Kathy > Recent Status Updates

“they have stuffed the pillow with pigeon feathers...no wonder I cannot sleep!”


Pfft. Makes me embarrassed to be a Cathy.

Chapter 1: Instead of reaching into the medicine shelves, doctors need to start reaching into shelves with books holding (this) corporeal language--consult their own libraries where the great works of fiction will teach them to link the semiotics with the scientific to interpret the human experience of disease--the patient's system of nonverbal communication complete with its own syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Chapter 3 "When Less of the Same is More": "Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer." Me: What a different approach this is from checklists and algorithms. Oh wait, we're talking about learning...so learning is different from work? Why/how? Wouldn't we want to be taking in as much information from a situation in our work (learning, situational awareness?) to complete the task?

Chapter 3 "When Less of the Same is More": "Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer." Me: What a different approach this is from checklists and algorithms. Oh wait, we're talking about learning...so learning is different from work? Why/how? Wouldn't we want to be taking in as much information from a situation in our work (learning, situational awareness?) to complete the task?

I have to say that I feel a bit guilty enjoying this book. It's rather like the this dilemma (attn: Tim Grant): Do we teach the principles of statistics, or do we teach how to manipulate the software? A true Shakespeare fan, I am nagged by the thought that this feels like theft of content. However, it's very well done. (Audible version, read by Alan Cummings--excellent!)

A footprint in the sand.

Page 50: he comes to Jesus on this island of Eden.

In the first 20 pages, the main character has left home twice, been captured and held 3 years by pirates, escaped, was rescued and dropped on shore, bought, developed, and left a plantation. Why is this a classic?

More diatribe than scientific, the author makes sweeping claims based on cherry-picked sources. Ex: "Until recently medicine attempted to enhance what occurs in nature. It fostered the tendency of wounds to heal, of blood to clot, and of bacteria to be overcome by natural immunity", footnoted with a case study of mitral valve surgery. Seems similar to writings of Foucault. (same era)

This book indeed chronicles how the English-speaking peoples made the modern world. I take issue with the words before the colon in the title. IMHO, this book chronicles oppression (of anglo-speakers only), not the invention of freedom. A chronicle of historical documents (a discourse analysis) might more accurately reflect the invention of freedom.

The title of this book does not correspond with its contents. Instead, it is a rambling collection of anecdotes about either landmark Supreme Court cases or Supreme Court nominees.

JSF expects his readers to know the basics of One/Second Life, an online virtual world. I suppose every author has to have some expectations of a their reader, but these seem particular and high. Maybe it's just my age showing...

I must say that JSF eloquently, nakedly, and brutally nails the dissolution of a marriage.

Re: title- (Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac)
"Abraham does not ask, “What do you want?” He says, “Here I am.” My bat mitzvah portion is about many things, but I think it is primarily about who we are wholly there for, and how that, more than anything else, defines our identity." (me: our marriages too).