This is the first in a series of practices in composing in beginning Japanese. It is also a test of Dreamwidth's ability to handle Japanese, and my ability to handle Microsoft IME. Initially, the vignettes will be in script format, because I don't know how to write narrative in Japanese yet. Since I can't write in kanji yet, either, I will put spaces between words.

( Lots of kana characters )

( Transcription, expandable separately )

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Again, from akamine_chan's meme:

Day 2

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you did not create.

( Recs ahoy! )

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Happy New Year, everyone!

May 2012 be a blessed year, a good year for all of you!

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To everyone:

Merry Christmas!

Things went rather well--we had a nice Christmas dinner of a somewhat non-traditional Salmon with Creamy Dill Sauce because I am sick of turkey, with Sunday Dinner Mashed Potatoes (by request), a tossed salad, sautéed yellow squash, and 24-Hour Salad.

Rochelle, thank you for the cheesecake, we enjoyed it very much.

Ravyn, your gift arrived in time, thank you very much. It will go to good and tasty use!

Now the day after Christmas, we can sit back, relax, eat leftovers, and cheer for the Saints. May you all have a happy Yule season!

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My annual list of presents I would enjoy, for the benefit of friends and relatives who don't see me all that much. Mom, also point Jeff & Russ & everyone at this entry.

Books & DVDs
- Go straight to Amazon wish list (Needs a few things added to it, but I don't own anything on this list)

House & garden
- some low-light, neglect-tolerant houseplants for my cubicle.
- African violets
- hardy orchids

Clothes & stuff
- fleece-lined mocassin slippers (size 8-8 1/2)
- Spiffy t-shirt. Size XL, prefer pretty pictures to clever sayings.
- sweatshirt, size XL, with pretty pictures. Southwest Indian Foundation has some I really like.
- fancy scented soaps & body washes.

Food & Drink
- specialty decaffeinated teas and herbal teas.
- specialty decaff coffees, too.
- dinner at a fine New Orleans restaurant (not on Christmas Day, naturally).
- salt-water taffy

Gadgets & Widgets
- Tivo or other DVR.
- a nice, sharp, long-bladed letter opener.
- new waffle iron/waffle maker

Other people's wish lists
- Becky's Amazon wish list
- Steve T-shirt size: XXL, Tall.

I have a journal over at Dreamwidth now (dragoness-e.dreamwidth.org), and it has nicely imported all my posts from here. Recent developments on LJ, including revelations about the Russian owners' attitudes towards customer service have made me seriously doubt if I want to keep blogging here. I'd really hate to leave behind the nice permanent account someone bought for me a while back--it was a very nice present, thank you. I have gotten several years of use out of it, so it was worth it.

However, I really don't like recent changes: forced loss of previously useful functionality (comment subject lines, comment preview), forced changes in comment-page styles that I don't like the look of, slip-shod maintenance. I don't like the administration's cavalier attitude about privacy breaches and outright contempt for user issues with the interface changes. I realized that I am not comfortable with trusting my personal data, essays, fics, photo-essays, etc. to a hosting company that shows such blatant contempt for its users.

If anyone already has a Dreamwidth account that regularly reads this, or that I read, could you let me know so I can add you over there?

I just finished reading Karen Armstrong's "The Great Transformation", a fascinating book about the development of religious and philosophical thought during the Axial Age, that led eventually to the great religions of the world. It was, for me, an Enlightening book. I learned that the same great principles are at the core of all the world's major religions, from Judaism to Confucianism, from Islam to Buddhism, from Christianity to Hinduism:

"That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others." "Love others as yourself." "Harm none." and (paraphrased) "Don't be self-centered and covetous."

The differences are primarily in recommended "best practices" to achieve this behavior and state of mind. Ironically, (or diabolically), throughout time and space, people have taken disagreement over the different ways to those core principles as reason to ignore the core messages. There are none so blind as those who will not see...

I've shed a lot of poisonous certainties masquerading as doubts thanks to this revelation. I have long suspected that much of so-called "Christian" morality and values were so much obscuring fluff atop the basic rule ("Love God and love your neighbor and don't weasel about who really is your neighbor"), and, in my own religion had the testimony of the Gospels and the Letters of Paul that that was so. In the ancestral religion of Jesus, there is the commentary of the great Hillel: "“That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — go and study.”

I had not wholly escaped the messages my religious culture has instilled in me from early childhood: women having sex are sinful; sex in general is sinful; sinners are less worthy than non-sinners and are contemptible; enjoying yourself doing anything that isn't Church- or God-oriented is morally questionable; non-Christians are doomed sinners (though we can hope God is merciful); doing anything wrong makes you a sinner and deserving of misery; looking for a church with a less oppressive doctrine makes you a contemptible "cafeteria Christian" wanting to pick and choose what beliefs are convenient and thus lacking real faith; questioning doctrine means Doubt and Doubt endangers your Salvation... all the many poisonous beliefs and attitudes that are conveyed by traditional Christian culture, though few of them are actually supported by Scripture or doctrine.

Certainty is the enemy of spiritual growth. If you are certain you know all the answers, you will never seek further. Faith is not certainty; faith is the trust that there is something worth seeking for. Doubt is handmaiden of enlightenment; it drives you to seek further on.

I'm now trying to pin down the poisonous messages that inform many an unexamined belief, and discard them. It's a great relief to finally get that I don't HAVE to believe in the doctrinal fluff; it's just fluff. The medium is not the message, the fluff is not the message, the doctrine is not the message. Fighting over fluff totally, definitively misses the point of the message. I think I understand the core messages now, and look forward to learning to put them into practice. I hear that can take a lifetime.

Love & kisses, Merry Christmas, Good Yuletide to all!

This came up in the context of Greek mythology, but it probably applies to all myths and legends. The Greek myths that we know of post-Homer were written by Greek playwrights in the classical period. In that day and age, they wrote plays about contemporary events, political commentary disguised by using legendary heroes and mythical places and times. "Seven Against Thebes" isn't about events in ancient (Greek) Thebes; it's about how screwed up stuff was getting during the Peloponnesian War. It wasn't safe to talk openly about contemporary events or even very recent history--the fellow who wrote "The Persians" pretty much got ridden out of town on a rail. Like the authors of the apocalyptic books of the Bible, they wrote of fantastic events and legendary personages to talk about contemporary issues without official censure.

Thus, what we know of Greek myths and legends are what we received from the most recent set of Classical storytellers in a long line of playwrights and storytellers who had changed the stories to suit their own agenda. This is probably true of every other myth and legend out there. There is no "canonical" version of a myth or a legend; they are what the storyteller needs them to be. Only a specific story by a specific author has an "official" or "real" or "canonical" version, and not always then, if the author was prone to editing and changing things a lot. (What's the 'canonical' version of 'Star Wars'?)

Given the nature of myth, "Hercules: the Legendary Journeys" TV series is just as valid a set of legends as the classical "12 Labors of Hercules".

I recently found this story on my hard drive; apparently I had set it aside for editing, and then completely forgotten about it! I found it, edited it, and it is now posted for your entertainment on my website and on FF.net.

Survey Ship Visit
same, @fanfiction.net

[G1, probably S4/2007] Skyfire & Starscream are surveying star systems for Rodimus Prime-but what do they do when they have to report on the politics and economics of a world that hates and fears intelligent machines?