House At Pooh Corner

House at Pooh Corner by Loggins & Messina


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House At Pooh Corner
by Kenny Loggins

Christopher Robin and I walked along
Under branches lit up by the moon
Posing our questions to Owl and Eeyore
As our days disappeared all too soon
But I've wandered much further today than I should
And I can't seem to find my way back to the wood

So help me if you can, I've got to get
Back to the house at Pooh Corner by one
You'd be surprised, there's so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh

Winnie the Pooh doesn't know what to do
Got a honey jar stuck on his nose
He came to me asking help and advice
And from here no one knows where he goes
So I sent him to ask of the owl if he's there
How to loosen the jar from the nose of a bear

So help me if you can, I've got to get
Back to the house at Pooh Corner by one
You'd be surprised, there's so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh

So help me if you can, I've got to get
Back to the house at Pooh Corner by one
You'd be surprised, there's so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin
Back to the ways of Christopher Robin
Back to the ways of Pooh

The glue and grease of Trust

From That's Interesting! Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology by Murray S. Davis. It is from 1971, so quite dated. I wonder what research emerged from this paper.

SUMMARY

QUESTION: How do theories which are generally considered interesting differ from theories which are generally considered non-interesting? ANSWER: Interesting theories are those which deny certain assumptions of their audience, while non-interesting theories are those which affirm certain assumptions of their audience. This answer was arrived at through the examination of a number of famous social, and especially sociological, theories. That examination also generated a systematic index of the variety of propositional forms which interesting and non-interesting theories may take. The fertility of this approach suggested a new field be established called the Sociology of the Interesting, which is intended to supplement the Sociology of Knowledge. This new field will be phenomenologically oriented in so far as it will focus on the movement of the audience's mind from one accepted theory to another. It will be sociologically oriented in so far as it will focus on the dissimilar base-line theories of the various sociological categories which compose the audience. In addition to its value in interpreting the social impact of theories, the Sociology of the Interesting can contribute to our understanding of both the common sense and scientific perspectives on reality.

These topics are even more pertinent in recent years with the blossoming on interest in affiliative sorting, networks and network effects, epistemic ecosystems and other issues arising from always on universal connectivity.

It is interesting what seems almost glaringly missing from the summary. Something about which we are increasingly aware today. TRUST. I suspect that "Interesting theories are those which deny certain assumptions of their audience, while non-interesting theories are those which affirm certain assumptions of their audience" is only true to the degree to which the source is trusted. Something that defies my expectations is indeed interesting only if I trust that that reporting is accurate. It is the boy who cried wolf issue. If the source of information that defies expectations also has a track record of inaccuracy or deceit, then what might be interesting is simply noise.

Always on universal connectivity is beginning to shed some light on what makes the cognitive world go around, and societal trust is emerging as a far greater glue that holds people together AND grease which facilitates epistemic sharing.

Many institutions are far more interested in appearing to do good rather than having the courage to actually do good.

From A 'Dubious Expediency': How Race-Preferential Admissions Policies on Campus Hurt Minority Students by Gail L. Heriot. From the Abstract.

Mounting empirical research shows that race-preferential admissions policies are doing more harm than good. Instead of increasing the numbers of African Americans entering high-status careers, these policies reduce those numbers relative to what we would have had if colleges and universities had followed race-neutral policies. We have fewer African-American scientists, physicians, and engineers and likely fewer lawyers and college professors. If, as the evidence indicates, the effects of race-preferential admissions policies are exactly the opposite of what was originally intended, it is difficult to understand why anyone would wish to support them.

I have seen these claims more frequently in the past couple of years. There is a logic to them and the evidence seems increasingly persuasive. Despite the evidence, it also appears that more and more academic institutions are refusing to share their information because of their concern that it will undermine their current preferred strategy of affirmative action.

We are a long way from great clarity but it does seem that this is a great litmus test for moral seriousness. With the current evidence, it appears that many institutions are far more interested in appearing to do good rather than having the courage to actually do good.

Dorset’s unstable cliffs have claimed many lives

From The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson. Page 147.

Dorset’s unstable cliffs have claimed many lives and a good deal of property over the years. One notable casualty was Richard Anning, who tumbled over a cliff in Lyme in 1810 and never got up again. Anning himself isn’t remembered now, but his daughter Mary is. She was just ten when her dad died, leaving the family in poverty, but Mary almost immediately embarked on a long career of excavating and selling fossils that she found along the sea strand. She is commonly credited with being the person referred to in the tongue-twister ‘She sells seashells by the seashore.’

To say that Mary Anning had an affinity for excavation is to put it mildly. In a career of more than thirty years she found the first British pterodactyl, the first complete plesiosaurus and the finest ichthyosaurus. These were not the kind of fossils you could stick in your handbag. The ichthyosaurus was seventeen feet long. Excavating them took years of delicate, patient toil. The plesiosaur alone occupied ten years of her life. Anning not only extracted with the utmost skill, but provided lucid descriptions and first-rate drawings, and in consequence enjoyed the respect and friendship of many of the period’s leading geologists and natural historians. But because important finds were rare and the work slow, she spent most of her life in straitened circumstances, if not downright poverty. The house where she lived is now the site of the local museum, and it is, let me say at once, a perfect little institution. If you go to Lyme Regis, don’t miss it.

The other memorable thing about Mary Anning, incidentally – though there wasn’t anything incidental about it to those around her – was that she seemed a remarkably unlucky person to be close to. In addition to her father tumbling over a cliff, one of her sisters died in a house fire and three other siblings were killed by a lightning strike. Mary, sitting right beside them, was miraculously spared.

Nocturne by Malu Delibo

Nocturne by Malu Delibo

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Virgil Partch

By Virgil Partch

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Spending too much time indoors taking in gently toxic vapours

From The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson. Page 132.

Chawton is another sweet little village – this part of the world is full of them – tucked away down a side lane and not on the face of it a great deal changed from Jane Austen’s day. Chawton Cottage, where Jane lived with her mother and sister, is built of mellow brick and sits close to the road. The interior is furnished simply, with a few good pieces of furniture but with a curious air of emptiness enhanced by the bare floors and empty grates. Knick-knacks and personal effects are conspicuously absent from table tops and mantelpieces, presumably because anything left out would be filched. The result, as with so many homes of famous people, is that you get a good notion of the walls and windows but not so much of the life of the person who lived there. That’s not a bitter complaint, just an observation. It’s the way it has to be.
Jane Austen lived in the house for eight years, from 1809 till 1817, and during that time did most of her most lasting work: wrote Emma, Persuasion and Mansfield Park, and revised and prepared for publication Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. The prize item of the house is Jane’s small round writing table, where all her books were scratched out. A group of Japanese visitors were gathered around it now, discussing it in low, reverential whispers, which is something I find the Japanese do exceptionally well. Nobody gets more out of a few low grunts and a couple of rounded vowel sounds stretched out and spoken as if in surprise or consternation. They can carry on the most complex conversations, covering the full range of human emotions – surprise, enthusiasm, hearty endorsement, bitter disagreement – in a tone that sounds awfully like someone trying to have an orgasm quietly. I followed them from room to room, enthralled by their conversation, until I realized that I was becoming part of it, and that they were casting glances at me with something like unease, so I bowed apologetically and left them to admire an old fireplace with low moans of expressive rapture.

When Jane Austen left the house, in the summer of 1817, it was to go to Winchester, sixteen miles to the west, to die. She was only forty-one, and the cause of her death is unknown. It may have been Addison’s disease or Hodgkin’s lymphoma or a form of typhus or possibly arsenic poisoning, which was surprisingly common in those days as arsenic was routinely used in making wallpapers and for colouring fabrics. It has been suggested that the general air of ennui and frailty that seemed so characteristic of the age may simply have been generations of women spending too much time indoors taking in gently toxic vapours. In any case, three days after St Swithun’s Day 1817 she breathed her last.

From Little Grey men by Denys Watkins-Pritchford

From The Little Grey Men by Denys Watkins-Pitchford.

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O come, O come, Emmanuel by Peter Hollens

O come, O come, Emmanuel by Peter Hollens


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And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?

From A New Path To The Waterfall by Raymond Carver

Late Fragment
by Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.