Experiments in Woolgathering

Although I haven’t been blogging much about Aikido, I have actually been going reasonably regularly since the beginning of October – minus a week plus around an almost week long trip to New York City. Since we were in town for the holiday weekend I when to all three weekend classes.

When I found out Clemens was starting a new fantasy series, I was very excited. I’d read his Banned and the Banished series and loved it. The first volume of The Godslayer Chronicles almost lived up to my very high expectations.

I finally read an article that explains the social ills and history which lead up to the riots that are spreading across France.

To say the least, it was very eye opening. I think many people here, me included, have western Europe on a bit of a pedestal (and, as it turns there are still people in other countries do this with the US – our recent foreign policy notwithstanding). It’s not like I didn’t France has poverty and disenfranchisement, at some level this is unavoidable, I just never guessed it existed on the scale described in that article. Just as I have heard foreigners amazed that New Orleans had so many people that were so poor they had no means to leave the city. Though who can blame them? Apparently our own government was unaware of this as well.

What’s worse still is that it apparently takes large scale rioting or natural disasters to get our governments heads out of their asses to notice these problems. Will they stay out long enough to actually do something though?

I’ve been terribly remiss in posting reviews of what I’ve been reading. So, since I’ve no illusions about me actually writing full reviews of all of these, I’m just going to give capsule reviews.

Surprise, surprise, I’m in NYC again! Four days of meetings and training. On the upside, a number of coworkers from overseas are here, and it’s aways fun to hang out with them.