Cassandra's Voice

Sometimes I read an essay that's so good that I think, "Wow, that's great, I couldn't have said it better myself." I've developed a subconscious protocol for handling such material.

My neurotransmitters immediately route the essay to my brain's "Cool Idea Storage Unit" (CISU). On its way, my Rhetorical Processing Unit (RPU) filters the essay through my cerebral delamination filters, where it is stripped of its author's name, place of origin, and, indeed, any internal suggestion that the essay has already been written and published. The delaminated essay next passes through a brain stem neuro-centrifuge, where the connective tissues binding the ideas and the phrases contained in the original essay are dissolved. They are then stocked in Immediate Access Storage (IAS) in random form, like a stack of so much lumber. The neuro-centrifuge's solvent is designed to leave clever analogies, stirring phrases and bons mots in general untouched and fully intact for appropriate re-use.

All these ideas and phrases, thus stocked in Immediate Access Storage (IAS), are by that time totally removed from their original context, and available for my "innocent" use in my own writing. The next time I feel inclined to write on the same or similar subject, they pop into my consciousness, one by one, as though handed to me by my Muse, while I write. I naively believe that, thus inspired, I am engaged in "creativity." We call this process "unconscious plagiarism."

Occasionally, however, an essay or editorial is so true and so clearly written that I'm moved to overrule this unconscious process, and republish it as it was written, with full attribution to its author. That is how I felt today, after reading a column in the Seattle Times, written by Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey. The column discusses the wisdom of Rep. Ron Paul, the predictable fact that the Republicans will ignore his wisdom, and the fate, as a consequence, of the Republican Party in 2008. I quote the conclusion of the column:

It is fairly clear now that America will leave Iraq, and not in triumph. It will be tempting for the Republicans to blame the result on the Democrats, because that would mean that the Republicans were "right" in some theoretical way. But they were not right. They did not understand Iraq, or the history of imperialism or much of anything beyond knocking over Saddam Hussein.

In foreign affairs, the Republicans are our nationalist party, and there is a role for that. But they need to question the idea of a "global war on terror." The 9/11 attacks were acts of desperation by 19 men with box cutters. What these men did looked and felt like acts of war, but really it was an audacious crime, planned and executed by a political gang financed with private money.

Fighting such gangs is the job of cops, security workers, customs agents, G-men, diplomats and alert citizens. It is an important task, but we are not at war. America hasn't been attacked in nearly six years.

Republicans need to settle on a foreign policy that asserts American interests in a realistic and humane way. Whether they go as far as the noninterventionism of Ron Paul is another question, but they have to jettison the Bush policy of preemptive war. That the leading Republican contenders refuse to question that policy is a sign that they have not learned and, 17 months from now, will not win.

With a Song in her Heart

"People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing."

--Florence Foster Jenkins

Photo: Chris Bennion

Courtesy ACT Theatre

ACT Theatre in Seattle is doing a run, over the next month, of the Broadway play Souvenir. The play is based on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy heiress who devoted her life to music, and in particular, to the performance of soprano arias.

Over a career of three decades, she gave annual performances to the cream of New York society at the Ritz-Carlton ballroom. During World War II, her performances became more frequent, with the proceeds going to the war effort. She released a number of albums on major labels. She reached the peak of her career in 1944, at the age of 76, giving a stunning performance of her most famous arias to a sell-out crowd at Carnegie Hall. A month later, she passed away, serene in her sense of a life well led.

Florence Foster Jenkins, as Wikipedia accurately describes her, possessed a "complete lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability." Her fame was, and is today, based entirely on that very lack.

Souvenir depicts the decades long relationship between Foster Jenkins and her long-suffering piano accompanist, Cosme McMoon (played by Mark Anders). Patti Cohenour, who portrays the diva most admirably in the ACT production, has been quoted as saying that she needed lengthy periods of intense practice before she could duplicate her character's unique style of singing. The uniqueness of that style became instantly apparent to all members of the ACT audience, the instant she reached for the opening high note of her first aria, Caro nome. Hearing her inimitable presentation, we were all equally in awe, regardless of our prior acquaintance -- or lack of acquaintance -- with the operatic canon from which she selected her numbers.

It was easy to ridicule Florence Foster Jenkins, and in her lifetime, many did. But she was blessed with infinite self-confidence, single-minded love of music, and a lifelong desire to share the beauty of song with her friends and fellow music-lovers. Even in her one moment of self-questioning, she mused that what was truly important was how the music sounded in her head -- not how it sounded to her audience. In her head, she heard the divine music of the spheres; she had the rare, obsessive determination that others should hear it as well.

In the end, after the applause died away, we walked slowly from the theater, shaken by the realization that we go through life only once, and that surely it is far better to risk ridicule reaching for the stars than to sit silently at home, our dreams locked within us, out of fear of seeming foolish.

No one's life seemed more foolish to audiences of the 1930's and 40's than that of Florence Foster Jenkins. But she passed away, again quoting Wikipedia, "with the same happy, confident sense of fulfillment that pervaded her entire artistic life."

Martian Mysteries

As noted in an earlier post, I find newspaper reports of scientific discoveries irritating and baffling. Their writers must be either scientifically illiterate themselves, or forced to dumb down their writing so much that they can’t convey adequately exactly what has been discovered, and how.

For example? Ok. Consider this. News stories have appeared this week announcing new proof that Mars was at one time much wetter than it is now.

NASA scientists deduce the existence of such water from an accidental discovery. While moseying across the Martian landscape, the Mars rover Spirit dragged a broken wheel, like those on supermarket grocery carts, gouging out patches of bright soil (see photo). Spirit's instruments were sternly directed to perform their intended functions, i.e., to test these patches chemically and by spectrometer. They did so, and in due course found that the bright soil consisted of a surprisingly high 90 percent silica (SiO2). The silica was found to be non-crystalline, which means that it’s not quartz, the primary form in which silica appears in soils (or sand) on Earth.

Now, I have no background in geology. But when a newspaper writer tells us that we now have proof that water used to flow on Mars, because Spirit kicked up some white soil with a high silica content, I don't think he should expect us to just look at him with big sheep eyes, nodding our woolly heads. I really would like to understand how the NASA scientists reasoned from point A to point B.

Silica is a metallic oxide. It's a component of both igneous and metamorphic rocks, minerals formed by high heat and/or pressure. No water is required to produce silica. At least, so far as I know. For example, no one claims that water ever flowed on our own Moon. But lunar shield volcanoes are composed of silica-rich lava. (Otherwise, as I understand it, the lava wouldn't have had much starch and would've flattened out into basalt maria, as indeed can be seen to have happened on much of the lunar surface.) Likewise, the powdery surface soil ("regolith") in the lunar highlands is rich in both aluminum and silica. No one seems excited about the silica content in these areas on the Moon. What’s the difference between them and the patches newly discovered on Mars? Is it that there's a higher concentration of silica on Mars? Ninety percent, as opposed to, say, 60 or 70 percent? And if so, what does this have to do with water?

All the journalist could add for our edification was that the silica could have been formed by acid vapors interacting with water, or maybe by hot springs. Huh? Couldn’t we have been given at least a primitive discussion of the chemistry that would cause these vaguely described conditions to result in unusually silica-rich soil?

"You could hear people gasp in astonishment," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for NASA's twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "This is a remarkable discovery."

No doubt. But the news report should have provided us enough geological and chemical background to help us share in NASA’s astonishment.

I'm still not sure why 90 percent silica content proves the existence of water, even after a little snuffling around through interplanetary geological websites. Any geology buffs out there who’d like to weigh in with some expert insight?

Pascal in Tasmania

More of Pascal's travel adventures

An earlier post provided photos and email excerpts from Pascal, regarding his term break travels in New Zealand. Last weekend, he traveled with friends to Tasmania, and reported on his adventures by email.

Pascal is a junior, majoring in economics, at the University of British Columbia. He is spending this term at the University of Melbourne, supposedly to enrich his studies in economics. I suspect that, this term, it will be mainly his parents, back home in Sonoma, CA, who get the lessons in economics. (Just kidding, Pascal, you're a smart, hard working guy and have more than earned all the fun you're having now.)

(I've added a few paragraph breaks, to make the post more readable.)
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Hey guys! Here's a little recap of my trip to Tasmania this past weekend! So we arrive in Hobart at around 10:30ish and take a shuttle to our hostel. Our hostel was really cool - this really big old house that they just turned into a hostel. So it was really old and funky. That night we decided to check out Hobart's night life! So we roamed the streets at around 12 AM and it was DESERTED! Nothing was going on except for one bar that had some show that cost more than we were willing to pay. But it was still fun to walk around and check stuff out.

The next morning some of us went to get the car (oh right, there were 5 of us all together). Then we drove up to this mountain that overlooked the city. Holy moly! Fantastic view! You could see for miles and miles! We had great weather! After that we just drove and drove and would stop at little towns along the way to see waterfalls or lakes etc. Very pretty scenery. That night we were looking for a campsite... that never seemed to come. We looked and looked... and then looked down at the gas gage and realized that we were on empty!!! Oh boy... the next 20 mins to the closest town consisted of us going very slowly up hills... and then shifting into neutral on the downhills to save as much gas as possible! Hahahaha... it was pretty hilarious looking back on it... but at the time we were really quite scared of being stranded in the middle of no-where!

But alas, we did make it to the town and got some much needed gas and relief! We drove back to the campsite (which we located, but wanted to get gas first) and had a great night of vodka and campfires! The stars were fantastic! Southern cross was out in force. The next morning we drove to Cradle Mountain. The drive there was pretty much alllllll fog! We were so worried that when we got there we'd hike through the fog... to see spectacular views of... fog! BUT... as we drew closer it all cleared up and we were left with yet another beautiful day! The hike was in this national park and we had to take a shuttle to get out to the trail head. We did this hike that was really nice, not too hard, but still a good work out. We hiked up to this awesome lookout at cradle mountain. Found this little spot up there with an awesome view.

That night we drove and drove and after eating pizza in a park and playing frisbee in the dark we drove some more. We were looking for this campsite near this town called Fingal. Well... we couldn't find it so we stopped in at the local pub, which was the only thing open mind you, and Aaron along with Kaye went in to ask for directions. Hahaha, they came out laughing hysterically. They reported that after not finding any bar tender they asked some lady at the bar. She said that we should just camp in her front yard! She was really serious and gave us directions and everything! So we drove round and round the tiny town looking for her place.

Eventually we found it and decided that we were really gonna do this. So we set up the tent... and then we heard dogs barking and an old man showed up in the next plot of land. We had to explain to us that we weren't terrorists and that Karen had told us we could camp there.
Bahahaha.... we proceeded to drink quite a lot of Vodka (that we bought on our NZ trip) and headed down to the pub! Oh man.... gong show! We had sooooo much fun! First thing they make us do is sign our name on the wall of the bar! I left my everlasting mark on the bar in Fingal! Oh man... then we just drank a lot of beer and got to know the locals! I think my pictures speak for themselves. I went a little trigger happy. By the end (or probably half way through) people were probably so tired of me taking pictures! Hahaha... there was arm wrestling, pool playing, story telling... the whole lot! And then after the bar closed we took the party back to Karen's house! Baaaaaaaahahhaha... oh man. So much fun. This town was so incredibly red-neck... you have no idea. Karen, the very nice lady who's house we stayed at, she had her first kid when she was 15! NO JOKE! But everyone was very nice and we all had a great time.

The next morning we said our farewells and took off to Wineglass Bay on the East Coast. Once there we took off on a hike up to this fantastic viewpoint. The hike up consisted of us scrambling up rocks and boulders basically making our own way up while following some yellow arrows. It was pretty much my ideal hike! Love boulder hopping! So this was great! Once up on top we looked down on Wineglass Bay on the other side and we were completely blown away! It was gorgeous. The color of the water was this deep turquoise blue and the sand was incredibly white. It was so worth the hike up! Well actually the hike was worth it alone! That evening we stopped off at a beach and went swimming in the Tasman Sea just to say we had. It was FREEEEEEZING! We all sprinted in at the same time and then ran out screaming out heads off. Aaron and I proceeded to sprint down the mile long beach to catch the tail end of the sunset. It was a fantastic time! That night we drove back to Hobart and after looking around for a campsite... decided that a park on the outskirts of town would do just fine, so we set up camp and woke up at 6:30 to catch our 8:30 flight the next morning!

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All I knew about Tasmania is that's where the Tasmanian devil is found. According to Wikipedia, "It is characterised by its black fur, offensive odour when stressed, extremely loud and disturbing screech, and viciousness when feeding. It is known to both hunt prey and scavenge carrion and although it is usually solitary, it sometimes eats with other devils." Reminds me of some people I know.

Pascal didn't see any. They apparently are dying out from some devil disease.

Briefly, briefly, briefly

Putting aside any pretensions of profundity for the moment, let me give my vast audience of blogophiles -- that stalwart army of literati that sweeps out of the back lots of Hollywood, marches up the hills of western Colorado, and flies over the sea to the barracks of Stuttgart, Germany -- a down and dirty summary of recent events as seen up here in the Northwest Corner ...

• The globe may be warming, but not so here in Seattle. We reached a balmy 79 yesterday -- mothers pulled small, scared children out of doors and showed them the Sun -- but quickly the thermometer reverted today to a breezy, cloudy disgruntling low 60's.
  
• But the first of the season's cruise ships pulled into port, portending warmer days and summer tourist hordes soon to arrive. (I watched this Alaska-bound pride of the Celebrity Cruise line come lumbering slowly into Elliott Bay from my office window on Monday. My god, it looked like an ungainly white elephant walking across a mud puddle. Why the @#$%&@ can't we have cruise ships that look sleekly nautical and sea-worthy -- rather than hulks that resemble floating wedding cakes or maritime monuments to Wal-Mart?)
  
• You read the blog (but you didn't comment on it!). You've begged for the update (but you begged in silence!). Ok, folks, I hear you! You asked for it! Here it is: Tomorrow the painter finally finishes his labors and leaves me alone -- alone and in peace, in my own house! A mere 32 days after he began, I'll actually be able to walk across a room without stepping into a paint bucket or slipping on a tarp. I'll be able to come home and not have to be pleasant to a trespasser. Friends and family, who have stood steadfastly beside me in spirit (but not in person), whilst I bore up bravely beneath this yoke of oppression are now welcome, nay begged, to visit me this summer. Free food, free drink and -- for reasonably sized groups -- free beds. In return, you need only utter to me those magic words: "Oh man, it looks wonderful! What an improvement!"
  
• I was a moot court judge at the University of Washington law school last night. Participants were all first year students (1L's in law school jargon). Students are getting brighter, more articulate, and more poised every year. The future of the profession will be in good hands. I only hope their idealism will always match their professional skills.
  
• Seattle Art Museum reopened its downtown venue a week ago. It has expanded from the small rather peculiar post-modern building that Philadelphia architect Robert Venturi conned Seattle into building 15 years ago, and now flows into an adjacent portion of a just completed 16-story, sleekly-designed glass tower. At present, the museum occupies only the first four floors of the new addition, with WaMu renting the floors above. Eventually, the museum will grow into occupation of the first 12 stories of the building. It seems kind of a peculiar urban facility, unlike the more horizontally designed museums in most cities. We shall see how it all works out. The signature piece as you enter is a group of automobiles (real ones), suspended from the ceiling, apparently exploding off into all directions.
  
• And speaking of SAM, the museum's sculpture park opened earlier this year. Large outdoor pieces of, well, art (think 25 foot high typewriter erasers), are scattered across a beautiful stretch of brand new parkland, built from scratch on former industrial wasteland, and extending all the way down to the water. Views of Puget Sound and the Olympics are fantastic. SAM has reconstructed a small stretch of primordial beach on the waterfront, bringing in sand and driftwood and boulders -- a place that kids love. The park is built over and around a main city arterial (Elliott Avenue) and the northbound mainline tracks, heavily used by Amtrak and Burlington Northern. Surprisingly, it all works. It all pulls together. It's all wonderful. I love it!

And that's how it is, briefly, in the Northwest Corner. Good night ... and good luck.

Not a prayer, Rudy

Has former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani lost his mind? In a speech in Houston, yesterday, he told fellow Republicans that his personal views on gun control, abortion, and gay rights were not the most important concerns facing the United States of America today. He said they'd be better off worrying more about winning the 2008 election than in choosing a nominee who is pristine in his right wing social ideology.

In the real (i.e., non-Republican) world, such a speech would hardly raise an eyebrow. As Democrats and independents approach the next presidential election, they hope and intend to select a President who is capable of ending the war in Iraq, controlling the threat of global terrorism, restoring respect for American ideals and conduct, combating world-wide poverty, placing social security and Medicare on a sound financial footing, restoring fairness to the tax laws, making American industry competitive globally (insofar as can be done by public policies), and ensuring that increases in national prosperity are shared to some degree by all levels of our society.

Most of these goals, if not always the means, are shared by the great majority of Americans. Some are more divisive. But they are all natural subjects of public policy at the federal level. Which policies are to be adopted will depend upon the party in power.

Giuliani pointed out the importance of such national issues, as contrasted with the “social issues” that are divisive even among Republicans, and that are of importance only at a personal and, perhaps, state level. He urged members of his party to focus on legitimate national issues, the ones of concern to most voters, if they hope to retain the White House after 2008.

Hardly newsworthy, in normal times, right? But Tony Perkins, a right wing religious leader, responded immediately: “When people hear Rudy Giuliani speak about taxpayer-funded abortions, gay ‘rights’ and gun control, they don’t hear a choice, they hear an echo of Hillary Clinton.” (Why Christians, conservative or otherwise, would be opposed to gun control is not clear to me; why Hillary Clinton seems the apotheosis of “Liberal” also puzzles me.)

Pundits immediately declared that no Republican could win nomination while standing on the “libertarian” ground that Giuliani has staked out. That appears correct. The Republican party, as an organization, is now largely the political wing of the Southern Baptist church, with some additional allies from other groups in the Mid West.

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” --George Santayana

Democrats have been through all this before. In 1972, they nominated George McGovern, who was defeated in a landslide by an unpopular president who also was bogged down in an unpopular war. An anti-Vietnam war campaign, competently run, should have won in 1972. The McGovern campaign ran into many problems, including Nixon's “dirty tricks” operations. But the single most important reason for the size of his defeat was the public perception that McGovern was a freaky, extreme liberal whose views on many issues, the war aside, were far outside the mainstream.

This public perception was fed by an unruly Democratic convention, largely managed by political amateurs and single-interest enthusiasts, accompanied by loud televised demonstrations supporting issues that to “normal” Americans of the time seemed Communist and/or “hippy,” and that were supported by demonstrators and delegates who looked bearded, long-haired, freaky, stoned, obscene, and, in a word, totally un-American.

My point is that the Democrats suffered in 1972 -- and for years afterward -- from having turned their party over to its far left wing. (Whether that wing was right or wrong on the issues is irrelevant for this discussion.) The Republicans show every sign of heading in the same direction next year, albeit in their own typical manner -- duller, buttoned-up, more boring, less imaginative -- but appearing just as loony to the voters.

As a Democrat, I should be happy that Giuliani doesn’t have a prayer of winning the 2008 nomination from his party’s convention in St. Paul. But as an American, I’d like to see a campaign in which the two parties debate legitimate national issues crucial to our era. Such a campaign requires two parties that agree on the issues that are legitimate and important, but disagree on the solutions. I don’t see such a campaign occurring.

I see the Democrats and Republicans talking past each other, like two ships passing in the night.

May in Seattle: Drunk with Joy

Springtime in Seattle. The winter wasn’t all that wet, really, or all that cold. But for many months now, it’s been sufficiently wet, and – for its now being May, for god’s sake – insufficiently warm.

But today, they say, we’ll reach 70 degrees. Outside, packs of kids wander through downtown in shorts and shirt sleeves (but why aren’t they in school?). The sky is blue, the sun is warm, and -- even downtown -- the air is fresh with scent of flowers and sea tang. Seagulls hover in the breeze, crying out their urgent sea calls, frantic to describe foreign ports they've known. Or they stalk about the sidewalks like sharp-eyed, pompous, gray-and-white-garbed attorneys, exuding self-importance. Even the panhandlers seem mellowed out, smiling as you pass by without leaving them a penny.

Being alive today seems most excellent, and well worth the long winter wait.

We moved into new offices about three weeks ago. Not everything about our new digs seems better – for example, we dropped down from the 12th floor in our old building to the 5th floor here. But the view! I look out over Elliott Bay, and beyond, out into the Sound, watching the green and white Washington State ferries moving in and out of their piers, their paths crossing each other, coming and going, in the bay. I’m hypnotized, hard put to focus on my computer screen and stacks of papers.

Beyond the Sound loom the white peaks of the Olympics, reminding me of summer trails as yet un-hiked, and mountain goats, and rocky ridges unexplored. Of millions of small animal forms emerging from hibernation, of tens of millions of their youngsters, tasting with delight their first spring in the Olympics.

Back to work. Work for an afternoon, looking forward to a long, warm evening ahead. Even thoughts of pushing a lawn mower around the yard now feel sensual and life-affirming – allowing me to unite myself in labor with Nature’s spring gift of abundant and exuberant growth.

Springtime in Seattle. Nowhere else on earth I’d rather be.

"The Golden Compass": The Movie

Just a plug for a coming attraction. (And no, I don't own stock in New Line Cinema!)

"His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman may be one of the most literate and creative fantasy trilogies ever written. Right up there with The Lord of the Rings. Entire blogs could be -- and they have been -- devoted to studying the three books. His Dark Materials is often described as "young adult fiction," but intelligent readers of any age should find it absorbing and entertaining reading.

For the uninitiated, I'll just mention that the books describe the adventures of Lyra, an adventurous pre-teen girl, who lives in Oxford, England. But her Oxford is an Oxford that lies in a universe parallel to our own, a universe existing within inches of ours but in a different "dimension," or plane of reality. Lyra's world is a world very similar to that of 20th century Earth, but an Earth that appears slightly askew, with numerous disorienting differences from ours.

In the second book of the trilogy, The Subtle Knife, Lyra meets and falls in love with Will, a boy her age from our own universe, who has crossed into Lyra's world through a portal he accidentally discovers. They survive a number of dangerous adventures together, dangers threatening to both body and soul, all the while seeking the meaning and effects of a mysterious and all-pervasive substance called "dust." The trilogy ends (in The Amber Spyglass) with their heart-breaking and permanent separation, and the final separation between their two universes. The cutting asunder of both their lives and universes is an act they tearfully undertake themselves, voluntarily, for the salvation of both their worlds.

You may think I'm merely describing another Bridge to Terabithia, one designed for juvenile fantasy buffs. If so, you're mistaken.

This is a saga that starts out borrowing a stanza (and its title) from Milton's Paradise Lost and goes on to examine some of the same fundamental issues as did Milton in his epic poem. His Dark Materials touches on science, metaphysics, religion, morals and ethics, the nature of the soul -- in other words, Man's relationship to his World -- and is just a heck of a good adventure yarn as well.

The trilogy has been heavily criticized by some conservative religious authorities for its ridicule of Christianity. Pullman is indeed an atheist, but the satiric aspects usually mock some of the more simple-minded and unsophisticated concepts of religious faith. His Dark Materials portrays God fantastically as a pathetic, senile old man ("the Authority"), in whose name others, both angelic and human, now exert real power. The pair of mutually devoted gay angels -- complete with feathered wings, right out of a Raphael painting -- who offer assistance to Lyra and Will may similarly offend conservative sensitivities, but again, no young reader bright enough to be reading the books in the first place would see this device as anything but fictive, humorous and touching.

It's only a story, in other words, in the same way that a Greek myth is a story --it's not presented to kids, or anyone else, as a theological argument. Nevertheless, in order to market the films more successfully to wider audiences, the films' director (Chris Weitz) is said to have soft-pedaled those aspects of the books that might be perceived as anti-religious. He has stated that the films would otherwise be an "unviable project financially," but that he views the trilogy as overall a "highly spiritual and reverent piece of writing." (see Weitz's 2004 interview.)

So do I.

One of Pullman's more imaginative devices is his assignment of a "daemon," or personified soul, to every human being in Lyra's world. Each daemon is a talking animal, and the species of animal represents the nature of its human's soul. The daemon and its human cannot separate by more than a few feet, and they go through life in a continual, conversational companionship. (If you ever find yourself talking to yourself, even arguing with yourself, you are insane ...! -- no, no, I mean you understand the relationship between Lyra and her daemon.)

For kids, the daemon may change species of animal from moment to moment, day to day, as the emotions and nature of its child change and develop. At puberty, however, the daemon finally becomes fixed in its final form, representing the kind of soul the young person has achieved and will have for the rest of his or her life.

You can't tell a book by its cover, in other words, but you definitely can tell a man by his daemon.

The relationship between humans and their daemons is a central theme of the trilogy, and a significant and often tragic element of the plot.

The good news, by now obvious -- and my reason for reminding you of this trilogy -- is that in January, after several years of uncertainty, New Line Cinema completed filming, and on December 7 will release its film of the first book, The Golden Compass. A rather flashy and attractive publicity website is up and running (don't try watching it with a dial-up connection, however) .

Assuming the film bears any resemblance at all to the book, I say "two thumbs up" even before I see it! Don't miss it!

Edward III: A Medieval Fable

In medieval England, the King had far more power than did the feudal kings ruling over other lands. He had direct authority over all parts of his realm. His officials dealt directly with all his subjects. His rule was not limited to simply commanding fealty from his feudal barons.

The English king's power also was enhanced by the substantial sources of income at his disposal.

But his supply of money was not unlimited, and war -- even in those days -- was expensive.

And by 1376, England was exhausted after nearly forty years of fighting the French monarch -- the so-called Hundred Years War. The technical rationale for the war was Edward III's claim to be King of France, as well as King of England, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, etc., etc., etc., but the war developed many confusing subplots. The King of England already controlled a large portion of present day France before the war began, and most of his battles were fought over possession of territory, cities and castles. His knights often waged war simply for the sake of war, leading to indiscriminate slaughter, not only of soldiers but also "collateral damage" to common citizens and destruction of their homes and farms.

The real objectives of the war were not always clear, and the military campaigns undertaken were not always clearly directed to accomplishment of any specific objective.

By 1376, Edward III had ruled for two and a half years without calling Parliament into session. He preferred not to face Parliament, because he recognized the great dissatisfaction throughout England over his conduct of the war, the corruption among his officials, and other issues. His earlier dispatch of the Black Prince to France to manage the war effort had led to the capture of the city of Limoges and the slaughter of all of its inhabitants. This English "surge" had only increased anti-English sentiment among the French, and now English coastal cities themselves were being threatened by French "terrorists."

Finally, with the war clearly not going well and having exhausted all of his royal sources of income in paying for it, the King was forced to call Parliament into session to vote him additional taxes. As Professor J. P. Sommerville writes on his University of Wisconsin website:

Parliament's self-assertion peaked in the "Good Parliament" (1376.) The combination of high taxation and military failure in France produced a parliament determined to reform government. It attacked many of Edward III's ministers for corruption.

A newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons took the initiative in standing up to the king. According to a Wikipedia article,

Peter de la Mare, a knight representing Hereford, had been elected as Speaker by the House of Commons, and on the first day he delivered an address criticizing England's recent military failures, condemning the corruption at court, and calling for close scrutiny of the royal accounts.

The King was forced to give the royal assent to various reforms voted by Parliament in order to obtain the necessary funds to continue fighting the war.

The Good Parliament, as it became known, was not only popular at the time, but has remained enshrined in English history as one of the landmarks in the development of the modern British concept that the King acts only through Parliament or, in effect, that Parliament governs the nation in the name of the King.

Curiously enough, no one in these history books criticizes the Good Parliament, or its Speaker, for not supporting the English troops on the ground in France. Not even King Edward III himself, so far as we know, ever exclaimed: "If we're not going to stand up to them in France, we're not going to take them on in France and defeat them there, where and when will we do it?"

I guess those were primitive times. Six centuries later, our wiser leaders can only look back and shake their heads.