From the Archives: God is not Great - Christopher Hutchins

Mood: Content   

Listening to: Scooby Do

In the interest of returning to some-what rational posts rather than just emotionaly driven ones, I decided to blog on a couple books I have been reading for the past few weeks.

As you may or may not know, I'm an atheist. I have been for a few years now. However, I was brought up in a decently traditional Dutch reformed Christian family. I had seen Christopher Hutchins previously on Jon Stewart hawking his book and have been wanting to read it ever since.

This book was interesting for a few reasons. As an atheist, I am often puzzled at the motivation that people have for so staunchly sticking to their religions. This book investigated it in detail. While the title indicates an attack on "God", Hutchins pretty much skewers organized religions (mostly western, but also eastern) as well. He brings up some very interesting points for those who are familiar with religion, the bible, the Quran, and the Talmud. He examines how religion has influenced society and the power structure.

On a negative note, Hutchins is negative to the point of being vitriolic. He comes off as both defensive and scornful of anything at all relgious. He even goes after Mother Theresa, Ghandi, and the Dalai Lama. It's a little hard to read past the scorn to the logical rebuttals of religions and God at times.

Over all, I found the book very interesting and logical, even if he was a little angry about it in the process. I wouldn't recommend this book unless you are already an atheist. Even if you are, you will probably still find it a little offensive. I found the attacks on Mother Theresa, Ghandi, and the Dalai Lama a little much. I'm all for the dissection of organized religion and a patriarchal, power hungry god. Not so much for people who have done a great deal for humanity and happen to be associated with a religion. As Hutchins himself mentions, good deeds are not intrinsically tied to religion. It's possible to separate the people and the deeds from the religions they represented.

Verdict: Read it if you're an atheist and want to examine the need for religion in the masses and all the negative influences that religion and god have had on society. Keep and open mind and try to see past the negativity.

Happy New Year to everyone. May you continue to find happiness.
Have a good week.
Becky

From the Archives: Ghetto Nation - Cora Daniels

I'm starting a new series here. The Archives are blog posts that I wrote while I was still blogging in Yahoo 360. Those were the good old days! Anyway, enjoy.

Listening to: Kuch Tu Hua Hai – Kal Ho Na Ho Sound Track

Mood: Tired

I recently finished reading a book that caught my eye at my local library titled Ghetto Nation.  This book caught my eye because I am always trying to understand the sociological motivations behind some of the actions of different kinds of people. I grew up in a largely white suburb about an hour south of Chicago. My town was right next to Kankakee Illinois, which happens to be a very low income area, and dangerous in some places. I was pretty well insulated from some of these realities when I was little. When I turned 19, I moved out of my mom’s house and into Kankakee, because that was what I could afford working at a Subway restaurant. This was right about the time when hip hop and rap exploded onto the popular music scene. I got a full on lesson in “ghetto-oligy”, and fell head long into being ghetto myself.  I have to admit, I picked up this book because I knew that on some level I would identify with much of what the author was saying. I have long since moved out of the ghetto of Kankakee. I have lost any and all street cred that I had and have moved on to a different lifestyle. I no longer identify with this as strongly as I used to. It always did, and indeed still does, puzzle me why certain economic classes choose to spend their money in certain manner and make decisions in a certain way.

The author makes some very good points in this book. Our culture has moved towards a ghetto state of mind and being ghetto stretches across all class lines and distinctions. I did feel that this book was a little broad though and had a few agendas that weren’t true to the title. The author happens to be a black woman from Brooklyn. I felt that while she was pushing the point about ghetto being a national problem, or stretching across economical lines, she overly focused on the black demographic of ghetto people. Perhaps it was just what she identified with most strongly, but with ghetto being a national problem, it goes WAY beyond that. I found it hard as a ghetto white girl to identify with her definition of ghetto.  I also felt that the author missed a lot of what developed the ghetto mentality, instead choosing to focus on bad parenting factors and insufficient schooling as a major cause. I feel that the causes, and indeed effects, of ghetto thinking reach way beyond what the author has covered. I also felt that if you hadn’t spent some time in a truly ghetto place, you would miss many of the references the author uses and miss why she things ghettoness is such a problem. Which I totally agree with by the way.  I thought the author had a hard time deciding whether she was ghetto or not and how proud to be that she was or wasn’t. This was kind of a main point of the book, but how can you tout the evils of ghettoness when you can’t decide if you are or aren’t? And are proud of how much you are or aren’t?

Verdict: If you are interested in the ghetto culture that seems to be taking over the country, you will probably enjoy this book. It really helps to have an inside understanding of true ghetto culture (Meaning you aren’t a white person from a small Midwestern town. I don’t care what you think, you just don’t really get it). 

Becky

A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

Listening to: 2 very chatty daughters of mine

Mood: In a funk

I happened to be browsing through my sister in law’s bookshelf for something, anything to read, she suggested this book. It’s pretty slim pickings around the G household these days. India – you need libraries. Make it happen.

Anyhow, I know that this book may not appeal to everyone. The author goes and hikes portions of the Appalachian Trail. Actually, my interest was only piqued because my brother had expressed a keen interest in hiking the trail while he was staying with us a year ago.  That combined with the endorsement of my sister in law that he was funny and I decided why not.

She wasn’t lying, he is funny. Not all the time, and not enough to write home about, but he does take a light hearted approach to writing. I found it interesting enough to read in 1 day. I’m a fast reader though.

It wasn’t a great book, it was just a “meh” book. Mildly amusing and a good time pass if you have any interest at all in Hiking. I felt that it dragged on a bit at the end. The best part was his phobia of bears and reminding all the readers that he read lots of books on bear attacks and how he was sure to die of a vicious, slow bear attack.

Verdict: Meh. Not a bad read if you’re bored or interested in hiking.

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

Ladies and gentlemen - this may be the best book ever. I've finally finished this behemoth and it was amazing.
This book should be something that is required to be read before finishing college (just like those leadership classes I'm always harping on).

Verdict: If you have any type of open mind at all, you need to read this. Seriously. a must.

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

I hope you'll forgive me for dropping off the face of the earth for a while. My family has moved to India.  Unfortunately, we don't have the library facilities that I'm used to in the US, so my books have been rather few and far between. I have yet to read a book great enough to write about on my kindle, but as I mentioned, that's what you get when you only get free books. :-)

In desperation, I turned to my own bookshelf (and what is left, after my husband ruthlessly weeded out anything and everything not worth keeping) and found Atlas Shrugged. I got this book free from an organization dedicated to spreading Ms. Rand's ideas but never got around to reading it, mostly because it's a ginormous book.

Well. I rather wish I could have found this book earlier. I'm half way done with it and while I don't agree with all of Ayn Rand's premises, this is one of the most amazing books I've read in my entire life.

A bit of warning: This is not a light read. This is not even a medium read. It takes some serious contemplative power and quite a bit of open-mindedness, as well as time. As I mentioned, this is not a small book.

What has impressed me the most so far is the craftsmanship of the story. I really, really enjoy Ayn Rand's brand of storytelling and her ability to weave many, many ideas and social commentaries into something that seems like a simple story. If you dig under the surface a little bit, (and really, it would be criminal to bother to read this story and not dig more than a little) it is in no way simple. I'll post an update when I'm finished with it.

Verdict so far: If you are in anyway interested in social vs. individual welfare and have an open mind, this book is for you. actually, this book is for anyone who has an iota of intelligence. You may not agree with Ayn Rand's ideas, but the important thing is that she is raising some very tough issues, ones that every one has the responsibility to contemplate. 

Comments on My Kindle

As I mentioned before, I was gifted a kindle as a present a few months ago. I have been using it almost nonstop since then. I thought I would give a little feedback on how the experience has been.

I was a person who always scoffed at the idea of buying and using a kindle. After all, I'm a heavy fan of the library/borrowing books and kind of a purist (my god that sounds snotty!) about books. I'm one of those that likes the weight of a book in my hand, the rustle of pages, etc.

That being said, I really, really appreciate this gift. There are some things that the kindle excels at. One is space saving. Books are bulky and heavy. If you're constantly on the move or travelling (as my family has been for the past three months) lugging around lots of books is a rather painful option. Along the same lines, it's a small device (I'm not all that excited about micro devices - that spells headache for me!) and really light. There have been many times when adding the kindle to the travel bag wasn't a space problem and saved me hours of boredom. One more thing to note. Anywhere you can access the internet, you can buy books. India is still in the dark ages in terms of libraries. The ones you do find, are small, private, cost money to belong to, and require that you have transportation to and from. It really is a lot of pain value. Need a new book? Bam. Shop and kindle will deliver instantly as long as you have wireless internet. One more positive thing about the kindle is that Amazon offers many, many free books/excerpts. You don't even have to shop from a computer, kindle has that feature built in. Like I mentioned, most of this won't be brand new novels, but you can find some really amazing and interesting reads. They also offer a lot of free classics.

On the other hand, there are a few things that are disappointing about the kindle too. Because it is so small and light, I worry constantly about breaking it - especially when travelling with it. I suppose you could buy a case for it, but I did not. Another thing to note is that the kindle isn't backlit. Unless you have a good source of light in the room, reading quickly becomes impossible, as I found out to my chagrin on a train. I was trying to put my kids to sleep without the light on and tried to read. No reading for you! Also, if you are a reading junkie like me and get tired of the free books, buying books adds up quickly. Our family is earning in rupees, so we're trying not to spend in dollars. This makes every purchase on Amazon debated as to the necessity. It also is really just another electronic device to stare at. I used to really contemplate which books to take home from the library because of time and space constraints. On the kindle, I feel like I should download and read anything and everything free. This leads to quite a bit of wasted time for me. I also get really frustrated when I like something I'm reading and find out it's just a teaser of a few pages. This gets really annoying. I also am finding many more fiction stories on Amazon than non, but that's an amazon problem, not a kindle one. I didn't find any effective way to sort the books on the kindle. There wasn't a way I found to tag books and keep track of what you read. I have some 500 books on there right now (I know, some collecting behavior going on there!) and it's a pain to have to sift through to find the ones I've not read yet.

What's your favorite/not so favorite features?

A River Runs Through It - Norman Maclean

I borrowed this book because my dad really liked the movie when I was younger and I happened to catch my husband's brother in law reading it and he recommended it.

This piece of fiction is written around a Scottish Presbyterian male familial group of fly fishermen. It has been hailed by critics to be a great work and even more exceptional as the author finished the book in his 70's and it was his first work.

To be completely honest, I'm not sure why he did recommend it. My husband's brother in law is Indian and not all that into fishing. This was the major problem I had reading this book. In the interest of disclosure I didn't finish it. I have read many books that have nothing to do with my interests, experiences in life, or background and enjoyed them. For some reason, this wasn't one of them. I'm not sure if it's the author's writing style, the heavy "this is a man's book" feel, or if fishing is just too far out of my interest range, but I just lost interest very quickly.

Verdict: I don't know that I would recommend this to anyone who's not a man that's into fishing. I'm not saying it wasn't bad, but it is a niche book and not to my tastes.