Saturday, February 25, 2012

Saturday Snapshot: Weekend Baking

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.

I caught a 'baking bug' last weekend and decided to take on a couple new recipes. I had some fresh raspberries on hand which I decided would be the focus.

Raspberry Oatmeal Muffins - first vegan recipe I've ever tried and they turned out pretty good.


Raspberry Lime Bread
- you have to really like lime for this recipe, which I do. I used True Lime rather than lime juice which gave it an extra tart flavor punch.


Banana Oatmeal Bars - very simple and quick recipe, and best of all no sugar! Very taste and a great on-the-go snack.



Friday, February 24, 2012

Adaptation: Jack the Giant Killer



This looks kind of nifty!

Book Beginnings on Friday

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Instructions are pretty clear: just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

 This week's entry - Alina Bronsky's The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine






As my daughter Sulfia was explaining that she was pregnant but that she didn't know by whom, I paid extra attention to my posture.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Book Mark: Henry Miller's 11 Commandments for Writing

Courtesy of Flavorwire:

Henry Miller always seemed like a kind of, um… freewheeling guy, based on his books. So, it might surprise you to learn that he lived by a set of 11 commandments, which he worked up while writing his first novel, Tropic of Cancer. Unearthed from his book Henry Miller on Writing by the wonderful Lists of Note, it’s a trove of both personal reminders (“Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring’”) and universally excellent advice (“Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand”) that’s sure to be helpful to any aspiring writers out there. Click through for a serious dose of inspiration.

COMMANDMENTS
1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the sea posts the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). This is the First Chapter First Paragraph meme.


My entry this week comes from Ann Patchett's State of Wonder



The news of Anders Eckman's death came by way of Aerogram, a piece of bright blue airmail paper that served as both the stationery and, when folded over and sealed along the edges, the envelope. Who even knew they still made such things? This single sheet had traveled from Brazil to Minnesota to mark the passing of a man, a breath of tissue so insubstantial that only the stamp seemed to anchor it to this world. Mr. Fox had the letter in his hand when he came to the lab to tell Marina the news. When she saw him there at the door she smiled at him and in the light of that smile he faltered.

Patchett always gets me at the start and then it devolves into tedium around page 70. Perhaps this one will turnout differently!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Saturday Snapshot: Return to Childhood

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.

Going through a storage bin I came across a bunch of my Strawberry Shortcake figurines from childhood. I decided to display on one of the bookshelves, if for no other reason than some are worth a bit of money.



Luckily none smell anymore, or it would be a bit much! There are a few I don't have yet - the ones I didn't even know existed like Lemon n' Ade - so a little eBay sleuthing may be in order this weekend.




Friday, February 17, 2012

Book Beginnings on Friday

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Instructions are pretty clear: just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

 This week's entry - Monica McInerney's Upside Down Inside Out: A Novel






 
Eva Kennedy had just stepped into the cold March air when a watermelon rolled across the footpath in front of her.




How can anyone resist reading about a runaway watermelon?!

Adaptation: Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town





This aired opposite The Grammy's this past Sunday, so thinking a lot of people missed it. Not a bad production of a great Canadian novel (hard to believe it was published 100 hundred years; still relevant today!).

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Book Mark: Rolling Chair, Mobile Library

Such creativity! Designer Nils Holger Moorman award-winning Bookinist can store up to 80 paperbacks with compartments for pencils, bookmarks, and other items that may be handy when reading. I agree with others that it doesn't look all that comfortable but looks can be deceiving.




Book Mark: Most Dangerous Books of All Time

A couple weeks ago Flavorwire published their list of the 10 most dangerous books of all time. It is a fairly good list, and the captions accompanying each are worth a quick read.

(As an aside, I have never figured out the appeal of The Catcher in the Rye on any level. I found it trite and a waste of my time. I barely finished it and gave it away as soon as possible once done.)


Tuesday, February 14, 2012

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday


Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the sea posts the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). This is the First Chapter First Paragraph meme.

My entry this week comes from Lauren Groff's The Monsters of Templeton



The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass. It was one of those strange purple dawns that color July there, when the bowl made by the hills fills with a thick fog and even the songbirds sing timorously, unsure of day or night.


Evocative, no? This has been on my TBR for years; perhaps this is the year!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Line by Line: Malcolm Gladwell, Blink


“The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”

"Our world requires that decisions be sourced and footnoted, and if we say how we feel, we must also be prepared to elaborate on why we feel that way...We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that - sometimes - we're better off that way.”

"We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact: decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.”

“We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.”

“In the act of tearing something apart, you lose its meaning.”

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Saturday Snapshot: Riding the Rails on the Island

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.

The following photo was taken from inside the VIA Rail train in Victoria, BC. We are the start/end point of the track, on the east side of the Johnson Street bridge (or the blue bridge as I always refer to it).  You can see part of the Inner Harbour beyond the blue railing and the buildings on the other side of the harbour.
 

The train goes from Victoria to Courtenay each morning, and vice versa in the evening. The trip is about 4hrs and 45 mins one way, which makes for a very very long day trip. I took the trip a couple years ago while on vacation, and spent the time daydreaming, enjoying the island scenery and reading lots. Very peaceful and comfy on the way to Courtenay but not so much on the way back, as it was a Friday and people were heading into the city for the weekend.

Unfortunately, the service was suspended last March due to maintenance work. There is presently no set date for when it will be offered again. I was hoping to get to Victoria this spring for a vacation, and looks like I will have to cross the activity off the list. :-(

Friday, February 10, 2012

Adaptation: John Carter



"You are ugly, but you are beautiful."

In the film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp series, former Confederate captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is transported to Mars ("Barsoom"). There he becomes part of a conflict between the various nations of the planet, whose leaders include Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). Carter takes it upon himself to save Barsoom and its people.

Book Beginnings on Friday

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Instructions are pretty clear: just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

 This week's entry -Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife: A Novel






In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers.




This struck me on a personal level. My paternal grandfather passed years before I was born, and in the  photographs I have seen of him he would have also been as bald as a stone had we ever met and gone to see anything, let alone tigers.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Book Mark: Final Day of Canada Reads 2012

And.....Carmen Aguirre's Something Fierce was crowned the Canada Reads 2012 champion today. Woohoo!!! Its advocate--rapper Shad--was on point throughout the debates and I am very happy that not only the panel but also other listeners felt the right book was victorious.


Renowned actor Carmen Aguirre skillfully pilots readers straight into her girlhood initiation into a revolutionary family and ultimate decision, at age nineteen, to commit herself to the life of a radical. With vivid immediacy, Aguirre paints the political context and intimate experience of 1980s-era South American struggles against neo-liberal dictatorships: What does it feel like to be a child in the gun sights of Augusto Pinochet's henchmen? How did the US-backed governments of revolutionary Latin America collaborate in eliminating dissent at the cost of a still untold number of ruined lives? 

Refreshingly frank, personable, and often wry, Something Fierce recalls the work of Gioconda Bellí and Assata Shakur, paying special attention to the particular demands made of revolutionary women—to leave the raising of their children to others or directly involve them in struggle, to eschew romantic love for revolutionary action, to embrace "revolution" over "culture."

A literal page-turner, Something Fierce reveals how "normal" people confront a life of privation and communal action, of terror alongside an unerring dedication that offers its own satisfactions. Bearing witness to the costs, beauty, and even seductions of resistance, Aguirre impels us to question: Do we choose revolution, or does revolution choose us?



Ken Dryden's The Game is a worthy read as well. No shame in being runner-up!

Widely acknowledged as the best hockey book ever written and lauded by Sports Illustrated as one of the Top 10 Sports Books of All Time, The Game is a reflective and thought-provoking look at a life in hockey. Intelligent and insightful, former Montreal Canadiens goalie and former President of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ken Dryden captures the essence of the sport and what it means to all hockey fans. He gives us vivid and affectionate portraits of the characters — Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe, Serge Savard, and coach Scotty Bowman among them — that made the Canadiens of the 1970s one of the greatest hockey teams in history. But beyond that, Dryden reflects on life on the road, in the spotlight, and on the ice, offering up a rare inside look at the game of hockey and an incredible personal memoir. This commemorative edition marks the 20th anniversary of The Game's original publication. It includes black and white photography from the Hockey Hall of Fame and a new chapter from the author. Take a journey to the heart and soul of the game with this timeless hockey classic.

Book Review: Nicolas Dickner, Nikolski


“Archaelogy is the discipline of the future, Every time an old IBM finds its way to the dump, it becomes an artifact. Artifacts are the main products of our civilization. When all the computer experts are unemployed, we’ll still have millions of years of work ahead of us. That is the fundamental paradox of archaeology. Our discipline will reach its peak at the end of the world.”
These are the wise words of one Thomas Saint-Laurent, a secondary yet key character in Nicolas Dickner’s crafty first novel Nikolski. It is an appropriate statement, as its undertones apply to all three of the main protagonists looping through Dickner’s literary excavation site. Dickner himself takes on the role of archaeologist throughout the novel, evaluating with ease and discipline the lives, experiences, and intentions of his multi-faceted characters. These evaluations occur in a similar fashion as to how we the readers may guide guests through a photo album or slide show, pausing on a singular photo, working through the memories from the bits of information contained within its boundaries and then moving on to the next without any further regard.

Nikolski initiates with the narration of an unnamed young man who represents one point on the interlocked triangle of Dickner’s archaelogical zone of personal destiny. Through this young man, the reader learns that Nikolski is a tiny village on Unmak Island in the Aleutians “[i]nhabited by thirty-six people, five thousand sheep and an indeterminate number of dogs,” and the final resting place of one Jonas Doucet.

For the unnamed narrator, Nikolski is the name with which he christens a treasured plastic compass, the only item he has of his father Jonas. This compass is a constant companion for the narrator following the death of his mother, strung around his neck like a grown-up version of a baby pacifier. It is the only link the narrator has to life as he knew it, and to the life he thinks could have been. The constant companionship of the compass with the unnamed narrator also keeps the reader tied to the soon-to-be colliding biographical and geographical worlds of the narrator’s yet unknown family branches, as evidenced in the compass’ refusal to point anywhere but Jonas’ final resting spot.

As the story progresses, it is revealed that Jonas is also the father of Noah, an archaeology student from Saskatchewan. Noah is half-Chipewyan, raised solely by his mother Sarah in the back of an ever-moving caravan nicknamed “Grampa.” Sarah and Noah roam across Canada, barely staying in any of the towns they encounter on their nomadic adventures. Noah decides to move to Montreal to study archaelogy, specifically nomadic peoples, leaving his mother to continue passing through the Canadian landscape solo. A large component of his story is the continuous act of writing letters to Sarah, picking post offices based on ever-slipping knowledge of her travel patterns to which to send his life updates.

The third protaganist is Joyce, recently transplanted from the East Coast where she was raised by her widowed father. Joyce grew up listening to the grand stories of her family’s long lineage of pirates and buccaneers from her grandfather, storied including the seafaring life of her uncle Jonas. One day Joyce learns that her mother is not dead, and has been seemingly peddling the family legacies south of the border. This knowledge propels Joyce to bolt from her small town existence and head for Montreal. Joyce dreams of being a pirate like her legendary ancestor, Heremegilde Doucet, and she makes this a reality by becoming a computer hacker and identity thief.

Once all three individuals converge on the same stomping ground, Nikolski starts to pick up a little steam by showing how their lives intersect, albeit independently, through the second-hand bookstore where the unnamed narrator works. Joyce finds a job at a local fish market, working with immigrant Maelo who happens to be sharing a flat with Noah. Neither Joyce nor Noah ever meet though despite their one degree of separation; they remain ignorant of their biological connections, their shared genetic predisposition to nomadism.

And the idea of nomadism is the arching untidiness that Dickner uses to define his central thesis. Nikolski is pinned together by coincidences and chances that fan together into an absorbing rumination on destiny. All three protagonists are soloists, seeking connection with the world around them but in controlled measures they believe to be of their own making. Yet Dickner writes their world and experiences such to portray that none of the characters escapes the machinations of fate. The events through which their connections appear and dispel are inexplicable, "[a]nd that is exactly the trouble with inexplicable events, you inevitably end up interpreting them in terms of predestination, or magic realism, or government plots."

The concept of predestination seems hokey but transforms under Dickner’s guidance into a charming exercise of narrative randomness. Each character’s story represents different points on the Nikolski compass with the needle swaying endlessly between desire for the open road and longing for a singular place to call home. The untidiness mentioned earlier inspires numerous loose ends that never get resolved by the conclusion of the novel. Readers may be discouraged at the lack of challenge or action devices thrown in the path of these characters.  

Nikolski is not a novel to pursue if wanting a perfunctory ending or conclusionary coda. Its cleverness lies in the ways Dickner plays with such potential inevitabilities through evocative imagery and a cast of eccentric and believable characters. He picks up and picks at the artifacts created through each character’s experiences and renders an elegant and creative view of their world. Nikolski is a high achievement in storytelling, by craftily threading an allusive story that propels the reader to do just the same.

*Winner - Canada Reads 2010
*Winner - 2008 Governor General's Award for English to French Translation
*Winner - 2006 Prix Anne-Hébert

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Book Mark: Day 3 of Canada Reads 2012

And then there were 2. In a tiny surprise, voting came down between hockey and music, with Dave Bidini's On a Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock unfortunately voted out.

*Sigh* I was disappointed with the debate today...again. Not sure if it is the result of the poor decision to have this year focus on true stories or the poor decision around who the advocates would be for the books or (most likely) a combination of both. Past years have been passionate and inspiring; not this year for this reader. Almost the opposite at times.

Anyway, it all comes down to hockey (what a surprise--not!) and human rights tomorrow. Go Shad!


David Bidini, rhythm guitarist with the Rheostatics, knows all too well what the life of a rock band in Canada involves: storied arenas one tour and bars wallpapered with photos of forgotten bands the next. Zit-speckled fans begging for a guitar pick and angry drunks chucking twenty-sixers and pint glasses. Opulent tour buses riding through apocalyptic snowstorms and cramped vans that reek of dope and beer. Brilliant performances and heart-sinking break-ups.

Bidini has played all across the country many times, in venues as far flung and unalike as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and the Royal Albert Hotel in Winnipeg. In 1996, when the Rheostatics opened for the Tragically Hip on their Trouble at the Henhouse tour, Bidini kept a diary. In
On a Cold Road he weaves his colourful tales about that tour with revealing and hilarious anecdotes from the pioneers of Canadian rock - including BTO, Goddo, the Stampeders, Max Webster, Crowbar, the Guess Who, Triumph, Trooper, Bruce Cockburn, Gale Garnett, and Tommy Chong - whom Bidini later interviewed in an effort to compare their experiences with his. The result is an original, vivid, and unforgettable picture of what it has meant, for the last forty years, to be a rock musician in Canada.

Book Mark: Curated Book Packages at Slovenian Library

Came across this article last week on Springwise and I just had to share. I find this to be a fascinating program and one that I'd like to see at my local library!

Courtesy of Springwise:
The Ljubljana City Library in Slovenia recently ran a program offering packs of three books, curated by genre, to their visitors.



Last year we saw both people and dogs loaned out by libraries, but it would seem there’s still plenty that can still be done with books as well. Aiming to introduce more fun into library loaning, Ljubljana City Library (LCL) recently ran a program offering mystery packs of books to their customers.

Those visiting the library had the option to check out one of an assortment of mystery packages containing three books wrapped in brown paper. A sticker on the front of each package signified which literary genre the books inside belonged to, and librarians were on hand to advise customers on which genre they might prefer. The parcels all contained one novel from a contemporary writer, one classic, and one “easy to read” novel.

As libraries around the world begin to feel the strain caused by e-book popularity, this initiative offers a personal, curated touch, with a dose of mystery and fun thrown in to help attract customers. Libraries and educational institutions around the world, one to try out in your area?

Book Mark: 25 Things I Learned From Opening a Bookstore

Interested in opening a bookstore?  jlslarthe over at Salon pulled together the 25 things she learned while opening her bookstore. While I have never contemplated opening a bookstore, the following 'things' definitely caught my attention as a overly frequent visitor of said stores:

11.  Under no circumstances should you put the sex manuals in the free baskets.  Parents will show up.

18.  People use whatever is close at hand for bookmarks--toothpicks, photographs, kleenex, and the very ocassional fifty dollar bill, which will keep you leafing through books way beyond the point where it's pr0ductive. 

23.  Everyone has a little Nancy Drew in them.  Stock up on the mysteries. 

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Book Mark: Day 2 of Canada Reads 2012

Down to three books in the Canada Reads competition, following a rather disappointing debate today. The second casualty was John Valliant's The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. The debate was disappointing in that the advocate for this book was, well, off-putting. And reading other blogs and forums, it seems that it was not just me who found the book's champion overly abrasive and a tad condescending. Unfortunate that the advocate may have been this book's undoing. Oh well--bring on Day 3 (go Shad)!


Outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East a man-eating tiger is on the prowl. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s murdering them, almost as if it has a vendetta. A team of trackers is dispatched to hunt down the tiger before it strikes again. They know the creature is cunning, injured, and starving, making it even more dangerous. As John Vaillant re-creates these extraordinary events, he gives us an unforgettable and masterful work of narrative nonfiction that combines a riveting portrait of a stark and mysterious region of the world and its people, with the natural history of nature’s most deadly predator.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday


Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the sea posts the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). This is the First Chapter First Paragraph meme.

My entry this week comes from Jay McInerney's The Good Life




Summer used to be as endless as the ocean when she was a girl and her family rented the gray shingled cottage on Nantucket. Now, she found it hard to believe she was already back in Manhattan and the kids were in school and she was already racing home, late again, feeling guilty that she'd lingered over a drink with Casey Reynes. The kids had been home for hours after their first day in first grade, and she had yet to hear about it.

Women blame themselves; men blamed anything but.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Book Mark: Day 1 of Canada Reads 2012

The annual CBC Canada Reads competition officially started today, and as a surprise to many listeners Marina Nemat's Prisoner of Tehran: One Woman's Story of Survival Inside an Iranian Prison was the first book voted out. After my participation in the Nazanin Afshin-Jam presentation last week on child executions in Iran, I am a little disappointing that the panel did not feel this book deserved to last longer in the competition. But c'est la vie; this is Canada after all and it is likely that it will all come down to hockey and a rock band. On to Day 2!

What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life?

In January 1982, Marina Nemat, then just sixteen years old, was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death for political crimes. Until then, her life in Tehran had centered around school, summer parties at the lake, and her crush on Andre, the young man she had met at church. But when math and history were subordinated to the study of the Koran and political propaganda, Marina protested. Her teacher replied, "If you don't like it, leave." She did, and, to her surprise, other students followed. Soon she was arrested with hundreds of other youths who had dared to speak out, and they were taken to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Two guards interrogated her. One beat her into unconsciousness; the other, Ali, fell in love with her.

Sentenced to death for refusing to give up the names of her friends, she was minutes from being executed when Ali, using his family connections to Ayatollah Khomeini, plucked her from the firing squad and had her sentence reduced to life in prison. But he exacted a shocking price for saving her life -- with a dizzying combination of terror and tenderness, he asked her to marry him and abandon her Christian faith for Islam. If she didn't, he would see to it that her family was harmed. She spent the next two years as a prisoner of the state, and of the man who held her life, and her family's lives, in his hands.

Lyrical, passionate, and suffused throughout with grace and sensitivity, Marina Nemat's memoir is like no other. Her search for emotional redemption envelops her jailers, her husband and his family, and the country of her birth -- each of whom she grants the greatest gift of all: forgiveness.

Book Mark: Brontë Sisters Book Set


 



For all you Brontë and classic literature fans, this offering from Juniper Books may be something you just have to have: "a complete set of the Sisters Brontë books in custom purple jackets with a subtle Arts + Crafts movement design."



Sunday, February 5, 2012

Book Trailer: R. J. Palacio, Wonder



Born with a severe facial deformity that shocks even well-meaning adults, Auggie — in many ways a regular boy with a sharp sense of humor and an obsession with Star Wars — takes the plunge from being home-schooled all his life to mainstream Beecher Prep, where he encounters the type of cruelty and bullying only found in middle school as well as genuine kindness.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Saturday Snapshot: International Awareness

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.

This past Thursday I attended two different events, both part of the International / Global Awareness weeks at two local universities. The first was a presentation from Nazanin Afshin-Jam, a international human rights activist, singer/songwriter, actor, former Miss World Canada, and President and co-founder of the Stop Child Executions organization. Her presentation centered on her work with the Stop Child Executions organization, describing how she came to found the organization,  some of the her activist activities, and her thoughts on the human rights future of Iran.

Afshin-Jam's most famous activist undertaking came in 2006 when she successfully ran an international campaign to save the life of Nazanin Fatehi, a juvenile sentenced to death in Iran for stabbing in self defense one of three assailants that tried to rape her. If you have not heard of this story, I urge you take the time and Google it. Or wait for her book which is being published later this year. The story is incredible from all perspectives and I greatly applaud the work of Afshin-Jam and her organization. One of the highlights of her talk was the repetition of the following statement: "If not now, when? If not you, who?" Indeed, when and who. Very inspiring.

The second event was a lecture by John Gastil, a professor from Penn State. He presented on "Glimpsing Democracy's Future: Deliberative Innovations in India, Brazil, Canada, and the United States." The theme of the presentation was deliberative democracy, and how each of these country's finds ways of bringing citizens' voices more directly into public policy debates by connecting small face-to-face deliberation with larger mass political events. I participated in the webinar, as it was in the evening and I had a few other things I needed to do at the same time.  I snapped this of one of the slides:

After attending the Afshin-Jam talk about an hour before this lecture, this quote really tied everything together for me. We do take democracy for granted, that it is something we have the right too. But, democracy is a privilege for those of us who live within its purveyance and/or have only ever known it. It may be our way of life, but it is not a right; life moves quickly and democracy can falter and crash just like all the regimes we witnessed during the Arab Spring. We need to actively contribute to democracy's evolution and sustainment within our own democractic lives; it is not just something to "bring" to other countries and states.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Book Beginnings on Friday

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Instructions are pretty clear: just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

 This week's entry - Robert Olen Butler's A Small Hotel





On the afternoon of the day when she fails to show up in a judge's chambers in Pensacola to finalize her divorce, Kelly Hays swerves her basic-black Mercedes into the valet spot and thumps hard into the curb and pops the gearshift into park, and then she feels a silence rush through her chest and limbs and mind that should terrify her.