Category: Blogging

I decided in the name of complete disclosure, and in the name of good, honest stalling until we begin Walden next week, that Diane should post the results of her Spiritual quiz, too.

Surprisingly enough, our beliefs are not nearly as different as I would have expected. Go figure.

Diane’s Results:

Unitarian Universalism 100%
(may explain my attraction to the transcendentalists)
Liberal Quakers 97%
Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants 90%
(I belong to the Episcopal church)
Neo-Pagan 82%
Theravada Buddhism 79%
Secular Humanism 78%
Mahayana Buddhism 76%
Taoism 74%
Hinduism 73%
Christian Science 71%
New Age 67%
(I refuse to listen to the music)
Bahai Faith 61%
New Thought 61%
Jainism 59%
Scientology 59%
Sikhism 575
LDS 55%
Orthodox Quaker 53%
Nontheist 48%
Reform Judaism 48%
Jehovah’s Witness 44%
Mainline to Conservative Christian 39%
Seventh Day Adventist 34%
Orthodox Judaism 28%
Eastern Orthodox 22%
Roman Catholic 22%
Islam 19%

The interesting part of these results is the test picked up my attraction to Hinduism which I observed in Bali. I’m also interested in Buddhism even though I could never be a very good Buddhist. I love the Neo-Pagan listing. And Secular Humanism? It’s a good thing BGSD didn’t know.

I was noticing over at Dervala.net that Dervala has posted her Briggs-Meyers test and a link to a site that figures out your results with four short questions. I’m not sure that the quiz is as accurate as the long one I took, but the results came out the same for me as they did on the earlier test I took.

Diane tells me that she is an ISTJ.

I don’t usually link to things like this, but I found this link on wanna write?and had to pass it on. I’m not sure how much fun it is without a fast connection, though.

:: Don’t Mess with My Library Card ::

It’s positively dangerous taking a little time off to read about what is going on in the "real" world. As noted earlier on May 20th, I am worried about free-speech rights, particularly when something you say in a sports locker room can earn a visit from the FBI.

I’m even more upset, though, by the latest revelation of what’s in the USA Patriot Act. According to Nat Hentoff’s article in the Village Voice the government now has the right to find out what you’ve checked out of the library or bought from a bookstore with very few restrictions.

Could this possibly open the door to government abuse? (Wonder where my editor was when I first wrote this sentence? I must have lifted too many heavy rocks today. It was a secret test for ex-students. And they all failed. I didn’t get one email making fun of it.)

In fact, in retrospect, I wonder if they would have given me my Army commission if they had known that I regularly bought/checked out The Socialist’s Party’s newspaper while I was in college. Would I have been prevented from fighting for my country’s Honor in Vietnam if they had known that I dared to read propaganda from the other side?

Is thinking, in and of itself, "Unpatriotic?" I wouldn’t ask Aschroft. His answer would probably really scare me.

:: Odds and Ends ::

I have some down time before Diane and I start making some comments on Emerson’s writing. Right now I’m simply enjoying re-reading some of his Transcendental "sermons" before I shift into my analytical, or, as Jeff Ward puts it, expository mode, though I still hope to persuade some people that Emerson is worth taking another look at.

Meanwhile, Jonathon is again applying Kundera to real life.

I’m also adding a couple of new blogs to my regularly visited sites. Doug, of Doug’s Dynamic Drivel, is certainly more political than I am in this blog, though perhaps no more so than I am in real life, but I feel a need to add some diversity to my blog reading.

Dervala.net is closer to what I usually link to, but I particularly enjoy her writing style.

simply yours is another journal in the vein of "Journal of a Writing Man" that I’ve started reading regularly.

Sometimes this busy weekend I’ll also try to add some links to environmental sites, once I figure out how to work them into the page.

Busy avoiding writing anything while I’m finishing The Unbearable Lightness of Being and trying to make heads or tales out of it.

Interesting novel? philosophy lecture?

Going to go over notes with Diane tomorrow. Should have something right after that, or not.

Decided not to RANT over the Bush Administration environmental policies, or lack thereof. Could have. Easily. Sure I will later.

While visiting the Morris Graves’ art exhibition last weekend, I also picked up a book by Gaylen Hansen, an Eastern Washington artist. Since browsing through the book, I’ve been haunted by this particular image, "Three Wolves." It’s not the typical kind of artwork I’m attracted to, but there is something primitive and powerful about it.

Perhaps it has something to do with the unusual angle of the shot. Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of the wolves, the moon and the triangle. The painting makes me uncomfortable. I like that. And that worries me, too.

I wonder if they’re waiting for me to fall? I wonder if this is what has been appearing in my dreams for the last four months and waking me up every night since my operation?

Strangely enough, I’m a big wolf fan and have donated money to programs that have tried to reintroduce them into the wild. So, why should they turn on me? Don’t know. And that haunts me, too. You think they’re ungrateful?

There’s so much more that I don’t know than I do know. Sometimes that haunts me, too. I wonder what Hansen knows that I don’t know? How could he know that this painting would haunt me?

You can find Gaylen Hansen stuff all over the web, though I don’t know why you would want to.

Linda Hodges Gallery in Seattle is having a show of his works, apparently.

Schneider Museum of Art has several paintings.