Review of the play - Compleat Female Stage Beauty

Recently I saw the play "Compleat Female Stage Beauty" at the City Lights Theater in San Jose, CA. The play is the based on the 17th century actor Edward Kynaston who had achieved great acclaim playing the roles of women in plays. When King Charles II changes the law and men are forbidden from playing women Kynaston's life is turned upside down.

It is difficult if not impossible to adequately cover all of the issues of gender and sexuality touched on in the play. Layered on top of this is the second class status of women as well as the tension between artistic expression and government authority. The play depicts an era when performances of plays had only recently become legal again and were still subject to government control. The relative liberty we experience in the more sophisticated portions of the world today is a recent phenomena.

The play is well written and the acting is very good in particular Thomas Gorrebeeck as Kynaston. The lighting and set are done well and compliment the flow of the play.

This is an interesting play and I recommend it.

Voodoo Histories - A Very Short Review

Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch is a work which is both interesting and useful. I listened to it as an audio book for a book discussion group. I had not heard of the work until it was selected by the book group but I am glad I was exposed to it. The wording of the book title is not one I would have chosen but that is a minor quibble. In essence the book gives detailed examples of historical events which got twisted by conspiracy theories.

Aaronovitch does a masterful job of documenting the fraud surrounding “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. The book discusses in detail how the fiction started and how several incredibly unscrupulous people propagated and expanded the falsehoods. Just that section alone justifies getting the work.

The work touches on wide range of events ranging from a discussion of the Holy Grail to the death of Marilyn Monroe. These are topics with which I was familiar however I was not familiar with the case of Hilda Murrell who was murdered in the UK. This part of the book is the portion which I found had the biggest impact because it was a case that was new to me. It was amazing as Aaronovitch describing how conspiracy theories about the poor woman's death grew. It had the "obvious" villains such as the nuclear industry and sleazy politicians. Get the book to find out what really happened.

I recommend the book. I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in Pearl Harbor, Princess Diana, the assassination of JFK or any similar topics. And if you know someone going around claiming that attacks of Septemeber 11, 2001 (aka 9/11) were masterminded by Dick Cheney as a favor for his Galatic Overlords please make them aware of this book. They can listen to it or read it either way I expect a net benefit for humanity.

The Rational Optimist by Mathew Ridley - A Short Review

I recently read The Rational Optimist by Mathew Ridley for a book dicussion group meeting. The book is wide ranging and covered much of human history. Of course the bulk of the book covers recent centuries and particularly current and near future. A main theme of the book is the role that trade plays in human cultural and intellectual development. Ridley discusses human trade, invention and why there is reason for a optimist view. Ridley tries to be careful not be be pollyannish.

Overall I enjoyed the book and give it a mostly positive recommendation. Why mostly positive? There are a couple of points where he gets some details wrong in the section discussing computers. These are minor points. A bigger problem is that I would have preferred if he had a better grasp and presentation of some of the positions he criticized. However given the scope of the work I can suggest that people read it and while noticing the small glitches look past them to his larger argument. Ridley has some points well worth considering.

Getting Caught Up

A couple of months have passed since my last entry. The primary reason was that I was preparing for and then on a trip to Australia which covered the last few days of August and most of September. Part of the tour of Australia was in some remote areas and internet access was not easy to find in some cases. Plus I broke my right arm so the last couple of weeks of the tour I was doing everything left handed. I have been back home for a bit over a week and getting over the jet lag and the arm is healing very well. There was no dislocation of the break so no pins, surgery, or cast; just using a sling which should end by end of October. Pain and discomfort are decreasing. So over the next few weeks I will try to get caught up on making my comments on the world at large.

I will start with a pointer to a
YouTube video called "It Get's Better" which is a message of hope for LGBT youth. As a straight person I never had homophobic bigotry directed at me in school however I can still feel sympathy for those who have. And that is why I am mentioning this YouTube video; if you know an LGBT youth particularly in a small town or a social situation filled with bigotry pass along the URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnev14XfUjY

Some people have complained that the video is too San Francisco centric. Well perhaps. But if someone is in a bad situation having the hope of San Francisco might be what they need. And if at some point they make it to San Francisco and decide San Francisco is just not right for them then they can move to another reasonable place to live such as Marin County or Silicon Valley.

Agora - A movie review

Over the weekend I saw the movie Agora. The movie covers the destruction of the library of Alexandria and the murder of Hypatia. Thus there is no suspense about the outcome but the movie is in many ways more gripping than the typical Hollywood thriller. This movie covers actual historical events and although the details are not known completely it certainly seems to generally agree with what is known of the events.

There are a couple of themes in the movie; first theme is that violence and threats are not useful for deciding issue of religion or philosophy; and the second is the theme of faith versus reason. Is the movie is anti-fundamentalist? Yes but it is more than that. It is ultimately anti-faith. Fundamentalism derives from faith not the other way around. In reflecting on the movie a couple of days later I wonder if the people who made it realize how much of an attack on faith is implicit in much of the movie. This movie is painful and depressing but hopefully it will serve as to advance the cause of reason and rationality.

This movie is only being released in a few theaters and I strongly urge seeing it if possible.

Three Cups of Tea - A Book Review

I read the book The Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Olver Relin for a reading group. It was an interesting read. The book is the story of Greg Mortenson who gets separated from his guide coming down off of K2 and stumbles tired, hungry and weak into the small Pakistan village of Korphe. He is taken in by the village and recovered. He saw that the local children would try to learn from a teacher who came by a few times a week and the children were sitting in a open flat area on the ground trying to learn. The lucky students had a piece of slate that they wrote on with a stick dipped in mud. Mortenson promised to build a school.

Mortenson was basically broke. Mortenson worked as a nurse to finance his mountain climbing hobby and was only able to go on the K2 attempt by signing on as the expedition medic. Eventually Mortenson gets the money for the school. The details of the fund raising are actually an interesting part of the book. A donor leaves funds to start an institute as a framework for Mortenson to carry on his work.

One talent that Mortenson has is with languages and he is able to quickly pick up enough of the various local languages that he is able to function well. He is also sensitive to the cultural differences. I had heard much of the Mortenson story from various media outlets however one part that I had not heard much about was the impact of his work on his personal life. After the breakup of one relationship he eventually met Tara and they were married six days later. His work has put some stress early on in the marriage however now they have two children and the family seems to be dong well.

This is a book well worth reading.

Some good news about a court ruling

Federal Judge Richard J. Leon has just dropped all charges in the trial of John A. Stagliano and two of his companies. The prosecution had completed their case and based on the evidence presented the judge dropped all charges saying there was not enough evidence to even bother with hearing from the defense and sending it to the jury. The judge dismissed all charges and set Stagliano free.

Now you may ask why am I taking the time to write about this. Well it has gotten some press but in my opinion not enough. Reason magazine and blog have covered it very well. For example it was from a the Reason blog article about the beginning of the trial that read the report that FBI Agent Daniel Bradley was working on national security issues before being assigned to the Stagliano case. What was the Stagliano case about? Well I have not seen the movies however according to the news reports the movies involved sexual scenes milk, enemas and various other activities. It is not exactly mainstream but so what? That does not matter. What matters is the liberty of Mr. Stagliano and his associates to make the movies. Any adult with a credit card or a few dollars in their pocket can go buy them. If you do not want to watch them then don't. Info about the trial conclusion at the article including a short video.

This ridiculous case was started under the Bush administration which just adds one more item to the long list of vile, stupid and despicable things done by the Bush administration. Of course the reasonable thing for the Obama administration to do was drop the whole thing when the got into office but they did not stop it. The Obama administration has been disappointing in being either inept or reluctant to curtail many of the crap left over from Bush.

My concluding comment is that the next time you are standing in line at airport with your shoes in hand or hearing the next proposal for further monitoring every financial or other transaction that you do in the course of your daily activities just remember that it was the Bush administration who pulled an FBI agent from national security work to investigate some guy making kinky movies.