John Clark > Recent Status Updates

So far, quite fun and exciting!

One of my friends commented that the title of the book is a bit sensationalist because really, Diamond identifies the ultimate causes of "the Fates of Human Societies" to be the intertwined forces of food production and population pressure. Yes, the title may be sensationalist, but food is really that important.

The history of writing systems is fascinating, and, like so much of Diamond's book, is presented in such a way that the broad strokes are clear and reasonable, and I want to investigate these forces in more detail.

Could a slightly differently configured world have had a dramatically different history?

Diamond provides a fascinating and very approachable depiction of the symbiotic evolution of plants into crops as human culture also evolved. At the same time, this provides a visceral sense of how living things are constantly in motion, adapting to one another.

Wild wheat was plentiful in the Fertile Crescent, and it led humans there to develop the tools for its harvest that would later allow for domestication.

Diamond provides a concise summary of the proximate argument that disease and better technology favored the conquerors; now we need to see why the conquerors had those in the first place.

This is the current book for our men's group at Holy Rosary. We have read through chapter 2, currently, and I must say that so far the book is beautiful. The Pope is doing an extraordinary job of understanding the revelation of Jesus based on faith combined with historical understanding.

The warfare history of the United States continues with World War II. The current chapter presents a shocking perspective on that war, which is pretty much status quo in this book.

Discrimination has been a continuously useful tool for oppression in the United States. Racism against Indians allowed for expansion; racism against blacks and class discrimination against the poor allowed for economic exploitation; and sexism allowed for home life to be a central pillar of these other expressions of power. And once you see it throughout history, it screams out now. Why wasn't I taught this before?

Providing motivation and context for history is such an improvement over most history textbooks. Also, Zinn's presentation is of a horror story. Only this one is real.

I had thought of myself as a pacifist, but then Jensen made me remember that violence is a much broader category than murder.

What does it mean that I am brought to tears by a pointed scientific description of the formation of our solar system?

The start of one recent chapter had me nearly in tears; a short while later I was laughing out loud on the bus. But not from comedy.

I'm not further along in part because I've spent several hours reading large sections of this to various friends.

The art is so rich with symbol; it draws me into the whirlpool of dysfunction every time I open it back up.

Jensen is brutally critical of civilization, and it's excellent.

Willingham likes to take us to some very dark places. But with paneled and inked Fables, we have bright colors and a comic book format.

This is fun and interesting so far. I think I can see where it's going, but we'll see!

Rider, elephant, and path. And brush aside things that are TBU (true but useless). There are a lot of gems in this so far.

Is fusion like a party "certification" of a candidate? What's the history of fusion in Ohio? What led to it being successfully attacked?

Already, the second quintet promises to have a heavier hand with magical elements than the first.

I'm looking forward to embarking on the second quintet, which I remember far less than the first.

The pacing is quite good, and the concept and character interactions are quite sharp.

Heinberg provides a sensible definition of sustainability that we can build on to make progress.

Heinburg discusses the dangers facing industrialized agriculture; we need more farmers and more decentralized farming.

We discussed chapter 5 at the Holy Rosary Men's Group on Saturday. I'm not convinced by Chaput's argument in this chapter.

Humanity is in a superhuman state, augmented by our tools. As the energy they require disappears, so too will our ability to rely on them.

I just finished the introduction; Heinberg provides a brilliant summary of the clear and present danger that we are facing.

Wow; the lists of "experts" that question global warming contain shocking fabrications.