Ammunition > Heroics

So today in band we "sight read" a piece of music called A Festival Prelude by Alfred Reed.
I put that in quotes because I played it already in Iowa. It was in ninth grade? Maybe tenth.
Anyway, it's a pretty good piece. I like it.
There was a goofy early dismissal schedule so the periods were ludicrously short (something like thirty minutes).

Remember how before there were a bunch of things I promised posts about? I never really got to them, and they were sort of thrown aside after the transformation of sorts that occurred. I don't know if you've noticed it; it's been somewhat gradual, but it definitely started here: Haud Voluntas Quodcumque.
I'm still not to the point where I'm posting more or less every day. But I'm getting there, at least.

Anyway, I figure I may as well briefly address all of the things I was going to talk about before. I may go into some of them in more detail at some point in the future. But I have very little interest anymore in doing it that to most of them... You've probably forgotten them by now; I believe the last time I mentioned them was way back in September!
But at any rate, here they are:


Clive Staples Lewis:
Interesting, I was just talking about this.
I like him. He was smart. He had some good things to say... BUT.
He's an Anglican. I'm not. So I don't agree with all of what he had to say. It seems to me that a lot of people who call themselves Christians accept everything he ever said without question. This is a bad idea, even if you're an Anglican, too. He's not one of the apostles. He's not a prophet. He's a man. Like the works of any man (or woman), it must be read and listened to objectively, without the assumption that you're going to agree with all of it. If you go into something assuming you're going to agree with it, it's much more likely that you will, indeed, agree with it. So you have to think.
Just some practical advice there. Not that any of you needed it; you're a smart bunch. I mean, you're here, after all. xD
Moving on to Lewis's fictional work, specifically The Chronicles of Narnia. I like them and think they're pretty good... But looking back on it, it doesn't have as much educational value as I had initially thought. Any lessons it has are pretty vague and shallow, especially when you realize that the books are not, as everyone assumes, allegory. But then, the books are written for children, who are more likely to benefit from such lessons.
As far as the actual story goes... I think it's quite brilliant, but there are a couple points that have pretty much bothered me from the start. Chief among these are what happens to Susan in the end. I think I understand what he was trying to do there, but ultimately it didn't work out, and it just feels really weird. It's not expected, and in the worst way; certainly there are times when unexpected things help a story a lot, but this wasn't one of them. Could he have done a similar thing in a better way? Possibly. But it would have been very difficult (still not impossible, though) to pull that off without some sort of redemption/resolution near the end.
The main problem is how it ends vaguely, and what actually happens to her is pretty much up to the reader to decide. That worked for A Series of Unfortunate Events, but it didn't work for this.

Joanne Rowling:
What was I going to say about her? I don't have a lot to say, I admit.
I think she's a genius. But she's a batty genius. Completely bonkers.
Granted, Roald Dahl pretty much was, too. But he was a kind of crazy I could sort of relate too. And he basically just vented into his work. He seems to have been somewhat normal as a person. He had kind of a weird life, though, judging from his autobiographies.
Rowling, on the other hand... She says things that make sense about the major themes of her books, but then she says other things that I don't pick up at all from reading them. I guess all that really means is that she did sort of a bad job bringing them out. Or maybe she's just completely crazy; that's always a possibility, too. I don't care much either way; I still love her books.

Vigilantism:
I had an interesting conversation about this, but it was ages ago now. The basic question behind it was whether or not vigilantism is right, a good idea, etc. Ultimately I decided it's jut really tough to tell. How can you know when a government is becoming too tyrannical? There's a time to revolt and a way in which it should be done, but both those things are extremely difficult to determine. Similar concepts apply to vigilantism. Certainly there comes to a point where the government is a hindrance to justice instead of the help it is supposed to be. This happens today, in the United States, with much frequency. But how can you know how far too far is? There gets to a point where you have to break the law in order to ensure justice, and the laws are in place for people's safety or to better serve the cause of justice. So at a point it's just disrespectful. So basically I'm just saying it's problematic. Hard to tell.

Other places:
I've never been outside the country and there are several places I'd really like to visit some day. I hope to get to at least one or two of them within my lifetime; we'll see.
The biggest ones, I think, are the United Kingdom, Australia, Panama, and Japan.
I'm not exactly sure why, but mostly because I think they're interesting culturally, historically, and/or geographically.
The first two are the most realistic because they're primarily English-speaking, obviously, but from what I've heard there are many people in Panama and Japan who speak English as well.
I want to travel more because I often feel sort of isolated knowing primarily just about the United States, when there are many other very different cultures outside the US. A lot of times it seems like people here have sort of skewed vision, and see themselves on top and all the other places in the world just "other places". I wonder if it's like that in other countries as well... It's kind of sad how barriers like that are there, but I doubt they'll ever go away.


Now, there's are still two more things I want to get back to:
1. Posting the entirety of the emails that went back and forth with that whole bank scam a while ago.
2. Finishing the story about the cactus.
Do you remember it? You probably do now, unless you weren't around back then. But I bet you had forgotten up until I mentioned it just now...
I still want to finish it. I have other stories to finish, too, though....

I don't know when this stuff will happen, but hopefully it will be relatively soon.


:::Source expected
:::20.02.09
:::STOP