Enemy of Entropy

Archive for June 2008

What Was the Name of That Book?

30 June 2008, 7:41 pm. 6 Comments. Filed under Reading.

I remem­ber read­ing a book – no, a series – in the early 90s or so. The clear­est mem­ory I have is that there was some sort of drug that made any­one who took it “perfect” – healthy, beau­ti­ful, ath­letic, etc. It was also addic­tive after just one dose, and there was no way to get off it – to stop tak­ing it meant death. The main character’s wife was dosed with it so that the sup­pli­ers could con­trol the hero. I think the pro­tag­o­nist was white, and seem to recall that his wife was described as hav­ing an Afro.

Does that trig­ger any mem­o­ries for anyone?

TotD: Carter Heyward on Love

29 June 2008, 11:57 pm. 1 Comment. Filed under Relationships, Thought of the Day.

Carter Hey­ward:

Love, like truth and beauty, is con­crete. Love is not fun­da­men­tally a sweet feel­ing; not, at heart, a mat­ter of sen­ti­ment, attach­ment, or being “drawn toward.” Love is active, effec­tive, a mat­ter of mak­ing rec­i­p­ro­cal and mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion with one’s friends and ene­mies. Love cre­ates right­eous­ness, or jus­tice, here on earth. To make love is to make jus­tice. As advo­cates and activists for jus­tice know, lov­ing involves strug­gle, resis­tance, risk. Peo­ple work­ing today on behalf of women, blacks, les­bians and gay men, the aging, the poor in this coun­try and else­where know that mak­ing jus­tice is not a warm, fuzzy expe­ri­ence. I think also that sex­ual lovers and good friends know that the most com­pelling rela­tion­ships demand hard work, patience, and a will­ing­ness to endure ten­sions and anx­i­ety in cre­at­ing mutu­ally empow­er­ing bonds.

For this rea­son lov­ing involves com­mit­ment. We are not auto­matic lovers of self, oth­ers, world, or God. Love does not just hap­pen. We are not love machines, pup­pets on the strings of a deity called “love.” Love is a choice – not sim­ply, or nec­es­sar­ily, a ratio­nal choice, but rather a will­ing­ness to be present to oth­ers with­out pre­tense or guile. Love is a con­ver­sion to human­ity – a will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate with oth­ers in the heal­ing of a bro­ken world and bro­ken lives. Love is the choice to expe­ri­ence life as a mem­ber of the human fam­ily, a part­ner in the dance of life, rather than as an alien in the world or as a deity above the world, aloof and apart from human flesh.

Lawn Sanity!

28 June 2008, 1:46 am. 3 Comments. Filed under Links.

I detest grass. I’m so aller­gic that I con­sider the stuff a per­sonal attack. Beyond that, I’ve always con­sid­ered all the money and energy that is put into ined­i­ble crops that aren’t even pretty to be a dis­gust­ing form of con­spic­u­ous consumption.

I cheered out loud when I read this arti­cle: The Incred­i­ble, Edi­ble Front Lawn

It makes so much more sense – and it’s pret­tier, too! Peo­ple actu­ally eat­ing what the grow, instead of grow­ing it to cut it. Wow.

What’s the Opposite of Speed? Slowth?

27 June 2008, 9:46 pm. 2 Comments. Filed under Geekery.

We’re sup­posed to have the highest-​​speed res­i­den­tial ser­vice avail­able from Com­cast, dar­nit. I will say that the ser­vice is much faster than any­thing we ever got on DSL.

Books & Cute Photo

26 June 2008, 9:29 pm. 3 Comments. Filed under Geekery, Reading.

Totally unre­lated to any­thing else: Squee! (Thanks, AMQ!)

For some odd rea­son, I got this weird notion about track­ing down as many of the books I’ve read as pos­si­ble. No, I don’t know why.
Read on…

 

Powered by WebRing.