Ron > Recent Status Updates

The prior jump and this latest one pose an interesting question: is Oona’s future fixed? If she’s already been 50 years old can she be as reckless as she wants at 21 with the assurance she’ll survive?

Andrew Jackson, Daniel Boone, and how we reframe conquest and colonialism as bringing liberty to the people.

Exodus 24 - Mosaic law, building the Tabernacle

US independence and the Sixty Years War. Settlers continue inland, looting, burning, and pillaging. Federal government responds with “Oh no! Anyway…”

Oh, and there’s also the time George Washington said “we can’t constantly defend a frontier against all these dudes, so we just need to eradicate them.”

Gen 34 - New name for Jacob

Gen 13-18: Tower of Babel, Hgae & Ishmael, Sarah laughs.

Now we’re getting into the meat of it, like Bacon’s Rebellion which gets held up as an example of our anti-authoritarian streak. The authority they opposed was a Governor who didn’t let them seize Native land.

I do appreciate the observation that most of the time the people who helped with these seizures also got stiffed; as is often the case it’s really the rich fighting among themselves.

Genesis 4-9: Cain & Abel, the Flood. Mostly having a laugh at my old notes, but Me From The Past made some good points. How did Noah know what animals were “clean” (he was supposed to bring 14 of those) if there was no kashrut law yet? Best guess is it meant an animal meant for sacrifice, since that’s what Noah does immediately after disembarking.

I like the author’s points about the Spanish Inquisitions and nation-building, how those were more about consolidating power than religion per se (note how trade guilds were treated during such events). Those are definitely behaviors that got carries across the sea. But they come awfully close to saying that prior to 1500 peasants relied on nobody and gold was only valuable for its utility.

Ch. 1 - Mainly laying groundwork to refute the standard “empty continent” narrative used to justify seizing Africa and the Americas. It also refutes the image of Native people as essentially cavemen who hunted and gathered whatever nature provided. They too manipulated their environment, creating game reserves to cultivate populations of the animals they needed.

Shortly after the second jump. She seems to be more comfortable with what’s happening, probably because she’s getting used to the process and realizing there will be gains and losses.

The book overall is a neat metaphor for the different people we are at different ages, the different “lives” within our overall lifespan. Quite convenient as I move into a new period of my own life.

One of a few books I’m reading as I move up to my first management role, and with a new organization. So far it’s mostly been about building relationships, being willing to learn and adopting the right mindset for the situation you’re coming into. For example are you there to turn around a struggling organization or to build on existing strengths? That’ll shape your priorities.

Through Genesis.

Discussing the Amanda Knox case, wherein a young lady was convicted of murder simply because she didn’t behave the way the authorities expected a grieving person to behave. As someone with the emotional range of an android, I know how that goes.

Gen 24: Rebekah has joined the party. I’ve always found the Matriarchs interesting; they don’t get much screen time, but what there suggests an interesting backstory and ladies with a fair amount of agency over their own lives. I’m a bit wary of Christian fiction, but that’s based on zero actual experience. I know Orson Scott Card wrote a novel about Rebekah, maybe that’s a good first stop.

So far this is a typical Gladwell book, and for that matter a typical pop-psychology book: lots of compelling and instructive stories that loosely relate to a theme. The opening story about Sandra Bland illustrates what happens when miscommunication creates hostility, but the 100 pages since have been about why we default to trusting people despite all the red flags that become obvious in hindsight.

Gen 1-11: Creation, Eden, flood, tower.

Back in 2016 I did a full chronological read-through of the Bible, so this year I figured I'd read in canonical order. More or less anyway: I can only read so many Psalms or Proverbs in one go before they all blend together.
(Different translation too; the 2016 run was NKJV with an NLT on hand if I got stuck.)

Those of you who’ve followed me a while know that I like to anchor my reading in one or more big “projects.” For 2021 and possibly longer, I’ve chosen the Norton Anthology of World Literature. However, since many of the books in that anthology are abridged, im using it as a guide and seeking out full texts where I can. The first book in the Anthology is Gilgamesh, for which I’ve chosen the Ferry translation.

Finished the main story (Hamlet, obvs), plus whatever side paths looked interesting. It's wacky fun, and does a pretty good job of covering the territory of the original play (with extra pirates and swordfights).

Chapter 67, "Cutting In", in which we learn the first steps in disassembling a whale.

This seems like a decent overview for someone who hasn't read the Bible cover to cover. I read it as a refresher for the Biblical allusions in Moby-Dick, and for that it was just okay. To condense the Bible as much as they have, they had to leave a lot of detail out, and that includes both entire stories (Jonah) and many details of the stories they do include (Ahab's transgressions and death.)

"But thou say est, methinks this white-lead chapter about whiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul." No, I'm more concerned that half of your citations are fabricated, and the other half connected by only your imagination.

Is any of this stuff about whalers liberating Latin America and whale oil being used at coronation actually true? Are whalers even looked down upon, or like any laborer, simply not put up on a pedestal?

Chapters 5-6: Roaming the desert and getting water from a stone (twice). I do still think the Big Guy should have cut Moses some slack; he had to managed those whiny nomads for forty years.

Chapter 4: Exodus 1-17. We're a bit pressed for time, so we're just gonna cover four plagues here. The others are pretty much the same but with locusts and stuff.

Chapter 4: Joseph. This version does a decent job of relating the plot, but like any abridgment there's a ton of detail left out. All the inheritance drama at Jacob's death, people gaining and losing birthrights, the grandkids getting adopted and receiving a cross-armed blessing, gone. To me that's an important theme, the last shall be first and all that.

Through Chapter 2, wherein Jacob mans up and faces his past. So far, this is pretty good. It's basically an abridged NIV, with transitions by the editor in italics. My big qualm so far is that Lucado does some editorializing in the transitions, which I don't feel is appropriate. Let people draw their own conclusions, you know?