Thomas Paine and democracy

For school I am reading Common Sense and The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine. I think the man needs to take a deep breath and stop preaching hell and damnation to anyone who does not support republican democracy. If he was on an email group today, he would definitely be charged with inflammatory speech. The way he talks, you would think that King George was out to destroy the US (quite the contrary) and that all Englishmen who dared want to stay a part of that empire were low-life scums. He's a demagogue and good at it, and he can write well, so he would be very dangerous if he didn't keep his topic on freedom. His principles of democracy are quite sound, if expressed in arrogant language*, and reminded me of an experience in the Youth Senate.

The bill under discussion was relating to people being able to have direct influence in the government (i.e. not through politicians), and one of the debaters, referring to a radical that he didn't approve of, said that if you gave some of the government's power to the people, the government was then afraid of the people, and that wasn't good. Good heavens, did he realize what he was saying? He was promoting aristocracy. The way that our government works now is such that politicians have become the elite force that our Founding Fathers wanted to prevent. Congressmen and Representatives may not have life terms, but it's almost as hard to join their ranks as to join Parliament in England.

In a country that claims to be a republican democracy, the people should have some way to directly input their views on politics. In fact, the government should be afraid of the people. When a dictator is in power, who are people afraid of? The dictator. When a king is in power and of the opposite political party, who are you afraid of most? The king of course. We are afraid of people in power. Therefore, in a democracy legislators should be afraid of the people. They should not be comfortable in their little existence, thinking that they can only be stopped come election time. They should feel the eyes of the people on them at all time, and be afraid of stepping out of line. This has nothing to do with political parties; it has everything to do with democracy. The government is there to do the will of the people, and who knows the will of the people better than the people themselves? I believe that it is necessary for the people to have some form of direct input into their government, for a healthier, more democratic society.


* = "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." Than of America's independence? Patriotism is one thing, but this is a little overdone.

Embarrassing revelations

Have you ever had a moment where you suddenly realized something, and then the next moment felt embarrassed for not realizing it sooner? For me, the embarrassment is usually because what I have just realized is probably common knowledge. For example: for years, I thought it was highly ironic that a handbook for grammar was entitled "The Little, Brown Handbook", which is, of course, an improper use of commas. However, just yesterday I realized that there is a company called Little, Brown, which, I assume, publishes the Handbook. How embarrassing!

Rogue plants

Last year, I discovered in my garden a tomato plant that I hadn't planted. It was growing where I had grown tomatoes the year before, so it must have come from a rotten tomato that had dropped. I called it a rogue plant, and this year I have many more examples. Two pea plants suddenly sprouted in an area where I had not watered or planted anything. A lettuce plant is in the tomatoes, and a parsnip that I had not dug up resprouted. But most wonderful of all are the johnny jump-ups. They carpeted a 3x6 area of my garden last year, and this year they have resprouted everywhere.



I replanted about twelve of them into a tire, and they are simply gorgeous.













They even sprouted up among the weeds!

Life through Emma Darcy's eyes

A couple days ago, I was sitting on the couch, musing over the title of a book, and I muttered: "Something's rotten." Without a pause, and in a thoughtful tone, Emma Darcy answered "Mr. Slope." I was surprised at her apt (if unintentional) insight into that morally rotten character from this movie.

Next, we were eating graham crackers with chocolate dip, and Emma Darcy hadn't been served any. She demanded: "Give me chocolate!" Purring Piggy responded by dipping her cracker into The Queen's chocolate and giving it back to her. Emma Darcy burst into dramatic tears, and put her head in her hands. When asked what was wrong with the chocolate, she responded (as if it was a perfectly natural sentiment, and one that should be obvious): "[I] not want The Queen's"

On Friday, when we went to see the science documentaries, one of them was a 3D ocean film. There were a couple frightening parts, especially for a 2 1/2 year old. After the movie, I asked her if she liked it (the rest was very cool). She put her finger to her lip in a thoughtful way, then turned her head on its side and said very decidedly: "Not really."

And just this morning, she had a stuffed animal piggy, and was bugging Purring Piggy who was on the computer.
"Mom, give me snack!"
Purring Piggy said no.
"Have snack please?"
No answer.
(thinking to try a different tack) "Piggy wants snack!"
No answer.
I asked if I could hold the piggy. She let me, but then added as a caveat: "[If] you have pig, me get snack."

And though this isn't about Emma Darcy, it fits in this post better than any other. Purring Piggy, Clankeeper, and I were discussing Schoolhouse Rock, which are animated music videos that teach science, history, math, etc. Purring Piggy and I think they are very educational (watching them again with The Queen and Emma Darcy, I realized that I learned many things for the first time there), but Clankeeper did not. One of the songs is the Preamble to the Constitution, and Purring Piggy said: "There are many people our age who only know the Preamble from Schoolhouse Rock." Clankeeper responded: "I didn't watch Schoolhouse Rock and I know the Preamble." When requested to recite it, he responded: "We the People, in order to form a more perfect union...yada yada yada." We laughed.

And lastly, The Queen, Emma Darcy, and I were listening to Wuthering Heights: The Musical (which is one of the few recent musicals based off of books that I enjoyed), and during the track "Cathy", The Queen asked what "that boy" was singing about. I told her that he was singing about Cathy. She asked again, puzzled, "But why is he singing about Teddy?"

Grr

One of the most annoying things for a book lover can be abridged books. I am not trying to criticize those who like them, but personally, I want to have the real thing. Because of this preference, I was filled with righteous
anger when I found out that our copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, one of my favorite books, was heavily abridged. Almost two thirds. It is entirely to Dumas' credit that I liked it so well even when abridged (his wording was not changed, only entire episodes were snipped). Thankfully, I figured out before reading it that our copy of Les Miserables was also edited. There is a place in the world for abridged books (if not in my world ;-), but what made these two examples worse is that on the cover was written "Unabridged Edition". What kind of low-life does that sort of thing, lying about the completeness of their book? We used to have an abridged copy of The Three Musketeers, which did not say if it was abridged, but at least it did not say that it was unabridged. Grrrrrrrr.

10 simple pleasures

The Common Room had this post and since I like memes, I'll join in.


Snuggling babies

Singing with a large group of people

Finding a passage in a book that touches you deeply

Fresh air on your face

Watching something that you planted grow

Listening to your favorite songs over and over

Learning new things about your friends

The smell and feel of used books

Stargazing

Sharing something funny with a friend

Gwen and Abby

I finally figured out how to post pictures to our blog, so I thought that I'd start with an obituary for Gwen. This first picture is of Gwen (left) and her sister Daisy when we first got them. They are about four inches long.







This is the best picture I have of Gwen full grown. In the summer we let the guinea pigs graze in the grass, and they have so much fun!












This was our pig family until just recently. Clockwise from top left: Gwen, Dana, Daisy, and little Georgi.











And finally, this is Abby. She's just as small as Gwen was when we got her, but two pigs could not be more opposite in temper. Gwen was a born leader, an escape artist, and was intelligent. Abby is calm and quiet, a Beth March of guinea pigs, and she is perfectly content to stay in one spot.

Alas, alas!

After reading the book and wondering about the quality, I finally watched BBC's production of The Way We Live Now.

To start, it was both better and worse than I had imagined. Matthew Macfadyen and David Suchet had two of the best performances I have ever seen in an adaptation. While reading the book, I had a picture of Sir Felix as blond and angelic-looking, but Matthew Macfadyen (despite his dark hair) became Sir Felix before my eyes, acting with an ability that awed me. I read several interviews with him after hearing he was to play Mr. Darcy, and smiled at how much like Darcy he was. Knowing, then, what I do about him, his excellent performance as the careless and heartless philanderer Sir Felix Carbury was a surprise, but a welcome one. Likewise, David Suchet became Melmotte.

But otherwise, the movie was a sad disappointment. Who cast Paul Montague? He looked no more than eighteen, and his acting made Paul out to be nothing more than a jilt who gets what he wants from pure luck, even though unworthy. And Roger Carbury! The lovable country squire from the book becomes an irrational if moral man. Hetta was bland, Marie had an awful voice, and Mrs. Hurtle was too weak. The book showed the materialistic Victorian Londonites with reality, but the film was harsh. Trollope could show the complex inner lives of his characters with a pity for their sad state; for instance, Roger's fighting with jealousy. The movie characters have no inner lives, and the movie is therefore depressing to watch. I'm not sure if Trollope's characters can be translated well to screen. Great book, unworthy movie.

My busy weekend

I am the sort of person who does not like being out of the house or around lots of people for very long. I enjoy my brief spots of solitude, and while I enjoy the company of my friends, after hours of socializing I feel drained. I do not like to be busy. Therefore, this weekend was trying from start.

However, it started going uphill. On Friday we went to see some science documentaries, and then to a large booksale. One of the documentaries was on Greek archeology, and though it was very interesting, the music captured my attention more. It was Greek folk, and it started me wondering. How can we
tell what music sounds "Greek" or what makes Celtic music "sound" so? Is it the instruments? The notes? The rhythm? All three?

Next was the booksale, to which Clankeeper came for the first time. We came home with 125 books, and it was exhilarating and fun.

On Saturday we went to a workshop on faith and the book of Joshua. There were some excellent speakers, and I was feeling inspired and spiritually uplifted, when we received a call from home. My guinea pig Gwen had died unexpectedly.

I was devastated. Gwen, short for Guinivere Olivia, was very dear to me, and her death was shocking and tragic. I felt empty for about a day, until on Sunday we went to a guinea pig owner to have the rest of our pigs have their teeth trimmed. While we were there, we asked if she had some baby guinea pigs for sale. I wasn't sure if I was ready for another one, but when she brought out the three that she had, I fell in love...again. Abby (short for Abigail June-Sophy) is a red and white baby, about four inches long. She has a snub nose and brown eyes, and is simply adorable. She doesn't take the place of Gwen—no one ever will—but I am feeling happier and at peace.

Random thoughts on April 18

Vegetable plants are eye opening. This morning I inspected my snap-pea plants, and found that, without any help from me, they were climbing their trellis. How can these small green things, without brain or nervous system, know when to curl their delicate tendrils? How could people believe they have evolved, gained this exceptional ability by chance?

After returning into the house, I mused on our family's proclivity to obsessions. Whatever book we read, whatever album we listen to, whatever movie we watch, unwittingly, we become obsessed with it. We quote, we parody, we add to, we identify with them, almost ad nauseum. They become integral parts of our lives. I decided that it must be genetic when I heard Emma Darcy, who it really too young to have learnt it any other way, call her doll "baby Moses" after watching The Ten Commandments yesterday.

Being a mostly auditory family, there is almost always music playing in the livingroom. As Purring Piggy pointed out to me a couple days ago, we almost always listen to mixes, all our favorite songs in some sort of random order. To Purring Piggy and Clankeeper, this is annoying. They like listening to full albums, and knowing what song comes next. We like surprises, and a mixture of genres. Is this a generational gap?

Today, after being chastised for not completing a chore, Martin the Warrior gave this as an excuse: "I was confused by the music." (We think he meant "distracted.)

My new favorite saying is: "That comment does not deserve any rational objection." (to be used when confronted with irrationality) I think it is from a classic book, but cannot remember which one.

The verbal Emma Darcy

Emma Darcy is fascinated with Bingley from Pride and Prejudice, and she
regularly demands that I tell her "Bingley stories" (she pronounces his name
Beanie). But little did I know that she could tell them, too. We were riding
home from church, and Emma Darcy was looking at a comic book, turning the
pages and "reading" it aloud to me. This is what she read: "One day Bingley
sit [with] book, [go to] sleep. One day Jane wake up, [and] see Bingley
sleeping. One day Darcy wake up, [and] see Bingley sleeping. Jane go to
Darcy. Bingley wake up, [and] see Jane. Lizzy run to Darcy. Bingley walk
with Jane. Lizzy walk with Caroline. The End."

Surprised at this gift for storytelling (she's only 2 1/2), I asked her to
tell me another story, and she said: "No, me [too] stupid [to] tell Bingley
stories."

Emma Darcy also likes the movie 1776, which is about the writing of the
Declaration of Independence from John Adams' point of view. It's also a
musical, and Emma Darcy likes the part when a congressman asks/sings "Will
someone shut that man up?" and John Adams responds passionately "Never!"
However, Emma Darcy says it like this: "Will someone shut that man down?
Never!" You can tell she¹s from the Computer Generation, can't you?

Udolpho has been breached

After four months of reading, I have finally finished The Mysteries of Udolpho by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. If you are familiar with this book, it is most likely that you know it as the book criticized in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. I thought that being familiar with Miss Morland's favorite book would improve my reading of Northanger Abbey, and I was certainly correct. However, I did not find what I expected in The Mysteries of Udolpho.

First of all, the book is far too long. 650 pages of small type, no less, and all of them severely saturated with sentences. I have come to grips with the fact that Georgian and Victorian literature is supposed to be long. The three volume novel, I must remember. But Mrs. Radcliffe does not have story enough to make 650 pages of her work worth that much. At 400 pages it would have been a much better book.

Secondly, The Mysteries of Udolpho is not the full blown Gothic tale of terror I expected to find. Halfway through the book, I still had no idea what Udolpho was, or what mysteries it might contain. The first half of the book is a "travelogue", and would be a character novel if Mrs. Radcliffe had skill in that direction.

Unfortunately, one of Mrs. Radcliffe's greatest flaws is that she cannot create real characters. Henri came closest (and Jane Austen finished the job and gave him life as Henry Tilney), but the other characters are flat and bland. Even so, I would be somewhat hard pressed to call Udolpho a "bad" book. I would not call it, like Miss Morland, "the nicest book in the world", but it is not entirely unworthy. The story took a couple turns that I did not expect, and her descriptions can be scrumptuous. The book was a bestseller in its day, and beloved by writers and readers alike, but unfortunately, modern sentiments cannot give the book a fair chance. The truth is, few readers today could stomach Emily St. Aubert, the delicate and sensible heroine, who faints and turns pale every ten pages, and her lover, Valancourt, is nearly the same. If we look at Udolpho with modern eyes, it's silly and maudlin.

But if you try to look at it with eighteenth century eyes, the real flaws come forth. Even Jane Austen did not criticize Udolpho for its characters, but for something else entirely. In fact, if you read Northanger Abbey carefully, Jane Austen does not even criticize Udolpho, but its readers. Miss Morland's fault is not that she enjoys books like Udolpho, but that she mistakes fiction for reality. Even the Austen family enjoyed Udolpho, though they poked fun at its sensibility. Udolpho does not condone an overactive imagination either; many of Emily's troubles are imaginary, and due to her extreme sensiblity.

Udolpho was not meant to be a serious book. It is a fluff read, full of improbable characters and plots. The author is not a genius. It is my opinion that Valancourt and Emily will have many trials, being too similar in character to complement each other well. I think Emily should have married Du Pont or Henri. Also showing a lack of genius are the long scenes near the end where Emily is absent. I found myself wanting to skip past them and find out what happens to the heroine.

But despite all these faults, I think Udolpho has gotten more than its due criticism. It is certainly no great book, but it is the best example of the popular Gothic fiction of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and it is very useful in understanding Jane Austen's greater work, Northanger Abbey. (One even notices that Northanger Abbey is very much in debt to the plot of The Mysteries of Udolpho, and not just for parody material.)

The Crusades are alive and well

Who ever said that the Crusades had to be religious? I, Lady Grammaria, am setting for on yet another. Less important than the plea for "ly" after adverbs, but certainly more important than how one pronounces "either" and "neither". This Crusade is in the defense of the noble word Definitely. I cannot vouch for past generations, but this common and hardy word is being massacred in the form of the pronunciation "Def-int-ly". I, myself, have sometimes been caught into this trap, but now am calling for reinforcements in the Crusade for Definitely's proper pronunciation!

Tear fest

Yesterday, I burned a CD that was a mix of all the sad songs that I could fit. Most of them were from movie soundtracks, but I threw in a couple funeral marches and Beethoven's 7th symphony (second movement) for good measure. I wonder why I have never done it before. Most of the time, I like happy music, but sometimes I like to have a good cry, and music is the thing that moves me the most. So, I'm off to have a tear fest.

Today, though, I burned an opposite mix: all the songs I like to do chores to, "bouncy songs", as Martin the Warrior calls them, and "dancing songs" as The Queen calls them. What fun!

Why I support the second ammendment

"What is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes....Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
Thomas Jefferson

The mouths of babes

Emma Darcy says some very strange things sometimes. She's quite intelligent, too, and will often justify her commands by adding "Mom said" to them. However smart it is to manipulate family authority, her most recent justification calls on a slightly different authority: "Bingley said no!" I have yet to figure out why she thinks Bingley a reasonable authority figure.

Also, at bedtime I will often concoct stories for Emma Darcy and The Queen (last night was a story about the Diego ferret clan vs. the Montero ferret clan). Obviously, The Queen didn't quite know how to ask for one, though, when she said: "Read me a story from your mouth!"

The most perfect pet...

is a guinea pig. I cannot imagine a pet that is as easy, loving, and fun.

Guinea pigs are very small and do not take up much space. Because of their lazy habits, they require very little in housing. Their two favorite pastimes are eating and sleeping, and as long as they have a cozy bed and plenty of grub, they will sit in their corner chirping happily. Of course, like humans, they will get fat if left alone, and must be given exercise, but as they are plump and rather large for rodents, you can let them run around on the floor without worrying that they will hide someplace innaccesible.

Another one of their charms is love. It is probably wishful thinking, but guinea pigs are one of the few pets that really love you. They purr when you pet them, curl up in your lap, squeak lovingly when you walk by, and sometimes will fall asleep on you. Of course, it is likely that, because of their fetish for food, this flattery is all so that they can get treats, but a little wishful thinking never hurt anyone. ;-) They're not very intelligent, but when it comes to food, their instinct is strong. Our four guinea pigs live in a cage in the livingroom, which happens to be right next to the kitchen. Because we feed them vegetables from the refridgerator, whenever the door opens, or when we rustle a plastic bag, all four start squealing for food and run to the front of the cage. Guinea pigs are very easy to spoil, being cute and fuzzy, and therefore they usually get food that way.

Guinea pigs are shaped like rounded bricks covered with fuzz. They are very plump, have no tails, and blunt faces, which makes them perfectly adorable. When they walk or run, it is more like waddling (though they can go quite when necessary), and they flatten themselves out when they sleep. We have had guinea pigs for about six years now, in numbers varying 1 - 4, and have not regretted a single moment.