A recent half moon that I took a photo of with my camera/telescope arrangement. I was particularly happy with this photo, because the resolution is very good. You can really see the craters on the moon's surface. And that's not so easy to achieve each time I set out to photograph the moon. It is both a challenge and a pleasure to photograph the night sky.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Bullying in the workplace
If you have never observed or personally experienced
bullying in the workplace, you can count yourself among the lucky people here
in this life. I have known several people (men and women) who have been the
recipients of behavior from their bosses that was suggestive of bullying. It was
more subtle than aggressive, perhaps in keeping with the Scandinavian mindset
as opposed to the more aggressive American one, but I would call it bullying
nonetheless.
The reason I was reminded of this topic is because I read
about it recently in the coursework for an online mini-MBA program that I am
currently enrolled in. This particular mini-MBA program, offered by Probana
Business School, has six modules, all of which focus on different aspects of
leadership. The current one, Module 4, has Value-based Leadership as its focus.
The chapters in this module deal with cultural leadership, the ethics of
leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility, stress management, and the
workplace environment, among others.
I found the chapter on the workplace environment (physical and psychosocial) to be excellent
from all standpoints. Not only is it well-written, but it is timely and
important. The topic of bullying in the workplace was introduced and discussed
extensively; it is apparently a large problem in many modern workplaces. Bullying
can result from conflicts that become exacerbated, where it is difficult to
identify a bully or a victim; the other type of bullying is termed predatory
bullying—in this case there is no difficulty in identifying the bully and the
victim. Predatory bullying seems to be most prevalent in workplaces. Bosses can
bully their employees, and employees can bully each other. It does not have to
be physical bullying; it can also be psychological bullying, which is often far
more subtle and insidious. This type of bullying has only one goal, and that is
to reduce the victim to a pile of rubble. You might wonder why some bosses go
to the trouble of targeting certain employees for destruction. The answer is
that they can; some evil-minded bosses can exploit the weaknesses they see in
their employees. They exploit the imbalance of power because they can. They might
bully those employees who are perceived to be more intelligent than they are,
or who are not easy to control. Creative intelligent people tend to prefer to
think for themselves; you’d think that would be attractive for most bosses, but
sometimes it’s not. Many bosses prefer employees they can control, and it is
often those employees who get promoted at the expense of the ones who are much less
‘manageable’.
I have mostly been witness to psychological bullying in the
workplace—the type of bullying that can be subtle and insidious. It can take
the form of joking about an employee in a meeting in front of others; the
intent is to humiliate that person, while the boss comes off smelling like
roses—how can you fault him or her for having a sense of humor? Surely
employees can take a joke. Sometimes the information that is given to employees
about the job at hand is incorrect or incomplete, such that they cannot do their
job correctly. Some employees are routinely overlooked when it comes time for
promotions or raises; this can be due to gender discrimination, age
discrimination, or personal dislike on the part of management. Some employees
are ‘frozen out’ by management--ignored or bypassed when it comes to new
projects, denied specific opportunities for advancement, denied project
leadership, etc. Still others are the recipients of vague, unclear communication
on a continual basis, such that they are never really sure where they stand. Others
are the victims of backbiting and gossip, which can often be quite cruel. All of it is designed to weaken and eventually annihilate the victim.
Regardless of who is doing the bullying, the cost to the
workplace can be substantial, due to reduced productivity, loss of morale, and
a negative and destructive workplace environment. Bullied employees experience fear,
shock, hopelessness, serious psychological problems, stress disorders, and
eventually go out on sick leave or quit. Management can simply not afford to ignore
this problem, and if management is
the problem, if some members of management are doing the bullying, then the
bullies involved should be forced to resign, and then replaced by leaders with
more emotional intelligence.
Monday, August 17, 2015
A gallery of photos from Rjukan, Gaustatoppen, Lake Tinnsjø, Heddal, and Notodden
the lovely town of Rjukan |
a nice house in Rjukan |
Rjukan, early evening |
Rjukan |
Rjukan town square under renovation, statue of Sam Eyde to the left, Såheim power plant in background |
three reflecting mirrors at the top of the mountainside |
fog rolling into Rjukan |
Vemork museum |
bridge leading to Vemork museum |
Gaustatoppen mountain overlooking the town of Rjukan |
Gaustatoppen mountain |
Fv651 mountain road winding through the landscape |
No visibility at Gaustatoppen summit on the day we climbed the mountain |
fog rolling in during our climb to the top of Gaustatoppen mountain |
view of surrounding landscape as we ascended Gaustatoppen |
Lake Tinnsjø |
MS Storegut onboard the MS Storegut railroad ferry |
sunny weather on Lake Tinnsjø |
raining on Lake Tinnsjø
stave church in Heddal
Notodden |
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Oslo-Rjukan-Heddal-Notodden-Oslo
We recently returned from a one-week vacation in Norway. Like last summer, we decided to explore the country we live in, and decided upon a stay in the town of Rjukan, followed by a visit to the Blues Festival in Notodden, where Robert Plant and his band The Sensational Space Shifters were playing. On the way to Notodden, we stopped in Heddal to see the beautiful stave church (stavkirke) that has become a major tourist attraction.
Rjukan is a small town located
in the Tinn municipality in Telemark county. It is mainly famous for its Vemork
hydroelectric power plant, built by Norsk Hydro under the leadership of Sam
Eyde who was the founder and first CEO of Norsk Hydro from 1905 until 1917. Vemork
opened in 1911. Sam Eyde decided to build
Vemork in Rjukan because the Rjukan waterfall (Rjukanfossen), a 104-metre
waterfall, facilitated the generation of large quantities of electricity (info from Wikipedia).
Vemork was mainly involved in fertilizer produciton, but also produced heavy
water (deuterium oxide, D2O). During WWII, this interested the
Germans who were occupying Norway at the time (the Nazis invaded Norway in
April 1940), since Germany was on a mission to produce an atomic bomb, and
heavy water is useful as a coolant and moderator in a nuclear power reactor. Vemork
was the target of heavy water sabotage operations by the Norwegian resistance
during WWII; this exciting piece of history was recently the subject of a very
well-made Norwegian TV series, Kampen om
Tungtvannet (The Saboteurs in
English) that was shown on Norwegian television this past January. It has since
been sold to many other countries, and I recommend it highly if you get a
chance to see it. You can read more about it here on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3280150/?ref_=nv_sr_1
The Vemork power plant is now
the site of the Norwegian Industrial Workers’ Museum and a museum documenting
the history of Vemork and Rjukan during WWII and the well-documented sabotage
operations (see Wikipedia for more information about Rjukan, Vemork and WWII history).
Besides Vemork, Rjukan is
famous for having placed large reflecting mirrors on the surrounding mountainside
in order to illuminate the town square with reflected sunlight (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/rjukan-sun-norway-town-mirrors). This was
actually an old idea (from the early 1900s) resurrected and realized in 2013;
the reason for it was that between September and March, Rjukan does not get
sunlight since the surrounding mountains block it, and this was a way of providing
light for Rjukan’s inhabitants. The Krossobanen (an aerial tramway) was built in
1928 with the same idea in mind, to be able to give Rjukan’s inhabitants a view
of the sun during the long winter months.
In July 2015, the UNESCO World
Heritage Committee approved the inscription of the Rjukan-Notodden Industrial
Heritage Site on its World Heritage List, something the town of Rjukan is
understandably quite proud of. You can read more about the background for the
decision here: http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1316/
Sam Eyde’s strong influence
on Rjukan is apparent to this day. You cannot help but notice that it is an
extremely well-planned and -designed town, with lovely homes (all with
different architectural styles), parks, and official buildings. A statue of
Eyde stands prominently in the town square, which was undergoing extensive
renovations when we were there in late July. We did a lot of walking around the
town and got to know it quite well; it is very charming and lovely during the
summer months. I can imagine though that it is less charming during the winter
months.
We also climbed the
Gaustatoppen mountain (1883 metres/6178 feet high) that overlooks the town of
Rjukan; the summit offers incredible views of about one-sixth of Norway on days
with excellent visibility. Unfortunately, the day we decided to climb it was a
foggy and overcast day; it started out as a gray day and evolved into a foggy
one after a few hours. When we reached the summit, you could really only see a
few feet in front of you. But the climb itself was worth it; it is advertised
as family-friendly, but in reality is for adults in reasonably good shape. Most
young children (I’d say under 10-years old), no matter how sporty, will not
enjoy this climb very much, as it is quite strenuous. We met a family with
young children on our way up; they ended up turning back. You can read more
about it here: http://www.visitrjukan.com/en/best-travel-tips/opplevelser-paa-rjukan-til-inforboks/gaustatoppen-summer
We did not walk down the mountain, but
rather opted to take the Gaustabanen
back down; this is a cable railway built inside the Gaustatoppen mountain that
was built by NATO during the Cold War era. For more information, check
out this link: http://en.hardangervidda.com/Top-5/The-Top-5-Attractions2/Gaustatoppen-and-Gaustabanen-cable-car
We also took an afternoon boat
ride on the railroad ferry MS Storegut,
which operates as a tourist attraction these days between Tinnoset and Mæl on Lake
Tinnsjø. It was in operation as a railway ferry from 1956 until 1991; while we
were onboard, the last captain of the ferry gave us a short talk about his
experiences as captain of the MS Storegut
and about how he was sorry to see it taken out of service. It was a beautiful
boat trip, as you will see from the photos in my next post. We were lucky to have good
weather that day in order to really appreciate the surrounding landscapes.
Once we left Rjukan, we drove
on the mountain road Fv651 and passed through Tuddal, where we stopped to have
coffee, and then on to Heddal where we ate elk burgers for lunch and visited
the stave church there. Eventually we merged onto route E134 that took us to
Notodden and the Blues Festival (http://bluesfest.no/).
We rounded out a great week with a terrific concert by Robert Plant and his
band; there were also some other really good bands that we enjoyed listening to.
We ended up camping at the festival site for one night; the weather was sunny
and warm during the day, and only a bit chilly during the evening. The following
day we headed for home, after a great week away. I would like to return to Gaustatoppen
at some point to climb it on a day with better visibility, as well as to
hike/bike over the Hardangervidda plateau.
Labels:
gaustabanen,
Gaustatoppen,
heavy water,
Heddal,
Lake Tinnsjø,
mountain,
MS Storegut,
museum,
Norway,
Notodden,
Notodden blues festival,
railroad ferry,
Rjukan,
sabotage,
stave church,
travel,
Tuddal,
Vemork,
WWII
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
A beautiful full moon over Oslo
During the past week, there were some evenings with a beautiful full moon--exceptionally large and luminous. On Sunday evening, I managed to get a few photos with my digital camera attached to my telescope. This one in particular was one of the ones I was satisfied with. Enjoy!
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find your voice
The first thought I had after finishing Sue Monk Kidd’s
latest novel, The Invention of Wings,
was that it can often take a lifetime to find your voice and the courage to use
it. Sarah Grimké would no doubt agree; Kidd’s fictionalized account of the
lives of the first American women abolitionists Sarah Grimké and her sister
Angelina (Nina) is by turns touching, disturbing, and enlightening, pointing
out the almost insurmountable difficulties and painful consequences involved in
taking a stand in life and fighting for what you believe in. It is impossible
not to be moved by this novel; the writing evokes both questions and the desire
to make (some) sense of what must have been a horrific existence for the slaves
in Charleston South Carolina in the 19th century (1803-1838).
Despite being ‘protected’ by the wealthy families who owned them, the slaves’ lives
and daily treatment depended upon the whims and moods of their owners. Their psychological
well-being and physical comfort did not matter at all. Punishment was meted out
rather arbitrarily for minor infractions, e.g. the Missus was having a bad day
and one of her slaves ’disobeyed’ her orders, wasn’t listening properly, or was
too slow in responding. The actual punishments were little more than exercises
in the public torture of other human beings, and inflicted permanent damage on
many of the slaves who suffered these tortures. It is established very early on
in the novel that Sarah wishes to have no part in the ownership of another
human being—in her case, 10-year old Handful (Hetty) who becomes Sarah’s slave
against her wishes, forced upon her by her family on her 11th
birthday. Sarah does not want to be like her family at all, but she is trapped
within it. One might think that the desire to treat another human being the way
one would wish to be treated, would be simple enough to achieve within one’s own
family. One might expect that one’s family (churchgoers and law-abiding
citizens) would support you in your quest to treat other human beings, who
happen to be non-white, fairly and kindly. But that is not the case in Sarah’s
family (or in society at large). Their cruelty knows no bounds, toward slaves who
endure the physical cruelties, and toward their enlightened daughters Sarah and
Nina who must endure the psychological abuses meted out to them for wishing to
abolish slavery. In Sarah’s case, her independent and outspoken voice becomes
muffled after she is dressed down by her father in front of the family—told
that her dreams and aspirations of becoming a lawyer are simply out of the
question. She is then forbidden to use her father’s library to read her beloved
books in an attempt to educate herself. She suffers ridicule in front of her
family for her aspirations to make something of herself; her father and
brothers essentially tell her, rather cruelly, that she is a fool to have had
such aspirations, even though her father appeared to encourage them only when
he assumed that she did not take his words seriously. It is after this
humiliation, and really the only time in the novel, that her mother shows her
any compassion whatsoever and lets down her guard as far as describing to Sarah
what women can and cannot aspire to within the framework of their society. You
get the sense that her mother does not like that women’s lives had limitations
put upon them, but she retreats again behind her mask of upholding the society
she finds herself in, for all it is worth, because it is that society of wealth
and political correctness that gives her status and keeps her
materially-comfortable. Her mother’s role in life was to bear her husband many
children, which she did. Sarah’s dressing-down by her father and brothers is
followed by the societal humiliation she has to endure when her fiancé is
exposed as a serial user of young women for sexual gains; he proposes to them
and then tells them that they can now become intimate because they are engaged.
After these incidents, Sarah is completely browbeaten and unable to find the
voice she once had. She struggles along, as does Handful, each of them trying
to find the wings they need to escape their stifling existences. When her
sister Nina is born, Sarah becomes almost like a mother to her, and Nina grows
quite close to her. Eventually she comes to share her sister’s abolitionist
(and feminist) views, which puts both of them at odds with their family and
with Charleston society. Sarah moves to the North and becomes a Quaker; Nina
eventually follows her and the two of them embark on their mission to abolish
slavery. Sarah finds her voice again after many years, but struggles with
self-confidence, in contrast to Nina who is a born orator and who does not seem
to lack confidence at all. The bulk of the novel is really Sarah and Handful’s
stories, and how Sarah steps up to the plate to keep her promise to Handful’s
mother Charlotte to free Handful.
Sometimes a person is born with a voice that he or she has
no problems using as he or she grows up. One takes a vocal stand against
injustice and bullying, against the immoral ideas and situations in
society. And then something happens to stifle that voice, at least for a while.
Bullying, cruel slander, psychological abuse, physical abuse, a bad marriage,
divorce, loss of a job, financial ruin—all of these can destroy a woman’s voice
as well as a man’s. Self-confidence wanes; self-doubt rules. No matter what
others say to you, the fact remains that regaining confidence and finding your
voice again are your own roads, and you must walk them alone. The novel makes it clear that heroes and
heroines are never superhuman; they are ordinary human beings like you and me,
with the familiar everyday problems with which we all must deal and tackle.
They struggle with self-doubt and misery, with depression, with anxiety, with
confusion. They struggle with finding their voices and using them to rail
against the injustices in the world. They hold onto their beliefs in the hope
that better days will come along; and better days do come along, but at quite a
cost, for Sarah, Nina, and Handful. Along the way, you will come to really like
these characters and to want to understand them. You will come to appreciate
how difficult their lives were because they lived according to their
principles, as well as how difficult it was to change the obstinate and unenlightened
world around them, at that time, and at any time. Our own civilized society still
has much to learn about how to treat the poor, immigrants, the mentally ill,
the elderly, or those who just do not fit in no matter how hard they try. Those
who support them and fight for them deserve our help and praise, not our
criticism and ridicule.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
My father’s reading list prior to 1936, continued
Androcles and the Lion—George Bernard
Shaw
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch—Alice
Hegan Rice
A Christmas Carol—Charles Dickens
Edith Trevor’s Secret—Mrs.
Harriet Lewis
The King of Kings—Jeanie MacPherson
and Henry MacMahon
The Black Pirate—MacBurney Gates
The Whistling Waddy--Donald Bayne Hobart
Deerslayer—James Fenimore
Cooper
Riders of the Purple Sage—Zane Grey
(author of the next four titles)
Desert Gold
Thunder Mountain
The Mysterious Rider
Man of the Forest
The Crossing—Winston Churchill
Marjorie Daw—Thomas Bailey
Aldrich
The Black Hunter—James Oliver
Curwood
Kazan—James Oliver Curwood
Bob, Son of Battle—Alfred Ollivant
Dick Kent, Fur Trader—Milton Richards
Tarzan of the Apes—Edgar Rice
Burroughs (author of the next six titles)
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
Tarzan and the Golden Lion
Tarzan at the Earth’s Core
Tarzan and the Lost (World)
Empire
Tarzan the Untamed
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle
Treasure Island—Robert Louis
Stevenson
The Wonderful War (The Saint)—Leslie Charteris
The Monk and the Hangman’s
Daughter—Ambrose Bierce
The Shadow Man—Edgar Wallace
(author of the next eleven titles)
Red Aces
The Colossus
The Terror Keep
The Devil Man
The Green Ribbon
The Mystery of the Frightened
Lady
The Fellowship of the Frog
India-Rubber Men
The Fourth Plague
The Black
The Ringer
The Flying Beast—Walter S.
Masterman
The Greek Coffin Mystery—Ellery
Queen (author of the next two titles)
The Egyptian Cross Mystery
The Dutch Shoe Mystery
The Kennel Murder Case—S.S.Van
Dine (author of the next three titles)
The Greene Murder Case
The Bishop Murder Case
The Scarab Murder Case
Laughing Death—Walter C. Brown
The Daughter of Fu Manchu—Sax Rohmer
Monday, July 27, 2015
Extroversion, introversion, and ambiversion
Apparently, it is now acceptable and even cool to be an
introvert in the workplace, after many years of hearing about how important it
was to be an extrovert in the workplace. Saturday’s NY Times ran an article
about exactly this-- http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/fashion/susan-cain-instigating-a-quiet-revolution-of-introverts.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur.
I guess it’s a good thing if introverts are finally being appreciated in the
workplace. But I have to wonder why we cannot all just ‘live and let live’,
generally in society and in the workplace specifically. I wrote a comment in
the article’s Comments section; to wit—“It would be great if we were all
allowed to be who we are--introvert, extrovert or somewhere in-between--and to
contribute accordingly in the workplace. Why must everything become a trend?
Extrovert last year, introvert this year. What's cool for next year? Why can't
we accept that people are different? We cannot all be the same--God forbid.
What a boring world that would be”.
I cannot understand why workplaces are so fickle and so
insecure. Some people do not want to be social all the time, or spend all their time in meetings; they simply
want some alone time to do the best job they can with the talents they are given. Do employers
actually think that if all employees were pure extroverts, or pure introverts,
that workplaces would be better places? These trends are the new flavors of the
month, and I’m betting that most employees are sick of them. Employees have had
extroversion pushed down their throats during the past decade, with no
consideration for whether that particular personality trait was even helpful or
good for them. I can attest to that; scientists have been pushed hard to sell
themselves and their research, in ways that seem so foreign to the profession. It’s
as though we were supposed to be salespeople selling a product. Frankly
speaking, I’m not sure you can just switch from one to the other at whim if you
are a true introvert or true extrovert. I happen to be one of those people who
does not believe we can just toss off our old coat and put on a new one at the
behest of our employers. One does not go from being an introvert today to being
an extrovert tomorrow; it wouldn’t matter to me how many motivational,
marketing or sales courses one attended. To some extent, we are the products of
our genes, and to some extent, our environment can modify their expression. I’m
not saying we can’t modify our behavior or personality traits, but I’m willing
to bet that most people understand whether they are more introverted or
extroverted from a young age, and choose their professions accordingly. I’d bet
also that sales and marketing professions attract more extroverts, while
research and laboratory professions attract more introverts. I’d need to see
the statistics on this though, before I could come to a reasoned conclusion.
The workplace needs introverts (those people who are
energized by being alone and whose energy is drained by being with other
people--see http://giftedkids.about.com/od/glossary/g/introvert.htm), extroverts (those people who are energized by being together with
other people--see http://giftedkids.about.com/od/glossary/g/extrovert.htm), and all those who define themselves as in-between (those who
have the qualities of both). I fall into the latter category, which certainly
seems to include the majority of people. After some searching online to find
out what these people are called, the word ambivert
popped up--someone who exhibits qualities of both introversion and
extroversion. I am an ambivert—I enjoy (and need) my quiet alone time as a
scientist, but also the social interactions at work. I enjoy (and need) my
quiet alone time at home, but also the social interactions with family and
friends. When it comes to social interactions, I prefer to have the element of
choice—to choose how, when and where I will be social. I cannot be around
people or talk to them every second of every day; I have no desire to be ‘on’
all day, every day. I need to be alone at times in order to recharge my
batteries; and sometimes I need to be with others in order to do the same. It
seems to balance itself out rather nicely for the most part.
Even with these definitions though, we need to stop ‘labeling’ people in the workplace (and in
society too), and let employees contribute how best they can. It makes no sense
to force a true introvert into an extrovert’s role, or vice versa. You will
only create fearful, stressed and unhappy employees. I think the time has come
to appreciate employees for their uniqueness and unique ability to contribute
in the ways that make them feel comfortable. I’m not saying employees shouldn’t
be challenged, but those challenges should have more to do with the framework
of their work projects (e.g. giving them more responsibility within the
confines of the project) and less to do with their personality traits.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Thirty years ago today
Today, July 25th, would have been my father’s 97th
birthday had he lived. He passed away thirty years ago, in March 1985. There is
not a day goes by that I don’t think about him or my mother, who passed away in
March 2001. I always remember my father’s birthday now, because my cousin Karen
is born on the same day; when we were children, it was the opposite way around—I
remembered her birthday when my dad’s birthday rolled around.
Thirty years. The passage of time. I remember my father and my
mother in ways I never knew existed when I was younger, because I could not
imagine them gone at that time. My father was 67 years old when he died; that’s
young. They are both a part of me; I need only scratch the surface of
my heart, mind and soul and they are there, waiting to talk to me.
My parents married on July 9th, 1955, sixty years
ago. Their thirtieth wedding anniversary was within reach when my father passed
away. It seems like a short amount of time for them to be married when I look
back now (my husband and are nearing twenty-five years married), but they had
married later in life and became parents in their late thirties. I was
remembering one of the things we children used to do for my parents when their
wedding anniversary came around each year. We would buy a box of M&M
candies, vanilla ice cream and cantaloupe, cut the cantaloupe in half, scoop
out the seeds, and fill each half with ice cream and M&Ms. Our anniversary
gift to them, at least for three or four years. The last thing my father probably needed was to eat ice cream
full of saturated fats given his health problems, but he ate it because we made
it for them. That was the kind of dad he was. As I peruse his reading list and
write about it for my blog, I feel my father’s presence in my life. I welcome
those memories and feelings.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
My father’s reading list prior to 1936
As promised, I will continue to post the lists of books my father
read during his life. He was a prolific reader already during his childhood and
teenage years. In 1936, when he was eighteen years old, he started to annotate
his reading list according to the specific year that he read a particular book.
My post today will include some of the books he read prior to 1936. The first
one on his list was Quo Vadis by
Henryk Sienkiewicz. Here are the first fifty books he recorded as read, so many
of them typical of a young boy’s life…….
Quo Vadis—Henryk Sienkiewicz
Fortitude—Hugh Walpole
Robinson Crusoe—Daniel Defoe
Tom Brown’s Schooldays—Thomas Hughes
The Black Arrow—Robert Louis Stevenson
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Mark Twain
Call of the Wild—Jack London
The Man without a Country—Edward Everett Hale
Men of Iron—Howard Pyle
Daddy Long Legs—Jean Webster
The Riflemen of the Ohio—Joseph A. Altsheler (also author
of the next thirteen books)
The Young Trailers
The Forest Runners
The Free Rangers
The Scouts of the Valley
The Border Watch
The Sun of Saratoga
The Horsemen of the Plains
The Last of the Chiefs
Shadow of the North
Sun of Quebec
The Guns of Shiloh
The Tree of Appomattox
Apache Gold
The Arkansas Bear—Albert Bigelow Paine
Just So Stories—Rudyard Kipling
Story of a Bad Boy—Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Story of Roland—James Baldwin
Robin Hood and His Merry Men—John Finnemore
The Sky Pilot—Ralph Connor
Boy’s Life of Edison—William H. Meadowcraft
The Tragedy of the Italia—Davide Guidici
Uncle Tom’s Cabin—Harriet Beecher Stowe
Scouting with Daniel Boone—Everett T. Tomlinson
The Palm of the Hot Hand—King Phillips
Pinocchio—Carlo Collodi
Jim Davis—John Masefield
The Black Buccaneer—Stephen W. Meader
Boots and Saddles—E.B. Custer
The Perfect Tribute—M.R.S. Andrews
Twice Told Tales—Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Spy—James Fenimore Cooper
The Black Glove—Geraldine Gordon Salmon
The Gold Bug—Edgar Allan Poe
The Pit and the Pendulum—Edgar Allan Poe
The Other Wise Man—Henry Van Dyke
The Crisis—Winston Churchill
Richard Carvel—Winston Churchill
The Mansion—Henry Van Dyke
Monday, July 20, 2015
An abundance of cherries
There are two cherry trees and several plum trees in the inner courtyard of our co-op complex, as well as gooseberry, black currant and red currant bushes. The plum trees produced hundreds of plums last year, so this year they're taking a well-earned rest. The cherry trees however are loaded with fruit, so my husband has picked about five kilograms (eleven pounds) of cherries the past few days. What do you do with an abundance of cherries? Make cherry pies and preserves. I did both (and both turned out delicious). My husband will be making liquer as well. In a few weeks, I'll be making gooseberry, black currant and red currant jam when those berries are ripe. Last week, I made strawberry and strawberry/rhubarb jam. In past years I've made strawberry/rhubarb pie, and it too is delicious. It takes some time to make preserves and pies, mostly to prepare the fruit, but it's worth it. If you buy the right utensils, e.g. a cherry pitter (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010S0E1W4?psc=1) and a plum pitter (http://tinyurl.com/nghowmr), you're off to a good start.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
July 4th celebration in Frogner Park
The American Coordinating Council of Norway (ACCN, http://accn.no/#sthash.Ex6JoZol.dpbs) sponsors
an American Independence Day celebration each year in Oslo’s Frogner Park. This
year was the 30th annual such celebration, and my husband and I were
there to check it out on July 4th. The celebration last for about
five hours, enough time to enjoy the festivities, eat some food, listen to
music, and check out the different exhibitions. We’ve been there once before,
about fifteen years ago, together with my American friend Liza and her daughter
Inger. At that time, we walked around, checking out the different exhibits and
stands, but opted for grilling our own hotdogs and hamburgers rather than
buying any food at the different food stands. This year, we bought some great
burgers at one of the burger stands advertising chili burgers and Santa Fe
burgers; they were excellent. There were long lines for most of the food stands—burgers,
barbecued ribs, chili dogs, pancakes and the like. Ben & Jerry’s was there
as well, as was The Nighthawk Diner (Oslo’s American-style diner that I wrote a
post about back in June 2010). There were also two really good bands that played
during the afternoon—Moving Day and Project BrundleFly. We also checked out
the Classic American Cars exhibition; there were some incredibly beautiful classic cars that both my husband and I enjoyed looking at (Jean, check out the black Trans Am). I took a
lot of photos and am including some of them here. A cheerleading
exhibition by the Viqueens, as well as a watermelon eating contest, pony riding
for the kids, and several raffles, were also on the agenda for the day. In other words, there was plenty to do, see
and eat—something for everyone. I have to admit that when I first attended this
celebration fifteen years ago, I had a different feeling about it then than I
do now. At that time, I took my American heritage more for granted and was
perhaps a bit blasé about it all. Now, there is a much more visceral response
to what I value and love about being American, and I was very in tune with most
of what was going on around me. I wonder if that has to do with my getting
older (am I getting more nostalgic for all things American), or if I simply
appreciate my country more, for all the little things that are part of my
culture, that make life enjoyable and fun. Whatever the reason, I find that
such experiences remind me of some of the enjoyable times in my childhood—when my
family would attend the July 4th fireworks celebration in Tarrytown.
We would get to the Washington Irving junior high school bleachers early in the evening in order
to get seats and listen to the band play all the patriotic marches until it
got dark enough for the fireworks to begin.
I really enjoyed being in Frogner Park this year; it was a
gorgeous day in Oslo—sunny and warm—and it was just pleasant to sit on the
grass, listening to music and watching the people mill about. The only thing I
missed was fireworks, but that would be difficult to offer, since it would mean
hanging around until 11pm or so (about the time it starts to get dark in Oslo
during the summer months). Check out the photos below, and you’ll get an idea
of what a lovely day it was and of how many people attended the celebration.
And of course, how gorgeous some of the classic American cars really are. I
fell in love with one of them—Chrysler’s
The New Yorker. Is that so surprising?
Trans Am |
Chrysler's The New Yorker |
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
A new poem--Summer
Summer
Days
of puffy clouds
Spread out upon a sunlit blue canvas
Cycling along a country road
Scent of cinnamon from the meadow plants
Along the roadside.
Days of happiness
Spent in summer’s sunshine
Carefree days and long nights
Birds calling to each other young and old
In the trees outside the window.
Days of green grass and leafy trees
A harmony of colors rich and light
The scent of roses and of lilacs
And honeysuckle that grows wild
Untended bushes of perfume.
Days of voluminous gray clouds
Portend the thunderstorms in wait
Misty rain upon the parched plants
Ominous the sound of distant thunder
That brings the cooling rain.
Never quite so happy as in summer
Days of green of peace of sun of light
Days of meaning from doing little more
Than contemplating nature
And the life around us.
-----------------------------
copyright Paula M. De Angelis
July 2015
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Live and let live, and mindfulness
I’ve been thinking about the ten tips for a happy life that
I wrote about in my last post, and remembering back to a time when it was
difficult to try to understand them enough to put them into practice. When I
was younger, there were negative people in my life, who found it difficult to
let others live their lives without constantly judging and criticizing them.
Many of those people were seasoned adults when we were teenagers and young
adults; I’m sure they had their reasons for being so critical and judgmental,
but they were not the people you went to when you wanted inspiration or advice
on how to be happy in life. My guess is that their own lives were unhappy, so
they either did not know how to be nor could they show others how to be happy.
They could not ‘live and let live’; the unhappiness in their own lives drove
them crazy, I think. It rode them. Perhaps a bad marriage, a failed career,
lack of money, lack of friends, emotional wounds that did not heal—there could
be many reasons for the unhappiness. Some of them were intolerant individuals,
particularly intolerant of the minority races they felt were taking over ‘white
people’s USA’. These were the type of people who attended Sunday mass and then
began to rag on the minority races the minute they came out of church. It did
not make sense to me then, and it still doesn’t when people behave like that. I
concluded that going to mass on Sunday does not a Christian make. I still feel
that way.
It’s difficult to really practice the ten tips for a happy
life unless you integrate them into your daily life. You have to understand
them in order to put them into practice, and be conscious of your behavior and
speech every single day. You have to be aware of what you do and say--think
before you speak. Mindfulness is the key word. Wikipedia’s definition of
mindfulness is ‘the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one's
attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present
moment, which can be trained by meditational practices’. I wonder if the
negative people in my past became mindful individuals who eventually found peace.
I wonder if they were able to live with some sense of joy in the world together
with others. I hope that for them in any case. I for one cannot imagine a more disquieting fate
than being destined to leave this world as a diehard negative and intolerant person.
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