29 Aug 04 Blogger — 8/29 10:38 AM

I’ve recently come across some good quotes I wanted to blog:

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

— Herman Göring to Allied psychologist Gustave Gilbert at the Nuremberg trials, 18 April 1946

“The plain truth is that we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny speck surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then — poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that’s very, very funny.”

— Charles Simic

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

— Mark Twain (apocryphal)

17 Aug 04 Blogger — 8/17 06:03 PM

Phew. I am tired as hell at the moment. Exhausted, and even perhaps a little bit ill. But, I shelled out $75 to attend a cooking class this evening, and I’ll make it even if I’m puking into the carrots. Just kidding … it’s really not quite that bad. I’ve just been having unpleasant dizzy spells. Guess I need to pick up a pregnancy test. (Ba-DUM dum. Tip your waitress.)

I wanted to write a blog entry about what I’ve been reading over the last few weeks. I had a family reunion in California the first week of August, and learned that the son of one of my cousins was working his way through the Chronicles of Narnia. That inspired me to start going through them again as an adult. I knew, from a reference in one of Neil Gaiman’s short stories, that the Chronicles had a heavy Christian influence on them, but I hadn’t realized the extent until I reread them this time around.

It was actually pretty shocking. Aslan is very obviously Jesus Christ. The Emperor-over-the-Sea is most likely God the Father, although Aslan often takes that role, too, frankly. The Stone Table is the Cross. It’s likely that Edmund, at least in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, is Judas (although, if truth be told, that analogy I didn’t perceive on my own, but instead through some other website).

None of the above was shocking, but what was was how much the septology slanders Muslims. It’s obvious, as you read through the description of Calormen, that it’s a amalgamation of Middle Eastern countries: he describes their skin tone, way of dress, and many other details that makes it pretty much crystal-clear. But throughout all seven novels, ‘Tash,’ their god, is an evil demon-god, and it is made clear in the seventh novel that he is very much a figure analogous to Satan, although, frankly, that role might also be attributable to the White Witch and/or the witch we see in The Silver Chair.

The Last Battle is pretty much a re-telling of Revelations, interestingly enough, with the coming of an anti-Christ figure … or, in this case, an anti-Aslan figure pretending to be Aslan but indeed not. The analogy is somewhat tweaked, in that the actual anti-Aslan is an innocent and rather witless donkey named Puzzle, who is manipulated by the arguably true ‘anti-Aslan,’ a monkey whose name I can’t remember off the top of my head. The final chapters of the novel involve the end of the land, and, to be honest, despite my misgivings about the novels, has to be the all-time most beautiful description of heaven I’ve ever read. It’s right up there, for me, with the cinematic depiction of the afterlife seen in the movie What Dreams May Come.

I suppose what bothers me is not only the anti-Muslim depiction of Calormenes that runs through most of the novels, but also the sheer fundamentalism of the books. C.S. Lewis appears to be a hell of a judgmental bastard, whether it’s his depiction of Eustace Scrubb’s parents’ lifestyle, his casual write-off of Susan in the final book (which prompted a Neil Gaiman story with an intriguing title which I’m dying to read, called “The Problem of Susan“). I suppose one of the things that I dislike is his insulting dismissal of the concept of Allah (Tash) and God (Aslan) being the same God viewed differently, which is promptly adopted by the villains of the piece for a short time as “Tashlan.” Of course, I’m not sure if that was instead oriented towards some long-forgotten theological theory of God and Satan being the same entity … if so, that analogy would make more sense.

Rereading the Chronicles was fun, I won’t deny that. It is a very rich world, and a very British world, and the sense of hominess, valor, and sheer good that permeates Narnia speaks to the idealist inside of me who sometimes tires of the grayscale world of reality, where people are both good and bad, and the most insane evils can come from a leader who firmly believes he is working for God. Let me be even more blunt: there could never be a Narnian version of Bill Clinton. King Billian, so to speak. Even putting aside the sexual elements of Clinton’s errors, he’d be damned for his lying, without a glance towards the good he would have done for the ‘kingdom.’

In short, sanitized Narnia is comforting and cozy to slip into, like an old sock, but it’s not real, and it harbors the prejudices of yore. For that reason, it even strikes me as, perhaps, a little dangerous.

07 Aug 04 Blogger — 8/7 03:02 PM

King Features goes through extraordinary measures to prevent you from linking to a particular strip, so I’ll share with you the ’script’ of two of today’s comics that I thought were a tad remarkable.

Hagar: In our business, you have to destroy the enemy before he destroys you!!
Lucky Eddie: What if the other guy isn’t even trying to destroy you?
Hagar: That’s the chance you have to take …

Anyone see a Bush allegory there? And here’s another one:

Beetle Bailey: Why do we have to train in this heat?
Sgt. Snorkel: Because we might have to fight in the Mideast.
Beetle: Couldn’t we find some cooler hot spots?

Interesting to run across both of these on one day.

06 Aug 04 Blogger — 8/6 08:14 PM

This posting is a community experiment started by Minding the Planet to see how a meme represented by a blog posting spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs are most influential in the propagation of memes. The original posting for this experiment is located at: Minding the Planet; results and commentary will appear there in the future.

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate Рthe more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is: as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawstw98qwrt189849813907azq4

(this GUID enables anyone to easily search Google for all results of this experiment). Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post at Minding the Planet; Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and fill out the info below, substituting your own information in your posting, where appropriate.

(Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers):

1. I found this experiment at URL:
   http://www.michaelhanscom.com/
   
2. I found it via Ҏewsreader SoftwareӠor ҂rowsing or Searching the WebӠor ҁn E-Mail MessageӺ Newsreader Software - NetNewsWire
   
3. I posted this experiment at URL: http://salubrity.blogspot.com
   
4. I posted this on date (day, month, year): 06 August 2004
   
5. I posted this at time (24 hour time): 20:10:57
   
6. My posting location is (city, state, country): Chicago, IL, USA
   

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS (Replace the answers below with your own answers):

1. My blog is hosted by: Blogger
   
2. My age is: 29
   
3. My gender is: Male
   
4. My occupation is: Legal assistant
   
5. I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: NetNewsWire
   
6. I use the following software to post to my blog: Web interface
   
7. I have been blogging since (day, month, year): Honestly unsure.
   
8. My web browser is: Safari