Katie’s Neighborhood

Gentlemen, we're history.
     -Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

    I don't what made me pick up not one but two MORE history books at the library not long ago, but for whatever reason, I did. The two books take contrasting approaches to how one looks at history. The first book, 1688: A Global History looks at how the entire world looked during one year in the late 17th Century. The other book, The Way of the World, is a sweeping look from the first stirrings of civilization to the present age. And I must say, while I found neither book to be incredibly spectacular, I enjoyed them both.
  In 1688: A Global History by John E. Wills, Wills picks one year and travels all over the world to give us a idea of what was going on during that pivotal period in the late 17th century. I liked how Wills focused on specific people from this era to show us the world almost through their eyes. Unlike many traditional historians, Willis covered the entire earth, detailing events and personalities in China, Japan, South America and the Muslim world. His scope as well as his writing style made for interesting reading and kept this book from being a dry history textbook. I liked it.
   David Fromkin's The Way of the World: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Eve of the Twenty-Third Century is a nice, well-written history of the last five thousand years. Fromkin, known also as the author of the well respected A Peace to End All Peace, takes on the thankless job of writing a history of everything and pulls it off

.It won't win any awards, but it give you a nice, readable introduction to the history of the world. No complaints-I liked it.

    

Tomas Halik's book Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing In Us was another one of those books I saw sitting on the "new books" shelf at my public library that, after a cursory inspection I decided to take home with me to read. Halik, a Czech Catholic priest, Professor and adviser to former Czech President Vaclav Havel in his book tries to reach out those outside creedal belief, people like atheists, skeptics and agnostics. To Halik, these are the modern heirs of the New Testament figure of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus of course according to Gospels was the Jewish tax collector who while perched in a tree watched Jesus preach to the crowd. Since Zacchaeus was not actively participating, he was nevertheless curious and to a degree engaged by what he saw going on around him. Today while many of those individuals are not in the Church, they might be hanging outside listening, or more likely engaged in intellectual discovery or doing admirable deeds.
    In a sense, Halik advocates a new ecumenicism. He calls on the Church to reach out those whose intellectual honesty and commitment to the Greater Good make them admirable in the eyes of God. To make his point Halik uses numerous examples from Liberation Theology, literature, philosophy, the writings of St. Paul and the lives of the Saints.
    While this is a good book, alas it is not a great book. I suspect Halik, is a better thinker than a writer. And for all his sincerity, many of the modern Zacchaeuses will strongly disagree with his opinions. I do think however, his book has contributed nicely to the ongoing debate between belief and nonbelief. Some might think his book is a bit muddled, but then again, so is the middle ground when it comes to the classic argument between belief in God and the denial of God's existence.

No news. Got you here under false pretenses. Just changed my photo. Want to look my 'best' for you after all...

Adjusted for age, slang and cuteness differences, this is the story of my life... sob. (xkcd.com)

Well, as expected all went well at uni. No deaths occurred... no asteroids were sghted approaching our atmosphere... continents didn't collide, (well any more than usually anyway), so all's well that ends well. Panic officially over. Just thought you'd like to know...

 

For the last two days I've been feeling a low level anxiety. Butterflies have been roaming with impunity in and out of my internal organs. Niggling little headaches have been washing back and forth across my forehead. It has just occurred to me the reason why. I am nervous and a little frightened.

The reason for this 'trauma' is that I am back at university tomorrow. My reaction to this is absolutely ridiculous. I like university. I like the subjects that I'm doing. This is my SECOND year! I'm a 44 year old man with years of work experience behind him - I have been responsible for budgets of over 130 million pounds and managed multi-disciplinary teams based all over the world.

Now I'm gibbering mildly about 'going back to school.' Weird... I suppose I'll be all right by tomorrow night...

Not perhaps the most important piece of legislation for most of us, but a wonderful illustration of how one small slip can make our public servants look foolish...

"Maritime lobster fishermen in need of financial help got a lift of another kind Tuesday when they were directed to a toll-free number that was supposed to detail an aid package but connected them to a lusty sex line instead.

One of the several toll-free information numbers released by Fisheries Minister Gail Shea hooks callers up to a sex line that offers fishermen nary a detail on the lobster stimulus package." Listen

To be honest, I'm not sure whether I should be appalled at the sadness of this, or just accept that the human condition is complex and unfathomable...

"Best man Ryuichi Ichinokawa took his place before the assembled wedding guests, cleared his throat and for the next few minutes spoke movingly about the bride and groom. But his speech omitted one crucial fact: that he knew the beaming couple only marginally better than the waiters and waitresses serving their wedding breakfast.

From the moment the guests sat down until they belted out the final karaoke song of the evening, Ichinokawa was part of a grand, though well-intentioned, deception.

He is a professional stand-in, part of a growing service sector that rents out fake spouses, best men, relatives, friends, colleagues, boyfriends and girlfriends to spare their clients' blushes at social functions such as weddings and funerals.

This weekend he adopted yet another guise, as the uncle of a 12-year-old boy and his younger sister at a school sports day. He dutifully cheered them on, recorded their efforts on his handheld video camera and joined in the adult-and-child races." More