No podcasts on Friday because I need a better pair of headphones. I can hear cars extemely well because I only listen to interviews, and not music, so I don't feel there's any danger in that.
The weather has been exceptional and today was an ideal day for biking: Blue sky, slight breeze and cool. I normally take the coastal route through Stanley Park on Fridays, but didn't bother today. I always intend to leave a bit early on Friday, but as usual I wound up cycling out around 6pm and met my friend Cliff, who wanted to set my crab trap off the coast. We didn't get out until dark and had a great time on the water, but his motor had trouble due to a blocked fuel line so I rowed part of the way.
I picked up the trap a few hours ago (it's Saturday now) and had 3 large Dungeness crabs, and a couple of large starfish that were munching on the bait and keeping other crabs from being caught. I put in new bait and we'll retrieve it tomorrow. Wow, the Pacific northwest sure has its attractions.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Invented languages
A fascinating show on invented languages. J.R.R. Tolkien probably has the most widely known and inventive group of languages, which he created for his Middle Earth books like the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. He was an interesting fellow, and if I recall correctly he was a professor of English at Oxford and became known for his work on Beowulf and Gawain And The Green Knight, written respectively in Old and Middle English. He was British, but was born and raised in South Africa, so I imagine his environment of multiple languages drove his career choice and influenced his writing. Another famous invented language of course is Klingon from Star Trek. The show gave me one piece of info I had never known: James "Scotty" Doohan (also a Canadian from Vancouver) was first asked to create the Klingon language for an early Star Trek movie. He did this, and its success contributed to its continued development for the movies and ultimately as a credit course in Californian universities.
I love language and languages and if I were again considering career choices as a young man, could have easily gone into linguistics. My Chinese is okay, and I continue to find it useful. For some reason I run into Chinese speakers; for example while standing on our remote cul de sac here, have been asked twice by Mandarin speaking tourists for directions. Luckily I know "waterfall" in Chinese because they're often looking for the well known hiking trail to the local waterfall, and would love to hear the conversation in the car after the driver stumbled onto the one Chinese-speaking Caucasian in the area. My Thai became passable after four years in Bangkok, and I worked on Italian and German for a few months prior to visits. And of course, growing up in Canada I took French from Grade 4, all the way through university.
I love language and languages and if I were again considering career choices as a young man, could have easily gone into linguistics. My Chinese is okay, and I continue to find it useful. For some reason I run into Chinese speakers; for example while standing on our remote cul de sac here, have been asked twice by Mandarin speaking tourists for directions. Luckily I know "waterfall" in Chinese because they're often looking for the well known hiking trail to the local waterfall, and would love to hear the conversation in the car after the driver stumbled onto the one Chinese-speaking Caucasian in the area. My Thai became passable after four years in Bangkok, and I worked on Italian and German for a few months prior to visits. And of course, growing up in Canada I took French from Grade 4, all the way through university.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Back to the podcasts
Woke to pouring rain, and found wind into my face at 13 km/hour on the bike ride to work. So, our nice summer is finishing and I missed most of it! My grass is half dead so I'm glad for the watering.
My memory is still not 100% and I'm just now grasping for what I listened to. It's not just a memory lapse, it's mainly because my usual headphones are in one of the kids' rooms and I only heard portions of the NPR show. On...the planned New York "mosque" near the World Trade Center site. I'm torn on that one because I don't think the local Muslims are in any way using this to commemorate 9/11 and in purely rational terms it shouldn't be an issue. I think they simply want a local place to worship, and of all places in the world, New York City is likely the most multiculutral and accomodating environment one could find. However, 9/11 is still too recent to be thought of in purely rational terms, and I completely understand the pushback.
The "mosque" is not a conventional mosque and is evidently a dedicated worship room in a local building. No minarets and no wailing mullahs etc. I have to side with the Muslim community because they are keeping their faith low key and I guess purposely hidden from public view. I also think the opposition is from a small group of vocal individuals with an extremely negative message and point of view that I can't believe reflects the average person. However, the average person can't even voice a moderate opinion now because they rightly fear of being targeted in the same way the Muslims are.
Since it's now such a high profile and sensitive topic I would ask the Muslims to simply move farther away, and avoid the unavoidable fall out. It's a no-win for all involved because it's also un-American and is counter to what the vocal extremists are fighting for and represent.
My memory is still not 100% and I'm just now grasping for what I listened to. It's not just a memory lapse, it's mainly because my usual headphones are in one of the kids' rooms and I only heard portions of the NPR show. On...the planned New York "mosque" near the World Trade Center site. I'm torn on that one because I don't think the local Muslims are in any way using this to commemorate 9/11 and in purely rational terms it shouldn't be an issue. I think they simply want a local place to worship, and of all places in the world, New York City is likely the most multiculutral and accomodating environment one could find. However, 9/11 is still too recent to be thought of in purely rational terms, and I completely understand the pushback.
The "mosque" is not a conventional mosque and is evidently a dedicated worship room in a local building. No minarets and no wailing mullahs etc. I have to side with the Muslim community because they are keeping their faith low key and I guess purposely hidden from public view. I also think the opposition is from a small group of vocal individuals with an extremely negative message and point of view that I can't believe reflects the average person. However, the average person can't even voice a moderate opinion now because they rightly fear of being targeted in the same way the Muslims are.
Since it's now such a high profile and sensitive topic I would ask the Muslims to simply move farther away, and avoid the unavoidable fall out. It's a no-win for all involved because it's also un-American and is counter to what the vocal extremists are fighting for and represent.
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