Kathleen > Recent Status Updates

If the people can handle Hezekiah and Jeremiah, they can handle Nebuchadnezzar. Nebby is almost as bad as terming the Philistines the Phillies 😓

Nakoi’s fleshes out the internal dialogue of the fable characters in her own voice, which helps contextualize these traditional stories for modern readers / listeners.

Excellent setup for follow-on, interconnected stories. The alliteration is starting to grind on me just a bit… I love poetic turns of phrase, but I worry about having an English professor already musing on linguistic origins in Hour 1 of a 20-hour listening journey…

Ugh disgusting colonial explorer men. How do you travel on a life-or-death journey for months and fail to connect with the other humans on the journey over a dog? I like how Clark’s character, though, was inspired by a real Zambezi autobiography. Wazungu… indeed we are the wanderers. Less romantically… homeless 😅

Ahh! Joyce doped the Chief of Police with spiked lemon tea cakes!

The murder weapon appears! In the hands of the much-feared pension parking brigade! Then again, « spanner » sounds much more unique and threatening than wrench 😆

Old ladies drinking canned cocktails on the bus back to the retirement home… #squadgoals

Aw Chris we’re all there 😢 « Every Monday he convinces himself that this is finally the week he gets back into shape, finally shifts the weight… the weight that stands between him and the world… By Tuesday, Chris loses faith in the project. He’s aware the project is himself, and that drags him further down still. »

« Ian is on a lot of dating apps and sets a strict upper limit of 25… They need to understand that his time is limited, his work is demanding, and that commitment is hard for him. Women over 25 don’t seem to get that, in his experience… The thought briefly occurs to Ian that the only woman over 25 he spends any time with at all is his wife. » 😆 King of Dirtbags

Ron and Ian. May we all have such jaw-dropping self-confidence: « [Ron has led numerous failed union actions over decades]. A man less indefatigable than Ron might have considered himself a jinx. But that’s the fate of the underdog, and Ron simply loved to be the underdog. »

Ch. 6 was too short for the seriousness of its subject matter. People who have suffered terrible personal tragedies feel emotionally alienated from God in ways that even the Bible addresses only in the abstract (Job). « Why is suffering allowed to happen to me » is a profond question Durand treats too flippantly here

Saying « I will never sin again » has seemed ridiculous to me. Like… obviously I will stumble into this again. I’m kind of lying to insist I won’t. While Ch. 5 doesn’t exactly nail it, I do appreciate that shame for being weak is not the same as humility: accepting that weakness is part of the human condition and God doesn’t hold it against us

Sparked some good reflections on the nature of « intense joy » : the happiness that comes with reconciling oneself to a standard of life-affirming attitudes and behaviors. Then again, I can’t see myself giddy and skipping to confession 😅

Intellectual arrogance definitely emerging as one of Dostoevsky’s top themes. Though Crime & Punishment is harder to follow as an audio drama given that much of the drama takes place as Rodion’s internal dialogue

Glad the Climate Anthology of Depression I read earlier recommended Hirschfield to me. The word choice is exquisite, the self-searching, despair, and resilience reassuring

Build clocks to preserve the core and stimulate perpetual progress. Can be applied to personal philosophy as well. I appreciate that authors encourage readers not to adhere too closely to the methods described, but ti continue to develop new ones that serve the core theme

Finished Isaiah. Some good context from Cobble on chapters oft quoted by Jesus or that scholars believe point to the Messiah. Clearly points to a new covenant of some sort

Huzzah. Achilles’ son Neoptolemus is a welcome burst of youthful energy to the bedraggled Greeks. Yet still doesn’t slay Eurypylus in just one chapter. Which is great because we can barely keep track of the characters at this point

Way to break the mold: Eurypylus doesn’t rise and die in a single chapter. And talks some good smack too 👏🏻

Going back to listen to the other works in this dramatized compendium. Do not listen to Ep. 1 of Crime & Punishment in anything other than the sunniest, brightest conditions; it is disturbing. Were Tolkein’s internal dialogues for Gollum inspired by Dostoevsky’s for Rodion? More cause for optimism as other, less nihilistic characters enter in Ep. 2

Is it possible this is qualificative study boils down to the fact that visionary companies are simply more skillful at motivating people? Continuous improvement, employee training, core values, ambitious goals… these are just hacks to keep the meatspace locked in 😉

Some of the period jargon hard to follow. But I like our unconventional bumbling bureaucrat spy protagonist! Probably more realistic a spy than the action hero James Bond type

The most credible Benghazi critique from Utah’s Jason Chaffetz (summarized): “Chris Stevens died doing what he had signed up to do: venture into one of the most dangerous parts of the world with a small enough security footprint to avoid intimidating the very people he hoped to create partnerships with. But the ARB found [State] too willing to let him operate without a fully functioning [safety] net.”

Funny to hear how people close to them admire the Clintons’ “genuine personal touch” when the full picture has you completely guessing how much is personal versus calculated. I suppose a good politician must be a seamless blend of both

I love the challenge of institutionalizing experimentation and learning. What does that look like at a company that’s not tinkering with physical products? The second half of the product viability equation is also crucial; data tells you it works, but you can’t really commit until you’re sure it’s mission-aligned

RIP Chris Stevens. What a terrible fate for someone who wanted to represent a future partnership for Libya and the US

It still astounds me A) How Bill Clinton is so effortlessly popular, B) How solid Hillary and Bill’s loyalty to each other is portrayed. Like they are two halves of the same (poison?) apple, and operate in total sync with each other professionally. Weirdly ideal marriage? Partnership? Whatchacallit?

Settling four-year old scores vs party objectives. Also hundreds of thousands of dollars changing hands. Ugh politics is so petty and transactional

Tell us what you really think of Pakistan 😬 “An apology was in the best interests of the US preserving its tenuous relationship with a country that was both infested with terrorists and armed with nuclear warheads.”

Again, depressing to see the hopes placed on Libya as a prospective crowning achievement, surging popularity numbers. Some wisdom here about what takes to be a “retail politician” … read, have no shame