Collie's Bestiary

Fundamentalism Why is there a growing fundamentalist movement in a wide variety of disparate cultures today? Why are women almost invariably the mediums on which this fundamentalism is expressed? It is not surprising to discover a reductionist and/or essentialist attitude towards women within cultures and societies wherein fundamentalist beliefs are gaining hold. In many, if [...]

Originally written in… late 1999, I think? -for an anthropology class of the same name. This is an experiment to see how well (or not) old college papers transfer to this format. Enjoy! ;) Links to associated book reviews I've written, and Amazon associate links, are in the Bibliography at the end of the paper. [...]

Spent most of yesterday in a state of carefully controlled panic. I've been desperately working on finishing my late papers for last quarter — thank goodness for being able to "pre-load" WP with my reviews and Bestiaries! So I have a desktop with Word 2007, the latest version, on it… and a nice but very [...]

Winter Solstice occurs when the earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun. It is often also referred to as Midwinter, since that is the shortest day and longest night of the year. From this point on until Summer's Solstice, the nights will be getting shorter, and the days will be getting longer. Traditionally [...]

Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock I find myself wondering, as I read, what was Murdock's solution to her loss of faith within the Roman Catholic Church — is it applicable to my situation as well? I am faintly amused at the thought: clearly her efforts to appeal to a universal human [...]

Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock Murdock muses that she writes in an effort to disentangle her voice from the grip of her mother's anger. I wonder as I read: would that be how her mother saw the relationship? My reflections are an effort to disentangle myself from the grip of the [...]

Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock I believe there are as many different truths as there are people to hold them, and likely even more than that, considering how we all grow and change over the years. Mine is in the process of being re-crafted, in fact — the master's program in [...]

Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock Fact can exist without human intelligence but truth cannot. – Toni Morrison For a piece of writing to be called a memoir it must include self-reflection. Without it, the recollection of an incident or incidents lacks depth and cannot lead to transformation. Like any good piece [...]

One of my housemates dragged me away from the computer to go get a pizza with him from Papa Murphy's — a "take it home and bake it" place that makes the best pizza in town. We ordered half the pizza to be what their menu called "Cowboy" style: pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, salami, and [...]

There was also a curious song with four female singers titled "Sending You A Little Christmas." I say curious because it was about being far away from the one(s) you love… and it had some war footage playing on the big screens behind the singers! I think it's nice to remember our armed forces out [...]