Signs of the times

We'd been having the local paper delivered for over 30 years, and went to online-only a couple of months ago. Delivery was just too expensive to justify. I'd looked at the publishing company's financials a few years ago, and we're not the only ones--what's keeping revenues up for them is printing fliers and whatnot for a wider and wider range.

Two obvious signs of problems are the size of the paper itself (getting slimmer and slimmer) and the ratio of ads to copy (larger and larger)

One I hadn't thought of is the comics. They'd been going with a half-page, of which two were popular re-runs (Peanuts and For Better or Worse). The online edition had an additional page, with a mix of popular and less so--including (would Madison subscribe to a newspaper without it?) Doonesbury.

I hadn't bothered to ask how much these subscriptions cost the newspaper, but I assume that the more popular strips cost more, the reruns a bit less, and the less popular and the drama serials still less.

They just redid their amusements pages, and pretty much everything is new. I get the sense that the comics are a bundle, and not the top-tier bundle either. If my gut reaction that the mix isn't tailored to the community isn't enough evidence: they got rid of Doonesbury. Zippy may aim for a similar demographic, but I'm not familiar enough to say, nor do I care to do the research.

It's no skin off my nose, but that's another metric to watch.

I suppose I should start examining the sports section a bit more carefully. Local sports news is something that they can't acquire just by piggybacking on the national wire services. I figure that'll be the last thing to be cut, and when I see cuts or shortcuts there, the paper will be almost dead. Maybe counting bylines?

Tis the Gift to be Simple

"Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

I'll not try to unpack all of that, but one thing little children are good at is "being in the moment." Not for long; steadfastness is not one of the frontline virtues in a child. But there's something admirable in the pure enjoyment of the taste of icecream. The flip side is the pure horror and rejection of the abomination of cottage cheese. Oh wait, that's me as an adult.

A rainbow to me as an adult isn't a "pure thing": it recalls the other rainbows I've seen and made, and who I was with, and other memories fun and sad. A bath is a simple sensual pleasure, and maybe it recalls other baths and other oceans. But it isn't perfected by having the radio play Carmen while I'm eating a fudge sundae. Adding too many other related pleasures can detract from fully enjoying any of them.

Our pocket shrines help keep us out of the moment, of course, but so (at least for me) does the "narrator", the "drunken monkey stung by a scorpion". And neither is good for steadfast concentration and enjoyment.

I need to work more on "doing one thing at a time."

Benghazi

I remember wondering what was going on in Benghazi--what was Stevens doing in this out of the way post? Somebody pointed out that some connected Saudis were in the area, getting out of Dodge as fast as they could, and that there was a rumor about weapons going to Syrian rebels. And what had just been opened up? Gaddaffi's arms stash--he had weapons to provide for one of the largest armies in the world at the time. (I didn't say one of the strongest, notice.) (I assume some of those arms wound up spread among Islamist groups in Africa.)

Hmm. Buying up loose gear and having Saudi's deniably ship it to Syrian rebels? It seemed plausible--the first part of it laudable.

Close but no cigar. Apparently they were trying to buy back weapons they'd given to Libyan rebels. Alarming stupidity at every turn...

Amusement for a little while

I'd never heard of BunaB before. The instruction sheet for the BunaB #7 is reproduced at SamuelJohnson's site, together with links for images for the board and instructions for the Zudirk game (BunaB#2). ("ZUDIRK is a modern adaptation of a game believed to have originated on the Scilly Islands, off the coast of Cornwall, England, centuries before the arrival of the Romans. A favorite sport of High Priests of the Druidic cult, it was originally played outdoors, the implements--burning tinder, heart-shaped boulders, stone adzes and condemned criminals.")

Well, over a million Pet Rocks sold--and apparently they're still selling. Why not BunaB?

Over the years I've bought a number of things that never were used--some substantially more expensive than these novelties.

over-wise

Grim cites the Havamal on one of AVI's posts:

54

It is best for man to be middle-wise,
Not over cunning and clever:
The learned man whose lore is deep
Is seldom happy at heart.

The usual way I've heard this described is that it's no joy to know the terrible things that you can't dodge, and also that knowing too many options causes paralysis by analysis, which is often worse than merely being wrong.

It reminds me of Ecclesiastes: "Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?"

The first half of that verse is widely argued, of course. The second half in turn reminds me of Luke 12:47-48. "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required."

and also: "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment."

I'm already not wonderful at doing what I know I ought. What would it be like if instead of fuzzy generalities and "close enough" I knew with exquisite precision what I should be doing, and still didn't obey?

In any event, I suspect I'd be found innocent if charged with excessive wisdom.

Unfamiliar symbols

"Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" I wonder if any of those silver images of the temple are still around. There are statues of Artemis still around; she seems to have canes in her hands (canes are also seen in a crude lead figure, so if it was a stability artifact it was in the original--it looks top heavy). No idea what that was taken to mean. The Artemis has a garment with lions and cows and antelopes and whatnot, and women on the sides--small breasted, possibly to avoid competition with the vast array of breasts the goddess sported. I assume the multitude of breasts has to do with fertility and providing for the world. The effect is remarkably ugly.

I haven't turned up any silver images of the temple. Probably all were melted long ago.

One of the images of Artemis' head has her eyes rolled up in an expression that seems almost Hindu--which wouldn't be terribly surprising. The city clerk spoke of an image fallen from heaven. Was that a special inner shrine with a meteorite, or had stories been told that this top-heavy thing had really fallen from the sky?

I’ve suggested before that polytheism is the compromise you get when different tribes with different gods met. I think it can work a bit the other way too. If you have a pile of gods you have to keep up with the appropriate seasonal rituals with each, but perhaps one takes your fancy--say Krishna. I suspect that the more people are devoted to a single god in the pantheon, the more that one will take on aspects that others are nominally the managers of. A fertility goddess could easily pick up aspects of wrath, and even of battle--if people cared about her enough. (Priests might have a little competition going here too--one stop shopping, get all your prayers done here...)

Be that as it may, I look at the statue and find it opaque. And this is the relic of a literate people, from whom we have many documents--there's some connection between us still. And then I look at the pictures at Göbekli Tepe. Wild guesses, all.

Great was Artemis of the Ephesians Wright's site has a picture of what's left: a mismatched column with a stork's nest on top. The ruins of the temple were scavenged to build a basillica, and eventually the ruins of that for a mosque, and the mosque isn't in great shape now either.

There's always somebody..

Via a comment at Sippican Cottage, behold The Christian Topography by Cosmas Indicopleustes ('India-voyager').

There can be few books which have attracted more derision, mixed with wonder, than the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes. It advances the idea that the world is flat, and that the heavens form the shape of a box with a curved lid. The author cites passages of scripture which he distorts wildly in order to support his thesis, and attempts to argue down the idea of a spherical earth by stigmatizing it as 'pagan.' The approach to scripture is discreditable, and the conclusion made simply wrong.

The book is often cited as evidence that Christianity introduced the idea of the flat-earth into the world, and brought in the age of ignorance. This is hardly fair, since Cosmas does not represent a mainstream of any kind, personally or spiritually. The latter pages of his work are devoted to rebutting the criticism of his fellow-monks, that what he was saying was wrong.

It almost makes current political discourse look sensible. I almost made it through Book 1.