Day #259

Went on another walk around Greenwood Cemetery - sometime around 3:30, I was planning on going around 2:30, but mother called, and needed to rant/vent about technological issues. Apparently her printer is out of color ink and won't work without it, and Staples and Amazon are sold out. Also, she can't order stuff from Amazon or follow the links I sent - because it has her old email address and not the new one and she can't figure out how to change it.

[Tonight I sent her the information on how to change her email on Amazon. Yes, I know various people online hate Amazon. I despise Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and Target.]




I love this cemetery. I've found it to be calming. This evening it was quiet as the light faded into twilight around four pm, and hit sunset roughly around four thirty. It gets darker earlier and earlier now.

There was a sharp breeze whistling through the trees and rustling through the dead and fallen leaves, startling me at times. And the sky was streaked with fading rain clouds, spots of blue and sun poking through.

At one point sunlight shone like a spotlight, bathing statues and trees in its warmth.



I'd planned on listening to an audio book on my way around the cemetery, but opted for the quiet instead. There was but a handful of people walking around it with me. And for once no bikes locked up in the bike rack. It was a cold day, brisk, with little sun, and mostly wind and rain. I'm thinking most people opted to stay indoors - the scant few who walked around the cemetery were much like me - single souls, needing some peace and some exercise. As a result I was able to walk for well on an hour, maskless, without seeing a soul, alone among the graves, bushes, tress, and cobblestone pathways. At peace in my solitude. Alone but not alone.




Apparently a friend of my niece came down with COVID. He got it from the Dentist's office, along with his father - who is immune compromised. They'd gone for a dental checkup and got exposed. Interesting. I find this out just when I got a notice from the dentist for a check-up. I'm thinking of passing. I saw him last year. I can wait another year. My teeth are fine. I've gone for years without seeing dentists. Also I don't trust him or his office - I've been in it.

NY has a problem - we are infested with nutty conservatives intent on committing suicide by COVID and taking the rest of us down with them. (Actually that's most of the US.)
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Day #31 in the 50 Day Book Challenge

The prompt is Name a trilogy

I'm trying to decide... does The Lord of the Rings count as a trilogy?

Hmm.

I think I'll go with Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games instead. The Hunger Games is a trilogy that takes place in a dystopian future featuring a heroic young girl who takes her sister's place as a tribute in the Games.
It's a coming of age tale featuring a heroine - and in some respects I found it more memorable and better written than Harry Potter. Although the two are very different.

Collins critiques popular culture and societal views in her novel - in particular the reality show craze, along with plastic surgery, and the huge divide between rich and poor.

In addition it poses more questions than answers, forcing the reader to look at themselves and their own complicity in a similar future.

Like Tolkien's books, I found Collins to be an anti-war tale. Depicting the unfathomable cost violence takes on the human soul. And what can be said of a culture that sends its own children into War.

We are judged, Collins states through her characters, by how we treat our young. A culture, a society is best judged in how it treats the children of others. And ours, so far, is found to be lacking.

Watch on YouTube

Note, one of the few trilogies that was adapted spectacularly into films. The films actually do the books justice. And they wisely split the last novel into two films - so there's four films and three novels.

[I'd have picked His Dark Materials - but it actually has five books now.]

Day #27 of the 60 Day Gratitude Challenge

The prompt is What are you grateful for in your country?

Various freedoms that I've begun to realize that I've taken for granted.
Freedom of speech/expression in particular. Not everyone has it.

I dated a doctor from Shang-Hai, China once and he explained to me that while the health care in his country was admittedly better - they didn't have some of our freedoms. For example, he explained, we wouldn't be having this conversation in China. We couldn't have it. If we did, we'd be thrown in jail for sedition.

The Freedom of Speech/of expression - is a right that we constantly have to defend, and we should not take for granted. It's a pesky one though - because other people get it too. This means, I have to tolerate forms of speech from others that are offensive.

But, it does come with restrictions - hate speech generally speaking is not allowed. I got into an argument once with George RR Martin on Live Journal over this. He insisted it was, I said, no, speech that incites others to kill or maim or hurt falls under hate speech and is not permissible. There's a test, of course, and it's rather rigid, but certain types of hate speech can be prosecuted and are, under the Civil Rights Act, and are not protected under the First Amendment. In addition, pornography isn't permitted, in particular pornography that puts another in danger or is harmful or seditious such as child pornography. (Mapplethorpe is okay.)

Overall though, our freedom of speech is pretty all-encompassing and because of it - I can post entries on the internet critiquing my government without worrying about anyone arresting me. I'm grateful for that. Not everyone has that right.