Callgirl - Jeannette Angell

This week's book is:

Callgirl - Confessions of a Double Life, by Jeannette Angell

I don't really know where to start with this one. I had certain expectations when I picked it up - Not-so-hard-up girl takes a walk on the wild side anecdotes etc - and though, there was a touch of that, there's also a frank honesty from the author that is touching. Self-deprecating in places, open and proud in others. It is a touch formulaic, there are plenty such autobiographic tell-alls around, but this is one of the better ones and deserves a look just for the skill and insights of it's writer.


Three thumbs up from me.

A Certain Age - Rebbecca Ray

This week's book is:

A Certain Age, by Rebbecca Ray

I came away from this book feeling as though the author had cut open her chest and slopped down her bloody, still-beating heart on the desk in front of me and shrugged "It is what it is."
Raw and honest and pragmatic without any of the usual embellishments. In fact, I think she takes the trouble to describe some ugly details that we wish she hadn't, but that just add to the realism. Rebbecca Ray could be describing almost any blue-collar home in the world in this book.
I loved her character depth. People aren't all black and white. The adoring father is also a proud, self-involved and beligerent jackass.
The ending is sudden and jarring and you feel like you've been slapped with the banality of it all. But it fits.

4 thumbs up from me.

Think Inc. - Melbourne, 2011

Neil deGrasse Tyson coming to Melbourne, you bet I had to be there.

I'm not really sure how to express just how much of an effect that Mr Tyson has had on my life, and probably plenty of other lives too.
It's no secret that I left school early. I fell pregnant (and landed in a bunch of baby) at 15, so my education since then has been primarily autodidactic (and apparently included a lot of pretentiously long, obscure words). Even so, after reading every book I could get my hands on - mostly philosophical, observational or critical - it still felt rather like I was light years behind the rest of the world. Everybody else had this huge secret, this in-joke, that I just wasn't in on. I could study history, politics, anthropology, whatever.. and I just didn't get the joke.

Until I picked up a physics textbook. 

I'd just never seen anything else that so concisely articulated the nature of reality. No superstition, no guessing and interpreting and subjectively criticising. Just laws and rules about how things work that you can depend on (mostly) to be constant and consistent.
Suddenly it didn't matter how many people thought one particular thing. If it couldn't be shown to be true through the peer-reviewed scientific method of hypothesis, experiment and theory, then it's probably just transient conjecture. This led to enquiry into maths, chemistry, biology.. Suddenly I could freely know it all. All this information is there and waiting for folk to just come along and rub up against it. Smooch it. Grope it inappropriately, it likes that.

Suddenly my world makes sense. And it's because of public educators, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, who take the time to articulate and entertain through comedy and fascinating presentations, that this simply enthralling world view is open to the rest of us. How do you thank someone for a gift like that?

I get it - Sometimes you stretch someone's mind, and all you get at the end is a stronger vacuum. I guess that's part of the reason the Think Inc organisers conceived this conference in the first place.

It was their first Think Inc, and was mostly a learning experience for them, I think, so I'm prepared to be pretty forgiving for the usual public gathering drama llamas that popped up around the place. For the most part, I enjoyed myself immensely and I don't regret a cent of my ticket price, so please take any criticisms in the following as feedback, rather than moany complaint.

The VIP section was set out in the middle of the seating at the front, as is usual, but then the speakers podium was set to the far right of the stage - So regular ticketed attendees had a brilliant view, but those of us who'd paid double ended up with sore necks trying to crane around the absurd prompter screen in the middle of the stage that the speakers weren't even using.
 
The speakers were entertaining and it was lovely to see them up close, Cristina Rad seemed to be a bit bemused about why she was there, but I think she did a great job for her first official speaking engagement - not an easy thing to do. We have some different points of view, but you can't help but admire the strength of character it takes to push against a parochial wave like Romanian public opinion and fight for secularity.
Michael Shermer was great to see, I've enjoyed his presentations and writing online for a long time, but it was a bit disappointing that his talk seemed very scripted - as though he's said the same exact things 500 times before, word for word. When you speak as much as he does publically, it's probably just what happens though.
I think I fell a little in love with Shane Koyczan. I'd watched some of his poetry before I went, but it didn't come close to listening to him in person. His poem written in response to a woman who told him that big people can't be sexy really touched me. So beautiful. I think we all want to be loved as he loves.
 It was thrilling to see Ayaan Hirsi Ali live too, even if only by video link. I've even managed to convince the boy to read my copy of Infidel, even though he doesn't enjoy reading very much.

 The panel at the end was a lot of fun to watch. I swear I saw Neil take deep breaths and count to ten every time Bob Maguire interrupted to subject us all to his latest batch of wibbledy.The whole shebang was hosted by Josh Thomas who seemed to have no idea why they'd chosen him to host, but I'm glad they did. He is a charming, witty and lovely host who did a wonderful job.

A truly great day, even shadowed by Hitchens' medical emergency. There were the usual grumbles from some twits about "I came just to see Hitchens! Give me my money back! Shoddy organisation! blah blah".. But I don't think anybody with a modicum of compassion felt that way. It was hardly an avoidable circumstance (I'm sure Christopher Hitchens would prefer not to have cancer, given the choice) and I really don't think the organisers could do more than they did - which was explain as much as they knew and offer an alternative at a later date - via internet for those of us who couldn't travel again too.

A thumbs up for Think Inc from me - I hope they hold it again next year!

The parasite that is Deepak Chopra.

Since publishing his first self-help books in the 1980s, Chopra has been one of the big names in the alternative medicine and spirituality scene - and he's done awfully well out of it. For more than 20 years he's been charging thousands for seminar appearances, talk show discussions and peddled his snake oil all over the world, with a deep and meaningful sticker slapped over the tacky hijacking of exotic eastern traditions. Oprah Winfrey has a lot to answer for, for giving this nasty little toad credibility. This disgusting little fraud is worth so many millions (It's hard to take someone seriously when they talk about humility and giving when they're wearing diamond-encrusted glasses, Mister Chopra) duped from folk who seem to think that this is an enlightened man:

This is a short version, to watch the entire debate, a discussion with Sam Harris and Michael Shermer V Deepak and Jean Houston on the topic "Does god have a future?" go here .. Through the whole spectacle, Deepak comes across as a petulant child, pouting at being bullied by the bigger kids. Sitting next to rational thinkers like Harris and Shermer and the glaring display of actual scientific discussion, his mumbojumbo sounds so nonsensical, it's hard to believe that anybody would pay money to be told it. I think if it had gone on much longer, Michael Shermer may have even actually cried.

Right there with you, Michael.

Why you shouldn't be a Jedi.

So how many of you have already got your census packs and are ready and waiting to fill out the religion question with something funny like 'Jedi' or "Pastafarian"? I know that there's not many ways to quietly stick it to churches and express yourself, but there's some very good reasons to not be a Jedi on this year's census form.

And how many of you will tick "Christian" or "Anglican" because that is the faith that your parents raised you in and you want to acknowledge that, even though you don't believe in any god and haven't set foot in a church except for weddings and funerals since you were a child?

It's actually very important that you accurately reflect your religious views (or lack of) on the census form. Census data is used to indirectly determine things like how much funding is given to superstitious endeavours, how relevant tax breaks are for religious pursuits and how many people share the views of those lobbying for government policy changes in line with their moral beliefs (eg. whether or not gay marriage gets legalised).

Since the last census, organisations such as the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) - You may remember them from such films as "Take those offensive gay men off our bus shelters." and the classic "Yes it's reasonable to spend $222million on imposing chaplains in state schools while denying funding for trained counselling staff." - have been claiming that 64% of Australians share their moral views and that 74% of Australians total are religious. They use these figures as an appeal from popularity to support their pushes against important policy issues like stem cell research, family planning policies - such as the availability of contraception and abortions and also the policies concerning gay adoption and access to IVF, and whether or not it's 'offensive' to portray gay relationships in popular culture and advertising, among plenty of other things.

If you subtracted the number of people that mark their parent's faith out of habit or loyalty, and the people that express their irreligiosity by writing 'Jedi' or similar, that percentage and therefore the influence of religious bigots who seek to impose their own moral boundaries on your life via government policy would be much less. If you write Jedi, Pastafarian or similar, you'll be taken seriously and counted among the religious and indirectly contribute to supporting policies that you most likely disagree with.
So please, if you're not religious now, mark "No religion" and be accurately represented. Let's take religion out of politics.

Darkness Visible - Inside the World of Philip Pullman

This week's book is:

Darkness Visible: Inside the World of Philip Pullman, by Nicholas Tucker

Usually I don't like to pick up biographies written about my favourite authors, unless they've written them themselves. Mostly because they're usually written with the same kind of fanatical adoration and neophytic starry eyes that I hold for the author and I cringe a little inside to see myself so reflected.
But no matter, whether it was the subject or the Milton reference, I found myself picking it up anyway.
And I'm glad that I did. The author's observations are carefully and entertainingly delivered and I felt much enriched at the end of this little gem.

4 thumbs up from me.

International Day Against Stoning

Whatever your opinions are about capital punishment, there's not many folk in our community that would say that stoning is a moral and fitting way to end a person's life.
In fact, some are surprised to learn that it still goes on in 'this day and age'.

Well, it does.

In Iran hundreds of women have been stoned to death in the last 30 years, most for trivial, 'religious' or non-existant crimes (being the victim of a rape is one such heinous crime), but none of them deserving such an absurdly barbaric and disgusting sentence.
Iranian penal code says that stones used must be big enough to cause damage, but not so large that they prematurely end the execution process.. yanno, in case a 'loving' (puke) family member or neighbour tries to reduce the victim's suffering.
July 11 is the International Day Against Stoning, organised by the ICAS. Tweet, write, stomp up and down.. Show Iran that you condemn them for this abhorent practice.