Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

(Regarding criticism by religious groups against The Golden Compass)

"The book's concept of God, in fact, is what makes Pullman's work so threatening. His trilogy is not filled with attacks on Christianity, but with attacks on authorities who claim access to one true interpretation of a religion. Pullman's work is filled with the feminist and liberation strands of Catholic theology that have sustained my own faith, and which threaten the power structure of the church. Pullman's work is not anti-Christian, but anti-orthodox.

"This emerging controversy, then, is deeply unusual. It features an artist who claims atheism, but whose work is unabashedly theistic. And it features a series of books that are at once charming and thrilling children's literature, and a story that explores some of the most divisive and fascinating issues in Catholic theology today."

-- Donna Freitas, visiting assistant professor of religion at Boston University, "God in the dust -- What Catholics attacking 'The Golden Compass' are really afraid of", The Boston Globe, 2007-11-25

(Regarding criticism by religious groups against The Golden Compass)

"The book's concept of God, in fact, is what makes Pullman's work so threatening. His trilogy is not filled with attacks on Christianity, but with attacks on authorities who claim access to one true interpretation of a religion. Pullman's work is filled with the feminist and liberation strands of Catholic theology that have sustained my own faith, and which threaten the power structure of the church. Pullman's work is not anti-Christian, but anti-orthodox.

"This emerging controversy, then, is deeply unusual. It features an artist who claims atheism, but whose work is unabashedly theistic. And it features a series of books that are at once charming and thrilling children's literature, and a story that explores some of the most divisive and fascinating issues in Catholic theology today."

-- Donna Freitas, visiting assistant professor of religion at Boston University, "God in the dust -- What Catholics attacking 'The Golden Compass' are really afraid of", The Boston Globe, 2007-11-25

zzzZZZiiiiP*THUD*! You can tell an awful lot from such a sound: two-car collision on wet pavement. I couldn't tell the sizes of vehicles involved by the sound, nor whether anyone was hurt, but that's what windows are for. The police arrived much more quickly than the other times I've called 911. Both drivers were out of their cars under their own power by the time I'd finished giving the location to the 911 operator.

It did kind of put a dent in my attempt to fall asleep around then though.

I'd hoped to get this blogged more quickly, but I've got so much other stuff running on this computer right now that GIMP complained about not being able to load some of its plug-ins or run some of its filters (I wasn't terribly suprised by the error message, "Failed to fork (Cannot allocate memory)") so rotating/cropping/adjusting-levels took rather more time than usual.

zzzZZZiiiiP*THUD*! You can tell an awful lot from such a sound: two-car collision on wet pavement. I couldn't tell the sizes of vehicles involved by the sound, nor whether anyone was hurt, but that's what windows are for. The police arrived much more quickly than the other times I've called 911. Both drivers were out of their cars under their own power by the time I'd finished giving the location to the 911 operator.

It did kind of put a dent in my attempt to fall asleep around then though.

I'd hoped to get this blogged more quickly, but I've got so much other stuff running on this computer right now that GIMP complained about not being able to load some of its plug-ins or run some of its filters (I wasn't terribly suprised by the error message, "Failed to fork (Cannot allocate memory)") so rotating/cropping/adjusting-levels took rather more time than usual.

I am in health-care hell. I finally got ahold of someone actually interested in solving problems at Total Health Care instead of playing the "promise something vague and hope that gets the patient off the phone" game or trying to make me wait until February to find out what I wound up learning today, and her instructions set me off on a long chain of this-place-says-to-call-over-there phone calls, which finally wound up at the folks the various other places collect their fees from, where I was basically told, "the state health-insurance-for-poor-people plan doesn't cover injuries, those aren't 'normal adult health care'; no specialists at all."

(Gee, y'think maybe a "what you're getting" packet more informative than the "here's your card, you have health care" letter might have been a useful thing to send me sometime back?)

Out-of-pocket costs for going to the orthopedics department at Maryland General start at $380 just to walk in the door, and X-rays and, y'know, treatment are added on top of that. No idea what the total will be, because after four months I still have no diagnosis, just an explanation from my primary physician that it's Not Her Responsibility and that I have to see a specialist. I'm guessing this means that the pain management specialist that my doctor wants to write my pain prescriptions instead of her will be out of my reach too, and the sleep referral she wrote is functionally meaningless unless I win the lottery.

My wrist fucking hurts, even more than the rest of me, and I've had varying degrees of pins-and-needles sensations in my right shin for the past week. I'm going to stick my head under my pillow and try to hide from reality for a little while (not having slept, first from leg twitchies keeping me awake, then from the car crash at the corner near my house, then from more leg not-quite-cramps -- felt like a snake crawling around inside my left calf for a while -- is almost certainly not having a positive effect on my coping skills right now.

At this point it feels like my options are to cry myself to sleep or blow something up, and one of those options seems a bit healthier than the other. (Not that I can walk far enough right now to purchase bomb-making supplies or get to an appropriate target under my own power anyhow.) Maybe I'll feel less gloomy if I can get some sleep and clear my brain.

I am in health-care hell. I finally got ahold of someone actually interested in solving problems at Total Health Care instead of playing the "promise something vague and hope that gets the patient off the phone" game or trying to make me wait until February to find out what I wound up learning today, and her instructions set me off on a long chain of this-place-says-to-call-over-there phone calls, which finally wound up at the folks the various other places collect their fees from, where I was basically told, "the state health-insurance-for-poor-people plan doesn't cover injuries, those aren't 'normal adult health care'; no specialists at all."

(Gee, y'think maybe a "what you're getting" packet more informative than the "here's your card, you have health care" letter might have been a useful thing to send me sometime back?)

Out-of-pocket costs for going to the orthopedics department at Maryland General start at $380 just to walk in the door, and X-rays and, y'know, treatment are added on top of that. No idea what the total will be, because after four months I still have no diagnosis, just an explanation from my primary physician that it's Not Her Responsibility and that I have to see a specialist. I'm guessing this means that the pain management specialist that my doctor wants to write my pain prescriptions instead of her will be out of my reach too, and the sleep referral she wrote is functionally meaningless unless I win the lottery.

My wrist fucking hurts, even more than the rest of me, and I've had varying degrees of pins-and-needles sensations in my right shin for the past week. I'm going to stick my head under my pillow and try to hide from reality for a little while (not having slept, first from leg twitchies keeping me awake, then from the car crash at the corner near my house, then from more leg not-quite-cramps -- felt like a snake crawling around inside my left calf for a while -- is almost certainly not having a positive effect on my coping skills right now.

At this point it feels like my options are to cry myself to sleep or blow something up, and one of those options seems a bit healthier than the other. (Not that I can walk far enough right now to purchase bomb-making supplies or get to an appropriate target under my own power anyhow.) Maybe I'll feel less gloomy if I can get some sleep and clear my brain.