Nefertiti by Nick Drake

Just finished Nefertiti by Nick Drake.

Known archaeological artifacts and places are nicely woven into the story. Amarna, the tombs, the houses and walls, implements, cosmetics, toys, food and drink, boats, the river, animals, scrolls and the scriptorium and offices, the bust with one eye complete – he brings these to life. Being immersed in the physical place of ancient Egypt was worth the read.

The politics are very intriguing. What must have happened amongst the royalty and the priesthood in this amazing culture when Akhenaten tried to replace polytheism with monotheism? And what happened to Nefertiti? The problem with Drake’s characters is that they use Modern Western thinking and idioms. He knows the word Ma’at, even used it at least once. But his hero prefers the chaos and disorderly life of the streets and all the intelligent players have motivations indistinguishable from Modern skeptical atheists. The Modern worldview of his characters was a constant distraction.

His plot is interesting but requires a deus ex machina; I find it almost impossible to believe the historical Egyptians would have responded as written by Drake to its intrusion. He smoothly introduced a number of characters, some of whom become important and some who remain minor.

His strength seems to me to be weaving historical artifacts into an interesting tale. His weakness seems to appreciating an ancient worldview and creating characters and motivations that depend on it.

Aging Is Like Contractions

When my son was born ten years ago, we learned in Lamaze class that you can either fight contractions or work with them. They hurt and the temptation is to fight them but that only makes it worse. Work with them and they will work with you. Surf the wave, so to speak. Of course, all this is academic to me; it was not so for my wife!

Aging is like this, perhaps. I do not want to turn 36 this year, nor 40 in 4 years. I do not look forward to my son growing up and leaving home. But I can fight the milestones, feeling that I have not done enough to prepare. Or I can surf the wave. Plan for it, expect it, work with it.

C# Quotes in string literals

From http://weblogs.asp.net/lorenh/archive/2004/09/30/236134.aspx

Below is copied directly from him:

C# 101 – Representing a double quote in string literals

I’m sure almost every C# developer already knew this, but I thought a post might help the few that didn’t. I had always wondered how it was done and stumbled across it yesterday buried in an example in the C# Language Specification.

If you want to represent a double quote in a string literal, the escape sequence is two double quotes.

string myString = @"<xml attribute=""my attribute""/>";

I have found this useful for storing nicely formatted XML fragments in constants without resorting to 1) putting it all on one long line without string literals or 2) loading from a file or resource or 3) concatenating at run time, or 4) switching to single quotes.

private const string requestXml =
@”<?xml version=”"1.0″” encoding=”"utf-8″”?>
<soap:Envelope
xmlns:xsi=”"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance“”
xmlns:xsd=”"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema“”
xmlns:soap=”"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/“”>
<soap:Body>
<ForceBuild xmlns=”"http://tempuri.org/“”>
<projectName><![CDATA[{0}]]></projectName>
</ForceBuild>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>”;

Now I know.

“Child Marriage” is child abuse

Wajeha al-Huwaider, co-founder of the Society of Defending Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia, told CNN that achieving human rights in the kingdom means standing against those who want to “keep us backward and in the dark ages.”

She said the marriages cause girls to “lose their sense of security and safety. Also, it destroys their feeling of being loved and nurtured. It causes them a lifetime of psychological problems and severe depression.”

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/04/12/saudi.child.marriage/index.html

No poor among you

Never noticed this verse before. I had always thought that “the poor you will always have with you.” But Deut 15:4 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2015:4%20;&version=31;) seems to imply that God’s plan in the OT would have included a society with no poor people. That didn’t seem to work out – it seems we always find a way to mess things up. I don’t really have a point here, just thought this verse was interesting.

Sacred Sorrow

Trauma and Psychotherapy class is most excellent. The prof has a focus on, I don’t know how to say it, finding God in the middle of profound suffering, perhaps?

Michael Card’s book “A Sacred Sorrow” is a great book. Love the image of the words of lament being surprisingly sweet. He also talks about God’s “hesed” and limns an image of the vav adversative in the Psalms being a flag flying in an easterly breeze, marking the line from a focus on self and suffering to a disjunctive view from faith that God is here (presence) and faithful, loving, good (hesed). Good stuff.

Hypocrisy

I dislike hypocrisy and double standards. Here are two articles, one from LA Times and one from a UK paper (so, obviously, different papers, different authors and all that, but still…) Bush’s exercise habits are described by words such as “creepy,” “disturbing,” “obsession.” Obama, on the other hand, puts us all to shame and should motivate us all to exercise more. These articles of indicative of a general tone. For the past couple years, I have seen a number of articles that spoke darkly of Bush’s exercise regimen, even accusing him of hiding from his job by going to the gym. I am glad Obama motivates us all to be healthy. I just hate the double standard that makes Bush a creep and Obama the redefinition of the male physique.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jul/22/opinion/oe-chait22

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/men_shealth/4271779/Barack-Obama-redefining-the-male-physique.html

Facebook

My Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=571733187&ref=name

Some things are easier to Facebook than to blog.

“Walk” in Galatians

In Eph 4:1 Paul urges us to walk worthily of our calling.

The metaphor “walk” for lifestyle or behavior is used repeatedly throughout the NT. I am looking at each passage that uses this metaphor. Today is Galatians 5:16.

“Walk” in 2 Corinthians

In Eph 4:1 Paul urges us to walk worthily of our calling.

The metaphor “walk” for lifestyle or behavior is used repeatedly throughout the NT. I am looking at each passage that uses this metaphor. Today is 2 Corinthians (4:2, 5:7, 10:2-3, 12:18).