Mom

(in "literature" for the 1st time :-). highly recommended and praised by his teacher. the little one also said that he was experimenting to write with no rhymes. his auntie was inspired to translate it. beautifully. and i am just, just happy).

Her smile makes the sun light up,
The lamp shines in her glowing eyes.
Her hair's a flowing waterful,
The picture on her sewing
slowly comes together.

She concentrates on her cloth,
and rainbow of colorful string.
Over, under, over, under
I hear the string running
throughout the cloth

I watch
as she sews a world
silent as a library
patient like a snail.

--------


小姨的翻译:



她的微笑点燃阳光

灯火在她眼中闪耀

发丝如瀑般倾泻

织绘的图画

渐渐明了



她沉浸在织绘中

还有那溪流折射的彩虹

一针,一线

上上,下下

我听到的声音

是溪水在其间奔流



我注视着

在她织绘着整个世界的时候

沉静地

象一个图书馆

耐心地

象一只蜗牛

the incurable pain

what is a life without sorrow -
an existence of no shadow?

Detour (a fictional story)

"Send!" I tapped on the key and there went the last email for the day. I glanced at the clock on the screen. 7:30 PM. Tired but satisfied, I walked out of my office.

It was quiet as usual at this hour. But something was disturbing the deserted air tonight. I followed the sound. A low sob became sharper. Then I saw her. Through the half-shut door. I hesitated. Then walked over, "Nancy, you okay?"

She turned around. Fresh tears washed down her face, "Oh, I'm fine. Fine. Really. Just... just a little allergy." She turned away. Buried her face in her hands, now crying relentlessly. Her cuddling body shaking. In her elegant blue suit.

Must be him. My heart sank... "It's quite late now. You should go home to rest."

"How can I go home? Like this?!" She cried harder. Desperately.

That's true. "Want to go have a drink?" I felt obliged.
--------

One

"Welcome!" Nancy poked her head at my cubicle. With a warm smile. "I am so happy you joined us. Highly recommended for your hiring. Now, I have a chinese countryman for a neighbor!" She switched to Chinese for the last declaration.

"Oh, thanks!" I was instantly at ease.

"Still can't believe you're head of Finance," I recalled my interview with her. "You looked so young. You are."

"Really?!" she laughed, pleased but dismissing the comment with a gesture. I noticed she wore a pink Kitty Cat watch. With a matching pink Kitty Cat purse. "Not that young anymore, really. My husband has been talking about baby for years."

"By the way, Dan also started today. Transferred from the Europe office. Jim was excited. He told us you two will make a great team. To turn the business around. You know, things aren't going well here. By the way," she lowered her voice with a grin, "he is so tall and handsome!" "Come on. I will introduce you to everyone around." Immediately, Nancy became my best friend.

But things certainly weren't going well here; and Dan and I were far from "a great team". Sales had been falling for three consecutive years. Moe, the sales director, was sent one leg out of the door. Dan and I reported to the vacant marketing director, who reported to Jim, when he was last seen.


Two

"Cheers!" Moe raised his mug, "This darn Legal Seafood! I have spent more hours here with you than with my wife in the whole month." "Well, I'm just sick of the popcorn shrimps. Wouldn't complain if they ran a Sichuan Gourmet at the airport. " All these years in America. Yet my stomach is more Chinese than ever. I even converted Moe to spicy food. I turned my thought away from food,"At least, we are close to close the deal. I hope this is the final trip to the 'Middle of Nowhere'." Deep in my heart, I actually love Iowa. Endless cornfields. Infinitely inviting highways. The "New Continent". Dwelled by Dvorak.

"Sure, except" Moe said, "Dan will get the credit again - he is touring the Europe office with Jim. You know that, don't you?" "Not really. I was in the field earlier this week. Visited local physicians. Old contacts. What's the Europe trip for?"

"What for?! Creating "synergy" between offices. Last I heard. Man, you better know that stuff. I mean, if you even want a shot at the director position!" "Dan hasn't done a single thing worthwhile. As far as I can tell." My mood darkened, "and I heard he was kicked out of Europe - who would have left kids and wife to the other side of Atlantic?"

"So what? Jim seems to be very happy with him. And sales are turning the corner: 'Hmm, must be Dan.' By the way, Nancy went with them, too." "How do you know everything? You are away as much as I am."

"'Course I know. I have Olga briefing me everyday. Matter-of-factly, how could you not know? She works for the three of us, if you happen to forget.""Don't need her. I use Expedia. Much quicker and cheaper. No delays. No mistakes."

"Old man! how could you be a boss? If, if not bossing around?" Moe paused to enjoy his play of words.

"Well, why did Nancy go?" I became curious about this new development.

"That, I don't know. Except this is the 2nd time they've travelled together."

"With Jim?!"

"With Dan." I suddenly realized that I haven't seen her drop by for a while. Well, hard to picture her in business. With her Kitty cats and all.


Three

"Nancy, do you have a minute?" I caught up with her in the hallway after the meeting, "why did you say the US office needs improvement? This is the first quarter we have turned around sales - after four years!"

"But we did not reach our stretch goal. You know that. And sales in Europe are crispy."

"But you can't compare like this. Europe is always strong - thanks to the leadership of Alex, if you ask me." I felt an urge to antagonizing.

"Not just him. Jim and Dan have done a lot of work, too. Anyway we can learn more from them... Actually, I've got to run. To Paris - we are holding our next year's budget meeting there." She impatiently raised her hand, showing a glittering Swiss watch.


"What a scandal," Moe snickered on my encounter with Nancy, "You and I have worked our asses off. And they have vacationed in every city of Europe!" He turned to the wine list, "Know anything about wine? Let's pick a good one. We deserve better."

"Don't care much about wine, either. Just get the most expensive bottle." I answered absent-mindedly, "Talking about them, now the whole office is talking."

"Except Jim. Still signing off all those "synergy" trips."

"You think he doesn't know? He can't see? I don't get it. I could never figure out what Jim thinks. "

"Nobody could. Only Dan knows how to kiss up. I have never met a guy this useless. Yet our boss loves him. And Nancy loves him. What a scandal. What a shame. I can't work here anymore. I am looking. You should do the same."


Four

"The management has decided that you are ready to take charge of the whole marketing department. Great job, Xiaosong. " Jim extended his hand.

"Thanks, Jim! I will do my best." So good work didn't go un-noticed, after all. I felt a sense of vindication. a relief. and... a question. It was somewhat unexpected, "How about ... Dan?"

"Oh, that's the other thing I wanted to let you know. Dan was just diagnosed with liver cancer. Late stage. He is moving back to Europe. For chemotherapy. To be with his family."

That was eight months ago.


Five

"Remember? you were the one who brought me here. When I first started." I looked around, remembering a time less than two years ago. Or ages ago.

"Yeah. Thought we would have come more often. Then... things just happened!" She tried to smile, but broke down again, hollering. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! For being like this. He wouldn't approve. He kept saying I need be strong. Strong."

I ordered orange juice for her and a Cronona for myself. Just like the only other time.

"How's the treatment going?" I asked, expecting the worst. Nancy was not able to answer for a while. I watched her in silence. She looked sad and old. Oblivious of me. She kept wiping off the tears with the soaked napkin.

Finally, she said, "No more treatment. Xiaosong, he is dying tonight." She suddenly choked... gasped for air... And between broken breathes, I heard, "He is dying tonight... but I can't be with him!"

So it had all come to this. Two failed chemotherapies in Europe. One failed experimental trial back in States... And tonight, the life support was to be removed. Here in town. With his family....

Dying but not yet died. I froze with shock and felt tears welled up in my eyes. All my lingering resentments and confusion, towards him, towards her, evaporated. Slowly I reached across the table and patted her lightly on the arm, "Don't be so sad, Nancy. Things will be alright." She halted in her grief and looked up, "How strange, that's exactly the same last words Dan said to me."

---------------

Days later, we held a memorial service for Dan. We met Dan's family for the first time. His wife was stunningly beautiful. After the service, we went to the same Bar for a drink. Everyone told of fond stories about Dan. Jim recounted his heroic combat with cancer. Just one week ago, he had insisted on, because the doc didn't want to, scheduling the next bi-weekly appointment... I took the same seat but Nancy was not there.

---------

"Quick, Xiaosong! Come to the conference room." Nancy called outside my office, "Take a break. My department is having a little party. For the closing of a great year! Hurry up!" Nancy was smiling brightly. For a moment, I had a flashback of the day when I first started. But she also looked different. I don't know. She has to be.

How strange. Life is. In this "New Continent". Dwelled by Dvorak. Or by me. By Nancy.

Buckley Athwart History - from WSJ

(I am very much stirred by how he thinks and realizes his ideas; this is someone i can identify. actually, admire.)

I believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.

-- "God and Man at Yale," 1951

It seems altogether possible that did National Review not exist, no one would have invented it. . . . For we offer, besides ourselves, a position that has not grown old under the weight of a gigantic, parasitic bureaucracy, a position untempered by the doctoral dissertations of a generation of Ph.D.s in social architecture, unattenuated by a thousand vulgar promises to a thousand different pressure groups, uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town.

-- "Statement," National Review, 1955

The attempted assassination of Sukarno last week had all the earmarks of a CIA operation. Everyone in the room was killed except Sukarno.

-- Editorial, National Review, 1957

We deem it the central revelation of Western experience that man cannot ineradicably stain himself, for the wells of regeneration are infinitely deep. . . . Khrushchev cannot take permanent advantage of our temporary disadvantage, for it is the West he is fighting. And in the West there lie, however encysted, the ultimate resources, which are moral in nature. . . . Even out the depths of despair, we take heart in the knowledge that it cannot matter how deep we fall, for there is always hope. In the end, we will bury him.

-- Address in New York, after Khrushchev was invited to speak at the U.N., 1960

The glorious development of this year was the nomination of a man whose views have given the waiting community a choice. . . . Now is precisely the moment to labor incessantly to educate our fellow citizens. The point is to win recruits whose attention we might never have attracted but for Barry Goldwater: to win them not only for Nov. 3 but for future Novembers: to infuse the conservative spirit in enough people to entitle us to look about, on Nov. 4, not at the ashes of defeat but at the well-planted seeds of hope, which will flower on a great November day in the future.

-- Address to Young
Americans for Freedom,
September 1964

At a press conference during his campaign for mayor of New York City: Do you have any chance of winning?

Buckley: No.

Q: Do you really want to be mayor?

Buckley: I've never considered it.

Q: Well, conservatively speaking, how many votes do you expect to get?

Buckley: One.

Q: And who would cast that vote?

Buckley: My secretary.

-- 1965 (When later asked what he would do if elected, he replied, "Demand a

recount.")

A good debater is not necessarily an effective vote-getter: you can find a hole in your opponent's argument through which you could drive a coach and four ringing jingle bells all the way, and thrill at the crystallization of a truth wrung out from a bloody dialogue -- which, however, may warm only you and your muse, while the smiling paralogist has in the meantime made votes by the tens of thousands.

-- "The Unmaking of a Mayor," 1966

I first met [Whittaker] Chambers in 1954. An almost total silence had closed in on him. Two years earlier he had published "Witness." . . . The bitterness of the Hiss trial had not by any means subsided. For some of the reviewers, Hiss's innocence had once been a fixed rational conviction, then blind faith; now it was rank superstition, and they bent under the force of an overwhelming book. . . .

The tokens of hope and truth were not, he seemed to be saying, to be preserved by a journal of opinion, not by writers and thinkers, but only by activists, and I was to know that he considered a publication -- the right kind of publication -- not a word, but a deed. Though Chambers was a passionate literary man, always the intellectual, insatiably and relentlessly curious, in the last analysis it was action, not belletrism, that moved him most deeply.

-- "Odyssey of a Friend," 1969

Henry Gibson: Mr. Buckley, I have noticed that whenever you appear on television, you're always seated. Is that because you can't think on your feet?

Buckley: It's very hard to stand up carrying the weight of what I know.

-- Appearance on "Laugh-In," 1970

I am lapidary but not eristic when I use big words.

-- Column, 1986

How gifted do you need to be to publish Whittaker Chambers and Russell Kirk, James Burnham and Keith Mano? . . . If an editorial note is reserved for me in the encyclopedias, it will appear under the heading "Alchemy." . . . And, yes, we did as much as anybody with the exception of -- Himself -- to shepherd into the White House the man I am confident will emerge as the principal political figure of the second half of the 20th century . . . He said, at a critical moment in history, that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was an evil empire. . . . We were missing only the galvanizing summation; and we got it from President Reagan: and I think that the countdown for Communism began then.

-- Address at National Review's 35th anniversary banquet, upon his retirement as editor, 1990

Above all, conservatives tend to intuit that materialist terminology is insufficient to express the depth of American attachments to their ideals. It remains, for some reason, arresting that one speaks of the "sanctity" of life, of our "devotion" to our ideals, of the "holy" causes in which we engage. American conservatives never exclude those who discountenance transcendent perspectives, but we tend to live by them.

-- "To Preserve What We Have," essay in The Wall Street Journal, 2002

Ah, but the sea always has something lying in wait for you. . . . You are moving at racing speed, parting the buttery sea as with a scalpel, and the waters roar by, themselves exuberantly subdued by your powers to command your way through them. Triumphalism -- and the stars also seem to be singing together for joy.

-- "Thoughts on a Final Passage," essay, 2004

Despair is inappropriate for a culture as buoyant as our own.

Just a note

Little did I know that I was talking about myself when I wrote about Salieri in: it's all too human. Life has strange turns. And for once, I had prepared myself. But one can never be too prepared. When the challenging is reaching that of a Salieri scale. :-)

Notes on Daniel Kahneman's Lecture on Cognition

(recommended again by Jr. - this is such an insightful lecture that we have been referring back to it all the time. so i am re-reading it more carefully and taking notes. )

MAPS OF BOUNDED RATIONALITY: A PERSPECTIVE ON INTUITIVE JUDGMENT
AND CHOICE

Nobel Prize Lecture, December 8, 2002

by DANIEL KAHNEMAN

the cocept of two systems of ratinality: intuition and reasoning.

System 1: fast, automatic, effortless, associative, and difficult to control or modify.
System 2: slower, serial, effortful, and deliberately controlled; they are also relatively
flexible and potentially rule-governed.

perception and intuition: intuitive judgments deal with concepts as well as with percepts, and can be evoked by language.

impressions vs. judgement: nonveral; explicit, intentional

1. accessibility: this is the most important concept here, concerning how with a given situation, some information is more readily accessible to the mind than others, which evidenntly would lead to rather quick (but not necessarily correct) intuitive judgement of the situation. (my comment: knowing what will follow, this is probably THE error most human beings make day in and day out)

a simple but illuminating example: mind grasps the average, but not the sum, of, say, a set of china pieces.

physical properties such as size, distance and loudness,
similarity
causal propensity
surprisingness
affective valence
mood
context

"perception is a choice of which we are not aware, and we perceive what has been chosen."

"Uncertainty is poorly represented in intuition, as well as in perception. in other words, perception and intuition are always confidently carried out." (ouch! the more primitive, the less knowledgeable, the more confident.)

2. Framing effect: "Invariance cannot be achieved by a finite mind. " passive adoption. (i shall call this "the lazy mind effect" that people perceive or reach decisions mostly within a finite context (framed). simple examples include answers are determined by how questions are asked in the lecture. however, one can easily stretch this to even how people in general live their lives within the cultural and societal context and thus become part of the context. - my newly acquired interest in cultural determinism)

"The impossibility of invariance raises significant doubts about the descriptive
realism of rational-choice models (Tversky & Kahneman, 1986). Absent a
system that reliably generates appropriate canonical representations, intuitive
decisions will be shaped by the factors that determine the accessibility of different
features of the situation. Highly accessible features will influence decisions,
while features of low accessibility will be largely ignored. Unfortunately,
there is no reason to believe that the most accessible features are also the
most relevant to a good decision."

3. change rules. how people make decisions on based on totality but the change of states. examples are strong emotions attaching to the change of wealth (not total assets); risk taking based on the relative small stake against total wealth; risk aversion if total wealth not considered.

4. attribute substitution.

"people rely on a limited number of heuristic principles which reduce
the complex tasks of assessing probabilities and predicting values to simpler
judgmental operations. In general, these heuristics are quite useful, but
sometimes they lead to severe and systematic errors.”

"A judgment is said to be mediated by
a heuristic when the individual assesses a specified target attribute of a judgment
object by substituting a related heuristic attribute that comes more readily
to mind." (the inexhaustible use of bad analogies in reasoning and understanding came to mind)

attribute substitution: a little bit difficult to comprehend (read twice to get it). example: when people are asked to estimate "probability" answered instead as if they are asked to guess "similarity". as the latter is the more accesible attribute. statistical attribute, while not sophisticated by itself, is less accessible and therefore not used. (the improtance of self-consiousness and enhancing attention to rules)

"Affective valence is a natural assessment, and therefore
a candidate for substitution in the numerous responses that express attitudes."

"an automatic affective valuation – the emotional core of an attitude – is the main determinant of many judgments and behaviors."

"In terms of the scope of responses that it governs, the natural assessment of
affect should join representativeness and availability in the list of general-purpose
heuristic attributes."

5. THE ACCESSIBILITY OF CORRECTIVE THOUGHTS

the ability of system 2 to monitor 1: lax, limited and anchored upon intuitive thinking. affected by time pressure, multitasking, stress, and good mood. positively correlated with intelligence.

6. PROTOTYPE HEURISTICS

roughly described as the substitution of an average for a sum (how about individual?)

"The value of an extensional attribute in a set is an aggregate (not necessarily additive) of the values over its extension. The argument of this section is that the extensional attributes in these tasks are low in accessibility, and are therefore candidates for heuristic substitution."

"A prototype heuristic is the label for the process of substituting an attribute of a prototype for an extensional attribute of its category"

my favorite: the china sets

"a single generic proposition: “Highly accessible impressions produced by System 1 control judgments and preferences, unless modified or overridden by the deliberate operations of System 2.”"

reading carl jung

Jr recommended one chapter on "dream, knowledge, language" (forgot the title already). briefly, jung talked about the similarity between ontogenesis and phylogenesis and dream. about the importance of "directed thinking", the kind obtained through training in science and technology, in contrast to "associative thinking", which exemplifies much of human cognition. he also discussed "matter of factly" the essence of language in the acqusition of knowledge - precisely as i had realized myself awhile ago: these two are really one and the same (gee, i could have known this sooner by reading). associative thinking lacks abstraction (and too "primitive", commented Jr, dismissvely).

i am less sure about his characterization of "dream". for him, as for his freud, dream is part of the subconsciousness, consistent with what one thinks in full wakeness and therefore can be explained more or less logically. on the other hand, i rather have the belief that dream is a physiological process necessary to unwind the brain from continuous thinking. it is the needed rest for the brain, within which, the nerves fire rather randomly, with some connection to daily activities but without much intrinsic meaning attached to.

about truth

"what is truth is rational; what is rational is not necessarily truth" is my favorite saying (i made it up long time ago). but i've never been sure about the first half of it. why truth has to be rational? is it really?

consulted with Jr. he suggested that probably it is based on the assumption that ultimately all things can be explained logically. or at least we believe so. when new evidence contradicts a "proven" truth, it causes a paradigm shift and new theory is then developed to accomodate all "facts". pushing still further and it probably also concerns of Godel's imcomplete theorem.

it's hard for me to think through it with absolute clarity and certainty. i will just leave it here by saying probably this is how i "define" truth.

the morality of brilliance

lunched with Steve last Friday. the conversation was centered, naturally, on Pats. Steve was planning to go to the Superbowl, because "this is the one, if you only go once". Of course, he went once already but that was the unspeakable 1986 game.

having gone over every detail about Pats' next game against Chargers, we turned to our attention to the whole year, in particular, the significance of the Spygate. as everyone Bostonian remotely interested in Sports, i have been fascinated by the whole evolving phenomenon. this incredible energy this team/sports nation has drawn from such a gigantic scandal. Steve actually personified it. he told of his indignities and his much intensified hatred against every opponent since. he even stoppped watching games with friends; instead, he locked himself at home and glued to the TV, set up at the best possible angle, so that he could attend to every single detail that needed his full attention and salvage every single mement that might be remotely memorable.

but this inspiration was not about acknowledging wrongdoings, or redemption. it was as if an effort, an immense one, to overwelm others. by playing hurt. by being undefeatable; brilliant; SUPER... and SUPER have they become. now superiority does not equal "morality". yet, somehow, something else has sprung from it, as the urgency for one to dominate generated a counter force as powerful: instead of being cowered, every week, a new team came more and more determined. along the way, they ascended to their own unprecedented excellence. alongside the PATS. and it feels morally inspiring. at least to me.

so there you go, another odd trick of the mind. it can translate brilliance into morality. or at least tries to. and because of this, PATS have to win this time.

drifting leftward - notes on Right Hand Left Hand 2/4

Right Hand Left Hand
Chris McManus

Chapter 5: the Heart of the Dragon
why the heart is always on the left side: extremely elegant biological experiments illustrating how this happens during embryonic development: the clockwise rotating monocillia sweep any signaling molecule secreted by the node almost entirely to the left-hand side, whether it could trigger the cascades of signaling molecules such as Sonic hedgehog.

Chapter 6: the Toad, Ugly and Venomous

the asymmetry of life's building blocks: L- amino acids and D-sugars. the origin of L- amino acids.

As you like it (Act 2, Scene 1) by Shakespeare:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in tress, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stone, and good in everything.

Physicist Abdus Salam's explanation of the discovery of Yang and Li:

I asked him if any classical writer had ever considered giants with only the left eye. He confessed that one-eyed giants have been described, and he supplied me with a full list of them; but they always [like the Cyclops in Homer's Odyssey] sport their solitary eye in the middle of the forehead. In my view, what we have found is that space is a weak left-eyed giant.

Chapter 7: The Dextrous and The Gauche
Finally, the author's attention focused on the handedness. Talked about "preference" determining the usage of one hand.

His own theory of handedness: two gene loci: D and C. Not sure how well this holds. needs more information from other sources.

A surprise for myself: I only scored 1/10 for preferential use of the left hand!

Chapter 8: The Left Brain, the Right Brain and the Whole Brain
asymmetry of the two half-brains; fascinating consequences of all sorts of brain damage.
the author proposed the same two gene loci determine the differentiation of the left and right brains.

Chapter 9: Ehud, Son of Gera
percentage of left-handed is different among different ethnic groups. the author made a fairly convincing argument that the basis is biological, not cultural.

evolution of the human hand: the instrument of instruments.

Steve Jones on evolution: Evolution is to allegory as statues are to birdshit. It is a convenient platform upon which to deposit badly digested ideas.

Chapter 10: Three men went to mow
cultural conventions concerning left and right

writing: left to right, right to left, left to right and then right to left.
driving, sports, music, politics.

main point: many are determined by factors other than biology.

Chapter 11: Keggie-Hander
how lefties survive in a society of right-handers. in English, large number of words describing left-handednes, mostly negative; only one describing the right-handed. social pressure from extreme negative to nonexistent.

Chapter 12: Vulgar Errors
poked holes to all myths about left-handed:

identical twins don't usually be mirror-image of each other. Left-handers don't die younger, nor suffer from immune disorders, nor more creative or intelligent. Neanderthals were not left-handed. mirrors don't reverse left and right....

Chapter 13: The Handedness of Muppets
trivia: left-handers rarely shown in movies, even less as heros. Titanic was built as a half boat for the movie. mirror writing. most famous left hander: Leonardo da Vinci. 6 left-handers been president of US. Thomas Jefferson wrote with his left hand. Benjamin Franklin wrote a cute letter for the left-hand.

Chapter 14: Man is All Symmetrie
talked about all sorts of symmetric stuff.

Chapter 15: The World, the Small, the Great
summarizes all his thoughts with a grand hypothesis.

a knitter's song

A Knitter's Song 

I sit beside the fire and knit
with the exquisite colors that I have seen,
scarves, hats and mitt(s)
rainbow-shaded or avocado-green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of those that I’ve needled for,
over, under, turn and again
how I love you, ever more.

 (And all the while she sits and knits,
plagiarizing Bilbo’s song with her knotty wits.)

 (pic: liony with his new scarf. :-))

Bilbo's original

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
 
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
 
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
 
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

drifting leftward - notes on Right Hand Left Hand 1/4

Right Hand Left Hand
Chris McManus

finally got time to read about my all-time favorite topic. I am going to take notes chapter by chapter, and after finishing the book, write a book review loaded with my own insights (if there is still sth "left", not yet said by the author).

Chapter 1: Dr. Watson's Problem
the beginning of the book already surprised. instead of some anecdotes about lefthandedness, as I'd vaguely expected, the author talked about "situs inversus", the complete inversion of internal organs, seen in rare individuals. He moved on and discussed the asymmetry of the world from even the basic building blocks: amino acids, carbohydrates...

the scope of the book is far larger than what i knew of the topic. now i am looking forward to a wild explorations.

one disappointment: the writing is noticeably poor and awkward. i was stopped from time to time in the middle of the sentences - the grammar is never wrong but the flow is simply aweful.

Chapter 2: Death and the Right Hand
The scope continued to expand, now into the sociology and symbolism of left and right, always left being bad and right good:

left-right symbolisms are universal in human cultures, and that they are driven both by physiological differences between the two sides of the body and by social pressures. they gain much of their distinctive character from the tendency of the human mind to process the otherwise incomprehensible in symbolic terms.

one impression i got is that scholars tend to underestimate the impact of biology while overestimate that of society or culture (environment) - not that i know how to quantify, they don't either, yet make bold quantification like "more" "less" very freely. :-)

for example, here it says:

modern research, ..., finds the right hand to be only about ten percent faster than the left. It is a small difference, particularly for explaining why a typical right-hander will use their right hand for ninety per cent or more of their tasks. So how did a 'vague disposition' become converted into 'an absolute preponderance'? the only way could be something outside the individual organism, something which does not consiste merely of the instinctive preferences, and fairly weak preferences at that. - pp36

This is almost certainly wrong. first of all, it assumes 10% biological difference determined by simple tests, is far smaller than the "more than 90%" usage of the right hand. however, these two are of different qualities and not comparable, sort of equivalent to comparing the "distances", instead of the "angles" between two rockets at the beginning and the end of their journeys and concluding that the starting difference can't accounts for the immeasurable difference at the end. secondly, the "preference" of using one hand over another can be deterministic in my mind, but to the scholarly, it becomes "merely" (another quantification of the unquantifiable).

(it's not clear whether the author agrees with the culture scholars he cited here. in later chapters, he indeed demonstrated that "hand preference" is the determining factor.)

Chapter 3: On the Left Bank
The author explored how people use the terms left and right in daily life. and how incredibly confusing left and right could be, compared to "up and down" "front and back". and how pervasively left and right designs are used in everyday items: screws, stairs, ropes....

And left/right has to be relative while philosophers had tried hard historically to define positions in space in absolute terms.

Chapter 4: Kleiz, Drept, Luft, Zeso, Lijevi, Prawy
Explained the common origin of words left and right in different languages; explained how slowly children learn about left and right: a complete understanding involves the coordination of three separate skills - understanding right and left, carrying out a mental rotation, and seeing the world from a different perspective.

even adults have harder time to determine left/right, as compared to up/down, front/back.

animals in general are not able to tell left and right.

even paired terms such as 'above' and 'below' are not entirely equivalient to one another in their usage. subjects are quicker to say an object is above another object than below it. 'above' is the unmarked form of the description, whereas 'below' is marked - in effect it means 'not above'. and takes more time for brain to process.

80 days of the innocent past

Around the World in 80 Days
Jules Verne

I bought the book for the boys but read it to reconnect with a distant past. What struck me most was indeed the very sense how life had changed, not just from my own childhood, but from Mr. Phileas Fogg's time.

This eccentric Britishman was created by a French. His travelling-around-the-world stories and all characters were full of charm, wonder, kindness and humor; even bigotry, sort of matter-of-factly in the 19th century, was so simple and unconscious, making one ache for the innocence of humanity long lost.

a nightmarish reality - slaughterhouse-five

by Kurt Vonnegut

one of the few books that i couldn't find any fault with.

anyway i enjoyed reading the book and got the message (anti-war, the sadness of human life, etc) loud and sound. i was also able to appreciate the author's satirical style. details, such as the contrast between the English soldiers/prisoners and amerian ones, and their differential treatments at the hands of Germans were quite interesting. liked the author's imaginative power, too. his outer space and aliens.

so what's amiss here? i somehow moved on too quickly from the book. i can only guess the writing overpowered the contents/the message. this is a well-written story but not one of those soul-searching depictions of great writers.

Hereditary Genius - An inquiry into its laws and consequences

Francis Galton

I continued my inquiry into the origin of theories on inheritance. Trained as a molecular genetist some one hundred years later, I have no difficulties in accepting most of Galton's observations and conclusions on intelligence, in particular that it is hereditary (I learned that in school). It is remarkable he was able to analyze the heredity of complex human traits in such a systematic and methodical way (He was not aware of Mendel's work then). This book is original and its style authentic.

The last part of the book is more speculative, focusing on his ideas on how to improve intellectual quality of human beings (sort of encouraging smart people to marry early and seletively and to have lots of kids) and how important genius are for the evolution of human beings. I tend to believe in the natural process of human evolution (the less interference from the collective and conscious effort, the better). I also believe that most ordinary people already possess an amazing amount of intelligence. Given an ideal enviroment where individual creativeness is encouraged, a collection of ordinary human beings can do fairly well-the ancient greek might not be the only glory in human history. Well, I have to stop for now. My own thoughts are not quite mature yet.

I do like most, but not all, of his thought on the best form of civilization.

The best form of cilivisation in respect to the improvement of the race, would be one in which society was not costly; where incomes are chiefly derived from professional sources, and not much through inheritance; where every lad had a chance of showing his abilities and, if highly gifted, was enabled to achieve a first-class education and entrance into professional life, by the liberal help of the exhibitions and scholarships which he had gained in his early youth; where marriage was held in as high honour as in ancient Jewish times; where the pride of race was encouraged (of course I do not refer to the nonsensical sentiment of the present day, that goes under that name); where the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods, and lastly, where the better sort of emigrants and refugees from other lands were invited and welcomed, and their descendants naturalised.

And I even have one in my mind...

jokes by the boys

well, they may be struggling with their chinese, they do not have much trouble having some fun with the other language they know (copied from a piece of paper they threw away) ---

Jokes (you can call them stupid)

Q: why did the sand go to the car repair?
A: to get some bleach

Q: why did the cow cross the road?
A: to mooovv the lawn!

there are two eggs in an oven. One says to the other "what's cookin?"

Q: what do cows say when they go skydiving?
A: Cowabunga! or Geronimooo!

-------laughing break-------

All about cashews

Q: what is the richest nut?
A: CASH-ews!

Q: what nut wear shoes?
A: ca-SHOES!

Q: what's the grossest nut?
A: cash-EEWS!

-------laughing break-------

Q: what nut is a good cheerer?
A: cash-OOOHS!

Q: what do you call a nut and an owl combined?
A: cash-hoos!

Q: what nut is good at basketball?
A: cash-SHOOTS!

Q: what does a cat wear on its feet?
A: cat-shoes!

Q: what nut comes from a volcano?
A: c-ASH-ews!

Q: what nut sneeses?
A: C-ACHOOS!

Q: what happens when two nuts collide?
A: a CLASH-ew!

Q: what is a lawyer's favorite nut?
A: ca-sues

Q: what nuts can sow?
A: ca-sews

Q: what nut likes gum?
A: cash-CHEWS!

Q: waht is a nut's favorite pokemon?
A: Pi-cashew!

an enchanting ride of the english magic

Joanathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
by Susana Clarke

i very much enjoyed this book, taken by its strking uniqueness: strange stories and odd characters, and delighted by the author's dry humor, her "Englishness" and her elegant writing. the ending was a little disappointing though not bad, as if the author were slowly losing her grips of magic but ended in time to have avoid a total disaster. thus i am left with a fondness of the time spent with the book but did not get that "lingering longing" often associated with great books.

the writing style was very unique but good, although i found the poems or songs in it somewhat awkward, making me miss Tokien's riddles.

know this new self - mere christianity

mere christianity
CS Lewis

i still remember the clarity, and the confusion, when told for the first time in my childhood "this is a triangle." - of course it was a triangle! hadn't i always known?!

and this described how i felt reading through the first chapter of this book, "the law of human nature". it brought into focus the existence of an innate moral compass within oneself, something i've been struggling to understand but have never really thought about in such an abstract and concrete way. and it is leading to ramifications, some i can see happening and others i do not yet know.

the 2nd concept i learned from the book is about "christian charity", the caring for others in an almost rational way, in contrast to a natural fondness. i was somewhat delighted by this revelation as i'd been slowly coming to grips of it through my own thinking.

so i learned much, taken by surprise and with my continuous confusion about my own spirituality. or the lack of it. i know i am an atheist by nature and by training of science. this is also evident by how bored i was  whenever God was presented, matter-of-fact-ly, as the explanation for every phenomenon. on the other hand, i had no difficulty understanding, and often accepting, the pure rational aspect of his thoughts. so close, yet so far away. say, i'm a few SNPs off?

the book was written in a plain and persuasive "entry-level" style. yet the content was anything but simple - it was likely the exact journey the author had taken to arrive at peace with his own spirituality, a not so "mere" endeavor.

i wish

i wish

i wish a divine being
that's never anatomy

i wish a music
that's only miraculously sound
and found

and i wish a land
that's forever fair and grand

....

i wish what i've said
or not said
could be heard

three bridges of sighs. of sighs

Venice. This is the "real thing". Prisoners used to be led from the Doge's Palace on the left to the prison cells on the right. And they let out the last audible noises on the way.












fourteen said"On your way to prison, if you try
hard enough, you can see who took the picture above-"
(his picture, too)

surly enough:

i looked up the bridge of sighs，
startled by a pair of sth，dark and wicked，
through the grids of no lights.
I blinked； the shutter clicked.







Oxford, UK. In the Hertford College.
Dean introduced its former student, famous poet John Donne.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." - John Donne




Cambridge, UK. On the river Cam. that's at the

end of the punting route.