View from the Loft

Christmas cards

Surfing among the skeptical/humanist/nontheist blogs recently, I came across a post asking what fellow atheists like or dislike in holiday cards.

In this question lie buried myriad other questions, such as,

• Why do atheists send holiday cards? If they don't believe in Jesus/God, then why celebrate the holiday at all?
• Do atheists even have a right (in ethical terms) to object to certain kinds of cards? It's not their holiday, after all. Who are they to object to a manger scene?
• Since atheists are in the minority, shouldn't they just shut up and go with the flow?

And so on.

I've addressed the topic of Christmas before. Yes, I'm a nonbeliever, and yes, I still love Christmas. I've never felt that I had to abandon the traditions I love, especially as so many of those traditions have their roots in pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. I'm not pagan, either--I don't have religious beliefs of any kind--but I can appreciate all of the symbols and archetypes that abound. Myth and story will never lose their enchantment for me.

I like sending and receiving Christmas cards. I choose secular cards, and particularly favor cards that feature the word "peace." UNICEF offers some good choices, and the money goes to children in need, so I often buy holiday cards from that organization.

I don't like getting religious cards, but for the most part, I also don't attribute our getting Jesus-y cards to specific intent on the part of the sender. It does, however, irk me to some extent that most Christians seem to feel that all share their beliefs. That's not exactly astonishing, given the cultural mainstream, but sometimes it rankles nonetheless. I'm sure, too, that Christians feel that if there's any time where religious figures and symbols are called for, it's at Christmas. I understand that. I don't take offense at people's Christmas cards, even when my gut reaction is "yuck." I'm pretty much just gratified that they thought of James and me, and signaled that with a card.

My spouse used to get birthday cards from his mom once in a while in which she would write something about how she hoped he'd find Jesus. Those used to bother me and, I think (he's not much to comment on such things), James. Do believers really think that we nonbelievers haven't thought these things through? That we're just uninformed? Or steeped in "sin"?

Anyway, holiday cards just aren't something to get your shorts in a knot about. I think we all just want to reach out at this time of year and let people know they're still important to us, that we think of them even when we don't stay in touch as we should, that they are not absent from our thoughts, hearts, and lives. 

So for this atheist (or am I an agnostic?), Christmas cards will remain a feature of the holidays. Is it too early to say Merry Christmas? 

 

Six months

May 19 was the six-month anniversary of my sister's death. I meant to write something then, but couldn't seem to do it.

Six months later I am still grieving. It just doesn't go away. Oh, it's better--it's not like a knife blade any more. I sleep better. But I am still grieving.

It occurs to me that I may never really "get over it."

I get blindsided from time to time by a sudden onslaught of memories or an icepick of realization that she's gone, and I literally have to hold onto something to steady myself. There are still days when I have episodes of crying, the kind where your whole body shudders and you gasp for breath. There are days when I still feel paralyzed by sadness and have no motivation to do anything. Not even cook dinner.

Her death, and the suddenness of it, the unexpectedness of it, has certainly sharpened my sense of the tenuousness of life, and each day I vow to live more fully despite my grief and pain. And I do think I'm doing a little better at that. I've recently revisited a lot of my past writing and decided that some of it doesn't actually suck. I'm seriously thinking about e-publishing, and I'm planning to polish some of my short story drafts. I've even been thinking about a new poem or two.

So that's good. Our time on this earth is short, and I don't believe in an afterlife. This is all we get, and we need to get all the joy out of it that we can.

Good things have happened in the past six months. Three of my closest friends and I now have a book group that meets during the day, so I get to serve them lunch (you know I love cooking for people!) or at least make appetizers before we go out to lunch, and then we talk about the book. I've gotten back into the reading habit (and may I say again, I really love my Kindle!), which I'd lost for a while.

I've made a vow to listen to music more often. It used to be that the stereo was rarely silent, but in the past few years I've gotten out of the habit of putting a CD on, for reasons not entirely clear to me. But in the past few weeks I've bought some new CDs and even put some on my new MP3 player (which I'm still getting to know--I'm really a Luddite about some things).

My daughter and I have been listening to audiobooks together, and that's been fun, especially since we've been listening to the works of Christopher Moore, one of the zaniest, craziest, funniest writers ever.

We're not planting our usual garden this year, but we do have a few tomato plants started, and of course there's the asparagus (around 15 pounds of it, so far, but the end of the season is nigh, as the asparagus beetles tell me), strawberries, rhubarb, and herb garden to care for. I'm late with planting, partly due to the rainy weather, but today I'll get the basil into the herb garden and plant dill, cilantro, shallots, and maybe some lettuce.

Life goes on, imperfectly of course, but it goes on. Yesterday was a beautiful, if cool, June day. Out of our east windows we could see the lake, as blue as it has ever been, sparkling in the sun, a series of sequins flashing over and over. The fields and the woods are that brilliant, almost neon green of newness that later fades and seems dusty but is so incredibly vivid right now.

And I need to say here how good it is that I do have a sister still. I'm glad Jana is still here with me. She's got her own burdens to shoulder right now, but at least we do have each other.

I do live with a heightened consciousness of death, a sense of impending loss. Living in the now, instead of anticipating what could, what will, inevitably happen--that would be a good idea and an antidote, and I need to do that. I'm kind of obsessed with fears about losing those I love, just as I'm obsessed with the wish that James could retire NOW so that we'll have more time together. I'm hoping these thoughts and emotions will retreat to the background, at least, and I wish they'd do it soon.

So I'm just like everybody else when it comes to grieving. I can't hurry myself out of it. I have to go through all of it. But I can and do make an effort to refuse grief complete control over my life. Sometimes I feel helpless in the face of it, but those times pass. It's no longer a 24/7 thing.

I miss Linn. I will always miss Linn and wish we'd had more time together. That's just a fact. I'll wish she were here to appreciate June, join us for a party, call me at 7 a.m. That she could hear a music video I just stumbled across. That she could tell me stories about her grandkids.

It's been hard to accept her absence and really, I'm not sure I've accepted it.

But the cats need to be fed, coffee made, the dishwasher unloaded. Life needs to be lived, and I don't intend to do it half-assed.

 

Kindle report

[Addendum: I forgot to include a caveat about free e-books, which I've now added below.]

So I've had my Kindle for a few weeks now. How do I like it? I love it!

Many objections to e-readers have been made by book-lovers, and to some extent, I can sympathize with them. As I said previously, I had all the same thoughts about the nefariousness of e-readers and the superiority of books.

But I find that I really love my Kindle.

It's very easy to read, with clear, crisp print and no glare. I have read it in direct sunlight with no difficulty whatever. Moreover, with the case I bought for it, containing the built-in light, I've finished a book before dawn while my spouse was still asleep beside me. Yes, one can buy book lights and do the same thing--I realize that. I'm just happy with Kindle for providing an option here, since the screen is not backlit. I didn't want a backlit screen, after all, so this is a happy solution. The case, too, offers some protection against everyday knocks, slings, and arrows. I find it aesthetically pleasing as well, Kindle and case both.

The battery lasts for up to a month if you (a) don't leave the WiFi connection on; (b) don't use the Kindle to play games; and/or (c) don't use the light a lot (it runs off the Kindle battery).  

The Kindle is well designed, with ease of navigation and the opportunity to organize your library in collections. You can highlight passages in books, bookmark pages, and write notes about whatever you're reading right on the device, with the ability to call up all these notations easily when you need to, say for a book discussion.

I also downloaded the PC version of Kindle, so that I can read on the computer if it so suits me. All of the books I've purchased or downloaded for free are available on my computer with no extra effort on my part--Amazon handles all that. You can get Kindle for your Blackberry or iPhone or iPad, too.

While I haven't done it, one can also get blogs, newspapers, and magazines via Kindle.

I like being able to get a book instantaneously. My fears of reckless spending have not materialized; in fact, I've spent more at Amazon recently on CDs than on books. I like that I can use the Kindle itself to shop the Kindle store at Amazon. Very handy if, say, you're traveling and don't have access to your computer.

I had a great time browsing the Kindle store's many free offerings of books copyrighted before 1923.  I downloaded a couple of dozen or more, including a cookery book (as they were called) dating back to 1600s England and a book on cooking and dining in ancient Rome. While I wouldn't buy a Kindle version of a cookbook I planned to use regularly, these old cookbooks are perfect for leisurely reads that give one a flavor of the period and of attitudes toward food therein. I happen to love old recipe books, and now I have a slew of them on my Kindle.

I also downloaded (free) three early Virginia Woolf novels that I've always meant to read but never have. Right now I'm part way through The Voyage Out, and loving it. Yes, I could possibly have found it at my local library and borrowed it, but this way I own it (at least until TEOTWAWKI!), along with Jacob's Room and Night and Day. 

The free offerings at the Kindle store are amazing in their variety: everything from 1800s travel diaries to diseases of the horse hoof, beekeeping, and surgical techniques. I have a hard time resisting some of the travel journals, especially those having to do with severely cold climates. Why? Heck if I know. I just had to have Shackleton's memoir of his ill-fated Antarctica venure, though, as well as something called Tenting in Siberia, written just after the Civil War.

I should warn you, though, that not all free e-books are created equal. At Project Gutenberg, about which I've written before, a serious attempt is made to produce an electronic book as free from error as possible. That's not true everywhere. Customer reviews on Amazon.com sometimes complain of error-riddled e-books. And in my own case, there are problems with The Voyage Out. For whatever reason, lines of poetry included in the print version are missing from the electronic version. If something like that makes you crazy, you'd do well to obtain a different version than what's offered in the selection of free Kindle books on the Amazon site.

Another thing: Kindle editions are often (not always) cheaper than print editions. Yep, I'm cheap!

Most of all I love having a little library that's so compact that I can take it anywhere with me and choose from a number of offerings to suit whatever mood I'm in. When Jim and I went to Grand Island, New York last week, it was great to have a choice without lugging a lot of books with me. Or I put my Kindle on my nightstand and there it is, ready for me when I wake up in the middle of the night, whether I want to read a mystery or P.G. Wodehouse or Origin of Species (which I also got for free).

I can't speak for other e-readers, but the Kindle is terrific and available at a very reasonable cost, so if you've ever considered an e-reader, do look into it. You don't have to give up books. But you just might find that e-readers have their own compelling attributes.

Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders

Having purchased my Kindle (amidst some controversy among friends and acquaintances), I went looking for those books available for free download. Such books are pretty much pre-1923 and have no copyright.

Project Gutenberg is one of the best known resources for free on-line books. It was the brainchild of Michael Hart, who began the project in 1971. At that time there was no Internet, but there were computers, and Hart's mission was the computerized storage, retrieval, and searching of what was stored in libraries. You can read more about the history and philosophy of the project, and about Michael Hart, here.

Thousands of volunteers have contributed to the digitization of tens of thousands of books. As I was skimming through some of the website's material, I noticed a link to Distributed Proofreaders  in the "Volunteering" section of Project Gutenberg's site map. Interested, I clicked on over.

Here's the concept:

Distributed Proofreaders provides a web-based method to ease the conversion of Public Domain books into e-books. By dividing the workload into individual pages, many volunteers can work on a book at the same time, which significantly speeds up the creation process.

During proofreading, volunteers are presented with a scanned page image and the corresponding OCR text on a single web page. This allows the text to be easily compared to the image, proofread, and sent back to the site. A second volunteer is then presented with the first volunteer's work and the same page image, verifies and corrects the work as necessary, and submits it back to the site. The book then similarly progresses through two formatting rounds using the same web interface.

Once all the pages have completed these steps, a post-processor carefully assembles them into an e-book, optionally makes it available to interested parties for 'smooth reading', and submits it to the Project Gutenberg archive.

Of course I registered right away, even before I was sure exactly how the interface works or had any familiarity with the proofreading guidelines (these ensure that everyone involved makes corrections in the same way). I was e-mailed a list of resources (a beginner's forum where I could ask questions; a FAQ; the guidelines, etc.). And so I dove in.

I've proofread maybe a dozen pages so far. The motto at DP is "a page a day," although you can decide for yourself when and how much you want to work on a book. When hundreds of people are each contributing a page a day, a book can come together relatively quickly. One page is not so hard to proofread, even when you're so new you have to keep checking the guidelines, nor is it time-consuming. It's a little strange to finish a page, then go on to another page that is not continuous with the one you've just worked on, but it's probably just as well. Get too invested in the story and you can miss something. Also, errors like a "the" at the end of one page repeated by a "the" at the beginning of the next are easy to miss. This way, that kind of error is avoided.

Beginners are given feedback on their work, which will be helpful. I need to know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.

It's fun for me (I know, I know!), and I like the idea that I'm helping the Project. There are other volunteer opportunities, so if this is something that might interest you or be important to you, visit the Project and investigate the possibilities.

Kindle

My status update on Facebook read, "I can't believe I'm thinking of buying a Kindle ..." Surprisingly (to me, anyway), it generated several comments. One suggested a different e-reader; a couple of people waxed enthusiastic and assured me that I'd love it; and a couple of people disliked the whole idea and remain loyal to actual books.

I know how those loyalists feel, because I was one of them. I never thought I'd buy an e-reader. The smell, the heft, the feel of a book, the turning of pages--these are things I've always loved. The physical aspects of books, not just the contents. And yet.

I like to think that I am capable of changing my mind and not staying with a position out of stubbornness alone. I'm not accusing the Kindle detractors of that at all, just saying that I myself am a stubborn person and could see myself falling into that trap. But last year we bought some new furniture, and two of the pieces were leather--this after a lifetime of declaring that I hated leather furniture and would never have any in my home. What can I say? The chair and loveseat are comfortable, simple, and go with the sofa. I like them. I changed my mind.

And so it is with the Kindle. When a friend of mine got one, I was surprised, because, like me, she's a book person. Even more of a book person than I am. I had a visceral reaction against the whole idea of e-books and e-readers and said, "I can't see myself ever owning a Kindle."

But recently I began thinking about the whole thing. In a discussion about e-readers, another friend made the point that he had a lot of books whose pages were turning yellow and brittle, with bindings that were coming apart. He was thinking about it (by now he probably has an e-reader of some sort).

Thanks to various ads on the Internet, and on Amazon.com itself, I discovered how modestly priced the Kindle is. Hmmm. I began paying a bit of attention to these newfangled devices.

Then yet another friend told me how much he loved ordering books that were delivered immediately to his newly purchased iPad.

I started saying things like, "My big worry would be how easy it is to order a book on impulse." In other words, I had already somehow gotten beyond out-and-out opposition to the idea of owning an e-reader. I was now considering the implications and wondering if this gadget was something I wanted after all.

My reasons for purchasing an e-reader are many. First and foremost, I have run out of room for storing books. My shelves have two and three rows of paperbacks and still not enough room. Boxes of books sit in the basement. Yes, I do need to take some of them to the used bookstore, an extra errand I really don't need or want.

Second, I can get free or very cheap books that have no copyright. We're talking Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Samuel Clemens and the like. In my little Kindle, weighing 8.7 ounces, I can have, say, War and Peace without the bulk.

If I'm on vacation, I don't have to lug several different books with me so that I can choose one according to my mood. They'll all be right there on my Kindle.

I considered buying an e-reader that was backlit for nighttime reading, but after reading the reviews, I knew I really wanted the Kindle, on which the screen is not backlit. Luckily, there's an accessory that solves the problem: a case with a built in reading light that runs off the Kindle's battery. If insomnia strikes on a camping trip, I can read without disturbing my spouse.

And yes, there's the whole instant gratification thing: the next book in a series can be in my hands in 60 seconds. That mystery novel that's been calling to me can arrive almost instantly. (Of course, that could start to cost me an unjustifiable amount of money, too!)

It's a near impossibility that I will never purchase another print book. Not all books are available for Kindle, but besides that, it seems to me that some books cry out for a print version. But I'm looking forward to my Kindle. I'll let you know how it works out for me.

Happy Halloween!

I miss Halloween, I really do.

We live in a rural area, and our house is set way, way back from the road. Actually, you can't even see our house from the road because of the contours of the land. We don't have any trick-or-treaters, and there's no point in even putting a jack-o-lantern or two on our porch. Who would see them?

I have fond memories of Halloweens past. Usually James would stay home and hand out the candy--in later years with scary sound effects playing on the boom box--while I'd take the kids out, often with a friend or two and their kids. Adult beverages in hand, we'd mosey on down the street. Our neighborhood was friendly and we knew most of the residents, so it was a festive atmosphere.

One always hoped for good weather--a warmish night, no rain, no wind.

Kids' costumes can be a hassle, which can make some parents less than enthusiastic about Halloween.  Jim sewed a couple of costumes (clown, witch) when our kids were little, and my sister Jana also constructed a Pepsi can out of poster board that was used for a couple of years. I loved it when our son went as Zorro--it was an easy costume to put together, and the parents handing out the candy were all "Wow! Zorro! I haven't seen that in years!"

Remember returning home with the goodies and dumping it all out on the floor, sorting it, trading some candy with your sibling(s) and all that? Or watching your kids do it?

Hope you enjoy yourself tonight, and for goodness' sake, be generous with that candy!

Grab bag

Stuff I've been meaning to mention:

Xenophobia is alive and well in Congress. Rep. J. Gresham Barrett (R-SC) first introduced his Stop Terrorists Entry Program Act (STEP) in 2003. Apparently the earlier version would bar persons from countries "determined to be state sponsors of terrorism" from entering the US. His new, improved version would

"bar citizens of Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Yemen and Syria from entry into the United States. It would further require citizens of those nations who are legally visiting or residing in the United States to be deported within 60 days."

The National Iranian American Council is particularly outraged by this bill.There are something like a million or so Iranians living here in the US, quite peaceably.

I'm sure you recall that the last two incidents of terrorism involved an American at Fort Hood who killed 12 fellow soldiers and a Nigerian who attempted to blow up a plane.

Will 2010 be the year when the world sees widespread famine? Some people think so, pointing out that harvests--despite the USDA's insistence that US harvests were at record highs last year--could not have been, given the number of counties, especially in the Midwest, that were declared disaster areas. When harvests suffer a 30% loss of the value of at least one crop, that county can be designated a disaster area.

With food reserves worldwide at a low, some experts are fearful of food shortages and hellacious inflation in food prices. A little thought shows that if severe food shortages come about, the effect on the worldwide economic system could be devastating. Go and read the whole thing. I hope there are other explanations for the apparent gap between the USDA's predictions of record harvests and the fact that so many agricultural areas in the US were declared disaster areas. And I haven't even gotten into the situation globally, where drought and other natural phenomena have taken a serious toll.

Study claims that three of Monsanto's GMOs can cause organ damage in rats. The study was published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences; it found that the major organs affected were the liver and kidneys. Of course Monsanto immediately responded with an angry statement defending its products and accusing the researchers of faulty methods. Would we have expected anything else? Also not surprising: the Wall Street Journal named Monsanto its Corporation of the Year.

How often do the doctors and nurses in your local hospitals wash their hands? A study of 163 doctors in a large university hospital in Switzerland found only 57% compliance with rules for handwashing, which usually require handwashing on entering and exiting a patient's room. While the study is an old one conducted in 2004, the problem is ongoing--so much so that in the state of Maryland, hospital teams made up of staff members will now be monitoring the handwashing practices of health care workers.

With the problem of hospital-acquired infections, this seems quite reasonable to me. Iatrogenic infections take a large toll on hospital patients. I myself had a friend whose 22-year-old brother went in for some kind of elective surgery and ultimately died of an infection he contracted in the hospital. Is it too much to ask that in a setting full of sick people that doctors, nurses, and other health care workers abide by the common-sense rule "wash your hands"?

Piano stairs!

This is so cool! Gotta thank my friend Micki for sending to me.

 

 

Whoo! How come we don't have ads like this??

Via Andrew Sullivan, the T-Mobile dance:

Here's how the T-Mobile Dance was put together:

Oh, just because ...

Beer bottle dominoes. I know! but it's a yechy, foggy morning, and this made me laugh, and I needed a laugh.

Did I mention that my husband works for GM? Yeah. I needed a laugh.