Atheists in Seattle

So, when I bought the paper last Wednesday to find out the local election results, I also saw an article about how the Seattle Atheists* were going to have their yearly convention this past weekend.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010195429_atheist04m.html)

I was interested to see that Ursula K. Le Guin was to be one of their two featured speakers (the other being Ron Reagan, son of the president). I was rather surprised to see Le Guin's name listed, since I had thought her more of a Taoist than an atheist; in any case, I haven't been able to find a follow-up as to whether or not she actually appeared,* or if so what she said, though I did find a piece from a local tv station confirming Reagan's appearance as the opening keynote speaker

(http://www.komonews.com/news/69490967.html).

Among the event's promised highlights were its non-prayer breakfast, with its Moment of Bedlam (I suppose in revenge for all those who squirmed during enforced 'Moment of Silence's in early life). Overall I gather folks don't so much mind them getting together, but they do raise hackles (deliberately) through their bumper stickers and by taking out ads on the side of local buses, such as one that reads "Yes, Virginia, There Is No God". That one strikes me as rather silly, though I admit to rather liking "There A Sucker Born Again Every Minute" and especially "Eve Was Framed!"

As for the participants, apparently this is their big yearly event; most of the rest of their time, according to their website, they apparently spend in doing good works, like a recent blood drive and volunteering to man gift-wrapping counters at downtown Borders and Barnes & Noble bookstores in support of charities like Children's Hospital. So far as I can tell, locals pretty much ignored the convention (I doubt many knew it even took place, and the few exceptions probably stumbled across a reference to it online or in the paper like I did). But their ads apparently are drawing some attention, irking some among the Faithful, as was of course their intent. Funny how few people who object to a billboard or poster criticizing religion can see that ads advocating religion are really just the other side of the same coin. Not a v. good medium for theological or existential debate, though I suppose dueling ads, like the Xian vs. Darwin bumper stickers war, are better than the real conflicts we used to get in the Bad Old Days.

--John R.

*or, as they officially call themselves, the 'Freedom from Religion Foundation'.

**the events calendar on her website confirms that she had at least planned to attend: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Calendar/index.html. I have been lucky enough to see Le Guin two or three times, and can testify that she's an excellent speaker -- interesting, engrossing, and engaging.

Campaigns Have Consequences

So, the election has come and gone and the results were . . . interesting. I was going to do a write-up, but I see Jeff Grubb, whose pre-election recommendations I always find extremely helpful, esp. for less-publicized races and measures, has already done so, so mine'll be a good deal shorter than might otherwise be the case. Here's his post-mortim follow-up:

http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/2009/11/election-aftermath.html

So far as the local races went, things went pretty well.

Here in Kent we get to keep our mayor. Like most folks, I usually don't pay much attention to city government, but Mayor Cook has done an unusually good job, despite some personal setbacks*, both in championing some things I was dubious about that turned out well (Kent Station, the Showare Arena) and in being on top of the current flood preparations; she deserves another term. Plus of course her opponent had been a member of the school board that provoked the recent Kent teachers' strike in which teachers, parents, and community all united to denounce the superintendent and school board.

Some things that affect us we didn't get to vote on --for example, the proposed annexation of the Panther Lake area up on East Hill into Kent. The residents there got to vote on whether or not they wanted to join us (they did!) but we didn't get to vote on whether we wanted them (we do).

We also didn't get to vote for the Seattle Mayor, though that certainly has a major impact on everyone who lives in the area. The two candidates weren't even included in our Voter's guide, and nary a flyer or robocall came our way, meaning even now I'm pretty uninformed about them both (apparently the main issue was what to do about the viaduct, a topic Seattle leaders have dithered about for eight years now). In any case, I'm glad to see Nickels go because of the Occidental Park incident a few years ago.**

By contrast, the County Executive race (to replace Ron Sims, whom Obama appointed a deputy Cabinet secretary) ended with the inexperienced stealth candidate's defeat: good news there, though the Creationists would disagree. And the tax deadbeats lost for once with Eyman's latest initiative going down to defeat, while the civil rights (domestic partnerships) initiative won, which sorta gives us bragging rights over Maine. Sorta.

As for the national elections, the clear message seemed to be an anti-incumbant one, of which the most interesting was the New York congressional race, where the end result of all the sound and fury was to give Obama an extra vote in the House. My favorite quip was by someone who pointed out that the last time a Democrat represented that region, the best way to get from Albany to Buffalo was by canal.*** Even more interesting is that the defeated party vows to repeat the process that lost them the seat in as many other races as possible. Like I said, interesting.

--John R.

*[like her husband committing suicide in July, and her then finding out he hadn't listed her as co-owner of their business after all]

**[faced by the problem of homeless people hanging around the park, Nickels had a lot of the hundred-year-old trees there cut down, reasoning if he made the park unpleasant enough then people would avoid it. As if street people choose their refuges based on aesthetics. As if ruining the park for everybody wasn't a problem. As if the damage he did could be undone within our lifetimes. What a maroon.]

***[anybody else remember 'I got a mule/Her name is Sal/ . . .'?]

Feeling Good about the Credit Union

So, a while back our bank went under and got taken over by JP Morgan/Chase. I'd originally picked Washington Mutual because I wanted a local bank when I first moved out here, and had been unhappy for a while with its gradual shift into being 'WaMu' (which sounds like a faux-Orca) in attempts to hide its origins. So when it went under, we shifted our main accounts over to the local credit union, where we'd already had some savings accounts for some time.

My reasons included disaffection with Washington Mutual (which shifted its interests more and more into the shaky practices that eventually made it the biggest bank failure in U. S. history) and also a deep aversion to being associated with anything linked to J. P. Morgan, one of the more villainous of the 19th century Robber Barons. And then just yesterday came a story that would have erased any regrets I'd had about the move, if I'd had any:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/04/birthday-spoiled-by-bank_n_344067.html

Basically, this guy deposited some money in his account and then made several debits. Except he didn't know that Chase re-arranged the sequence so that they withdrew the debits first, causing him to have an (artificial) overdraft, allowing them to charge a penalty on each debit, and only then adding in the deposit -- which put him in the red, causing about two dozen more penalties (sometimes up to seven in a single day) by the time he got his next statement.

And this quickly followed up by another story later the same day

(www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/04/jpmorgan-settlement-bank-_n_345889.html)

about how Chase has agreed to pay the SEC more than seven hundred million dollars as a fine for bribing government officials in Alabama to let them be in charge of issuing what turned out to be some bad bonds. My favorite line in the story? That J. P. Morgan "agreed to refrain from future violations of the securities laws".

So, they not only broke the law, and got caught, and had to pay a fine, but they promise never, ever to get caught doing that again.

--JDR

Well, This is Different (Plot Diagraming)

So, thanks to Bruce Cordell (http://brucecordell.blogspot.com/) for sending me the link to this odd but appealing little graphic.

http://xkcd.com/657/large/

I not familiar with the website this is from, but somebody's clearly put a lot of work into it. Now, if they'd only do one for the book as well . . . --though I suppose it wdn't be too hard to adapt this one (fixing such deviations as elves at Helm's Deep, the deaths of Saruman and Wormtongue at Isengard, and Elrond's odd journey south). I had thought they'd made one minor error by having Merry accompany Aragorn et al to The Black Gate, which was certainly not the case in the book, but checking the dvds I find this is just my mistaken memory and that these folks got the movie version right.

I wonder how they'd go about representing MEMENTO?

--JDR

2009 Lovecraft Play

So, Thursday Janice reminded we that we hadn't gotten any Halloween candy for trick-or-treaters yet -- an oversight I remedied on Friday. Come Saturday, we were ready.

Total number of trick-or-treaters who came by?

Zero.

Boy, do we have a lot of candy for gamers come next Cthulhu night, to get them all good and sugared up before the sanity loss begins.

And, speaking of Cthulhu, this afternoon we went and saw this year's Lovecraft play down at Open Circle Theatre, just north of Pike Place Market in 'Belltown'. Unlike last year's play, which was a Cthulhuesque new story they'd come up with on their own, this year they reverted to tradition and adapted one of Lovecraft's stories -- specifically THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, one of his better tales. There was a small turnout -- I counted seventeen people, including ourselves -- and we enjoyed watching it with Anne & Sigfried, who met us there (a few other friends who'd also thought of joining us not having been able to make it for one reason or another).

How did they do? Well, certainly better than Vincent Price in the 1963 movie (not that that's hard). As befits a little theatre, they've pared the cast to the bone, with only three characters: the doomed young man himself, his cousin Jen (who takes over the roles given Charles' father and mother in the original story), and Dr. Willet the narrator; in addition, two voice-actors (played by the two scriptwriters) represent the off-stage psychiatrists evaluating Willet's story and Ward's case. Jen is mainly there so Charles and, later, Willet have someone to talk to, enabling a lot of narration to be turned into dialogue (rather like a Dr. Who companion). All three actors did a good job; young Charles in his looks and mannerisms reminded me a good deal of Peter Davidson's Doctor, which made his later decline into madness all the more effective. The OCT folks have also done everything they could, in their tiny available space, to reduce the number of locations -- v. successfully, I thought. I was particularly curious to see how they wd handle the discovery of the vast caverns, with their multiple chambers and sinister pits (so essential to the plot): a challenge wh. I'm happy to say they pulled off v. well.

If I had a complaint, it'd be that the play's structure v. closely resembled the adaptation of THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE they did a few years ago, probably the highlight of all their Lovecraft plays that I've seen. It worked better then, particularly because of how well their main character/narrator made the switch back and forth between interacting with the doomed farmer and expressing his apprehensions to the audience. Still, if you hadn't seen the earlier play three years ago that wdn't be a problem.

On the whole: good, if you like this sort of thing. And, fortunately, I do.

--John R.

A Cookie from Jesus

So, while I was in Little Rock, I saw a story in the ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE at my uncle's house that was too good to miss, so I picked up a copy of the paper for myself on my way out of town. It got put aside in the hustle and bustle of the trip itself and didn't surface again until I remembered it yesterday and pulled it out of the 'Arkansas' file. The online link to the story (http://www.arkansasonline.com/staff/frank-lockwood/) unfortunately seems to only give the opening paragraph, so I'll summarize the whole.[*]

In the piece, a guest televangelist tells the congregation "The Lord woke me up in the middle of the night. There stood Jesus with a huge tray and the tray was heaped with cookies, and he said 'Kenneth, have a cookie'." To which the televangelist replied "I believe I will".[**]

From this, he extrapolates: if you just have enough faith, God will give you "the desires of your heart: vigorous health, limitless wealth, unending happiness and eternal life -- plus new airplanes and fresh-baked goods." Also, "Christians shd be exempt from the economic downturn". Why? because Jesus "bore the curse of of poverty" so the rest of us wdn't have to. As he sees it, we are "joint heirs with the wealthiest man that exists".

After a bit about just how grossly wealthy his 'ministry' has made him (twenty-million dollar private jet, eighteen thousand square foot 'parsonage', luxury cars, a church with its own natural gas wells, personal gifts of over two million dollars for his seventieth birthday), the article returns to his insistent calls for everybody to give as much money as they can to the church. Apparently the church he was visiting that day has its own 'Donor's Creed', which they chant each Sunday:

The tithe guarantees financial favor.

The tithe guarantees your covenant partnership with God.

The tithe is proof of honor.

The tithe is proof of obedience.

The tithe silences the devourer in your life.

The tithe guarantees consistent harvest on your seed.

The tithe opens the windows of heaven."

That's bad enough, but to make it worse, their resident pastor "urged everyone -- including those facing poverty and hunger -- to dig deep, promising God would supernaturally reward them". And, at the very end of the service, they took up an extra collection, just for the multi-millionaire televangelist.

This strikes me as the so-called 'Prosperity Gospel' -- itself pretty dodgy theologically -- gone mad. Haven't they forgotten the whole 'lay not up treasures for yourself in this world' bit? Not to mention the odd notion that you can force God into financially beneficial contracts.

Somedays my inner Calvinist comes out, and I just have to say: GAH!

--JDR

*[which appears on pages 1B & 2B of the print edition for Mondy October 12th 2009]

**[Janice's question, when I showed her this story, was 'what kind of cookie?' very practical, those Methodists.]

Mid-Autumn

So, the impending return of Non-Daylight Non-Savings Time (i.e., real time) this weekend has reminded me of an unresolved point from several months back. In my discussions of the time frame of THE HOBBIT I had suggested that the shift of Durin's Day from the first moon of autumn to the last moon of autumn had the unforseen consequence of cramming all the events of the final chapter into a three- or four-week period. (e.g. RETURN TO BAG-END p. 481)

Given the strong emphasis on an astronomical event (Durin's Day), I assumed an astronomical, rather than a folk, usage of "autumn". This was challenged by Andreas Moehn 's review on TolkLang, which I only became aware of some two years after it was posted (see my post of August 24th), and in person by Christina Scull, both of whom disputed my literal reading of "midsummer".

Moehn wrote, regarding my comments on the dating of Durin's Day,

"Rateliff . . . blurs the issue by reading English manuscripts through American glasses . . . he critisizes [sic] Tolkien for calling the solar solstice "Midsummer's Eve" though in fact it was the beginning of summer - but actually, the only problem here is Rateliff's profoundly American ignorance"

For the record, I'm mystified as to why Moehn thought I was criticizing Tolkien when I cited the OED's definition of Midsummer and Midwinter. That was certainly never my intent. In any case, I responded

The point about the disjunction between astronomical autumn (Sept 21st to Dec 21st) and colloquial British usage (August, September, October), which Christina Scull had earlier suggested to me, is more complex and needs to be written up as a separate post.

So, this is my attempt to write up that separate post. There are three relevant pieces of information I know about:

First, here's the OED definition of 'Midsummer' I was working from: "The middle of summer; the period of the summer solstice, about June 21st". This is the word's primary definition, and the OED cites authorities for this usage going all the way back to about 900 AD. It further cites such derivatives as Midsummer Day: "the 24th of June, one of the recognized 'quarter days' in England" and Midsummer Eve/Even: "the evening before Midsummer Day" [OED Compact Edition, Vol I page 1792]

Second, there's the OED definition of 'Autumn'; here's where things begin to get interesting: "The third season of the year, or that between summer and winter, reckoned astronomically from the descending equinox to the winter solstice; i.e. in the northern hemisphere, from September 21 to December 21. Popularly, it comprises, in Great Britain, August, September, and October (J)*; in North America, September, October, and November (Webster); in France, 'from the end of August to the first fortnight of November' (Littre) . . . The astronomical reckoning retains the Roman computation; the antiquity of the popular English usage is seen in the name Midsummer Day, given to the first day of the Astronomical Summer, and in the OE midsumormona[th]** 'June', midwinter 'winter-solstice, Christmas'. [OED Compact Edition Vol I page 144]

*by 'J' here, they mean Samuel Johnson's dictionary. 'Webster' is of course Noah Webster, and 'Littre' turns out to be Emile Littre's DICTIONNARIE DE LA LANGUE FRANCAISE [1863-1877]. I don't think Tolkien is likely to have adopted a French calendar, and in any case am rather surprised to find a French work using a term such as 'fortnight'. I have since done an informal poll among my English friends and so far have not found any who consider August to be part of autumn; whether this represents a shift from Dr. Johnson's time or not, the informal definition of autumn in both England and America now seems to be Sept-Oct-Nov, with August being considered part of summer and December winter.

**this [th] shd really be an edh, but I don't have that OE character on my qwerty keyboard.

In any case, as it turns out we have good evidence from Tolkien himself of his using 'autumn' in a looser sense. Consider the following passage from early on in THE LORD OF THE RINGS:

"in the fine weather [Frodo] forgot his troubles for a while.

The Shire had seldom seen so fair a summer, or so rich an autumn:

the trees were laden with apples, honey was dripping in the combs,

and the corn was tall and full.

"Autumn was well under way before Frodo began to worry

about Gandalf again. September was passing and there was still

no news of him. The Birthday [Sept 22nd], and the removal,

drew nearer, and still he did not come, or send word . . .

"On September 20th two covered carts went off laden

to Buckland . . . The next day Frodo became really anxious . . .

Still Gandalf did not appear."

[LotR Bk I Ch. III: "Three is Company"]

--thus, by this reckoning, autumn is already "well under way" by Sept 21st, the time of the equinox, when celestial autumn begins. This suggests that here at least Tolkien is considering 'autumn' to have begun around the beginning of September, comprising roughly the months of September/October/November rather than the celestial autumn running late September/October/November/most of December.

So, where does that leave us? We know from Chapter XI of THE HOBBIT that Durin's Day that year happened to occur one week before the beginning of winter. Abandoning astronomical fall/winter makes it possible that Tolkien could intended Durin's Day to fall as early as a week before the end of October (if we go with Johnson's definition, which I rather doubt) or a week before the end of November (if we go with the informal American/modern British usage). The latter still leaves the end-story rather crowded, with Durin's Day+the destruction of Lake Town+the mustering of Bard's and the Elvenking's armies+Thorin & Company's building the defensive wall+Dain's march+the goblin-army's muster and march+the Battle of Five Armies+its aftermath+Bilbo & Gandalf's journey back all the way to the far side of Mirkwood all occurring in a four-or-five week period. Better than the two-weeks astronomical autumn/winter would have left us with, but still . . . I find it somewhat hard to swallow that Tolkien would switch between the informal and astronomical usages of the word in the same chapter, particularly when the astronomical event of Durin's Day is so crucial to the plot.

So, I'm willing to be persuaded, and would be particularly interested in hearing from anyone familiar with the August/September/October definition of "autumn".

--JDR