Thomas Paine: Someone you should get to know

I just read a fairly painful biography of Thomas Paine (Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of the Modern Nations by Craig Nelson). However, despite the technical difficulty of getting through the text, I'm really glad I stuck it out, just for the sake of getting to know about this amazing individual.

I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of American History is shamefully thin. So forgive me if I go mushy about something everyone else already knows. I've decided they should assign Common Sense as required reading in high school American History, and I'm looking forward to reading Rights of Man.

Paine was a revolutionary among revolutionaries, a visionary among visionaries. In a community of extraordinary enlightenment thinkers, he was able to surpass all of their abilities to break out of the prejudices of the age.

This is a man who could see past monarchy in a time when it was taken for granted. Not so special...all of those revolutionaries did. But unlike those more commonplace icons like Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton, etc., he also championed universal suffrage (i.e. not property-based voting rights), abolitionism, feminism, something like Social Security and a one-time grant to young adults to start out in life. And he got himself into a lot of trouble for advocating Deism as opposed to the more narrow organized Christianity.

The breadth of his knowledge and vision is mind-boggling. He designed working bridges, wrote on economics, political science, religion, law. In his own time his writings were both blockbuster best-sellers and banned on two continents. Though he could have gotten rich on his published works, he deliberately refused royalties, in order to reduce the printing costs and make his work accessible to all. He was an active participant in both the American and French Revolutions (and was even a legislator in France until things got really nutty, when he was locked up for 8 months, escaping execution by a sheer accident).

His advanced thinking got him many friends in the most advanced circles. But his intellectual honesty also ended up alienating many of those same friends, as they could not or did not care to understand his meanings. In addition, interested parties published twisted interpretations of his works, which often created violent mobs against them.

As a society we nominally espouse many of the principles first set forth by Thomas Paine. But if he were to come back today and state the same things he did then, I suspect he'd still be controversial, misunderstood and condemned. Can you imagine anyone today proposing that every young adult should, as a right, be officially handed, let's say, $10,000 so that they could start a business or go to college or do whatever they needed to, to become a productive member of society?

I found this particular biography (which I actually listened to on CD) very hard to follow. It roughly follows the major chunks of his life: early life in England to age 37 in 1774; participation in the American revolution; return to Enlightenment gentleman's life in England; participation in the French Revolution; and return to America. But within these chunks, the text jumps around a lot in time, and not for any good reason, as far as I can see. The jumps seemed to me more like a stream of consciousness rather than in the interests of following any clear themes. The one thing that I found extremely valuable about the book is that it quotes liberally from Paine's works and correspondence, which really gave a good feel for his ideas and his historical context. Amazon reviewers gave the book 4 1/2 stars, though, so maybe my frustration is just because I generally don't read history books.

As one tidbit of trivia, after reading some of this material, I realized that there are several references to Paine's works in the preamble to The MTA Song (which you can listen to here)

I'm adding Thomas Paine to my list of people I'd like to meet, if they ever invent a time machine.

Labor Day Greetings

I was cleaning out my email spam folder when I noticed something surprising. I had several spam emails with the subject "Happy Labor Day" and "Labor Day e-Card".

Now, do I actually believe that the emails actually had something to do with Labor Day? Of course not. Did I even click through to the links in the emails, to see what they were really trying to sell me? Certainly not.

What I found interesting, though, was the fact that some spammer actually thought that Labor Day was something that would get a victim's attention. Spam subjects often address deep human fears: Body part size. Accessibility of prescription drugs. Finding Love. And now...labor.

I did a whois search at Sam Spade for the URLs that were linked in the message, and it looks like they lead back to US service providers. In other words, the originators of this particular spam do not seem to be in Eastern Europe or Nigeria or whatever. This would appear to be home grown, culturally-sensitive spam.

Apparently spammers are betting that Americans are starting to recognize that their labor is something to worry about or maybe even celebrate. Why else spam about it?

You might answer my observation by pointing out that spammers simply thought that people, having a day off, would be more likely to be on their computers and responding to spam. But I don't recall ever receiving a Memorial Day greeting or a July 4th greeting or even a New Year's greeting. Labor Day seems to be something special that spammers are guessing would attract people's attention. In my books, that's a good sign.

US Maternal Mortality rate on the rise

The US maternal mortality rate (essentially the rate of women dying from childbirth-related causes) was reported as 13 per 100,000 live births for 2004, up from 12 per 100,000 in 2003, which according to this article was the first time since 1977 that it was above 10.

Let's compare that with our neighbors to the north...an otherwise similar culture, by most accounts. WHO cites Canada's maternal mortality rate as 4 per 100,000 live births in 2000.

The US rise in maternal mortality is attributed to (among other things)

• a whopping 29% C-section rate
  
• obesity
• changes in how maternal mortality is reported
• older women having children

The first two factors, at very least, are highly addressable.

This is unforgiveable.

There will not be two moons on August 27

A couple of days ago, someone forwarded me a message claiming that Mars would be so close to earth on August 27 that it would look as large as the full moon. Unfortunately, the message neglected to mention that this would require a telescopic lens of about 75 power magnification, and that the date was actually August 27, 2003.

When I received this message, I did what I always do when I receive emails (from otherwise intelligent individuals) containing outrageous claims or stories of crime victims with morals about precautions I should take in the future. I looked it up on Snopes.

Snopes is one of my favorite sites on the net. It is dedicated to debunking various urban legends and hoaxes. It is clearly written and usually provides lots of documentation of the source of legends as well as how they are debunked. I like this site so much that I've added it to my list of recommended links (see on the right of this page).

Sure enough, the Mars story was there. You can take a look at it at http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp complete with the email I received. It seems this story resurfaces pretty often. I guess it's like those "Confidential message for Dawn regarding hidden funds in Swiss Bank" emails -- there's always someone new out there who hasn't seen them yet, and might actually fall for it.

Eat your weeds!

Every spring, as I clear out my vegetable patch in preparation for the new crop of weeds, I inevitably find large quantities of a strange little plant. If Jade Plant grew in a vine, this is what it would look like. It grows close to the ground, with long fat reddish runners and little clumps of fat shiny leaves. And it seems to grow almost overnight. No sooner do I clear out an area than after the next rain, there is a spider network of this weed over the entire clearing.

A couple of weeks ago, in researching another weed, I found out that this is Common Purslane (Portulaca oleracea).

It is apparently edible, and in fact, not merely edible, but highly nutritious, loaded with uncommon quantities of Vitamin E, Vitamin C and Omega 3 fatty acids, along with various other desirable micronutrients. It is eaten in Europe, Asia, Latin America. Leave it to us to ignore it!

Several days ago, I made the experiment. Luckily, this baby seems to be an all season kind of plant, so I went into my prodigious weed crop and dug around among the tomatoes. Sure enough...there was plenty of this purslane stuff. I pulled up a bunch of clumps, washed them well, and started right in.

Raw, the stems are slightly tangy. Some of the leaves are, too, but many are just kind of spinachy flavored. The stems have a somewhat slimy quality, sort of like cooked okra, but not quite as much.

Most of the harvest got cooked in a spicy sour soup (tamarind, mustard seed, sesame base) usually reserved for spinach or another leaf vegetable whose English name I don't know. It was quite good! The slimy quality of the stems is somewhat accentuated in soup form, which for me is a good thing.

I declare this experiment a success!

Who knew?

College Admissions and Discrimination

This is a very interesting and entertaining article on the history of the college admissions process, forwarded to me by a high school classmate. (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge)

It discusses how non-objective criteria have been used historically for discriminatory purposes. It starts with a discussion of how Harvard initially relied rather heavily on the College Boards, but backed away when it found it was inadvertently admitting too many Jews. In place of the "objective" test-based criteria, it instituted letters of reference, admissions interviews and complex application processes, weighting highly the features of "desirable" candidates.

The article seems to be arguing for a return to straight rankings for college admissions. I'm not sure I'd totally agree with this approach. It seems to me that the right goal is Diversity in college admissions. Which is not well served by lots of testing. The "Desirable" students that an elitist school wants to screen for often come from families who can afford plenty of test prep.

Last chance at Harry Potter predictions

Ok...I admit it...I'm a Harry Potter fan.

Not in the insane, I'm-staying-up-until-midnight-to-get-my-copy-of-The-Deadly-Hallows sense, but I do enjoy the series.

I read a quote from JK Rowling today that really touched me. Several days ago, for reasons I don't remember, Sidharta was asking me about whether he would die or I would die, or ... He got a little agitated, but I tried to explain it to him as well as I could. Rowling exactly captures my philosopy:

"I think children are very scared of this stuff even if they haven't experienced it, and I think the way to meet that is head-on," she says. "I absolutely believe, as a writer and as a parent, that the solution is not to pretend things don't happen but to examine them in a loving, safe way." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070720/ap_en_ot/j_k__rowling)

And in fact, I think perhaps this captures what is best in the series: her willingness to intensely illustrate what is dark or unjust in human behavior, and show children that like Harry and his friends, they have a choice to stand up against it. Call me a hopeless optimist, but I'm hoping that the Harry Potter generation will be a little less likely than their parents to ascribe negative characteristics to people from communities other than their own.

Since this is my last chance to make predictions, before the release, I guess I'll jump in. This won't make sense to those of you who haven't read the series, but...

1. Though Rowling has come out pretty strongly on the Harry-Ginny romance, it just doesn't make sense to me. I found it very unconvincing. I will go out on a limb and guess that Harry will end up somehow with Hermione.
2. Snape will turn out to be on the side of "good".
   a) His murder of Dumbledore will have been either pre-arranged with Dumbledore in the case of extremity or else he will have done it to prevent Draco Malfoy from doing it (per Voldemort's orders -- I believe it was significant that the other death eaters wouldn't step in to finish the job for Malfoy.)
   b) Snape is motivated by some sort of love for Lily.
3. Major figures to die (Rowling has said there will be 2, and I assume this doesn't include the loser of the Harry/Voldemort battle)
   a) Definitely, one of them will be in the set {Ron, Ginny, Hermione}
   b) Ron and Ginny could both be killed, freeing up Harry and Hermione for each other.
   c) Most likely to die: Ron. Members of Harry's safety net have been systematically killed off, and at this point, we're pretty much down to McGonagall, Ron and Hermione as the most directly instrumental to his survival. And remember, in the tri-Wizard...who was it that would be most missed?
   d) Snape's a pretty good misunderstood martyr candidate
   e) Luna's a reasonable misunderstood martyr candidate, but not important enough, I think, to make much of an impact, so I'd have to put this low on the probabilty list. Neville for a similar reason.
4. I sure hope that Grawp and Firenze play some sort of role in the resolution of the story because they will otherwise have been an extraordinarily long waste of time. (Can you tell I'm a little less than impressed by some of the plot-lines?)
5. And the ultimate victor of the battle of good over evil? Good will prevail. But it will be a hollow victory, because someone Harry really, really cares about will be gone.

And no...I haven't peeked at any of the online photographed copies of the leaked book. Or purchased an early-shipped copy. Or seen any other form of Book 7. :-) Of course...if you haven't read this post before the book comes out, you may never know whether I edited this post after the fact to agree with the actual outcome. Lucky thing I'm an honest person...most of the time.

Welcome to "It Dawned On Me"

I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog for a while now. I think it's a nice way to tell people about some of the things you're thinking about, without forcing them to listen to you blather on about them on the telephone or jamming their email.

I've been held back so far because of three things:

1. Time (I have none)
2. Topic (I'm not sure what to pick that won't make me look ridiculous)
3. Timidity (see item 2)

However, I have high hopes that maintaining a blog will force me to find time to put my thoughts in order (insofar as I will have to commit them to actual sentences). I rely on you, my friends and family, to keep me straight (in a gentle way).

In lieu of an actual blog topic, in future, look for posts on book/movie reviews, pointers to articles around the net that I find interesting, bizarre factoids, and other tidbits that I hope will liven your day.

Feel free to add comments, and please benefit from others' comments.

My second post

This is what it looks like to have another post.

My very first test blog post

Hello, friends and family!

This is to test the capabilities of this blogging website.
This is what bold looks like!
This is what italic looks like!

Here is what centered text looks like!

This is what a common garden butterfly and echinacaea flower look like!

Here's another font!
Here's a numbered list:

1. Item 1
2. Item 2
3. Item c

Here's a bulleted list:

• Bullet
• Test

Changing Text color!
Adding a link to Wikipedia (in English).