The Italian agreement

VIA «Google Books will scan the Italian libraries»

Inflatable cloud

VIA «Over a city high overcast is expected»

The new project, entitled Endangered Archaeology, has been launched at Oxford and Leicester Universities, funded by the Arcadia Fund. The researchers are using satellite imagery and aerial photos, such as Google Earth, to record and monitor the most endangered, and often undocumented, archaeological sites across the Middle East and North Africa. Nearly all the archaeological remains are made of stone or earth and are visible from the air.

They include tombs, settlements, forts, towns, cities, and field and irrigation systems of all periods – from prehistory to the 20th century.  Many of the countries are currently inaccessible on the ground due to ongoing conflicts. Recent work in Jordan by Professor David Kennedy and Dr Robert Bewley has already shown the scale and intensity of development, and that the methodology works, which is why it is being applied on a larger scale across the region.

Project director Dr Bewley, from Oxford University’s School of Archaeology, said: 'This exciting project is very timely as the threats to the region’s most important archaeological sites are increasing at an unprecedented pace and the situation is only going to become more critical if we don’t act now.'

The research team estimates that across the Middle East and North Africa there could be as many as 3-5 million archaeological sites, many of which are under immediate threat, and even more are likely to become endangered in the future. Information about the historical context and condition of each of the sensitive sites will be made available in an open-access database. The information can then be used by everyone, but especially by local archaeologists and volunteers in each of the countries.

Where possible, the project will cooperate with local authorities responsible for the protection of sites, Departments of Antiquities or similar agencies. It is hoped that through the project, a network of local 'wardens' will be created to manage and preserve the landscape and sensitive sites.

Professor Andrew Wilson, the project’s Principal Investigator, said: 'The project will provide tools and strategies for the future conservation and management of threatened heritage, both individual sites and entire archaeological landscapes. This region contains the world’s richest concentration of significant archaeological remains spanning prehistory, the Persian, Greek, Roman, and Islamic empires.'

The project’s website http://ea.arch.ox.ac.uk will be available next month and the database with images and contextual information will follow later in the year.

Source: University of Oxford [February 20, 2015]

This week in Weekly Geeks, Chris thought it was a good time to revisit one of the original Geeky assignments: book review link exchanges.

1. Write a post encouraging readers to look through your archives (if you have your reviews in a particular place on your blog, point them there), and find the books that they have also written reviews. Tell them to leave a link to their review on your review post. For example, I've written a review for Gods Behaving Badly and Jane Doe leaves a link to her review of Gods Behaving Badly in the comments section of my review.

2. Edit your reviews to include those links in the body of the review post.

3. Visit other Weekly Geeks and go through their reviews. Leave links for them.

4. Leave a note somewhere on your blog to let people know this is your new policy.

5. Write a post later this week letting us know how your project is going!
(I've kept this policy on my own blog since the original assignment, and recently edited my Book Review Policy to mention that I participate in review-link exchanges, but other than that I didn't officially participate in WG this week.)

One reason for re-visiting this topic was so that newer arrivals to Weekly Geeks who might have missed this assignment the first time around, as well as Geeks who just haven't gotten around to it before, would have the opportunity to join in and start link swapping themselves. Joanne (Book Zombie) was excited to get this going for her book reviews, and so were Dreamybee (Subliminal Intervention), Farm Lane Books, and Heather (Belle of the Books).

Some of this week's WG players adopted the link exchange in May of last year and have stuck with it since then, but took advantage of the opportunity to re-state the policy. Geeks in this group include Jackie (Literary Escapism), Nymeth (Things Mean a Lot), Nicole (Linus's Blanket), Ali (Worducopia), Heather (Book Addiction), and Gautami Tripathy (Reading Room),

Some Geeks who have fallen off the link-exchange wagon seized this opportunity to catch up or reinstate the practice on their blogs, like Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness), and Megan (Leafing Through Life). Softdrink (Fizzy Thoughts) loves the idea, but confesses that despite her best intentions, she's probably going to keep forgetting to do it.

Check out the Mr. Linky on Weekly Geeks 2009-12 to see who else participated this week, and visit them to find out if you have links to share - but please be aware that this policy was never meant to be exclusive to Weekly Geeks participants. The idea behind it is community building, so you're encouraged to seek out links to any other blogger's reviews of the books you review, and to offer your own review links freely to other bloggers as well. Fyrefly has created a custom Book Blogs Search Engine for Google that makes finding other reviews quick and easy.

Happy linking!

If you subscribe to the Google Reader feed for Weekly Geeks, it has been updated. The new link is over yonder in the sidebar to the right.

Many thanks to Natasha at Maw Books for updating the feed!

Yesterday was a very successful Bloggiesta day. I found some good ideas by perusing other people's blogs, but I would like to do more of that today. Basically today is going to be my mini-challenge day. One thing I didn't figure out yesterday though is why my image uploader is being stupid, so maybe I will find time to figure that one out today. Here is a list of some mini-challenges I plan on completing today:

1. Write some back-up opinion and list posts for Beth Fish Reads' Challenge.
2. Set up Google alerts for Emily's Reading Room's Challenge.
3. Add my blog to a few directories for Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile's Challenge.
4. Get a Favicon and Gravatar for Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?'s Challenge.
5. I also need to redo the post I lost yesterday. *Argh*

And now I have a question for all of you. Does it frustrate you when link text is the same color as normal text like mine is right now? After changing my font color yesterday I realize they are now the same, which means you have to hover if you want to see if something is a link. Please let me know so I can change it if it's annoying!

Happy blogging!

EDIT: Thanks so much to everyone who helped me with my links! I've decided to leave them as is for now as the general consensus seems to be that they are okay. You guys are awesome!

The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books

Essays Read this Week:
1. We reach the same the same end by discrepant means
2. On sadness
3. Our emotions get carried away beyond us
4. How the soul discharges its emotions against false objects when lacking real ones
5. Whether the governor of a besieged fortress should go out and parley
6. The hour of parleying is dangerous

I read quite a few short essays this week so instead of talking about all of them I'm just going to talk about the three that interested me the most, which were On sadness, Our emotions get carried away beyond us, and How the soul discharges its emotions against false objects when lacking real ones. Throughout these three essay the main subject is obviously emotions. In On sadness he refers to sadness as the Italian tristezza, which I always thought meant more melancholy than sad, but I could be wrong about that. Montaigne talks about the danger of sadness and he seems to think it is a bit of a showy emotion. One thing the essay made me think of is that age old question of "Can you be happy and be a writer or artist?" I think Montaigne would argue that you can-- and should.

He also discusses different types of sadness, talking about a story (which he often does) in which a man sees his daughter working as a servant and his son led to execution with no reaction on his face, but when a friend of his is brought in a negative situation he becomes very sorrowful. When asked about his emotions the man said the first two could basically not be expressed properly so it was better to not express any emotion at all. Montaigne also suggests that it was the build-up over time that made the man express sorrow during the last incident rather than the first two. Later he says, "We cannot display our grief or our convictions during the living searing heat of the attack; the soul is then burdened by deep thought and the body is cast down, languishing for love" (9-10). He ends On sadness saying that he is not controlled by violent emotions, but that he controls them by arguments, which I thought might mean he believes analyzing or essaying the world allows him to control his feelings, which is something I definitely feel as someone who writes essays. However, my essays are often drawn by emotions, which forces me to ask if Montaigne is bluffing?

He carries on these ideas in Our emotions get carried away beyond us, but focuses more on the relationship between body and soul. In this essay he wonders by humans worry so much about what will happen to them after death, citing many humorous stories about human burials, when their body is really not "them" it is their soul that is them and their soul will not be in the ground. At least that is how I understand it. While his main argument is about death, I took away more of a "Don't worry about the future, focus on the now," message from the essay.

In the final essay I want to talk about, How the soul discharges its emotions against false objects when lacking real ones, he talks about people placing their emotions on a physical manifestation rather than dealing with whatever emotion they have (perhaps through essaying or observing the world around them). He says, "it seems that the soul too, in the same way, loses itself in itself when shaken and disturbed unless it is given something to grasp on to; and so we must always provide it with an object to butt up against and to act upon" (19).

Questions from This Week:
1. What do you think is the best way to deal with strong emotions? Do you react to small upsets more violently than big ones because you don't know how to react?
2. Do you displace your emotions just so you have something to make you feel better? Do you think this works?
3. If you read any of these essays, which one stuck out the most to you and why?

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne's essays on Daily Lit.

Essays Read this Week:
1. That it is madness to judge the true and the false from our own capacities
2. On affectionate relationships
3. Nine-and-twenty sonnets of Estienne de La Boetie

Favorite Quotations:
"How many of the things which constantly come into our purview must be deemed monstrous or miraculous if we apply such terms to anything which outstrips our reason! If we consider that we have to grope through a fog even to understand the very things we hold in our hands, then we will certainly find that it is not knowledge but habit which takes away their strangeness." (That it is madness to judge the true and the false)

"And in truth what are these Essays if not monstrosities and grotesques botched together from a variety of limbs having no defined shape, with an order sequence and proportion which are purely fortuitous?" (On affectionate relationships)

General Thoughts:
I can't decide if the order of Montaigne's essays just happen to line up with my thoughts this year or if I'm just reading too much of my own thoughts into his writing, but over the past several weeks it's seemed like Montaigne and I have just been on the same page.

This week I read On affectionate relationships, which was fitting because I've been thinking a lot about friendship. When I went home over spring break I had a strong desire to get back together with old friends. I did get together with a couple of friends I've stayed in touch with since high school, but I didn't see either of the people who were really my best friends in high school. I did run into some people who were good friends of mine, and it was just like seeing a stranger. The loss of old friendships has been painful for me. In On affectionate relationships Montaigne describes a kind of friendship in which the friends will do anything for each and other and are really a part of each other.

"Moreover what we normally call friends and friendships are no more than acquaintances and familiar relationships bound by some change or some suitability, by means of which our souls support each other. In the friendship which I am talking about, souls are mingled and confounded in so universal a blending that they efface the seam which joins them together so that it cannot be found. If you press me to say why I loved him, I that it cannot be expressed except by replying: 'Because it was him: because it was me.'"

I just really loved that quote because I think it perfectly sums up my ideas on friendship. The majority of my friends now are really just familiar relations. We have parties, go out for coffee, and so on, but I don't feel like I know them that well or like they know me that well. It's crazy to think about now, but the only people who I feel really know me are my friends from high school who are still my friends today. I never thought I would stay in touch with so many people from high school, the whole point of college is to branch out and meet new people right? But I've found that friendships are largely disappointing, and the only people who really have my back are the people who watched me through my awkward teenage years.


I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Last week Ali asked us to step outside our comfort zone and go in search of blogs that were different from ones we usually hang out in -- different in terms of:

• race and/or ethnicity, religion, cultural background, age, etc. from you
• Live the farthest from you
• Have entirely different tastes in books from you (but you love their blog anyway)

Ali also suggested that if we felt our blogs were somehow in the minority, to blog about that experience.

There were only a handful of participants for this challenge - I won't begin to analyze what that means!

• Maree opted for a personal ad - and you'd better like cats to make it into her inner circle!
• At Mysteries in Paradise, Kerrie has some really interesting pie charts on her post showing the percentages of English speaking readers vs other languages (for which she provides Google translation). Though English is the highest by far, a wide range of countries is represented. (Nice charts, Kerrie!)
• Gautami invited us all to visit her in New Delhi, India! She knows of only a few other book bloggers in India. She listed several blogs she likes to visit that focus on very different books than what she generally reads. And you must read her personal ad! I learned a lot about her from that bit.
  
• Sarah joined Weekly Geeks for the first time this week - welcome Sarah! She highlighted a couple of blogs that have inspired her to give genre fiction another try.
  
• Puss Reboots combined the Weekly Geek assignment with doling out awards to several blogs she thought fit the theme.
  

It's hard to believe we're approaching the last quarter of 2009. Soon those of us in the northern hemisphere will be curled up in front of the fire (or solar heater) with our favorite wintry reads, and those in the southern will be off to the beaches with their summer books.

Do you have a plan of what you're going to read the rest of the year? Have you had a master plan all along? If so, have you stuck to it? What helps you to decide what you're going to read next? Challenges? Book groups? Or do you have the luxury of closing your eyes and picking any book off your shelf?

I know some of you have spreadsheets and other devices to help you keep track of your books and challenges. (I even succumbed to using a spreadsheet this year after teasing my friends relentlessly about theirs.) If you have online spreadsheets, such as Google, can you give us a peek at them with a link or a screen shot?

As usual, sign Mr. Linky below and leave us a comment if you're so inclined. Don't forget to visit your fellow Geeksters and see what kind of plan they're working on for the rest of 2009. Maybe you'll get inspired for 2010!
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Have you voted yet for your favorite blogs for Book Bloggers Appreciation Week? The voting ends at midnight tonight! Weekly Geeks is on the shortlist for Best Meme/Carnival Event. And sally forth next week and appreciate you some bloggers!

Following is my original "Bloggiesta To Do List."

• Write backlog reviews
• Clean up my labels for my posts (Done!)
  
• Write my meme posts for the next two weeks (One week completed)

• Cleaned up sidebars, made it a bit more organized
• Created About Me Page
• Added tabs to my header, therefore assisting with the clean-up of my sidebars.
• Reorganized my review calendar
• Reorganized my pending review books

In addition, I completed the following challenges:

• Rebecca at The Book Lady’s Blog -feed reader challenge
• Emily from Emily’s Reading Room - Are you talking about me? (I actually already use Google Alerts)
• Deborah from Books, Movies, and Chinese Food - You have a blog? So tell me about it.
• Trish from Hey Lady! Watcha Readin’? - On favicons and gravatars. Huh? (I already have a favicon and gravatar, so I'm not sure if this counts or not!)
  

To all that participated, congratulations, and you all did a fabulous job! Thanks to all the cheerleaders and advice givers on twitter!!

The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne's essays on Daily Lit.

Essays Read this Week:
1. On moderation
2. On the Cannibals

Favorite Quotations:
"True victory lies in your role in the conflict, not in coming through safely: it consists in the honour of battling bravely battling through." (On the Cannibals)

"I wish everyone would write only what he knows--not in this matter only but in all others. A man may well have detailed knowledge or experience of the nature of one particular river or stream, yet about all the others he knows only what everyone else does; but in order to trot out his little scrap of knowledge he will write a book on the whole physics! From this vice many inconveniences arise." (On the Cannibals)

General Thoughts:
On the Cannibals is frequently taught in nonfiction writing classes, or at least it is at Iowa, which is why it makes me think not so much about the essay itself as nonfiction writing. That last quote in my favorite quotations about writing what you know, I think that is my biggest takeaway from this essay. Montaigne is really interested in judgement and the the human tendency to think there is only one way to do something. Your way. Culture to culture we all do things a little differently and it's easy to think of the world only in your terms. I think part of what essays do is help the writer recognize the way he or she does something while still pushing their boundaries and looking at how others might do it.

So then how do you write about your experience in another culture and still acknowledge that you are not an expert on that culture? This seems to be a huge problem in travel writing. The best travel writing, I usually feel, is either completely inward or completely social. In the inward variety the author really doesn't experience much but rather writes about the displacement of being in another culture and ruminates on that. The more social kind involves the writer talking to people of that culture but acknowledging his or her outsider status and understanding.

I am struggling with this quote a little bit because it doesn't acknowledge the writer's ability to go seek out first hand knowledge from an expert. Maybe I'm struggling because I become annoyed by people who do very little research and try to pass themselves off as experts. Part of the reason I love John McPhee is he always acknowledges how stupid he is on a given topic, even if he knows more than the average person. This seems like an extremely important aspect of essay writing--no wonder I'm pulling it from Montaigne.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne's essays on Daily Lit.

I took a little break from my Montaigne readalong this month for no reason other than I felt I needed one. I am now picking up from where I left off.

Essays Read this Week:

1. Judgements on God's ordinances must be embarked upon with prudence
2. On feeling from pleasures at the cost of one's life
3. Fortune is often found in Reason's train
4. Something lacking in our civil administrations
5. On the custom of wearing clothing
6. On Cato the Younger
7. How we weep and laugh at the same thing

Favorite Quotations:
"The world is not so completely corrupt that we cannot find even one man who would not gladly wish to see his inherited wealth able to be used (as long as Fortune lets him enjoy it) to provide shelter for great men who are renowned for some particular achievement but who have been reduced to extreme poverty by their misfortunes; he could at least give them enough assistance that it would be unreasonable for them not be satisfied" (Something lacking in our civil administrations).

"Just because I feel that I am pledged to my individual form, I do not bind all others to it as everyone else does: I can conceive and believe that there are thousands of different ways of living and, contrary to most men, I more readily acknowledge our differences than our similarities... My one desire is that each of us should be judged apart and that conclusions about me should not be drawn from routine exempla" (On Cato the Younger).

General Thoughts:

The first essay that really grabbed my attention in this group was Something lacking in our civil administrations. Montaigne talks about an idea his father had about a place where people could report their wants and needs. Kind of like Craigslist. If someone needed a worker they would report it, and if someone needed work they would report it. Ideally these two people would be matched up. Montaigne said that men are perpetually in a state of want because they are unable to find those who are able to fulfill their needs. At the end of the essay he talks about two great scholars who died of hunger. He felt that if these two men had only come forward about their situation there would have been people willing to help them, but since they did not they died.

On the custom of wearing clothing was interesting mostly because it showed a sense of modern anthropology that put Montaigne ahead of his time. He talks about how humans probably don't need clothes because our bodies should be able to adapt to climates just like other animals. This stems from ideas about the New World and travels of Herodotus, which both include civilizations who lived in the nude. He mentions that we leave sensitive parts of our bodies, ears, nose, fingers and so on bare to the world, so why do we cover up the rest of our bodies?

The final essay I read, How we weep and laugh at the same thing was actually a little disappointing. I love the idea of conflicting emotions but I didn't feel Montaigne really pushed it. Most of his examples were about a person looking at someone else and seeing them from a different perspective. Perhaps they were happy they had won a war but realized that someday they would all lose the war between life and death. The essay was only four pages and it just didn't feel finished to me.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

This idea comes from Dewey's own Weekly Geek idea list which she shared on her blog, and which I, thankfully, swiped before her blog was removed and can now glean from as I ponder new and hopefully fun Weekly Geek tasks.

Dewey worded it this way, "find and review a link to a book podcast." I'm modifying this just a bit and am asking you to share with us a podcast you love, preferably book related, but not necessarily so. Give us the link, of course, and share with us details about that podcast and why you enjoy it so much. If you have a couple or three favorites, share them all!

Then, as the week goes on, check out every one's suggestions, find time to listen to a few, then come back and let us know what you discovered, and if you've found a new favorite podcast.

If you don't listen to podcasts at all, tell us why, or what it would take to peak your interest in them. Perhaps you could do as Dewey suggests, and do a little research (google book podcasts) and find one, then post on your blog what you discover and if you liked it or not.

Be sure to sign Mr. Linky both for the post on your favorite podcast, and the post on what new favorites you discover this week.

Welcome to the return of Weekly Geeks! We took a break for six weeks to give us time to honor Dewey, regroup and decide how to proceed. It takes a village to keep Dewey's projects going - and that's just what this blogging village (blogage?) is doing. Although there will be different facilitators every week, this is the place to come for the Weekly Geeks theme, Mr. Linky and comments, so add this page to your favs.

So - shall we begin?

In the spirit of the amazing community building that Dewey was so good at, tell us about your favorite blogs, the ones you have bookmarked or subscribe to in your Google Reader, that you visit on a regular basis. Tell us what it is about these blogs that you love, that inspire or educate you or make you laugh. Be sure to link to them so we can find them too.

Another option: Reading goals for ’09 and wrap ups for ’08 have been pretty well covered by now on a lot of blogs and other memes. But if you haven’t done this, feel free to make that your first WG of the new year, in addition to or instead of the above.

Most of you know the drill, but for newcomers (welcome!), create your blog post, come back here and sign Mr. Linky with the url to the actual post so we can find it easily. In addition, leaving a comment is a nice touch. So go be Weekly Geeks! And don't forget to visit your fellow Geeksters and say hello.

I hope you're as glad as I am to have this meme return , and I'm sure Dewey is smiling her approval.

This week's WG brought to you by Terri/teelgee

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The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne's essays on Daily Lit.

Note: I'm posting this on Thursday rather than Monday because I was participating in a book tour on Monday.

Essays Read this Week:
1. On the power of imagination
2. One man's profit is another man's loss
3. On habit: and on never easily changing traditional law

Favorite Quotations:
"When imaginary thoughts trouble us we break into sweats, start trembling, grow pale or flush crimson; we lie struck supine on our featherbeds and feel our bodies agitated by such emotions; some even die from them." (On the power of imagination)

"Married folk have time at their disposal: if they are not ready the should not try to rush things. Rather than fall into perpetual wretchedness by being struck with despair at a first rejection, it is better to fail to make it properly on the marriage-couch, full as it is of feverish agitation, and to wait for an opportune moment, more private and less challenging. Before processing his wife, a man who suffers a rejection should make gentle assays and overtures with various little sallies; he should not stubbornly persist in proving himself inadequate once and for all. Those who know that their member is naturally obedient should merely take care to out-trick their mental apprehensions." (On the power of imagination)

General Thoughts:
This week was essentially sex advice from Montaigne. What a dirty dead white guy. Okay, he wasn't that dirty, but he does seem awfully concerned with the performance of men's members during sex. On the power of imagination was an essay about our ability to convince ourselves bad things will happen. I can totally relate to this. I am the queen of psyching myself out. If you go into something thinking it will be bad, it will probably be bad. Montaigne has several examples of this, almost all of them are related to sex. Apparently the best way to illustrate this phenomenon is discussing men who are unable to have intercourse because they are convinced they won't be able to perform.

Seriously. If you read no other Montaigne essay read this one. It has some naughty bits.

One man's profit is another man's loss. Don't think that one needs much explaining and it's only a page long.

On habit was quite interesting but drug on way too long. He talks about how others perceive what we believe is perfectly normal. My favorite example was a guy who blew his nose with his fingers because he said boogers weren't special enough for him to blow them in a hanky and carry them around all day. Classic. Not all of his examples are boogers though. He lists several things that are considered normal in other cultures, like burning their dead and polygamy and nose rings, but that seem odd to Europeans. Then he turns the tables and writes about things other cultures probably find odd and he does so in such a way that makes the reader see the strangeness of these things too. Basically, everyone is weird.

Questions:
1. Would you take sex advice from a dead man?
2. Are boogers special?

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne's essays on Daily Lit.

Note: I'm posting this on Thursday rather than Monday because I was participating in a giveaway hop on Monday.

Essays Read this Week:
1. That the taste of good and evil things depends in large part on the opinion we have of them
2. One is punished for stubbornly defending a fort without good reason
3. On punishing cowardice
4. The doings of certain ambassadors

Favorite Quotations:
"... that it is with pain as with precious stones which take on brighter or duller hues depending on the foil in which they are set: pain only occupies as much space as we make for her" (The taste of good and evil things depends on our opinion).

"The man who is happy is not he who is believed to be so but he who believes he is so: in that way alone does belief endow itself with true reality" (The taste of good and evil things depends on our opinion).

General Thoughts:
The longest essay I read was That the taste of good and evil things depends in large part on the opinion we have of them, which is probably why I have the most to say about it. Montaigne spends quite a bit of this essay talking about pain and death, which was attractive to me this week because I have thumb injury causing quite a bit of pain. He says the most painful part of death is not death itself, but the time we spend thinking about it. Death, he says, is actually the release from pain. This basic principle can be moved to other parts of life though. For example, I spend a lot of time thinking about writing my papers, but once I finish the paper I find it's actual quite painless and relieving. If I would just quit thinking about the paper and write it I could save myself a lot of pain and misery.

I really liked the second quotation I posted from this essay though. It seems like the more negative energy you put out, the more you find yourself in a negative state of being. If you believe you are happy and put out positive energy, good things will come to you. This isn't always true, but I think there is something to be said for it. I've recently been dwelling in negatives so it seems like a lot of negative things have happened to me. In reality as many positive things have happened as negative, it's just easier to focus on the negative for some reason.

I did tsk tsk about halfway through this essay when Montaigne talks about how crazy women are for putting themselves through the pains of corsets and other crazier things (flaying themselves alive to have a fresh color in their skin?) just to become beautiful. Clearly Montaigne lived during a different time, but he doesn't acknowledge why women were driven to do these things, probably because no one thought about it much. But that is a story for another day...

Over the course of One is punished for stubbornly defending a fort without a good reason and On punishing cowardice I felt like Montaigne was relying on Nature to explain new human values. He talks about how humans are going against Nature because of new technology and broken traditions, and what this means for humans. Just funny that this argument continues to go on today.

From The doings of certain ambassadors I came away loving the first idea of the essay. He says when he meets other people he tries to bring the conversation back to the subject each person knows best. I thought this was a great idea and one I should observe more frequently.


Questions:
1. Do you believe that having a negative/positive attitude changes the way you feel about yourself or your life? Do you think you can apply "positive spin" to your own reality?
2. What subject are you an expert on? What would others want you to talk about?

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The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne's essays on Daily Lit.

Essays Read this Week:
1. Same design: differing outcomes
2. On schoolmasters' learning

Favorite Quotations:
"We are taught for the schoolroom, not for life." (Seneca, On schoolmasters' learning)

"Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own."(On schoolmasters' learning).

General Thoughts:
I had an intense connection with On schoolmasters' learning. I'm nearing the end of my third year in college and I've had a lot of frustration towards the university experience. I'm glad I've had the opportunity to go to college. I'm lucky to have great parents who help me pay for school and encourage me. I've had some great professors at the University of Iowa. And, after all, if I wasn't an English major this blog might not exist and that would be a shame.

That said, I don't know if I feel I've learned that much in college. In school we are required to learn a lot of information so we can take a test or write a paper, which is what Montaigne talks about in this essay. As Seneca said, "We are taught for the schoolroom, not for life." When I leave with my diploma will I really walk away any better off than I was when I came here? I will, but I'm not sure any of those things I've learned come from the classes I've taken or if they come from the experiences I've had. Life experiences. Experiences I might have had with or without college.

"We allow ourselves to lean so heavily on other men's arms that we destroy our own force." Is this the burnout I've experienced over the last year? Maybe. I feel like I'm constantly told what to think about something, what to see. I used to have my own opinions but now I have to prove everything I say using someone else's words. It's mind numbing.

Questions:
1. If you're in school do you feel like we are fed knowledge without learning anything of value?
2. If you're out of school what do you think you came away with besides a degree?

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There are these things right now, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (or SOPA) and the Protect-IP Act, that are getting a lot of attention. And chances are, that if you are spending much time online right now (Jan 18) you have run into at least one site that has been 'blacked out' in protest. (If you haven't, go to Google's homepage).

I thought about joining the black out, and the idea of it really appeals to me, because I am strongly, adamantly opposed to these two bills. But I'm not going for a black out, because, quite honestly, I'm pretty sure I would break my blog.

So, instead, I'm going to give you a quick run down of why I think these two bills are so detrimental and then I'm going to direct you to how and where you can actually make a difference.

FIRST: What are they?

Essentially, the purpose of these two bills is to stop the blatant copyright violations we see online. The goalis that it can be used to restrict the ability of sites to steal copyrighted information and content (movies, music, books, television shows, etc). And honestly, I think that is all fine and good. We have copyright laws for a reason and if you hold that copyright, you should legally be allowed to protect it.

However. The wording of these bills is far too vague to be effective in the way the bill intends. People who support this bill claim that it will only be used in extreme cases to protect blatant and flagrant violations of copyright. But by now, I think everyone is fully aware that when a law gives you a little bit of wiggle room, you wiggle and jiggle and finagle until you've taken advantage of every bit you possibly can.

So. To protect media copyrights, this bill will grant corporations the ability to have a US website shut down if it violates the copyright laws, or it will force US ad agencies and money/payment services (like Paypal) to remove all advertisements or connection to these sites.

To get a website restricted/blackballed/turned off (whatever you want to call it) all the copyright holder needs to do is get a court order. And to get a court order... Do you know what you need? A judge. ONE judge who agrees with you and is willing to sign off. There is no due process, no opportunity for you to make a case for yourself, nothing. If a copyright holder who feels they have been violated can convince a judge that this website has wronged them, it's over. And that's it.

This is not the best analysis of SOPA out there. There are many more, some who have more information, and some who, I'm sure, present it in a much clearer manner.

But what I AM going to do is provide you with a way to make a difference.

SOPA is the bill being voted on in the House of Representatives.
Protect-IP is the version being debated in the Senate.

I did an internship in the office of my Senator and here are some things I can tell you, so that when you call in to voice your concerns, they actually pay attention-

Do NOT call the Senate and complain about SOPA. It's a House of Representatives Bill, so the Senate hasn't 'seen' SOPA yet, and they won't 'see' it unless the House votes on it and it passes. Calling your Senator to tell them to VOTE NO doesn't do anyone any good, because they won't be voting on it at all. So, when you call your Senator, talk about the Protect-IP act instead. (and vice versa for the House).

Another thing — If you are from Minnesota, don't call a California Senator's office and expect them to care. It doesn't make a difference. Most offices will politely listen to what you have to say, get you off the phone quickly and then disregard your concerns. It sounds harsh, I know, but honestly — a Congressman's responsibility is to their own Constituents. So call YOUR state Senators and House members.

Also — When you call the House of Representatives, know which District you are calling from. House members are state representatives, but their primary focus is to their own district. It is a way to be sure that all areas of the state are equally represented. So a call to the House member from your District will bear more weight.

Don't know who or how to contact them? The following website is GOLDEN. It lists every single member of the Senate and House of Representatives, sorted by state and includes an email address as well as a link to their website. GO HERE:
GIANT List of Congressional awesome

OR you can call this number — 202-224-3121. This is the number for the Senate Switchboard operator. Ask for the Senator from your state & they will transfer you to the correct office. AND many of the staffers you speak to will be willing to transfer your calls 'in house' as well. So, call one Senator, who will transfer you to the office of the other Senator, who will transfer you to the House member from your district.

I'd love to have you come back and comment after, letting me know if it was successful, who you talked to, why you are against (or for) SOPA/Protect-IP.

It's something that will drastically effect almost everyone and can seriously change the sharing of information in the future, and it's something I think everyone should care about.

So go out, research & contact your Congressman. This is why we elect them, so that they can represent the interests of their constituency. So speak out!

The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne's essays on Daily Lit.

Essays Read this Week:
1. On educating children

Favorite Quotations:
"In the case of those who wish to hide their borrowings and pass them off as their own, their action is, first and foremost, unjust and mean: they have nothing worthwhile of their own to show off so they try to recommend themselves with someone else's goods" (On educating children).

"My aim is to reveal my own self, which may well be different tomorrow if I am initiated into some new business which changes me" (On educating children).

General Thoughts:
This essay brought up a lot of the same things last week's On schoolmaster's learning brought up. Montaigne talks about problems with educating, particularly with exams well, regurgitation, "Spewing up food exactly as you have swallowed it is evidence of a failure to digest and assimilate it; the stomach has not done its job if, during concoction, it fails to change the substance and the form of what it is given." Montaigne believes education should allow you to know yourself and school should be where you form yourself. He thinks teachers give students quotations and books to read in an attempt to make the students believe those are the last words on everything. In this way students never learn how to speak for themselves. They simply say what others have already said.

"I sometimes hear people who apologize for not being able to say what they mean, maintaining that their heads are so full of fine things that they cannot deliver them for want of eloquence. That is moonshine. Do you know what I think? It is a matter of shadowy notions coming to them from some unformed concepts which they are unable to untangle and to clarify in their minds: consequently they cannot deliver them externally."

I really love the idea of learning to form yourself. I've gotten bad grades in some classes but walked out with information that really shaped my thoughts on the class topic. I've gotten A+ in some classes that I remember nothing from. These are obviously extremes, but I've often thought about going back to the professors of classes and showing them how much I actually did learn in their class-- even if it wasn't what I supposed to learn for an exam.

Questions:
1. What do you think education is for?

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