-death experiences and whatnot). I don't know if it's true or not, but it's aesthetically pleasing.
* Last night I picked up a nice thesaurus, "Roget's II: The Synonyming." Actually it's called "Roget's II: The NEW Thesaurus." Out of a large selection of thesauriates on display, I picked this one for its moderate price, its ease of heft, and the pretty blue spots on the edges of the pages. After one evening of use, I am quite satisfied with it. At the same time, I also picked up a copy of The Boomer Bible for a friend in Oklahoma who gave his away to a minister friend of his. At the checkout, the cashier pointed to it and said, "This is really funny." (Or something along those lines.) So there.
[1] Update: Perhaps I should expand on why I "kind of doubt it." Too bad for you that I don't have a good answer. From what I've read so far, reconstructionism -- at least the first phase of it -- wouldn't do much more than restore American society to, say, the dominant values of the mid-nineteenth century (with some notable exceptions, like no slavery [I assume reconstructionism isn't calling for that to be reinstituted -- at least I haven't seen a call for it yet]). Since I've proposed this idea before myself, when I suggested a copper-consuming virus or nanotechnology (which strictly speaking would only restore the technological level, but I imagine the values would follow), I can't find too much fault with that; whatever flaws mid-nineteenth-century America might have had, it was a far cry from living under the Taliban.
In fact, on the whole, "free thinkers" had it pretty good then -- and not only then, but really in most of the past several centuries, provided that they exercised a certain amount of discretion (which you could argue is completely contrary to the notion of being a "free thinker," but then, how many more hundreds of "art" exhibits of religious symbols [smeared with | immersed in | rendered by] human [fluids | secretions | by-products] do we really need? Honestly?).
So, I guess I've pretty much undermined my own point. On the other hand, the second phase of reconstruction doesn't sound quite so idyllic, but then, I doubt Americans would stand for it anyway.
