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Sunday Inspiration: Togetherness
If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.
—African Proverb
The Wisdom of Fairy Tales
Humeira Kazmi at The Nation conducted an informal survey of parents and children about their opinions of fairy tales. Apparently, the little ones really are paying attention to those old stories, and it seems they’ve got them right.
My best comment came from an eight-year-old:
“Fairy tales are like lessons that tell us about what will happen in the real world so we don’t get lost or killed. Fairy tales use princesses and princes to tell you stuff that can help you guide through the real world. But it doesn’t have to be in a kingdom or a palace, like Little Red Riding Hood doesn’t have a princess but it tells you not to talk to strangers.”
You can’t beat that kind of wisdom.
Best News I’ve Heard All Day
The SciFi Syfy network will be dropping wrestling!
In bad news for the channel yet extremely good news for its science fiction-loving fans, Syfy lost the rights to air WWE wrestling programs in 2016. WWE Smackdown will head to Syfy’s fellow NBCUniversal network USA. And if we’re very lucky, they might just replace it with science fiction. Crazy, right?
The Lowdown on Sirens
Janie Bill has posted a great description of the sirens of Greek mythology over at Fantasy-Faction. I didn’t realize they got their human legs back.
Sunday Inspiration: Love
Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.
—Fred Rogers
Sunday Inspiration: The Purpose of Life
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Amazon Customer Reviews
Amazon has refined its system for customer reviews, as Nate Hoffelder describes in her latest post:
It’s always been easy to post a review on Amazon; simply jot down a few sentences, select a star rating, and you’re done. It’s so easy to post a review, in fact, that it’s also easy to miss important details.
That doesn’t help readers, and it doesn’t help Amazon, which is why Amazon has added more options. In addition to the star rating, Amazon has added extra dropdown menus which invite reviewers to describe the quality of the writing, the amount of sex and violence in the book, and other details….
All in all, this is a good move on the part of Amazon. I’m sure I’m not the only reader who has put down a book in frustration with the writing style, tone, or amount of extraneous sex or violence. By offering specific prompts for these areas of concern, Amazon is helping readers make more informed decisions.
In other words, now would be an excellent time to leave a review of Children of Pride or The Devil’s Due! 🙂
Rethinking Vikings
Listverse has a list of ten discoveries that cast the vikings in a new light. It’s quite interesting and worth a read.
Why mention vikings on Saint Patrick’s Day? Mainly because they were instrumental in the development of the city of Dublin:
The Vikings explored vast amounts of Europe and North America, but they eventually settled into the land that would eventually become Dublin. At the time, its relatively mild climate, thick tree cover, and river made it the perfect location for a winter home. There they repaired their ships and set up a trade network.
The number of Viking relics found in Dublin over the years has been staggering. Temple Lane was created by Viking settlers and has been called the oldest street in Dublin. Viking swords have been found in the area around Christchurch, and the earliest foundations of Dublin Castle are clay floors that were also dated to the Viking era. And just south of the River Liffey is a huge concentration of buildings that seem to indicate the center of the Viking settlement, including houses and buildings once used for metalworking and the production of other commodities like leathers, textiles, and jewelry. Also along the area of the Liffey was evidence of amber-working.
Darrell J. Pursiful 