General Updates

      I've been taking the California Achiement Test today. Apparently the achievement level in California is not very high--but at least the test should ensure that high school graduates are able to reach a fourth-grade level in grammar.
        On to a more interesting subject. Yesterday I was in a grocery store, looking at the health food section. It was pretty boring, for the most part--rows of shelves and price tags. But under one package of spaghetti, instead of a price tag, there was a sign which read, "Rule of Thumb Section." Misplaced instructions to employees, perhaps? Or the pricing of the item is to be determined by rule of thumb. . . who knows.
        Well, on to a really interesting subject. I've been taking online literature courses from CenterForLit for a couple years now. Various courses are offered, all based on Socratic discussions of literary works which students are expected to read beforehand. Yesterday I took part in a class discussing selections from Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales." I was required to read the General Prologue, the Pardoner's Tale, and the Nun's Priest's Tale, which I did in Middle English. I was surprised to find that written Middle English really isn't too different from modern English: most words are readily understandable. But it seems that the pronunciation was very different. I have tried to teach myself to pronounce it, but I'm not sure that I'm doing it correctly.
     I also saw a Scarlet Tanager today. I'm ashamed to admit that one of my sisters found it before I did, but it was still a gorgeous sight.
      Now for your daily dose of commentary on world events: Baghdad, it seems, is in trouble. The Islamic State has once again launched a wave of bombings, and the Iraqi Security Forces seem powerless to stop them. On the other, ISIS has lost considerable territory in Anbar in recent days. Iraqi forces have mad rapid advances. What we're seeing here is an inevitable shift in tactics from ISIS: as the Islamic State loses control of territory, it will morph, once again, into an insurgency using guerilla tactics. In this guise it is likely to be much more dangerous to civilians than before. Indeed, it is probably a mistake to think that weakening ISIS's ability to assert territorial control will inevitably weaken the threat it poses.