Michael Bates: February 2015 Archives
m88k.com: Motorola MVME167 Board
A comprehensive collection of documentation for the once ubiquitous VMEbus single-board computer.
NUVO: Your kid and my kid are not playing in the pros
An ER Doc takes competitive parents to task:
"I know, I know. Your family is different. You do all these things because your kid loves to compete, he loves the travel basketball, she loves the swim team, it's her life, it's what defines him. Part of that is certainly true but a big part of that isn't. Tens of thousands of families thrive in this setting, but I'm telling you, from what I've seen as a clinician, tens of thousands don't. It is a hidden scourge in society today, taxing and stressing husbands, wives, parents and children. We're denying children the opportunity to explore literally thousands of facets of interests because of the fear of the need to "specialize" in something early, and that by not doing this your child will somehow be just an average kid. How do we learn to rejoice in the average and celebrate as a whole society the exceptional? I'm not sure, but I know that this whole preoccupation is unhealthy, it is dysfunctional and is as bad as alcoholism, tobacco abuse, or any other types of dependency."
Obituary of Roger Hancock, brother and agent of Tony Hancock in The Independent
"The previous year, a chain-smoking, nervous-looking Tony had been very self-critical in a Face to Face television interview with John Freeman. 'It was the biggest mistake he ever made,' Roger reflected later. 'I think it all started from that, really. Self-analysis - that was his killer.'"
Roger Hancock represented many of the prominent comedic actors and writers of the 1960s, including Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, the Monty Python team, and Terry Nation.
John Freeman profile (shortly before his death) in The New Statesman
"Thirty years later the BBC repeated Face to Face and sent the radio psychiatrist Anthony Clare (of In the Psychiatrist's Chair fame) and me to California to film an introductory interview in which the roles were reversed. The programme was a failure. Freeman had an intimidating physical presence and a manner that combined an old-fashioned, somewhat insincere charm with his thoroughgoing put-downs: 'I'm sorry, I don't want to sound rude to you - but that's the sort of portentous question I don't think I want to answer.' As always, he gave nothing away. An old friend of his had warned me: 'John has a capacity to put up the shutters that is excelled by nobody except a shopkeeper during a time of riots.'...
"Barbara Castle travelled around the country with [Freeman], expecting him to take a lead in arguing the 'Keep Left' case to Labour supporters, but she was disappointed. 'In one stormy meeting after another he stood against the wall, almost hiding himself behind the window curtains, but did not speak. After years of studying his complex personality [on intimate terms it should be added as they were lovers] I decided he was afraid of giving himself too fully to anything or anyone. I once told him his motto ought to be "Je me sauve" ("I protect myself").'"
Perhaps best known for his 1959-1960 talk show, Freeman was a Desert Rat in World War II, was an MP after the war, a diplomat, editor of the New Statesman, High Commissioner to India, Ambassador to the United States, managing director of London Weekend Television, chairman of Independent Television News, and professor at UC Davis.
A Treatise of Vocations by William Perkins | Monergism
A book by the late-16th-century English preacher, author, and Cambridge fellow on the Bible's teaching about work and calling:
"Now, in every calling we must consider two causes. First, the efficient and author of it. Secondly, the final and proper end of it. The author of every calling is God Himself; and therefore Paul says, "As God has called every man, let him walk," verse 17. And for this reason, this order and manner of living in this world is called a Vocation, because every man is to live as he is called by God. For look as it is in the military camp: the General appoints to every man his place and standing; one place for the horseman and another for the footman; and to every particular soldier likewise: his office and standing in which he is to abide against the enemy, and to live and die in that place -- it is even so in human societies. God is the General, appointing to every man his particular calling, and as it were, his standing. And in that calling He assigns to him his particular office; in performance of this office he is to live and die. And just as in a camp, no soldier can depart his standing without the leave of the General, nor more may any man leave his calling unless he receives liberty from God. Again, in a clock, made by the art and handiwork of man, there are many wheels, and every one has its several motions -- some turn this way, some that way, some go softly, some apace -- they are all ordered by the motion of the watch. Behold here a notable resemblance to God's special providence over mankind, which is the watch of the great world, allotting to every man his motion and calling; and in that calling, his particular office and function. Therefore what I say is true, that God Himself is the author and beginning of callings."
The book was typed, formatted, and spelling modernized by William H. Gross of OnTheWing,org
"Isaiah's Job," by Albert Jay Nock
A word of encouragement from 1936 that deserves frequent review:
"Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job -- in fact, he had asked for it -- but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so -- if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start -- was there any sense in starting it? 'Ah,' the Lord said, 'you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it.'...
"The certainty that the Remnant will find him, however, leaves the prophet as much in the dark as ever, as helpless as ever in the matter of putting any estimate of any kind upon the Remnant; for, as appears in the case of Elijah, he remains ignorant of who they are that have found him or where they are or how many. They did not write in and tell him about it, after the manner of those who admire the vedettes of Hollywood, nor yet do they seek him out and attach themselves to his person. They are not that kind. They take his message much as drivers take the directions on a roadside signboard -- that is, with very little thought about the signboard, beyond being gratefully glad that it happened to be there, but with every thought about the directions....
"Even admitting that in the teeth of history that hope of the human race may not be quite exclusively centered in the Remnant, one must perceive that they have social value enough to entitle them to some measure of prophetic encouragement and consolation, and that our civilization allows them none whatever. "
