First World 21st Century Problems

No citizenship post today, but I will get back to the question I left you with - one you probably already knew the answer to - or at least held opinions about. 

The Puritans, who settled all over what is now Massachusetts, were interested in religious freedom... for themselves. They were very strict Protestants who, in Europe, wanted to rid the church of any vestiges of Catholicism. They were very pious, strict Protestants who did not have a voice in the English, and later Dutch, Church as they wanted. They wanted to live in a place where they were free to practice their religion and live where laws reflect their religion. You can probably see where this is heading, right?

When the Puritans started their new colonies they made laws that Puritans would support. They did not allow the practice of other religions within Puritan colonies and they had a specific hatred for the Quakers. In 1660 they executed one, a woman by the name of Mary Dyer for the severe crime of living in the colony while practicing Quakerism. This peeved King Charles II of England somewhat (in the way water displeases cats somewhat). In 1661, as a response to Mary Dyer's hanging, King Charles forbade the further execution of Quakers in the Massachusetts colonies. When that didn't work he revoked the charter for the colony and sent his own governor to enforce some actual religious tolerance in the New World. 

For those who wonder where we, especially in New England, got our history of religious tolerance and diversity you need look no further than England. In fact, it would be best if you stopped there. The Puritans had very little (basically) nothing to do with bringing religious tolerance to the American ethos.

Fun Fact: The Massachusetts Bay Colony executed 4 Quakers between 1659 and 1661, they are referred to as the Boston Martyrs in the Quaker tradition. The first execution was on October 27th of 1659. Today, October 27th is International Religious Freedom Day. The irony, at least to me, is palpable.

On to the thrust of today's post. I wanted to share a book with you all: The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson (I highly recommend the book!!) It is a book I read with voracious appetite over the course of a long weekend as I traveled home for an old friend's wedding this month. The book is a work of historical non-fiction, but told as one part mystery novel and one part hero's journey. The action, as it were, centers around the 1854 London cholera outbreak that killed more than 600 people. The outbreak struck the Soho neighborhood around Broad Street and within a three day period more than 100 people in the small neighborhood were dead. It didn't take long for the rest to flee or fall ill themselves. 

The book focuses on two different men who followed the course of the cholera outbreak: Jon Snow, a  Soho resident, doctor and scientist; and Henry Whitehead, a clergyman who was stationed at a church in the Soho neighborhood. The initial investigation is carried out primarily by Jon Snow, who traces the deaths and comes the radical (at the time) conclusion that the disease is waterborne, not airborne. Overcoming a great deal of push-back from community members in Soho and in science Dr. Snow is able to get the water pump at Broad Street shut down, and so stop the outbreak in its tracks. Despite his brilliant research Dr. Snow did not receive credit in his lifetime for correctly marking the way in which cholera spreads (it is indeed waterborne, and the infection did indeed start at the Broad Street pump the doctor had shut down). 

Reading the book while on a plane traveling the length of half a country I marveled at the advances we have made in science, city planning, and social issues since 1854 (only 200 years ago). The scientific community now openly believes that just because something stinks doesn't mean it's going to kill you (that was the only acceptable belief in 1854). We know that disease spreads in many ways, but water is a big one and just because something tastes clean doesn't mean it isn't teeming with invisible bacteria. As a community we've moved past believing that a person's character determines their likelihood of illness (another widely held 1854 belief.) We don't use cesspools anymore to dispose of human waste. We also don't dump in into rivers, lakes, or harbors (at least not intentionally). We realize that out of sight doesn't really mean out of trouble and modern cities must be designed to reflect that knowledge. Human waste is corralled away from residential areas, clean water is piped in. This is true in every centrally designed and planned city in the industrialized world. Even poor areas of those cities. Modern day New York dwellers aren't likely to get cholera just because they don't live in the fashionable area of town, nor are they going to have trouble accessing clean water, or even electricity if they are able to pay for it.

The book made me appreciate how the little things in my life that I take for granted are really big things that I should be grateful for. I have access to clean running water, electricity, sanitary living conditions, personal space, and a relatively high degree of personal security. I don't live in fear the way every historical figure Johnson peoples his very street-level retelling of the outbreak do. They are realized they lived in close quarters with Death and that He could claim them, their family, and their neighborhood with relative ease and brevity. For all the things we have to be afraid of today in the United States, we don't have fear the way the inhabitants of 1854 had fear. There's no comparison. And for that I'm truly grateful and appreciative.

But, some people still live that way. After Haiti's 2010 earthquake there was a huge outbreak of cholera that claimed over 9,000 lives on the island. Africa also continues to suffer from cholera outbreaks, especially in central Sub-Saharan Africa in countries like; Kenya, the DRC, Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra-Leone, and Guinea-Bissau. And the thing is, it's a treatable condition and a preventable problem. Both things can be fixed with clean, accessible water, and education.

Why isn't is being addressed? Because there is another facet of 1854 life that we still haven't managed to change. When the problem doesn't affect us directly it's easy to not care and look the other way. Cholera outbreaks are very isolated. It made it easy for the wealthy of London, who lived in droves just one street away from the 1854 outbreak, to ignore the problem or write it off as dirty living and the problem of the poor (brought on by themselves no doubt). In fact, it was the government itself that made the problem possible by encouraging the use of cesspools and dumping polluted water and waste into the Thames and then allowing Thames water to be distributed to the general public. Today, we can look the other way because it's not our country. Not our neighborhood. It's the problem of another government, one that's probably corrupt or lacking proper channels to address the issue. It's easy to make excuses and excuse ourselves from global responsibility, but the fact remains - we are all people with basic human dignity. We are invested in this world and though we may not suffer the poverty and fear directly, it affects us all. We have to watch. We have to pay attention. We have to engage. Because there is a solution and it is within our reach to bring it about.

Read about the issues that pertain to cholera and so many other things that come along with unsafe drinking water at Water.org. They're a great organization and even if you can't donate your money or your time (I know I can't at the moment), the best you can do is not look away. Stay informed and stay engaged.

Houses

There is an entire generation that can, by and large, define their personality by which house they belong to.

Of course, not everybody of my generation has read the Harry Potter books, but they are nevertheless a sort of cultural touchstone. Most pop-culture savvy millennials are at least familiar with terms like Hogwarts and Muggle, even if they haven't actually consumed any of the media in the Harry Potter franchise.

So, understandably, which of the four Hogwarts houses an individual belongs to has become something of a point of speculation for some. There are hundreds of quizzes online that attempt to solve this question, but the definitive quiz by and large seems to be the Sorting Hat quiz on Pottermore, a site moderated by JK Rowling herself.

July 31^st was Harry Potter's 35^th birthday, so the series has been on my mind recently. Earlier today I got into a conversation with some friends about which of the four Hogwarts Houses we all saw ourselves as, and several of us took (or retook) the Pottermore Sorting Hat quiz. Some of us were surprised by the results. Some of us noted that they had changed from earlier results on the same quiz. Some of us recalled relating to one house in particular when we first began to read the books, and then having our views change overtime. That makes sense, we agreed. Personalities change over time. In the decade it took for the books to be written, all of the readers evolved as individuals. What house they most resonated with as an early reader might well be completely at odds with what house they resonated with by the time the series had culminated.

Then one of us pointed out that, at Hogwarts, the same thing happens. Over the seven years a student is expected to attend Hogwarts, a lot can change. But they are permanently assigned to a house that best fit the personalities of their eleven-year-old self. Granted, this brought up several interesting considerations---for instance, Neville displays few traits of the typical Gryffindor for the majority of the series, but in the end proves himself capable of wielding the sword of Godric Gryffindor himself. Does the Sorting Hat know who a student will end up becoming? What are the greater implications of that?

Think back to your eleven-year-old selves. Who were you then? Who are you now? Do you still hold the same fundamental values? Are your principle worldviews still the same? Do you interact with people the same way?

And when it comes right down to it, how important is the Sorting Hat? How strong of an influence does a student's house have on them? After all, Hagrid asserts that "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin," though this is clearly untrue since Peter Pettigrew, who betrays his best friends for Voldemort (though ultimately sacrifices himself in a final act of redemption) was a Gryffindor, and the inverse certainly isn't true since there were countless Slytherins who never “went bad” and countless more who redeemed themselves. So, while being sorted into a particular house comes with certain stigmas and expectations, it is not enough to shape who you are or who you will become. Yet, it serves as a convenient way for Hogwarts students to label themselves and others. It becomes a part of their identity, both internally and externally, and influences both how they are viewed and how they are treated.

At eleven, human brains are still far from being fully developed. It seems absurd that so integral a part of a young witch or wizard's identity would rest on a choice made at so young an age.

Admittedly, that choice is being made by a sentient hat, so this may just have to be one of those times where logic takes a back seat to magic, and that's perfectly alright.

What house are you? Is this different from what you used to see yourself as? Tell us in the comments below!

Raven is Reading: looking for alaska, Mort, The Carpet People

Lately I have been bad about making time for just sitting down and reading. Which is why I was proud of myself for dedicating a solid chunk of time towards reading today. I started John Green's looking for alaska today while waiting for Owl to get off from work, and am nearly done with it now. Even though it is a book that I am not entirely sure I like, despite trying very hard to do so, I am still grateful to have made the time to read it. (Well, almost all of it. I'll finish tomorrow, if not later tonight.)

Since I did a review of the shows Owl and I were watching a few months ago in the post "Rivendell is Watching..." I thought it would be interesting to do an occasional update for what we, or at least I, am reading, as well. If nothing else, it will help make me aware of how much, or little, I am actually reading, so that I can remind myself to devote more time to it.

I'm almost always reading at least two books simultaneously, often many more. I guess I just like to have options for what I read, depending on what mood I'm in, or what interests me in the moment.

So, here's what I'm reading currently:

looking for alaska
John Green

I still have yet to decide whether or not I actually like looking for alaska. I still have about fifty pages left, and I have enjoyed reading it, but that isn't necessarily the same as liking it. I certainly respect John Green immensely, both for his writing and for his videos, and he's done something that almost nobody else has been able to do, which is getting me to read books that center heavily on teenage angst and romance, so that's already a great credit to him. looking for alaska just isn't clicking with me the way I expected it to, and that's okay. It certainly has captured my attention, and is absolutely thought-provoking. For those who don't know, looking for alaska centers around Miles "Pudge" Halter as he experiences his first year at Culver Creek boarding school----a setting very much based on John Green's own experience with boarding school in Alabama. He is instantly drawn to Alaska Young, though I will admit this: I cannot fathom why. I find Alaska wholly unlikable. But this is redeemed by a strong and memorable cast of supporting characters that are clever, funny, and incredibly enjoyable to read, which more than makes up for my distaste for Alaska (and Miles, when it comes down to it.) The book's most notable feature is that it centers around a clear turning point. The nature of this turning point is only made clear when it happens, but the entire book is framed in two sections, before and after, with each subsection consisting of a day during Miles' first year at Culver Creek. The days are either formatted as "xxxx days before" or "xxxx days after" and it certainly added an element of suspense to the story, even if the turning point itself wasn't much of a surprise for me.

Mort
Sir Terry Pratchett

I started rereading Mort about two weeks ago. The Sunday before last, I managed, in an act of true stupidity, to injure my head, enough for it to bleed quite a bit but not enough to be concussed. The details involved a very ill-placed cavalry sword in a heavy steel sabre we were given as a gift last Christmas, a wobbly bookshelf, and me re-shelving some comics. Perhaps you can guess the details. Suffice it to say, head wounds hurt, swords don't go on high places if they're unsecured, and Owl is a trooper for, once again, tending to my bleeding war wounds.

After the blood had been sopped up, I sat on the futon in our spare room with an ice pack to my head, and Owl brought me in a book. She knows that I like to read familiar books when I'm upset, sick, or in pain, and she also knows that there's not much in the world I enjoy reading more than a good Pratchett book. (Good, in my mind, means all of them, by the by.) Without asking, she brought me one of my very favorites, and since then I have been reading it slowly, savoring it, allowing myself the luxury of returning to an old, beloved friend even though I have resolved to spend more time reading new books and less time rereading old ones.

Mort was the fourth Discworld novel to be published, in 1987. Pratchett's Discworld books are often broken up into "mini-series", based on which group or entity they focus on, and Mort is the first  book in the Death "miniseries". Though Death appears in all but one of the Discworld books, Mort is the first book to focus on him, and in Mort, he takes on an apprentice...fittingly named Mort. Mort, to me, is a prime example of what character development should look like. At the beginning, he is a somewhat simple country boy with little going for him, but when he his apprenticed by Death he begins to change, gradually but ultimately drastically, until he can stand up to Death himself. One of my favorite books, I always enjoy reading Mort, and I find myself cherishing every reading of a Pratchett novel all the more in his passing.

Which is why it shouldn't surprise anybody that the third book on my list is...

The Carpet People 
Sir Terry Pratchett

The Carpet People was Pratchett's first novel. I started reading it quite a while back (I first mention it here, when, just days after Pratchett's death, I am stunned into silence by a simple memorial to him in the form of a Barnes and Noble endcap honoring his legacy) but was interrupted several times due to various instance of Real Life getting in the way, and have not made much progress. As I am not very far along in it, I won't say much, but I will say that it is as clever and as witty as I have come to expect from Pratchett, and that if my first book could be a slim fraction as enjoyable as his was, I should be so lucky.

I am also making my way though The Runaways, which I talk about here, and Pandemonium and Parade, which I talk about here.

In closing, I am, for reasons that will soon be apparent, looking to make a number of relatively quick posts (but still interesting and informative) in a very short period of time. Do you have any queries I can answer? Lists you would like to see? Pressing questions about archaeology, video games, or Battlestar Galactica? List them in the comments and maybe I'll make a post on them! It might be a Reader's Digest version, or, if I really like your question or if it sparks a much more detailed post, it may be saved for later to get a nice long post of its own!

That's all for now,
Raven

Pandemonium and Parade

In her last post, Owl talked about reading more literture of substance. This was brought on in part by a conversation we had late one night about reading as a form of self-enrichment, and how reading mindfully and deliberately was a skill we had both once actively cultivated, but have let rust out a bit more recently. Owl made a resolution fo rherself which she talked about in her previous post, and I wanted to do something similar, though not idential, for myself.

The first step in my plan is virtually idential to Owl's. After we had our discussion, we (too eager to wait until morning, and too fearful that we would lose momentum befoure our projects even began were we to postpone) made our way out into the main room. This was tricky, because as of the time of this conversation, less than a week ago, our living room floor was...less floor, and more book. It was carpeted with hundreds of novels, anthologies, textbooks, almanacs, and more dictionaries than anybody really needs to own. Hundreds of books, sorted into a dozen categories, waiting to be subdivided further into a score of subcategories*. Books, as you may be able to tell, are not something we take lightly here.  We collapsed beside a listing tower of non-fiction, which, spwaling out around the legs of our dining table, threatened to spill over into reference on one side and realistic fiction on the other. (You will be pleased to note, incidentally, that this madness is now all happilly contained to our seven bookshelves. And it only took a week) Sorting through the stacks, we together selected just over a dozen books. They currently live by Owl's nightstand, and the idea is that we will each pick one from the stack every month and read it. Eventually we will both have read all the books in the stack, so that when we throw parties we can delight all of our guests by our eerily-uniform knowledge of archaic Chinese burial customs.

...wait,  what do you mean thats not what people talk about at parties? A-are you sure? 

Anyhow, though it might not be quite the party trick I was hoping it would be, we have a pretty exciting selection of books. I admit to having read some of them before. I've kept most of the books I used in college, either as assigned textbooks or as research material, and they are among the most prized installations in my library. Owl very patiently let me pile on a fair few books on my two major collegiate interests: Chinese history and culture, and archaeology. There is a big difference between reading a book for class and reading it for pleasure, however, and I look forward to approaching these books from a new perspective, nd at my own pace. The rest of the books were either picked out by Owl as pertaining to one of her particular areas of study, as is the case with Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit, her current read, or were chosen since their subject was of interest to us both, or sufficienly unfamiliar to us that we felt we had much to learn from it.

Currently, I am (re)reading a book I read for the special first-year seminar all freshman at my alma mater were required to take. My particular course was Supernatural Japan, and we studied Japanese ghosts and monsters as they pertained to Japanese media and culture. This was a topic that stayed with me all throughout college---in a wonderfully cyclic coincidence, I ended up writing a paper on the pervasiveness of yōkai (妖怪) , Japanese monsters, in popular culture for my Asian Studies seminar my final semester. The book is entitled Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yōkai by Michael Dylan Foster,  and it was one of the first (if not the first) book I ever read at the collegiate level. It was formative in shping my mindset as a scholar, or at least as a reader of scholarly works, but save for the few chapters I consulted for the aforementioned capstone paper, I have not had the opportunity to revisit this work since I was a freshman. I am only a few chapters in but I am enjoying the experience immensely, and it is good to be reading metacognitively again.

The second step in my plan is to write more about what I read. This will force me to read carefully and analytically, will help me cogitate on what I have read, and will ensure that I understand it well enough to speak (or type) coherently about it. You can expect to see some, if not all, of that writing here in the coming months. If hearing me talk about archaeology bored you before, just wait until I start talking about some of my favorite archaeology textbooks! No but seriously, they're superb.

Stay tuned for more talking about reading, and possibly pictures of our sea of books! Maybe even pictures of our pretty, organized bookshelves, if you're lucky.

*And if you're really interested, we can provide you with that breakdown. We have lists. And labels! And pictures.