Deborah, the woman

As a woman, Judges chapter 5 is just an amazing bible reading. You know already that I feel Jehovah's viewpoint of women has always been the same - it is people and culture on earth that demean or diminish women - but with the acknowledgment that Jehovah can only work with imperfect people because that is all there is, and so has had work within these cultures and tolerate wrong views of women (just as he also has to tolerate wrong views of other things, even wrong views cultures have perpetuated about males, until he steps in.) Anyway, Judges 5 is a song composed by Deborah, not only a woman - so a woman is contributing part of the bible - but a prophetess - so Jehovah is using her to convey his messages - and she also joins Barak when he goes to war, so she is in all the action and that is evident because of the details that she gives concerning the victory. On top of this, Deborah prophesied that the victory would come at the hands of a woman - in fact it is Jael who kills Sisera. Of course Deborah gives all credit to Jehovah and she truly is a spiritual person, she never makes any of this about her. But Jehovah dealt with and used her on the same plane as he would use, say, David in this instance. Women were not/are not lesser persons or lesser "males" to Jehovah, just different persons - "females". When Jehovah outlines a man, a husband, to be the head of a woman, I feel that was really to protect women because women were the gender to bear children, and because they would be consumed with children and their care Jehovah made it mandatory for the male, the father and husband, to be responsible to provide for them, thus the "head". It wasn't about a man or husband micromanaging his wife or children, it was about the family's big picture so to speak, that they were cared for financially, spiritually, emotionally. And then the woman wouldn't have to or be trying to do "everything". It would have both genders be together, helping each other.

The Self Pitying Idiot

I heard a speech about a man named Colin Wilson - there was an article about him in the New York Times - he is a British philosopher who at the age of 16 decided he would be the next Albert Einstein. He was in college, and his parents ran out of money so he had to quit. This was very traumatic for him - he was just devastated - and so he decided he would kill himself with hydrocyonic acid. He then had two powerful insights. The first insight was that there were two people inside of him - one person was a self-pitying idiot - the other person was the real Colin Wilson. Then he had another powerful insight - the self pitying idiot was about to kill the real Colin Wilson.

I have been thinking about this all week - the self-pitying idiot inside us that tells me/us that, "You are not good enough. You are worthless. You mean nothing." That "It", that self-pitying idiot is that voice inside us trying to destroy us. Our imperfection. I have been catching myself this week when that idiot, that "It" has been trying to minimize me in all sorts of areas of my life. I keep having to restore my integrity.

Here is the link to the article about him - he operated on the belief that pessimism was at the root of all ills, an interesting viewpoint and the article touches on it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/books/17wils.html?pagewanted=all

What the Dog Saw

What the Dog Saw is the latest book by Malcolm Gladwell. He is an unusual writer on the staff of The New Yorker. The book is from a series of articles he wrote. Why the title? Well, Malcolm always wants to know what is in someone's head, and he got interested in a man named Cesar Milan, the dog whisperer. He can calm the angriest dog, and Malcolm wanted to know what goes on inside his head when he does this . . but then Malcolm realized what he REALLY wanted to know was, when Cesar Milan performs his magic, what goes on inside the dog's head or what the dog saw. So all of these articles are about subjects from not-the-obvious angle.

I could pretend to be super intellectual and tell you that the article about the Challenger or some other "important" topic was my favorite, but honestly, besides the article he wrote about the men/family that invented and pitched the Chop-o-matic, Veg-o-matic and Showtime Rotisserie (I actually cried at the end of it, I know, I could not believe it myself), my favorite one has been about haircoloring, and how Clairol and L'Oreal's ad campaigns for them evolved. Marketing fascinates me as equally as it repels me.

There were some pretty powerful, amazing women - who their male colleagues called "girls", this was 1956 to start with after all - behind these advertising campaigns that smacked of feminism. That part of the article was interesting - but it is the actual understanding of how to market this product - and how it has changed since 1956 - that was fascinating. Just like all that haircolor, there are shades of this, and the Clairol and L'Oreal users breakdown into categories . . . recall, L'Oreal's tag line ended up being, "Because I'm worth it" - Clairol's was "Does she or doesn't she?" L'Oreal vice president of marketing (a woman) will hold focus groups, and says she can instantly decipher the L'Oreal users vs. the Clairol users. How? She says, "The L'Oreal user always exhibits a greater air of confidence and usually looks better. Not just her hair color, but she has always spent a little more time putting on her makeup, styling her hair, and her clothing is a bit more fashionable." In contrast she says the Clairol user, "represents more the American beauty icon, more naturalness. But more of a beauty for "me", as opposed to a beauty for the external world. L'Oreal users tend to be a bit more aloof. There is a certain warmth you see in the Clairol people."

So . . . which brand do YOU use? I have actually used both at different points in my life. I currently go to a salon to have my hair colored - that probably says something about me - but given my precarious economic circumstances for a variety of reasons, when I can't afford to go to the salon anymore (and my early January visit might have been the last), which boxed product will I use? Clairol or L'Oreal? I didn't know I was going to fall into a category and be saying something about my self-esteem depending on which one I choose - and now I have a self-perception dilemma - tell me, which one should I use? (Cheshire Cat Smile)

The Book Thief

So I finished reading The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. It is an interesting book, but just unbelievable. The man who loves books too much is a book thief, John Gilkey. The thief is a 30 something man in California who feels entitled to steal books he cannot afford - that the "system" which makes the books he loves unaffordable owes it to him. He doesn't read the books, he just collects them because he wants people to think a certain way about him. Like he is a rich person with all these valuable books and all that image. I just shake my head in disbelief. I could never be a book thief. I felt so enraged for the antiquarian book stores he was stealing from, and libraries. He operates on sheer greed. He finally gets busted - there is a rare book seller named Ken Sanders who just relentlessly tracks the thief -

The book has a lot of interesting things about rare books - that was interesting - dust jackets make a book valuable - if the book doesn't have the dust jacket, it goes down in value - the average book collector demographically is a white male 40+ years, $$$ - stuff like that.