threadwalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threadwalker) wrote2007-08-29 04:30 pm
threadwalker) wrote2007-08-29 04:30 pm
(no subject)
Public transportation is great. I just finished reading The Cathars: the most successful heresy of the middle ages by Sean Martin
http://www.amazon.com/Cathars-Most-Successful-Heresy-Middle/dp/0785821716/ref=sr_1_2/103-5414472-6645461?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188430349&sr=1-2
Commentary
It was very interesting and fairly easy to read. Since I have the attention span of a gnat when the text gets too convoluted or too many concepts get crammed into a passage, being easy to digest is imporant to me. Breaking stuff down and not assuming I have read any other related texts on the subject is also a good thing and the author did this. It's a keeper and I imagine I'll flip through it again at some point.
Content: The acts of violence were disturbing. The author is not especially graphic, but I have enough imagination to fill in the blanks. To think a crusade was lead against the region of Languedoc in France. The mind boggles. Well, my mind boggles. I thought the Roman Catholic church only mounted religious crusades to "distant lands over seas". I mentally separate out religious persecution and a crusade; one is political act of terrorism with a police force and the other involves beseiging cities. I enjoy reading about the vigorous resistance to being assimilated by the Roman Catholic Church and the discussion on "what is a heresy", how "heresy" was createded/defined, and the history behind dualist faiths. And I am always impressed by people who are willing to die for their faith.
Now I want to visit the south of France (that hot bed of individualists) and the Cremation Field. I jabbed the hubband... he just nods his head at me. I suppose that when I come to him with a travel itinerary, he'll realize I'm serious. Although even I realize that I can't hop a plane right now.
One thing that has been knocking around in the back of my head is how intolerance grew and fear took hold; neighbors turning in each other for financial gain or to protect their families from scrutiny of the Inquisition. Intolerance is a bad thing and this book served to remind me that intolerance starts in small ways. And tolerance is barely better than intolerance; tolerance only means you're putting up with someone else's differences and doesn't indicate any sort of acceptance. Food for thought.
Next up:
The Body Project An Intimate History of American Girls by Joan Jacobs Brumberg.
Inside quotes:
"God has given you minds, dear girls, as well as bodies"..
and
"I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectivies but as nouns..."
both by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Our Girls"
Overall: Drawing on diaries that got back 150 years, this is a discussion about girls going through puberty and how things change over time. How they handle their changing bodies, how their self-esteem emerges as a powerful force in this century, how suicide-eating disorders and drop-outs have increased, and how the pressures that American culture put on adolescent girls has changed. It even addresses the impact of how, chronilogically, most girls are menstrating at younger ages than they did 100 years ago.
So far: ironically, the corsetted set of the 1850's is a lot less f-ed up than the bikini clad youth of the late 1990's. I guess being physically restrained by the corset meant that there was a lot less room for a negative self-esteem based on what you looked like mostly naked on the beach. So - cover-up and you have less baggage? We shall see. I'm barely into it, but enjoying the writing style and the thought provoking concepts.
http://www.amazon.com/Cathars-Most-Successful-Heresy-Middle/dp/0785821716/ref=sr_1_2/103-5414472-6645461?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188430349&sr=1-2
Commentary
It was very interesting and fairly easy to read. Since I have the attention span of a gnat when the text gets too convoluted or too many concepts get crammed into a passage, being easy to digest is imporant to me. Breaking stuff down and not assuming I have read any other related texts on the subject is also a good thing and the author did this. It's a keeper and I imagine I'll flip through it again at some point.
Content: The acts of violence were disturbing. The author is not especially graphic, but I have enough imagination to fill in the blanks. To think a crusade was lead against the region of Languedoc in France. The mind boggles. Well, my mind boggles. I thought the Roman Catholic church only mounted religious crusades to "distant lands over seas". I mentally separate out religious persecution and a crusade; one is political act of terrorism with a police force and the other involves beseiging cities. I enjoy reading about the vigorous resistance to being assimilated by the Roman Catholic Church and the discussion on "what is a heresy", how "heresy" was createded/defined, and the history behind dualist faiths. And I am always impressed by people who are willing to die for their faith.
Now I want to visit the south of France (that hot bed of individualists) and the Cremation Field. I jabbed the hubband... he just nods his head at me. I suppose that when I come to him with a travel itinerary, he'll realize I'm serious. Although even I realize that I can't hop a plane right now.
One thing that has been knocking around in the back of my head is how intolerance grew and fear took hold; neighbors turning in each other for financial gain or to protect their families from scrutiny of the Inquisition. Intolerance is a bad thing and this book served to remind me that intolerance starts in small ways. And tolerance is barely better than intolerance; tolerance only means you're putting up with someone else's differences and doesn't indicate any sort of acceptance. Food for thought.
Next up:
The Body Project An Intimate History of American Girls by Joan Jacobs Brumberg.
Inside quotes:
"God has given you minds, dear girls, as well as bodies"..
and
"I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectivies but as nouns..."
both by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Our Girls"
Overall: Drawing on diaries that got back 150 years, this is a discussion about girls going through puberty and how things change over time. How they handle their changing bodies, how their self-esteem emerges as a powerful force in this century, how suicide-eating disorders and drop-outs have increased, and how the pressures that American culture put on adolescent girls has changed. It even addresses the impact of how, chronilogically, most girls are menstrating at younger ages than they did 100 years ago.
So far: ironically, the corsetted set of the 1850's is a lot less f-ed up than the bikini clad youth of the late 1990's. I guess being physically restrained by the corset meant that there was a lot less room for a negative self-esteem based on what you looked like mostly naked on the beach. So - cover-up and you have less baggage? We shall see. I'm barely into it, but enjoying the writing style and the thought provoking concepts.
no subject
I did a minipilgrimage tour. The old pilgrimage sites are still incredibly moving. Well, they were to me. I sprained my ankle at Rocamador, but it didn't matter. The vierge noire was worth the pain.
no subject
heh... strong holds that are hard to get to... that makes a lot of sense.
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I skipped ahead and read the bit about the evolving brassiere. Pre-bra, women were not "supported" in the sense that we expect from our gravity-defying technology and it appears that based on the content of diaries, turn of the century did not place emphasis on being large busted, but on being slim waisted. And despite the various vintage adds floating around showing the wasp waist, it appears that young ladies were not going to extremes to match the wasp waist (extreme = eating disorders). They did diet and it wasn't always educated (the fact that food had calories and you could count calories happens after the turn of the century). But the barbie doll proportions that I grew up as iconic were not the standard of self-measure that young ladies had 100 years ago.
sigh. I'm raising a daughter and already the word "fat" as an adjective has been used on Evie to her face. Her brother told her that she was fat. (You know me and I'm sure you can guess that I had a strong response to that. We had a discussion relating to how people are different and how boys and girls are different and how Evie's Doctor says she is healthy, not fat...) The second occasion had to do with someone complimenting her "fat little legs".
So I'm trying to arm myself to raise a daughter who's dolls are proportioned like barbie, who's watching children's media with slim "perfectly built" characters, and who sees messages everywhere about "be slim, be large breasted, be athletic, ...". I may have to stick her in a convent...