Wild Swans

Wild Swans.  By Jung Chang. 
Biographies of three women (grandma, mom, and daughter) in 20th-century China.

Thoughts:
Foot-binding?  Never realized how torturous and painful it would have been.  I just thought it was about keeping women's feet "small" -- not deformed-small, as in smaller-than-a-1-yr-old's.

Communism wasn't the real problem.  The big problem was Mao's hunger for power and his vengeful spirit.

Some people think anarchy is okay because it's a way to get rid of the entrenched power/authority that is being misused.  But anarchy is destructive to a vast degree.  Furthermore, powerseekers will fill the void.  Reading this book showed me that even bad government is better than no government.

Introversion was a bad bad thing in China.  If you wanted a little solitude, most people interpreted that as cutting yourself off from the masses and thinking you were better than others.  It must be unbearable to know that your need for a little peace and quiet means people see you as arrogant and aloof.

I knew almost nothing about China or Chinese history.  Until a few weeks ago, I'd never heard of the Cultural Revolution:  wreck buildings, ruin libraries, overthrow religion, destroy stuff.  And now, this week's news tells us of a similar destruction in Mosul.

Quiet -- chapter 1

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking,
by Susan Cain


My friend, Lora, recommended the book Quiet.  The first chapter intrigued me: history, sociology, psychology, and more.

Industrial revolution leads to

more consumer goods and less farming, which leads to 

people moving to cities (where they're relatively anonymous) and away from farms (where everybody knows their family for generations back and their work ethic and the looks of the place), which leads to 

an increased need for salesmen,
"a social operator, someone with a ready smile, a masterful handshake, and the ability to get along with colleagues while simultaneously outshining them" (p. 20).

Yes.  That's it.  Salesmen must have the charisma to draw others to themselves, to instill trust, and yet to make sure they get what they want from the customer and outshine the colleagues.  It's seldom about cooperation, and usually about competition.

The increased need for salesmen leads to 

a change from the "culture of character" to the "culture of personality" which leads to

advertisements everywhere

and earlier schooling (so that children can be "socialized")

and "inferiority complexes" for introverts

and psychiatric medications to change personalities

and the idolization of celebrities



as we learn to be dissatisfied with quiet thoughtfulness,
and be influenced by those who are outgoing (regardless of depth)
and those who talk and chatter and even scam.

Modern Art

Maggie and I are watching the Sister Wendy videos about art history and art appreciation.  Neither one of us likes it much, but it's one of those things I make the kids do for school.  Cultural literacy and all that. 

In the Christian-homeschooling world, I had heard that Impressionism was bad.  It was the first step in a break-from-reality in paintings, the beginning of a slippery slope.  So, does that make me bad?  You see, I like the Impressionists.  Now I know that the Impressionists cared about beauty.  Even if they were painting impressions instead of realistic depictions, it was still about beauty.

Today as we watched the show about modern art, Sister Wendy told us that an important contribution that Picasso made to the world of art: breaking from the notion that art would be about beauty.  With modern art came the choice to paint what was beautiful or not.  Ugliness and violence was worthy of art too.  (Oh, yeah?  That's one doozy of a "contribution" to art.)

We also learned about a modern artist who believed in the big bang theory.  His art therefore showed a mess, a big ugly mess.  Because, you see, disorder and disarray are where new life and fresh things are created.  (Uh huh....)

Sister Wendy kept telling us that modern art is about freedom -- "freedom from the constraints of reality."  Yes.  Freedom from being bound to the rules.  Yes.  Freedom to think and dream without limitation.  Yes, that sounds to me like "nightmares." 

And that would be why I don't like modern art.
It's not just my silly little preference.
It's about God and reality and beauty and truth.

Presidents' Day

It turns out that it's not really Presidents' Day after.  It's Washington's birthday.

People had been celebrating Washington's birthday for nearly a century when Congress made it an official, legal holiday.  Then in the late 1960's, Congress was discussing the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill.  (That's the law that bopped nearly all the holidays to Monday, so now there are few people who actually know when Columbus landed in the Americas or when Washington's birthday is or when MLK's birthday is or when Memorial Day was.) 

Along with the UMHBill, Congress debated whether to change Washington's Birthday to a celebration of Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays.  I remember the fuss in Illinois from government workers who would be cut from two paid holidays to one, should this legislation pass.  That part of the bill failed.

But "Washington's Birthday" was no longer celebrated on Washington's birthday.  Somehow, as the years passed, Washington's birthday began to be known as Presidents' Day.  Part of it was because of teachers wanting to touch on more history than just the one president.  Part of it was advertisers.  There were probably other influences too.  Whatever the causes, the creation of "Presidents' Day" was something that grew out of society instead from a declaration of the government. 

Plumbing

In past years, reading history to the kids, I remember my shock at the reaction of people when toilets were invented. "What? You'd do THAT in your house? Oh, it would stink. Clean people wouldn't give up their outhouses."

It's a whoppin' 1 degree this morning.

I am thankful today for indoor plumbing that flushes.

Timeline

Teachers "do" timelines in different ways. Some teachers don't consider it important enough to bother hanging on the wall. Some buy a pre-made timeline. Some have the students develop a timeline.

None of those worked for me on a regular basis. Occasionally I'd have the kids build a timeline. But after many attempts at keeping timelines, I settled on one simple plan. I made a bare-bones timeline. It was a pair. The timelines were about 5-7' long each, made of adding-machine tape or something similar, about 4-7" wide. One timeline covered the years 4000 BC to the present, with an inch (or 1.25") per century. The other zoomed in on the final 8% of the first timeline, covering the years 1500-2000, on a scale of 1.5" per decade.

Few events were listed on the timeline. On the full timeline, we listed creation, flood, Abraham, Moses, David, Israel's fall to Assyria, Judah's fall to Babylon, Jesus, fall of Rome, Columbus. On the more detailed, modern timeline, we included the Reformation, Pilgrims coming to Massachusetts, Revolutionary War, Civil War, Laura Ingalls, birth of great-grandparents, WWI, birth of grandparents, WWII, birth of parents, and birth of the kids. This was our skeletal framework. We might pencil in other events: the 7-Years War or the Wright Bros' airplane or Alexander the Great. Even when the timeline wasn't used to record events, it was essentially our map through time. We repeatedly go to the world map to get a feel for where something is happening, be it in a story or in current events. We used the timeline the same way: it was a framework to locate something in history. Because it was a simplistic timeline, it was easy to whip out a replacement when the current timeline was too worn or scribbled too full of additional events. We never had to be without our little map of time.

The King's Speech

I admit it: I am prejudiced against Oscar-winning films. If a movie wins an award from the type of people who dole out that award, I am suspicious.

But I kept hearing from people whose opinion I respect that The King's Speech was excellent. Even though it's got an R-rating. The PG-13 movies are pushing it for me, with regard to how much ick I can bear. Nevertheless, I bumped into the movie at the library recently and nabbed the DVD to take home.

Oh. my. goodness.

That was one of the best movies I've ever seen. That's right up there with The Blind Side and Rudy and Luther and Anne of Green Gables and Renaissance Man and Gran Torino (and it doesn't even have the ick that Gran Torino does).

The movie says the right thing about duty. About family. About parenting. About persistence. About vocation.

I also liked the way it handled the abdication of King Edward. I remember one Sunday School teacher once upon a long time ago teaching us that it was "such a wonderful thing Edward did, giving up his throne for love. His love was so great, so immense, that he would give up anything, even the crown, to be able to spend his life with his beloved. Isn't that just like God's love for us?" Excuse me, but gag! Edward took another man's wife, selfishly indulging himself. That is NOT a picture of God's love for us; we do not liken the Lord Jesus to an adulterer. So I was glad to see that the movie did not glamorize Edward's decision.

But the thing I loved most about the movie was the "expert." The prince had received treatment and therapies from many doctors and other experts. He finally went to Lionel Logue who was, at the same time, two things: the real expert, and the imposter expert. Lionel wasn't trained, he wasn't credentialed, he wasn't conventional. Who ever let him give speech therapy? In our day and age, he'd probably be hauled before a government tribunal and fined and possibly jailed. The faker!

And yet, he was the one who finally helped. He was the one who employed unique ways of resolving speech difficulties. He was the one who tried to cut to the heart of the problem instead of just treating symptoms. The self-trained guy -- who learned by a) careful observation and b) diving in and doing what needed to be done for his neighbor in need -- found ways to accomplish what none of the other doctors could accomplish. Chalk up a big one for thinking outside the box!

I have some kids who would have been labeled ADD if they'd attended school. But they were homeschooled, and their oddball teacher didn't do the things we're "supposed to do" for ADD kids. My kids thrived.

I have a daughter with VCFS. She is homeschooled, and she is not receiving the typical special-ed that most VCFS kids receive. Neither has she been receiving the typical medical care that most VCFS kids receive. And for some reason, she's doing unusually well -- educationally, socially, and physically. There's no way to know how things would be for her if we'd done what all the medical & educational specialists recommended. But we do know that God has done wondrous things for Maggie "even though" her parents aren't doing what conventional wisdom dictates. The question is, should "even though" in the preceding sentence be replaced by "because"? Who knows? But the tale of The King's Speech shows that "because" ought not be ruled out.

Government and Inflation

Charles Sumner, Republican senator from Massachusetts, announcing that he would vote in 1862 for the Legal Tender Act, even though he believed in "hard money" (backed by gold and silver):

Is it necessary to incur all the unquestionable evils of inconvertible paper, forced into circulation by act of Congress? To suffer the stain upon our national faith? To bear the stigma of a seeming repudiation? To lose for the present that credit which, in itself, is a treasury? And to teach debtors everywhere that contracts may be varied at the will of a stronger? Surely, there is much in these inquiries which make us pause.... Surely we must all be against paper money. We must all insist on maintaining the integrity of the government. We must all set our faces against any proposition like the present, except as a temporary expedient.

So the legislators and economists 150 years ago worried that fiat money would bring disaster. Many commentators of that day (and since) have suggested that greenbacks turned out not to be so bad after all.

Anybody look at the national debt recently? Anybody heard of the protests in Madison WI because government employees believe that the government has a never-ending supply of money? Anybody notice that many debtors today have indeed learned that it's okay to change a contract if they can get by with it? (The attitude of our former governor seemed to be, "Oh, piffles, why should we have to pay back Minnesota just because we owe them money?")

You Know You're Old When ...

you're talking with your co-worker about enjoying history. She agrees. She tells you that they didn't learn enough history in school. She tells you that she has been watching a mini-series documentary on the Kennedy family, and she's been loving it, and why didn't they teach her any of this in school?

And I'm thinking, they didn't teach it to me in school either. A lot of it hadn't happened yet ....

Causes of the Civil War

Slavery versus abolition?
Nationalism versus states' rights?
You hear both sides.

Tonight as Andrew and I were listening to a presentation on the Civil War, I think I finally figured out something. Both issues brought on Southern secession.

Basically, the states that seceded between Lincoln's election and inauguration were the southern Southern states that wanted to protect the institution of slavery and even expand it by importing more slaves and making slaves cheaper to buy so that everybody could have one. But the northern Southern states were waffling; they were still in the USA when Lincoln became president. Virginia and the other border states bailed on the USA and joined the CSA after Fort Sumter. For them, nationalism could not overcome the thought of the federal government trampling states' rights.

This makes sense to me. That would be why you hear primary-source material which sounds, beyond a shadow of a doubt, as if the war were most certainly fought over the issue of slavery and because some Americans thought dark-skinned people weren't really people but property. And yet other primary-source material just as clearly and surely makes the case that the war was not about slavery but about political power. The viewpoint would depend on which part of the South we're talking about, and when they left the Union, and why.

1830's Trails

Never could keep 'em straight: the Trail of Tears and the Santa Fe Trail. In all honesty, I'm not sure that I ever realized they were separate places.

They both were east-west trails in the US.
They weren't that far apart, and both trails overlapped some of the same longitudinal lines.
The stories of both trails involved Indians and soldiers.
They occurred at the same time.
And obviously, they both contain the word "trail."

We're reading a history book that covers world events during Abraham Lincoln's lifetime. (By the way, I've learned more about Napolean in the last month than I ever learned in school.) Also, Andrew and I are working through some lectures on American wars, and right now we're on the events that led up to the Mexican War. So, in the same week, we stumbled upon both trails.

Now, maybe you learned more history than I learned. Or maybe you can keep straight titles that have the same word in them. But if you too are a Bear of Very Little Brain, here are the differences:

The Santa Fe Trail was a little further north, and began & ended further west than the Trail of Tears.

But more importantly, people went back and forth on the Santa Fe Trail; it was a trade route. The Trail of Tears was a one-time trail, from east to west, from the Cherokee homeland into exile.

I think now I'll be able to keep them straight.