Kyle Roth

This book argues that language loss is always bad, but that we can do something to save it. While the stories in the book leave me feeling like every language lost is a terrible cost, I think it’s inevitable as our species merges into a global society due to technology. I think we ought to prioritize the proper treatment and respect of marginalized and alternative cultures, including their languages and how these cultures want to maintain them. But there is a cost to stopping all language loss that is just not worth it once a language has been documented for research purposes.

Better communication doesn’t really solve marriage problems. It has a low success rate, and that makes sense because there are plenty of marriages that yell and dispute. Disputation is not a sign of an unhealthy marriage. You’d have to be really magnanimous to take criticism about you, even if presented as softly as possible. Personality does not make a marriage incompatible. People can be friends but have very distinct personalities. Handle each other’s strange side with caring and respect, as you would a friend.

Spoiler warning: no plot held back in this review. science is at least as beautiful as magic permalink In chapter 7 Harry introduces Draco to the beauty of scientific advancement, and it actually moved me to tears. You should read the whole thing, but here are some of the best quotes: “Anyway,” Harry said, “I’m saying that you don’t seem to have been paying much attention to what goes on in the Muggle world.” Probably because the whole wizarding world seemed to regard the rest of Earth as a slum, deserving around as much news coverage as the Financial Times awarded to the routine agonies of Burundi. “All right. Quick check. Have wizards ever been to the Moon? You know, that thing?” Harry pointed up to that huge and distant globe.

(My own thoughts appear as sidenotes or in italics, to distinguish from the author’s thoughts.) Richard Bushman categorizes those who leave the church into two broad categories: those who feel “switched off”, and those who feel “squeezed out”. Mason summarizes the switched-off group as those who encounter troubling information about church history or doctrine, and as they discover more information they become jaded by it until they can no longer see the good the church does for them or for others. The squeezed-out group “fully embrace[s] the basic principles and ordinances of the gospel. But sometimes they feel alienated by things like the dominant political conservatism among the members … or how the church ministers to our LGBT … brothers and sisters,” (p. 3).

This book was my first real exposure to minimalism, and it completely changed how I feel about the possession of objects. It was super fortunate that my wife and I listened to it together on a road trip, and became equally enthralled with the idea of dumping all of our excess clutter. all at once permalink We have excess clutter because of a fundamental problem with the way we deal with possessions. This is difficult to solve with simple tricks like better organization or getting rid of one thing every day. She argues that the best way to overcome the clutter is by doing a one-time hardcore purge of the entire house. She spends a long time detailing what she calls the KonMari Method (which you can read about on her website). For us, doing this initial purge took us about two weeks. We spent several hours each evening, plus all day on both Saturdays. All told I think we got rid of like 15 garbage bags-worth of things from our two-bedroom apartment.