My friend Randy Reichardt, a librarian by profession, blogged about the Gorman controversy in separate entries today and yesterday. Michael Gorman is the president-elect of the American Libary Association. In December 2004 he wrote an essay in the LA Times which criticized Google’s project to digitize entire libraries. His article was discussed in some blogs. Some of the discussion was thoughtful and well-informed, some was polite and some wasn’t. People sent him clips of some of the more colourful things some bloggers were saying. Then he wrote a piece in the Library Journal online dismissing blogs and bloggers. (Information and relevant links in Randy’s entries linked above).
Month: March 2005
Fulfilled
There was a movie on TV tonight: “Their Eyes were Watching God”. Halle Berry is in it and Oprah Winfrey produced it. The description of the movie in the newspaper was a young Florida woman’s quest for self-fulfillment in the 1920’s. The digital TV guide described it as the odyssey of a free spirit through stormy romances. After I noticed this show in the program guide, I search for information about the book and the writer online, and checked a couple reviews of the movie online. I watched the first half of the show before tuning out.
March Begins
The weather turned ugly today. It had been warm on Saturday, with some good melting. The forecast for today had held the potential for skiing – cooler temperatures and fresh snow. The warm temperatures persisted until midday when sleet and freezing rain started. I decided to stay home. It might have been ok in the woods but the wind and snow were making the roads treacherous. On a positive note, I got upper body workouts yesterday and today with my long-handled ice chisel. I chopped back some of the ice and snow behind my garage, opened some drainage for my neighbours’ parking pad (they moved from Victoria and still haven’t figured out what hit them, opened the sewer grate at the end of the back lane, and opened the grate in the curb in front of my neighbours’ Jim and Sharon’s house. I should shoot some digital pictures of the great rows of snow on the boulevard before they melt further.
Ten Philosophical Mistakes
Here’s another philosophy primer by Mortimer J. Adler, brief, well-organized and to the point. He wrote “Ten Philosophical Mistakes” in 1985. He was trying to explain why he had identified himself with Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas in his autobiography. He identifies some key ideas associated with a series of philosophers, including Hobbes, Locke, Descartes, Hume, Kant and criticizes their failings. His own ideas on these points go back in some instances to Aristotle and Aquinas, but in other instances he relies on modern criticism of the thinkers of the Enlightenment and the early modern era.
Cleansing
There was an ad in the first section of today’s Free Press (Sat. March 5/05) for herbal and fiber “cleansing” products. It talked about getting rid of toxins by 7 cleansing channels – didn’t say which channels. The two channels that get the most attention in the marketplace are colon (aka bowel or large intestine) and kidney/bladder. Google “cleansing” or “cleansing toxins” and see what the engine drags from the dregs of the Web.
Clumsy Bishops
The Canadian Catholic Bishops have been trying to get Catholics involved in motivating Members of Parliament to oppose Bill C-38, which deals with same-sex marriage. Last Sunday at the 8:00 AM Sunday Mass St. Ignatius, instead of delivering a homily, Father Monty presented the Archbishop of Winnipeg’s Pastoral letter (available here in pdf format). Yesterday, I read in a newspaper that Fred Henry, the Bishop of Calgary, suggested on a Toronto Radio show that the Prime Minister of Canada, who is a Catholic, should be excommunicated for supporting Bill C-38.
Same-sex Marriage
The Canadian Parliament has been debating a Bill relating to same-sex marriage. Bill C-38 says: “Marriage, for civil purposes, is the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.” This would replace or alter the legal definition of marriage, which had been established by judicial precedent in 1866 as “the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others.” People of the same sex will be considered to have the legal capacity to make a marriage contract, and if married, to divorce and divide their property in accordance with provincial marital property laws, and to claim other legal benefits and rights accruing to the married state.
Letters to a Young Catholic
I noticed “Letters to a Young Catholic” by George Weigel in the library, read it, liked it, and posted a review at Blogcritics back in December. I decided to rewrite the review and put it up on my own site too.
Canned Drinks
After Steve’s comments on my last entry (Portion Advice) about Weightwatcher points, I looked at the labels on a few 355 ml (12 oz) beverage cans. The Safeway house brand root beer and regular cola have 162 and 161 calories per can, respectively. Diet Coke has 2 calories per can. Schweppe’s diet ginger ale, 0 calories. Schweppes Tonic Water – 130 calories. Canada Dry Tonic – not marked. Presidents Choice Brew (0.5 percent beer) is 65 calories per can. I have some regular beer in the house, but beer labels don’t have nutritional data. I dug up some information.
Portions Advice
Yesterday I wrote about portion sizes, complaining that good nutritional information tends to be published alongside luxuriously unhealthy recipes and other consumption-oriented material. On Wednesday the Free Press basically turns its Life and Entertaiment section into a Food section, with articles about cooking, recipes and a wine column. Today, I found an article out of the Canadian Press covering the start of Nutrition Month – March is Nutrition month for the Dieticians of Canada. This year they are emphasizing portion size.