Books Read in March

• Me: The Martian Race, by Gregory Benford. Very cool, even the second time around.
  
  Am currently reading French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure, by Mireille Guiliano. Interesting so far.
  
  Picked up Brokeback Mountain (the short story) by Annie Proulx. It was... pretty good. Actually, really good. Weird, though. Normally when you read a book that has a movie associated with it, it's either the original novel that got chopped and mutilated to make the movie, or a novelisation that fills in bits and pieces that weren't shown in the movie. So you get the visuals, sounds, and all that sensory stuff from the movie, and the emotional depth from the book.
  
  Not this time; the book itself is only 90 pages long, so all of it went into the movie. Then the movie added in... um, about 90 minutes more to the story, filling in blanks here there and everywhere. The story itself is written in a very spare fashion, leaving a lot to the imagination of the reader. Which would've been great, I think, had I read the story first, but having seen the movie... there was nowhere for my imagination to go. Eg, beautiful three-sentence description of Jack Twist's childhood home, that leaves the reader with an impression of bleakness and poverty of the soul? Um, yeah. Got the visuals, thanks, and it's all white clapboard. Terse description of two young ranch hands, poor boys with nowhere to go, leaving the reader to imagine frayed jean jackets, squinting eyes and stilted words? That would be Heath Ledger and Jake Gglyllennhllall(sp?), a-yup.
  
  The one thing I was really curious about? You know, the whole How exactly do they jump from rough camaraderie and three-word sentences to stemmin' the rose faster'n a buckin' bronco throws off a drunken rodeo clown? Nada. It's also left to the imagination. Damn.
  
  Sure wish I'd a read the story first, is all I'm sayin'.
  
  Ahem. Will dispose with the faux-cowhand lingo now.
  
  Read the Gospel According to Matthew and Mark (King James), and am partway through Luke. It's for this week's home schooling. We were going to do Australia, since Daniel just finished a huge all-continents geography workbook and we're now wrapping up by devoting one week to each continent, but then I realized it's almost Easter. Whoops. Sorry, Australia & Oceania. We'll pick you up next week, I swear, but this week, we're touring Bible-land :)
  
  Also read Six Million Paperclips: The Making Of A Children's Holocaust Memorial, by Dagmar and Peter Schroeder, about a middle school in Whitwell, Tennessee, where students learning about the Holocaust decided to try to understand the meaning of "six million Jews murdered" by gathering six million paperclips. They eventually ended up creating a Children's Holocaust Memorial (housed in a Nazi cattle car), made connections with people in Germany and all over the world, and gained a better understanding of history and humanity.
  
  Excerpt: The railcar was off-loaded first and put on a flatbed car from the American rail company CSX, which had offered its services to Whitwell, free of chrage. Two days later, the flatbed car was attached to a big diesel locomotive and began the final leg of its journey. The date was September 11, 2001.
  
  As the memorial, a symbol of tolerance, rolled slowly through the countride, terrorists struck the United States. They slammed passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Another hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives.
  
  The students of Whitwell Middle School mourned with the rest of the world. For three years, they had worked to fight hate and intolerance. They watched the tragedy on TV with tears in their eyes. Nobody could talk. Finally, one girl spoke up.
  
  "If I had not known why we are building a memorial," she said, "I would know it now."
  
  Here's an article about the project, published by Jewish News of Greater Phoenix.
  
  
• Daniel: I don't think read anything but Bionicle and D&D books this month... Oh, actually, no, I'm lying, yes he did. He read (for Europe week) a National Geographic article on Paris parks (October 2006), and taught everything he learned about it to Justin.
  
  
• Chris and the boys: Still reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I think Harry has just found out Sirius killed his parents.
  
  
• Justin: Read four more SpongeBob phonics books. And tried to read The Cat in the Hat: Do Not Open This Crate! book by himself, and got most of the way through the first chapter. Asked me to read the rest, but I was proud of him for making the effort - and even prouder of the fact that he decided to do so on his own initiative :)

So, we're doomed, is what he's saying.

( Prime Minister Harper says Canada will be as green as Canadians want it to be )

And also:
( Canada government: climate bill is Liberal hot air )

Direct link to article #1
Direct link to article #1


This whole issue pisses me off. I hate agreeing with the Conservatives over anything, and I think they're showing they don't really want to make any real changes/sacrifices over the environment, but gah, the self-righteous Liberal posturing over this? Is nauseating. They had more than ten years to do something, anything, to get us to live up to our Kyoto obligations. That the Conservatives don't put the environment at the top of their commitments is just part of what they are, and you have to respect them for that. Besides, we knew that when we elected them. The Liberals? Have no excuse. IMHO.

Ah well.

Fathers and sons

From a_dawn: father surprises son at school. Whether you're pro- or anti-war doesn't matter, IMHO. The story's still incredibly moving, and reminds you of just what's at stake when people are sent to fight any war, justified or not.