Motley Kamuka

          My ideology feels like the right fit, feels right, but it also says the other one is wrong, and spectacularly so.       I was talking to someone and they were saying, "how can you say vaccine works if people still get sick."       I said, "99 people in the hospital for Covid didn't get vaccinated, 1 person did, there are breakthrough cases. Nothing is perfect, but it mostly works overall. Just cause there are a few breakthrough cases, doesn't mean the vaccine doesn't work overall in most cases."     She wasn't convinced. I saw the above meme, and thought of her. I thought it would not persuade her.      Thinking about the death cult that kills off it's members, they are also supposedly "pro-life" even if they are not, and their manic fixation on one little moment in time isn't pro-life at all. I want to say I'm in favor of life, but I don't want to be mistake for those people who pre...

I saw a great picture of Margaret Atwood , and I thought I should do a read through of he work. I loved her Shakespeare's Tempest book, Hag-Seed , and I liked Handmaid's Tale , which won the Arthur Clarke Award in 1985. I like the Netflix version of Alias Grace . She has poetry, and non-fiction as well. She's perhaps one of the prominent Canadian authors. Then I thought about how I'm struggling to read these days. Perhaps I'm getting older and the energy expense is harder. Also when I read I'm easily turned off by writing. Some might be bad writing and some might just be impatience, and the idea that there's not much under the sun I haven't seen. I wonder at my bizarre push to read 52 books a year for the past 30 years. There was a kind of stoical just push push push. It was a weird ambition that has never really paid off for a career or for anything. I've always had a vague fantasy to be a writer, and to be a writer I think you should read a lot, bu...

 

I'm writing a novel and my characters go to Sri Lanka so I'm reading a lot about Sri Lanka. Here are some links I liked. Fun facts: As of July 2011, the number of registered political parties in the country is 67. Sri Lankans call Avalokita "Nātha" 70% Buddhist Original inhabitants of Sri Lanka are said to be the Yakshas and Nagas . The flag has a lion holding a ceremonial sword.   Sri Lanka is the highest ranked South Asian nation on the Human Development Index, and has the second highest per capita income in South Asia. Basic: Wikipedia Culture of Sri Lanka Google Maps Flag Buddhism: Buddhism in Sri Lanka Fourth Buddhist Council Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya Literature: Mahāvaṃsa  is the meticulously kept historical chronicle of Sri Lanka written in the style of an epic poem written in the Pali language.[1] It relates the history of Sri Lanka from its legendary beginnings up to the reign of Mahasena of Anuradhapura (A.D. 302) covering the period between the arrival of...

  “So many writers have an aversion to just sitting down and waiting,” I said. The I is  Jordan Kisner in her article about Jane Campion 's new movie, which looks really good, and hipped me to two movies of hers on Netflix that I haven't seen. I've just ordered a book of her essays from the library.  So I watched Bright Star . I've always liked Keats, so I found this movie interesting. 

  Like Arrested Development, the humor of unvirtuous people provokes some disgust. But there are sharp criticisms of our society, and the persistence of ecological terrorists has to have some meaning underneath. Spoiler: I like it that Malory Archer got away and drinks on the beach. They run every joke into the ground. I think the joke about Archer getting sick thinking about his attraction to his mother was beat to death, and the van jokes about Krieger were beat to death. Nothing really great in this season, but you know you watch because you liked the ensemble and ersatz friendship. 

My daughter's teacher cut me off, talked over me. She had to give the whole assessment before we could discuss, but I wanted to discuss what she just said. It's fair, she wanted to get the whole assessment report out, even though they were going to be sending me the information in a letter. This is what they do, I had to adjust. Parent/Teacher conference isn't a therapy session for me, or a discussion of the larger education context. So maybe the proper form of expression is essay. Maybe we can only shine a light on our own darkness like Montaigne did. A woman told me she knew my son when I was at the park. She's been a student teacher in his class, and he was a good student, she said. I was pleased she said nice things about my son. She said when she went to the school, and they used to be more about the arts, now it was all teaching to the tests. I can't change schools, it's all the schools in NYC.  I know the vague curriculum and lack of assessments my hippy ...

The above is a Salvador Dali Cathedrals of Thumbs, an illustration in How To Live by Sarah Bakewell . The book is about Michel de Montaigne who lived 1533-1593 in France. His Essays is an revolutionary book that came out 1580. I've read a few essays and I had 2 revelations. One is that Shakespeare read it and used it in Hamlet. The other was when he pointed out that at the end death is a release, so death is not to be feared. I recently was around a woman who passed away and I can attest to that. 28 February is national Essay Day. Links: Great Course notes Guide To The Classics