cktirumalai's Comments (651)

“During my teaching years, the books I taught were underlined and annotated. I can see your point about notes freezing one in one's earlier responses to a book but I managed to get around that through fresh thinking and feeling.
I doubt that I would write in the few first editions I have, reserving Footprints for other copies.
Here is a curious thing thing about library books. Some people cannot refrain from writing in them, despite (perhaps because of) its being a violation. Even more curiously, many comment on the first few pages and then stop. It is not often that the commenting zeal is sustained to the end. As for the comments themselves, they tend to range from scathing criticism to reminders that the author has forgotten one point or another. One modern poet called Spenser's "Faerie Queene," which he was required to read as an undergraduate, the most boring long poem in the language, saying so in the college copy.
Scholars who study writers pay careful attention to what their subjects wrote in the books they owned.”

“Senate majority leader Harry Reid is "Compromise whenever you can." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is "Compromise only when you must." One view has it that the Senate is the saucer which cools the tea served by the House. Another would be that the House is, in Roman terms, plebeian or populist and the Senate is establishment or patrician. Studying the changes which come about when Representatives move from the House to the Senate may be interesitng.
Perhaps the difference between Pelosi and Reid is a matter of one coming from liberal San Francisco and the other from Nevada, whose political allegiances are more tangled.”

“In the Victorian age "decent" women were required to be virginal brides but male chastity was less of a requirement. This sometimes "forced" prostitution on poor young women who had come to metropolitan areas from rural parts. We should be doing better but we are not. As the earlier poster pointed out, women from strong families are very unlikely succumb to the false lure of wealth and fame but dysfunctional families are hardly uncommon now.
One person with a troubled background who made it into Hollywood fame was Marilyn Monroe. But for every person who "succeeds" hundreds fall into personal anguish and tragedy. We need sounder ideas of what constitutes success.”

“One of the first songs I frequently heard on the radio in 1960 was Bing Crosby's rendering of White Christmas: Utterly Confident Velvet. It is characterisitc of America that its creator, Irving Berlin, was Jewish by background.”

“Tiger Woods has his problems but they are not those of O.J. Simpson or even those of Kobe Bryant.
Concern with "reputation" and "future earnings" unfortunately push the private anguish of these developments into the shade.”

“I do not set aside a specific time for meditation but it has long been a habit of mind with me: to abstract oneself from immediate things (done, read, suffered), situations, and concerns, to see them from different points of view, to see into them. One of the best books on the subject is Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations." The Roman Emperor was necessarily engaged with the affairs of the world and was away for long periods on campaigns against the "barbarians" of his time but he was no rotuine endorser of "Roman" values, being too philosophical for that. He reminds us that the great personages of the past who once struck such a large figure and were talked about everywhere are lost to mind in subsequent ages. What is it we can do, he seems to ask, that has some real significance, for us and others. People will understand the difference between the Real and the Unreal differently but meditation can alert us to this dimension of things.
I am a bit uneasy about the professionalizing of meditation. And I would wish to see for myself if the tranquillity meditation teachers stress goes deep with them or if they too are a little too responsive to the stresses of the world.”

“In earlier ages nudity was reserved for paintings and sculptures, and for males in the Greek gymnasium and Olympic contests. In our more democratic age it is open to all, though many choose not to elect it.”

“Four decades ago, Roger Staubaugh, Naval Academy graduate and star quarterback, was highly commended for his conduct on and off the field. Even so, the sexual and other antics of Joe Namath, former Penn Stater and Jets quarterback, received plenty of not necessarily disapproving attention in the media. "Athletes will be athletes" seems to be dictum like "Boys will be boys." Judging from his comments, however, Jesper Parnevik, the golfer who introduced Tiger to his wife, seems to be a man in the Staubaugh mold.”

“Your distinction between being intelligent and being intellectual has many ramifications. One aspect of this question is that some intellectuals see non-intellectuals, however intelligent, as philistine, and the latter see the former as la-di-da snobs, lacking common sense.
It is when I learned French and German in my 20s that I applied myself to grammar, to which I had been relatively indifferent.”

“I think the relationship between Moses and Jesus, between the Old and New Testaments in American history, culture, thought, and religion is a complex matter.
African-Americans, for instance, feel galvanized by Moses leading his people to the Promised Land (he was unable to enter it himself) at the same time that their churches stress the centrality of Jesus. In Washington D.C. from time to time one sees young African-American men wearing a large cross.”

“I got the seasonal flu vaccine at the beginning of October and the H1N1 vaccine eight days ago, even though I knew that people over 65 seem to have a measure of immunity againt swine flu, perhaps from exposure to variants in earlier years. I had a bad case of the flu in 1968, which was apparently a virulent strain.
I should have had your precise advice about how to boost the immune system in the first half of my life when I was unusually prone to minor upper-respiratory ailments. Avoid refined sugar and carbohydrate,
make whole-grain complex carbohydrates (with soluble and insoluble fiber), fruit, and vegetables a part of your daily diet. It would have saved me a good deal of minor vexation. The sugar in fruit may not give you the immediate boost cookies do but it is the better kind.”

“I don't think one or two "bad" judgments damn a reviewer. In addition a review of a review obviously depends on an assessment of its own. I have not read Michiko Kakutani recently but I remember several of her illuminating reviews from the past.
I suspect quite a few share Sarah Palin's view that Alaskans like their animals next to mashed potaotes. I would not expect Kakutani to belong in that company.”

“Some things make you temporarily happy and depressed later. Other things involve initial pain (and you refer to several), but lay a secure foundation for future happiness.
"Live for the moment" has a hoary pedigree. It can be mature advice, when given by a thoughtful individual, or dangerously self-destructive advice when given by the short-sighted who do not see the link between what they do and its consequences.
The Life and Work of F. Scott Fitzgerald have much to teach, directly and indirectly.
Happy Thanksgiving, Anne Naylor.”

“I remember a distinguished, retired Oxford academic saying to a friend on the bus in the first week of January, '" Now that the horrors of Christmas and New Year are behind us." Vey paradoxical indeed that holidays are as much a confontation with stress as relief from them, as though all our angularities come out when we are crowded with our "nearest and dearest." The newspaper advice columns have had questions about how a problematic "Thanksgiving" is to be "managed." Reflecting on the problem in the context you suggest will help. Achieving distance from a problem (seeing it at the end of a vista) may not solve it but could help alleviate its pain.”

“A scorpion cannot change its nature, as domesticated animals which were once wild can. Human beings are supposed to be more flexible. I agree with you that when we band together in groups a frenzied pursuit of self-interest can take over: economic tribalism. Hence the need for checks and balances among institutions, which James Madison made central to the Constitution. But as your comments imply these can be quite easily subverted in the short and medium term. A pervasive ethos of fairness and honesty, where conscience is policeman, can make a crucial difference. Family, school, and spiritual teachers can all contribute to this development.”

“I lived in England for close to 20 years. In all that time I did not pay a penny for my health care, except when I chose to. The British pay higher taxes than Americans, including what is called Value Added Tax (VAT) on many everday items. Any cost comparison will have to bear this context in mind.
A proportion of the British buy their own private insurance just in the event the "free" National Helth Service falls short of their expectations, but that is frequently supplementary insurance, not a substitute.
The NHS will not deny treatment solely on the basis of cost. On the other hand one has to face realities like these. A famous runner developed pancreatic cancer about 15 years ago. After being treated for a while he was told that his cancer was terminal, to which he responded that he had always been a fighter, paid for his own treatment, and lived another 6 years. I chose my own cataract surgeon, wanting a doctor with considerable experience. That meant my paying for it. In the United States Health Maintenance organizations require you to choose a network doctor. If you go outside it, you pay quite a lot extra.
A cost comparison wll be more accurate if it takes these aspects into account.
The emphasis on quality, not quantity--that doctors and hospitals should be rewarded not for doing more but sometimes for doing less to better effect--is an important aspect of the health care debate.”

“I used to think of sports as at least a qualified meritocracy. It is not whom you know or your impressive social background but your actual performance, often enough plain for all to see (overlooking partial referees and controversial photo-finishes for the moment), which counts. But a cloud descended over it all with the arrival of anabolic steroids and other drugs. And the skill some athletes and coaches bring to disguising those drugs in the system turns sport into crime.
Still, seeing a pitcher hurling a ball at with cunning and speed at a batter who can make an adequate or more than adequate return can fascinate an entire nation, in part, I think, because the spectacle encapsulates forces ancient and modern. "Grace under pressure," a writer called it. Music and sport can, in their different ways, reach deep into the psyche.
A paradoxical aspect: As societies become physically unfit, a kind of vicarious premium comes to be placed on those who are superbly fit.”

“The Frenchman might refer to the Englishman as Roast Beef, and the Englishman to the Frenchman as Frog's Legs, but the one is (or was) proud of his Sunday roast as the very symbol of his country, and the latter is not about to give up his delicacy. There is comfort in numbers, which raises the whole question of whether and to what extent one 's values are shaped by the society one has grown up in. I have been a vegetarian, then, after pangs of conscience, a non-vegetarian (a carnivore if you will), and I am a vegetarian again. My attitude to animals and people is, "Live and let live," as much as possible. That includes not being censorious about meat-eaters. I came not to like myself eating meat. That was enough to make me change.
An Englishman once said to a waitress in Wyoming, "I don't like beef. What do you suggest?" She replied, "I suggest you get out of Wyoming."
Forty years ago, quite a lot of people might have thought vegetarians not quite right in the head. Those days are mostly behind us.”

“In my 20s and thirties, some four decades ago, for personal and impersonal reasons I brooded a great deal, a Dark Night of my being. But despite that I was quite functional, teaching full-time and throwing myself into my work. It helped too that Literature, my subject, has an ample share of brooders. Eventually I came out of it but before that happened I had to come to terms with traumatic developments in my past , and work out for myself how things hung together in the public realm, why they moved as they did. I had to acquire my own X-ray pictures of the underlying paradigms, the forces which shape things as they are. That led to my formulating for myself a new set of paradigms which could work in the future.”

“Unlike William Faulkner, who seems to have thought that there was no life for him outside Mississippi, Tennessee Williams, another remarkable writer from the South, moved around during his life. New Orleans and New York, where he died, were both important to him. In France how an actress plays Racine's Phaedra, in England how an actor creates Hamlet, and in America how an actress embodies Blanche (the latest incarnation is Australian) are eagerly awaited.”

“John Kennedy felt better for some injections given by a doctor whose methods were considered suspect by the otrhodox medical establishment. JFK commenrted, "I don't care if it is horse's piss. It works."
We may like to think of the Victorians as repressed and unexperimental but in fact they were a various lot. Robert Browning believed in mediums. Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, had a good deal of time for the paranormal. Like other complex figures, Charles Darwin seems to have combined rational skepticism of homeopathy with belief in its efficaciousness.”

“The ancient Greek Cynics had no use for playing one's part in society or for personal possessions, believing both to be what you call distractions from the aim of being yourself and being true to yourself. There is a sense in which we are all equal, regardless of what we do or possess. An artificial multiplication of work and business can prevent us from from seeing more fundamental truths. Programmed lives, programmed lies. There comes point in life when one realizes that one has merely been a player in a drama not of one's creation. Handled rightly (and it takes maturity to do so), these and comparable perceptions can be liberating.”

“I have known religious people who behave admirably and I have known atheists (and agnostics) who do so. I must say I have known some of each behave badly.
I think we have reached a stage where it is not the hope of heaven or the fear of hell which causes us to do what is right (granted that determining what is right is not always an easy question) but something more intrinsic.
A sanctimonious, censorious self- righteousness is the shadow which accompanies some religious types, just as a callous materialism hangs over the lives of some atheists.”

“A society which nurtures adults (and not children masquerading as adults) can well afford to leave them alone, trusting the choices they make. Relentlessly turning thoughtless wants into needs (the must-have-that syndrome), however, means that quite a lot of people think they have made their own choices when in fact they have responded to a series of hypnotic suggestions made by those with a self-interested agenda.”

“I am a vegetarian by choice, having been one by background in my earlier years and, later, having "lapsed" from that. But I do not revolt at the thought of others eating meat but do applaud efforts to treat animals grown for food as humanely as possible.
About the special place of dogs and horses. Cole Porter, who was thrown by his horse and paralyzed for life, commented bitterly, "Millions of Frenchmen can't be wrong. They eat horses." Though I have read of many dogs which are movingly loyal, as in disconsolately haunting the grave of the departed master, I was horrified to read a few years ago that the Frenchwoman whose face was reconstructed (the first surgery of its kind) may have had parts of her face chewn off by her pet dog, which mistook her coma for death. There was the suggeastion, however, that he dog may have tried to awaken her from the coma.”