Links to various and sundry...

[fajrdrako]

A few interesting links:

• The scary stuff: Blackwater. I had no idea this was happening, but I can't pretend to be surprised. Love it that Jeremy Scahill mentions the First Crusade.


• I'm thinking of joining the Purple Group for refresher Latin study. I was with Atrium for a while, but fell behind. (Shame!)


• Use of minority languages in the Finnish parliament: Klingon. I bet none of our politicians can speak Klingon. (Barely competent, they are, in their mother tongues, and suffering from foot-in-mouth in any of them.)


• Ian McKellen on acting. Heh. That man!


• I found a nice Della Robbia angel, Angelo Regicandelabro. This is of interest to Dunnett fans, as Lymond is described as having the face of a Della Robbia angel. One therefore tends to look carefully when one sees a Della Robbia angel.


• makesmewannadie has a list of recommended rec-sites, which looks very interesting. I don't know how many of them feature fandoms that interest me, but I love rec lists and am glad to find more.


• Eating with John Barrowman. Okay, I'm impressed. Tell me he doesn't cook like that every night


• Fun stuff: an interview with a friend of mine. The interview doesn't do him justice in the least. He's way more entertaining than this.

Comments

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

One therefore tends to look carefully when one sees a Della Robbia angel.

One certainly does!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

He looks good to me.

(Pause for a momentary consideration of Xas, the angel who walks on swordblades. Hmm. Yes. Also Lymondesque, odd though the concept may be. Now I'm thinking of Lymond as a fallen angel who becomes redeemed. Nice imagery there. I like it better than the Apollonian imagery.)

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

re: Fun stuff - interesting to hear that there's a market for slide rules. I'm not quite ready to give up mine, but maybe I should stick a note in my will. ;<) Interesting interview.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I always enjoyed my father's slide rules - I wonder what happened to them? And it's fun to hear Larry on the subject, but he is more interesting (in my opinion, and simply because of my interests) when he talks about Mayan art and archaeology, or fandom - Harry Potter or Doctor Who or Doctor Seuss.

[sraun]

Maybe you should point the Purple Group at this page as a place to practice? I have strange friends.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I have strange friends.

...I resemble that remark!

Yes, I'm planning to join the Purple Group and practice till I'm blue. Really. Certe.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Have a nasty suspicion that there may be more Klingon-speakers than Finnish-speakers in the world...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, as it happens, I have friends who speak Klingon (I don't know how well) and the only people I know who speak Finnish are Internet friends who live in Finland. So I can't say you're wrong.

Dunnett angels

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Have you looked at images 2 (another angel) and 4 (a supposed saint) on the same page? I like them even better as possible Lymonds.

http://www.scultura-italiana.com/Galleria/Della%20Robbia%20Luca/imagepages/image2.html
http://www.scultura-italiana.com/Galleria/Della%20Robbia%20Luca/imagepages/image4.html

Re: Dunnett angels

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes - very plausible, very good likenesses!

[dewline.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't do Larry justice. Yet.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I wonder why they did the piece - and why they focussed on the slide rule rather than the other interesting aspects of Larry. Like his art.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Something to ask Mr. Brown about.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Regarding "Blackwater" -- These are called "militias," another case of taking an adjective and turning it into a noun, which in itself bugs me like mad, but then you go on and think about what they are, which is: tiny sects which think of themselves as The Only Real Americans, who dote on guns and secrecy and conspiracy theories, and hate the government in all its forms, and... well, give me the KKK, at least it's visible. These people are wild cards. Some are merely survivalists, but others are totally political. A little-known aspect of life in America, this. I nod to your "but I can't pretend to be surprised."

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Seems they have a lot of power, this particular bunch. (Not that this should be surprising. There's a Biblical saying about living and dying by the sword.)

One thinks of this kind of warlord existing in remote and uncivilized regions, but that's an illusion. Sort of. It isn't what I like to think of as civilisation, anyway, but civilisation doesn't exist just in order to suit me, I know.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

And random strange-violent things just keep happening. I just read in MSN's online news that a 19-year-old woman had gotten away from a family of five (husband, wife, three teen children) who had been keeping her as a slave and beating her constantly. I thought, my, that is horrible, how could people detach themselves from another person's humanity so completely that it would become permissible for them to treat that other person in such inhuman ways? They never allowed her to leave the house without one of them along, and did not allow her to contact anyone by phone or other means. She was saved when she was out delivering newspapers: the wife drove her on the route, apparently, and when she gave the paper to a 66-year-old man, he and his caretaker both realized that the bruises on her face were not self-inflicted. They took her inside and called the police. Then the wife was at the door, demanding that young woman be given back to her, explaining the bruises as something that she had done to herself because of mental illness. Thank goodness the man did not fall for this. The police agree that she could not have made up the story -- she was literally covered in bruises, and the marks matched the descriptions she gave them of how they'd been inflicted. The entire family of five has been arrested.

I repeat this sad story at this time mostlly because I was horrified to see that this had happened in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, which is the town I work in. I looked up the family's address, and found that they lived on city carrier #38's route -- my friend Paul, a very good person (advantage/disadvantage of working for the post office, I have here!). I was horrified not because I'm one who will instantly say, "How could that happen here? We aren't that kind of people!" but because I feel horrible that it was going on without anyone noticing it. I imagine Paul feels especially bad right now. He is one of the kindest people I've ever met. I hope he is not beating himself up over it... these people clearly made a great effort to keep this young woman's situation secret from everyone.

Takes all kinds to make a world. More people like Paul are in it, I'd like to think, than like the Mark and Cynthia Pollard family, 890 Weatherwood Lane, Greensburg PA 15601. God help us all, especially when we think nobody cares -- in which cases it may only be that no one has noticed, and would care if they had the chance.

Sorry. Thanks for the forum.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You really wonder how things like that can happen - how people can get so screwed up. Reinforcing each other, I suppose, but it's still hard to imagine - had the teens learned brutality from the adults? Was it a genetic flaw? How did they manage to interact with other people and seem normal, or something that passed for it? And the poor woman who was their prisoner - will she ever get over it?

I suppose the good part of the story is that someone noticed, and saved her.

Sometimes you wish truth wasn't stranger than fiction.