velmo

• Rated 3 stars

“"Men are more the sons of their time than of their fathers, wrote the historian Marc Bloch. We are infinitely closer to our contemporaries than to our ancestors. We are living in an age of both harmonization and dissonance. Never have men had so many things in common – knowledge, points of reference, images, words, instruments and tools of all kinds. But this only increases their desire to assert their differences. Life is a creator of differences. Every individual without exception possesses a composite identity. He need only ask himself a few questions to uncover forgotten divergences and unsuspected ramifications, and to see that he is complex, unique and irreplaceable. I scarcely need exaggerate at all to say that I have some affiliations in common with every other human being. Yet no one else in the world has all or even most of the same allegiances as I do." --Amin Maalouf”

velmo wrote this review Monday, February 9 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“"Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. The country is grey and brown and white in trees, snows and skies of laughter always diminishing, less funny not just darker, not just grey. It may be the coldest day of the year, what does he think of that? I mean, what do I? And if I do, perhaps I am myself again." --excerpt from the poem 'Mayakovsky'

"I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store..." --excerpt from the poem 'Meditations in an Emergency'”

velmo wrote this review Saturday, January 17 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“"…whites relate to…material as spokesmen, not advocates. …they believe that the truth or other merits of an idea are intrinsic to the idea itself. How deeply a person cares about or believes in the idea is considered irrelevant to its fundamental value. This view – the separation of truth and belief – is heavily influenced by what whites understand of the scientific method, where the goal is to achieve a stance of neutral objectivity with regard to the truth that is 'out there': a truth that is not to be possessed or created but, rather, discovered. Whites believe that caring about one's own ideas, like the infatuation of scientists with their own hypotheses, will make them less receptive to opposing ideas and consequently prevent them from discovering the real truth. Thus they are taught to present ideas as though the ideas had an objective life, existing independent of any person expressing them. This accounts for the impersonal mode of expression that whites use, which…establishes the detached character of proceedings in which white cultural norms dominate. Because blacks admit that they deal from a point of view, they are disinclined to believe whites who claim not to have a point of view, or who present their views in a matter that suggests that they do not themselves believe what they are saying. This is why they often accuse whites of being insincere." --Thomas Kochman”

velmo wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“Writing for the Web is not the same as writing for print. The key difference is when people use the Web they are relentlessly task-focused. Web content needs to drive useful action, and if it doesn't, it's not delivering value. Your website is not a murder mystery, so tell them who did it in the heading and the very first paragraph. Nobody is going to wait until the last paragraph to discover the essence of what you are trying to communicate. Lead with the need. The rule on the Web is, have only content that helps your readers to complete their key tasks. Get to the point. Then stop.”

velmo wrote this review Saturday, December 27 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“"We may be undermined by our survival instincts, honed over eons to help us deny, defy, or ignore catastrophic portents lest they paralyze us with fright." --Alan Weisman”

velmo wrote this review Monday, January 5 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“"When I was little, I played a certain staring game that seemed to have invented itself. I would hold myself as still as I could and make my eyes like a toy's eyes that don't move - and I would wait. I would wait for the other things in the room to forget about me and begin to move. I believed there was another world that would show itself to me in the smallest ways. The gray kitten in the picture by my bed would accidentally blink his eyes. The girl in the picture would breathe. I believed there was another world - but I only noticed it when it became harder to get to. No one told me the print on the wall was just ink and paper and had no life of its own. At some point the cat stopped blinking, and I stopped thinking it could." --Lynda Barry”

velmo wrote this review Thursday, December 18 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“Europe is a continent with many different traditions and languages, but with shared values such as democracy, freedom, and social justice. The European Union (EU) began as an idea after WWII to ensure peace in Europe through interconnected economies. The motto of the EU is 'In Varietate Concordia (United in Diversity) and the anthem is 'Ode to Joy' by Friedrich Schiller. 'Europe Day' is celebrated annually on May 9th to commemorate the beginning of the European Union.”

velmo wrote this review Sunday, October 5 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“"To live freely is to be able to live according to the things you value most, to play whatever part you want in your culture and history, to draw from your chosen traditions, and to pass them on through your own manifestations of them. In short, to live freely is to be able to express, and live according to your identity." --Natan Sharansky”

velmo wrote this review Thursday, December 18 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“The book was written specifically as an overview for teenagers and most of the content is generic Prejudice 101 that lacks depth, but the following excerpts stood out as takeaway items to spend some time thinking about:

1) The scapegoat may be a real or imagined enemy or an innocent substitute who is punished for the crimes of others. The choice generally depends upon the need. A nation at war needs enemies to hate. A person burdened with guilt needs someone to bear the blame. Long ago in Europe, this blame-bearer was chosen as a scapegoat for children of the royal household. Giving a prince a good spanking was unthinkable. One did not strike a child who might someday be king. At the same time, bad deeds could not be allowed to go unpunished. The royal houses solved this problem in an interesting way. Each prince had a 'whipping boy' who took his blows. Thus the prince was punished vicariously, through a substitute.

2) In a classic short story called 'The Lottery,' horror writer Shirley Jackson created a chilling portrait of a town on the day of its annual purification ritual. The story opens with the citizens assembling in the village square. Jackson creates a sense of lurking evil beneath descriptions of ordinary events: neighbors chatting pleasantly about one thing and another, children playing with stones that they pile in one corner of the square.

Then one man produces a battered box and calls the townsfolk forward. Quietly, with no apparent fear, heads of households file past and draw out folded slips of paper for each family member. The atmosphere becomes tense as the people open their papers and look around to see who has drawn the one that is marked with a black spot. When the woman is identified, her neighbors and even her own family begin moving away from her. Without apology or seeming regret, they pick up stones from the pile the children have made:

"Tessie Hutchinson...held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. 'It isn't fair,' she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, 'Come on, come on, everyone.' Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him. 'It isn't fair, it isn't right,' Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

There the story ends. Since it first appeared in a 1948 issue of The New Yorker, generations of readers have expressed opinions about what makes the end of the story so horrifying. Some say it is the senseless death of an innocent victim. Others believe it is the ease with which decent, ordinary people turned into remorseless killers.”

velmo wrote this review Wednesday, September 24 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Even if it were true that the foreigner could improve his economic situation by becoming a citizen, it is a very peculiar conception of patriotism and national loyalty that would rely upon this motive as the only one adequate to stir the alien to seek assimilation. It portrays the American nationality as a thing of so little value in itself that there is no reason for desiring it except for the material advantages it brings, instead of presenting it as an object of so great intrinsic worth that much material well-being might profitably be sacrificed to attain it. It tends to develop in the immigrant's mind exclusively the idea of what he can get out of America instead of cultivation of a recognition of what he owes to America, and a sense of obligation to do what he can for America. -- Henry Pratt”

velmo wrote this review Thursday, December 18 2008. ( reply | permalink )