Arriving Somewhere

Here’s a video for the first single from the new album by Norwegian folk rock band Lumsk. The song is Om Hundrede Aar Er Alting Glemt and the album Det Vilde Kor.

The lyrics are from something written by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun. They roughly translate:

I drift in the evening, thinking and struggling,
I am like a Boat capsized
and though I lament and suffer
still I see no Solution.
But why should I be so hard betrodden?
In hundred Years everything is forgotten.
So then I sooner put an end to the Struggle
and go to Sea with my paining Soul.
The world will find me there sometime later
so bitterly drowned to death.
But why should my end be so rotten?
In hundred years everything is forgotten.

Log in to Google Docs & Spreadsheets if you haven’t already today. They’ve updated the interface to include the ability to organize your documents into folders. Is it just me or is Google trying to replace our desktops?

Back in ’04 I started compiling a list of books that I had read. Here’s that year’s list with links to Amazon, alphabetical by title. The number represents my score for the book out of 5:

(0) despised it
(1) didn’t like it
(2) it was ok (think of this as a grade of a C)
(3) enjoyed it (grade B, I would recommend this book)
(4) loved it (grade A)
(5) brilliant

2004
20 books read on the year – not bad for me.

Five Stars
Three books won the coveted five star rating: The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (really a series, but they’re short enough to read all seven straight through) Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card, and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. I highly recommend each of these if you haven’t already read them. I rarely re-read books, but I’m certain that I will read these again.

Non-Fiction
The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz (3)
Chechnya Diary by Thomas Goltz (4)
The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror by Bernard Lewis (3)
The First World War by John Keegan (4)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (2)
What Went Wrong? by Bernard Lewis (3)

Religion & Spirituality
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (2)
A New Kind of Christian by Brian D. McLaren (3)
Science & Christianity: Four Views by Richard F. Carlson (4)

Science Fiction & Fantasy
Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card (4)
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis (3)

Other Fiction
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (2)
Megatokyo, Vol. 2 by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston (4)

Back on Memorial Day I visited the Washington, DC World War Memorial. This memorial is rather unique in DC as it is the only one on The Mall that is dedicated to local interests. The memorial is dedicated to Washingtonians who served in the Great War. The memorial itself can only be viewed from close proximity as a thick grove of trees surround it and there are only two paths leading to it – one from Independence Avenue and one from the National Mall. It is quite easy to simply walk past the memorial as there are not any signs directing attention to it unlike the rest of the monuments downtown.

This lack of information regarding the whereabouts of the memorial and even its hidden location tells me that perhaps this memorial is not highly regarded by the society in which it finds itself. Indeed World War One is often overshadowed by the World War which followed, despite the 117,000 Americans who died in the war and the demise of four empires. The memorial itself is in a sad state of repair. The dome exterior is stained black from what I presume are years of exposure to smog. The interior of the dome is covered with spider webs and dirt and there are several places where water leaks have created stalactites. The marble columns have cracks and are missing small patches of marble.

Perhaps its just my nature to sympathize with the underdog, but I find it sad that this memorial seems to have been forgotten – despite its location near some of our nations most recognizable monuments.

The D.C. Preservation League has more information about the D.C. World War Memorial on their Most Endangered list.

Want to help mankind get to Mars? Volunteer for a 520-day psychological experiment.

Michael Gorman wrote a couple of interesting blog (!) posts in which he assails Web 2.0 and the “wisdom of crowds” as “a desire to avoid individual responsibility; anti-intellectualism…” In his words, “The life of the mind in the age of Web 2.0 suffers, in many ways, from an increase in credulity and an associated flight from expertise.”

Web 2.0: The Sleep of Reason: Part I, Part II

Be sure to read the responses… I especially found Meredith Farkas’ response enlightening. “I agree with Gorman that the crowd isn’t always right, but neither is the expert. And sometimes the crowd does know more… The fact of the matter is, we do not teach students to think critically.”

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Respect My Authority

I would respond myself but I’ve got a ton of homework to do in preparation for my weekend long class starting Friday!

So, I’m sitting at College Perk – my favorite coffee house in the DC area – doing some homework, and a girl walks by with Stratego tucked under her arm. Awesome. On the wall opposite me is a framed print that says NOSTALGIA and has pictures of various 1980′s pop culture items like etch-a-sketch and a cassette tape… all with a red circle and line through it stamped over each one. A description under the print reads, “Pop culture is like a zombie that refuses to die.”

I love this place.