Lift Up Your Hearts!

It Happened in Italy:  Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust, by Elizabeth Bettina (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2009)

Imagine:  You are suddenly torn away from your home and possessions and are removed with others of your kind to a place where you must check in daily with the police and obey a strict curfew.  You can't leave, practice your profession, carry anything that might be used as a weapon, visit a bar, or attend any meeting or any form of entertainment.  You are imprisoned there for years, and yet for the rest of your life you will be passionately grateful to your captors and will remember your incarceration as pleasant.  You are a Jew during World War II, sent to a concentration camp—in Italy.

Elizabeth Bettina, a third-generation Italian Catholic from New York City couldn't get over the picture:  Taken in the 1940's of a gathering on the steps of the church where her grandparents were married, in the tiny, Catholic town of Campagna, the snapshot clearly included a priest, a police officer, and a rabbi. A rabbi?  Bettina's research into the unmentioned history of her grandmother's hometown reveals a surprising tale of ordinary goodness in a time of extraordinary evil.  (More)

Blame me, my parents, or my schools as you see fit, but after half a century as an American citizen, 13 years of public education, and a college degree, I couldn't name all of the presidents of the United States, much less in order.  The mystery is why no one ever tried to teach me, given how easily I learned them when I put my mind to it, and how handy it has been (and would have been in history class!) to have even a rough idea of who fits in where.

Actually, I did not even have to put my mind to the problem, only my ears.  I bought a copy of Sue Dickson's "Song of the U.S. Presidents," and after a few hearings it stuck.  It's not a great song, but as with many not-so-great songs, that seems to make it stick all the better.  (The link takes you to an updated version that I haven't tried yet (mine ends with Clinton), but the sample suggests it is basically the same.)  Of all the U.S. President songs, that one is my favorite, because it is short, simple, and easy to rattle off mentally when needed—such as when I'm playing the "put the pictures of the presidents in chronological order" game with my nephews.  However, it teaches only the order (no numbers) and gives last names but not first, so you have to know which Adams is which, and which Harrison, and that both Clevelands are the same person. (More)

The Occasional CEO is one of my favorite non-family blogs, not only because Eric Schultz is a good writer, but also because he is a good compiler:  He's great at weaving into a coherent essay the common threads from varied sources I'd never find on my own.  His most recent post, with the unassuming title of Odds and Ends, led me to Paul Campos's excellent Wall Street Journal article, "Undressing the Terror Threat."

Both essays are well worth reading in their entirety.  The first quote box below is from Mr. Schultz; the rest are Mr. Campos's words.

[W]e are buried by data, and are constantly searching for ways to separate signal from noise....Someone wants to take flying lessons: that’s noise.  Someone wants to take flying lessons but doesn’t want to know how to land the plane: that’s signal.  Similarly, someone gets on an international flight, pays cash, and checks no bags—that might be signal.  Someone sews explosive into his underwear: Signal.  Panic.

The question is, how much do we pay to find out?  What’s the real risk of dying at the hands of a terrorist in America?  And if 1,900 Americans [under age 65] die today from a variety of preventable causes, how much are we willing to invest to save those lives?

 (More)

Jennifer at Conversion Diary is turning 33, and asked her readers what they would say to their 33-year-old selves if they could.  That's the kind of challenge I can't resist, and neither can I resist recycling what I wrote as a blog post.  It's pretty much just off the top of my head, and in no particular order, but here are a few of the things I wish I could have told myself.

• Have more kids.  There were some good reasons why we didn't, but a very bad reason was buying into the "you can't afford it and neither can the world" mentality.  If you haven't lived through it, I don't think you can fathom how much pressure there was in those days to have no more than two children.
• Expect much more from your children than society does, on every level.  From the day they are born, your children can learn more, do more, and behave better than you will be told is possible.  Don't limit them with your low expectations.
• Homeschool.  Homeschool.  Homeschool.  From the beginning, and never look back.  This is one of the best decisions we ever made, and I wish we had never subjected our children to the "school mindset."  But when I was 33, school was "the way things are done," and I never questioned it till years later.
• "Bloom where you are planted."  Make the most of your present situation, because you never know when it will change. 
• Keep a journal, take pictures (and label them!), make recordings.  Concentrate on people and places dear to you—there are plenty of professionals documenting the rest of the scenery.
• When you videotape your children's performances, be sure to include their friends as well.  You may not care, but your children will!
• Talk with older family members about their childhoods and their life stories, and get everything you can from them about your ancestors and family history.  Make sure their pictures are labelled!
• Take care of yourself.  When you have young children at home, it's very easy (and seems virtuous) to shortchange yourself when it comes to sleep, exercise, education, and the care of your soul.  Make yourself make time for these things.   Enlist the aid of your spouse—I don't mean to tell you what to do, but to make sure you get the time to do it.  Your children will thank you later.
• If you are too busy to get organized, you are too busy not to get organized.  Make the time (and again, get your spouse to help).  There is no moment better than now; that mythical time "when I have time" will never come.  Never give up; experiment with different systems till you find one that works for you.  Be prepared to alter it as needed, however, when your circumstances alter.

I'm not that good at taking advice, so I'm not sure I would have listened.  But I wish I had.

If you haven't received a call from us lately, it's not only because I don't like to use the telephone.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, our previously excellent phone service started giving us trouble.  Callers could hear us fine, but what we heard from them was distorted.  Back in the good ol' days of monopoly telephone service (black, rented phones and impossibly expensive long distance), if something went wrong, you knew who to blame, and they knew it, too.  Now I can call Switzerland for three cents a minute, but problems invite an endless circle of finger-pointing.  Especially when the problems are intermittent.  Before—possible points of failure = 1:  the telephone company.  After—possible points of failure = many:  the cable Internet provider, the VoIP provider, the VoiP phone, the modem, the router, or some combination.  (More)

Apparently Florida has been having its longest streak of cold weather ever, worse than that in the mid-1980s, which (along with predatory developers) killed off the Central Florida citrus industry.  I was unaware of the records being set, as we returned after the cold spell was well underway, having spent nearly a month in the Northeast, where we experienced single-digit temperatures, played hockey on a local pond, and shovelled 2.5 feet of snow.

The neighbor who picked me up at the bus stop had kindly warned me that it was cold, but with a long-sleeved turtleneck shirt, my warm Westtown sweatshirt, and a heavy coat (with hat, gloves, and scarf if necessary), I figured I was prepared for anything Florida had to offer.  And I was.  (More)

One who makes a practice of passing written judgement on books would do well to reveal at least some of the background and prejudices that go into those judgements, so I will make a brief attempt at so doing.  Whether or not I like a book is determined by many factors, not all of which I know myself.

I'm a writer—if you can say that of one whose paid, professional writing experiences ended several decades ago—so I like well-written books.  I like good grammar, correct spelling, and well-organized paragraphs.  I like coherent ideas presented logically and accurately.

I'm reasonably intelligent and well-educated, so I do not like being talked down to.  I don't like books that assume I have the vocabulary and attention span of an average fourth grader.  I especially don't like folksy books that sound like conversation.  That's great for blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, but if an idea is worth putting ink to paper, it's worth a more serious, careful treatment.  (More)

  A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1965)

I picked this book up to re-read it because I needed an antidote to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  You can tell this particular copy has been in my library for a long time by the printing date above.  The price on the book is 50 cents. The book itself was written in 1904, and can be found online.

Burnett's characters are as one-dimensional as most of Haddon's, and her heroine is a little too good to be completely believable.  But "a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" and the question of how much of our good behavior is merely a response to pleasant circumstances is by no means a shallow one.  A friend of ours has a daughter who is very much enthralled by the Disney Princesses, an infatuation her mother wisely turns to a learning opportunity, reminding her as often as necessary that princess is as princess does.  This is the theme that runs through A Little Princess, as Sara, sneeringly dubbed "princess" for her wealth and spoiled childhood, has her character tried through hardship.  If the ending of The Curious Incident was unsatisfactory, that of A Little Princess is definitely contrived and coincidental—but at least it's fun.  The book also wins points by making me wish to be a better person, an idea I'll return to in a subsequent post.

New Year's resolutions are, I guess, a secular version of Lent, though without Easter to look forward to.  I've never given much attention to this observance, but I like Lent, and I like new beginnings, so coming up with a few resolutions might be fun.

To those who know what a bookworm I am, resolving to read more books in 2010 will appear about as useful and as difficult as resolving to eat more chocolate or drink more tea.  However, despite being an unemployed "empty nester," I've discovered to my shock that I'm now reading fewer books than ever before.  I listen to audio books in the car as I run errands; I read blogs, articles, and news stories online;  I skim magazines.  I read books in five-minute gulps as I can throughout the day—on visits to the "reading room," while eating, while falling asleep at night.  But I hardly ever read, i.e. concentrate on a single book for an extended period of time, which is the only way to absorb a book of any substance.  I write much more than I used to, and I spend a whole lot of time researching, but to my shock it will apparently take a deliberate determination to once again be able to call myself a reader.

Adopting the management maxim, "What gets measured gets done," and stealing my sister-in-law's idea, I'm creating a page on which to document the books I read this year—see "Books Read" under Links/Personal, in the panel to the right.  If I also write about them, I'll include a link to the review as well.  And maybe a rating, if I'm feeling ambitious.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Jonathan Cape, 2003)

As with Born to Run,  I picked up this book because it was lying around and the title caught my eye.  I don't recommend it, but that doesn't mean I found it easy to put down.  I had intended to take the book on the airplane with me, but finished before my boarding pass was printed.  The story is initially compelling and the premise unique:  a murder mystery through the eyes of a teen with Asperger Syndrome.  Whether the portrayal of the way someone with Asperger Syndrome might think or act is realistic or not, I can't say.  But it's an interesting viewpoint, and I loved the math problem at the end (though it was somewhat poorly worded) and the fact that the chapter numbers are all prime.  (More)

 Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall (Knopf, New York, 2009)

A book about running?  Not my thing.  On my daily walks (where by "daily" I mean five days a week and only when I'm not on the road) I've managed to work my way up to doing a quarter of my four miles at what could charitably be called a slow jog, but there my interest ended.  However, my nephew received Born to Run for Christmas, and I was curious enough to flip quickly through it.

Born to Run is a fascinating and groundbreaking book.  Actually, it's at least three books, interwoven, and it's no coincidence that when I perused it I couldn't decide if it was meant to be nonfiction or a novel. (More)