Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Fifteen

"Fools show their anger at once,
but the prudent ignore an insult." -- Proverbs 12:16

I told you that I'd give you one from the Book of Proverbs. It's pretty solid advice too. Folks who walk around with a chip on their shoulder seldom come to good ends. I've seen a lot of hotheads make a bad situation worse. Keep your cool. This has been a public service announcement from the Committee to Keep You From Making a Fool of Yourself.

Proverbial Wisdom

The Book of Proverbs is a great read, chock full of useful and interesting, um, well, proverbs. Lots of it still speaks to us today. Some of it, not so much. I re-read it the other day and added several lines to my famous Book of Quotes, which I may share later.

It got me thinking about various attempts over the years to produce a gender-neutral translation of the Bible. Proverbs makes clear the futility and folly of the effort. Like a lot of the books of the Old Testament, it is an anthology of writings and wisdom stitched together as one volume, often reflecting different styles and points of view. Much of Proverbs is intended to be advice to a young man about to enter adulthood. The proverbs are intended to remind the fledgling of the way he must follow and the things he must avoid to lead a good life. Some of it is advice on choosing the right sort of wife and avoiding the wrong sort of woman. Trying to pretend that these lessons were intended to be universal takes it out of its context and strips it of meaning. Taking instructions to a young Jewish man of a couple of millennia ago and finding universal wisdom in them is a valuable exercise, but trying to do that in a translation is a mistake.

While the core message of the text is that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, it expands upon that to give advice about not ruining your life by breaking societal taboos. We all know that coveting your neighbor's wife is one of the top ten sins, but it can also lead to a whole lot of messy problems here below. There are several admonitions against giving in to the wicked wiles of your neighbor's wanton wife. I found the advice of 6:25-26 to be particularly interesting:

Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
for a prostitute's fee is only a loaf of bread,
but the wife of another stalks a man's very life.

Yes, if you are sorely tempted by a married woman, the Bible's advice is to get yourself a prostitute. This sort of thing tends to create difficulties for people who argue that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and that every passage therein can be used as a guide to life. It is filled with little contradictions. Several other passages condemn those who patronize the oldest profession. Proverbs 29:3 tells us that

A child who loves wisdom makes a parent glad,
but to keep company with prostitutes is to squander one's substance.

Oh darn. I was all set to go check out the naughty pages on Craigslist.

I'm interpreting the meaning of these apparently contradictory proverbs as being that while both are sins, one of them is far worse as it could cost you your very life (few prostitutes have dangerously jealous husbands). I could be wrong about that. Bear in mind --

One who is clever conceals knowledge,
but the mind of the fool broadcasts folly. (12:23)

I have a lot more to say about the proverbs, but perhaps I should just keep it to myself. Don't want to look too foolish.

Happy Birthday Ursula K. Le Guin

In the extraordinarily unlikely event that Ursula K. Le Guin reads this, I'd like to wish her a happy 80th birthday today. Thank you for Earthsea. Thank you for the Hainish novels. Thank you for the ansible. Thank you for The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Word For World is Forest, The Lathe of Heaven, Catwings, and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.”

In the likely event are not Ursula K. Le Guin, and if you have not yet discovered her, I urge you to get yourself a birthday present.

The End is Nigh

Fourteen years ago I was working in a bookstore. I had been a bookseller for several years and I would be a bookseller for several more. Our store was pretty new. Business was good. Our company and its biggest competitors were growing quickly. I thought the future was bleak.

“The end is nigh,” I told my co-workers. “What we think of as the traditional bookstore, a clean and well-lit place that offers a variety of books for sale at prices the average person can afford, is a twentieth century invention. It's had a good run, but it won't survive the coming century.”

I had been to the mountaintop. I had seen the growth of cell phones (I didn't have one yet). I had seen the internet (I had just gotten hooked up myself). “One day,” I predicted, “we will all carry around little electronic tablets. They will have screens that are so much better than the glass tubes we use today that it will be like reading on paper. They will have built-in telephones and internet connections. When we want a book we'll just log onto the bookselling website, transfer the funds to them electronically, download the text, and we'll be reading the book in minutes, anywhere, anytime.” I was a prophet of doom.

This morning I read that competition (oh that dratted free market) has continued to drive down the price and improve the quality of the little electronic tablets. I don't see how my prediction can fail to come true. Eventually the tablets will be all-in-one devices; telephone, music player, notebook computer, portable library, GPS, camera, health monitor, and probably force field, air purifier, and Soylent Green dispenser. What was bad news for music stores and the folks who made film is now bad news for bookstores and the neighborhood Soylent shop.

I sometimes miss working in bookstores, but I'm glad I got out when I did. I'm usually not all that good at predicting the future, but this time it looks like I nailed it.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Happy Global Handwashing Day! At first it seemed strange to me that there is a day to promote handwashing that is supported by the UN, the US government, and the World Bank. What's next, Wear a Coat When it is Cold Day? How about International Don't Play in Traffic Day?

Then I looked around and realized that there are a lot of people who never got message. In the developing world folks are dealing with grinding poverty and a host of other problems, so they may have missed this particular lesson. Here in the west I see people in rest rooms who don't bother with the sink. I'm not sure that they have any excuse, but that doesn't mean that they're irredeemable. Here at Maniacal Hooting we like to do our part to make the world a better place, so I now present the following public service message on the occasion of Global Handwashing Day.

Wash your hands.

Thank you. That is all.

All Work and No Play

In case you're wondering where I've been, the answer is work. Or sleeping. Work, eat, sleep. Not exactly the most balanced life, but sometimes you don't get a choice.

Things should be back to what passes for normal soon.

Best Music Review. Ever.

"The opening section, 'From Dawn to Midday at Sea,' begins with the plaintive call of the oboe, announcing the rising sun. The English horn and the trumpet answer in a minor key, as if to say, 'Thanks for the tip, asshole.'"
via