Books That Made Me: Catherine, Called Birdy

Hey everybody, we’re taking a break from SOPA this week to focus entirely on something different. Books!  Specifically, one of the books I’ve had on my shelf the longest. Which means this is the beginning of a new segment.

Welcome to Books that Made Me! This is a feature in which I’ll share my memories of a book I read as a kid, re-read that book, and see if it holds up as well as I remember.  We will start off with the book I have read the most times, and the only book I ever wrote in willingly before just to keep a tally of how many times I had read it.That book is Catherine, Called Birdy.

First, a little background history between me and Catherine. I was in the gifted program at my elementary school for students that were above a certain percentile for reading and spelling in my school. There were twelve of us in the course, I still remember all of their names, and we all moved up in the same class for three years until I was unable to stay in the program by 7^th grade.  We had this special shelf of books that were tougher than the normal 4^th grade level, and were encouraged to read as high a level as we felt we could understand to test up comprehension levels. By the end of 4^th grade, I had risen to the expected reading level of a freshman in high school, but I kept using the time in class to read one particular book over and over. There weren’t many fantasy books on the shelf, and even in a class full of highly intelligent kids I was still considered the nerd for reading them. I just fell in love with Catherine’s world, fell in love with her spirit, and imagined becoming a female knight so I could save her from Shaggy-Beard. It got to the point that when my mom asked me what I wanted for a present when I moved up to middle school that I dragged her to the bookstore and got my own copy. I started making tally marks for the times I read it outside of school, and never stopped.

For those who can't see all the tally marks, 71.

 This was the book that I read to comfort me when my Grandpa was dying, and when I was grieving for my uncle. It is one of the few books I bought for myself at that age that survived the Great Bookshelf Purge of Post-College, and probably the one book I will never give up. But is it good?

Catherine, Called Birdy is a Newbery Honor book written by Karen Cushman in 1994 based around the fictional life of Catherine Rollo, called Birdy for her wild streak, the fourteen year old daughter of a small lord in Medieval England. It’s written in the form of her diary, and clocks in at 205 pages. I remember that her uncle was a night, her brother became a priest, and I think she had one more, even older brother. She was the youngest of her family, the only girl, and a very strong, independent young woman.  In a way, Catherine may have been the first feminist character that I had ever read, and she stuck with me for a long time.

Karen Cushman also wrote one other book that I read growing up that is probably better known. A year after Catherine, Called Birdy was released and won a Newbery Honor, she released The Midwife’s Apprentice. That book actually won the Newbery Prize, and got more publicity and recognition as a result. However that one did not have nearly as large an impact on me, to the point I had actually forgotten until I was looking for the cover for this post and The Midwife’s Apprentice  cover was in the top results line.

Looking back, I remember learning the art of creative swearing from her, but not in the typical profanity sense. She used to combine God and a body part or something similar to come up with her curses, which of course were profane at that time and technically still blasphemous today.  I remember starting to take out my frustration by yelling out some religious figure’s name attached to a household object for at least a year, but I can’t remember any of my particularly good ones.

"Corpus Bones! I utterly loathe my life."

The style of the writing also affected me deeply, in a way I never realized until I started getting concerned with college. It’s probably surprising to hear that I was never good at writing in school until I was a junior in high school. I was absolutely terrible, and I could never constrain myself to what the teachers wanted. The whole five paragraph essay with five sentences in every paragraph and uncompromisingly rigid structure is the entire reason I was booted from the gifted program after middle school unlike the rest of my peers. I was always passable after that, but never exemplary. Then I got into a thematic English course, where the whole point was to be able to be creative with the texts and your own writing.  The first thing I did was write a paper in the style of a diary for one of the characters in the book Of Mice and Men.  I think the form of Catherine, Called Birdy influenced that choice as well, since it was one of the first books I read for school that I really connected with on a personal level. It made more sense to me in the long run to write what will tell your story  the best or get the information you want to share across in the most effective way than be constrained by the rules.

So now you know what I remember. How does it actually hold up now?

It didn’t take me too long to read again, with a total time of two hours of reading so it is much shorter than I remember it being. But the pacing still is as even as my memories and Catherine’s entries become longer and longer as she gets used to writing in a diary. I forgot that the original premise for writing the diary was so that her brother Edward (the priest) could see if writing would make her more observant and thoughtful of her world, but I think the answer in the end could be said as yes without giving too much away.

"11th Day of May, Feast of Saint Credan, who killed his father and in remorse became a hogherd and a saint. I wonder how he did it."

Catherine is definitely a feminist trying to buck against the will of her father and decide her own fate in life, which is admittedly much harder in her time period. For a time in which men and women were considered two completely different beings, she refused to be the submissive ideal and considered herself equal to those around her regardless of gender. There of course is the trials and tribulations of growing up and hitting puberty, but her main focus is being able to do what she wants and experience the world like a lot of modern girls today. I wouldn’t say she’s the best role model, but she’s certainly one of the more realistic ones.

I certainly forgot some of the characters. Catherine is in fact the youngest of four, with three older brothers that she respects, loves, and hates in that order. Her father was a landed knight, so was completely at the bottom of the lord hierarchy when I thought she was at least slightly higher born. I can’t believe I forgot Catherine’s best friend Perkin, and her governess/nurse Morwenna, or just exactly how much she talks about the hygiene of the time. It’s actually quite enlightening as to what the daily life of a slightly noble girl was like at the time down to some of the most mundane and basic details that most books not dedicated to the subject forget. There’s a section of an entry where she’s jealous over someone’s privy being built over a stream because it means it doesn’t have to be mucked out, the detail is so precise. It’s really quite impressive.

Does Catherine, Called Birdy hold up after all of these years? I believe it does surprisingly well for a book that’s now 20 years old. It got me interested in the medieval period, which led me to fantasy and sword fighting. It’s a great read for any kid who feels like an outcast in their own time, and an interesting source for research ideas and unique methods of storytelling.

I highly recommend it to parents with kids in the elementary to middle school range in particular, but it doesn’t talk down to its audience so it’s appropriate for everyone.

If you have any recommendations for future reading or questions about the book as a whole, feel free to comment or contact me at activelynerdy@gmail.com. Catherine, Called Birdy is published by Harper Collins Publishers Inc. and can be found in most local libraries or through your local bookstore.

The things that influence us make us what we are. Thank you for letting me share a special part of myself with you.

Plain English, Please? SOPA Part 2

Part 2: Savings, Severability, and Definitions

Welcome back to Plain English, Please?. We’re talking SOPA and we’re diving in head first. Let’s get started!

H.R. 3261 Section 2, Savings and Severability Clauses

I talked last time about what those two basically are, so now we can see some prime examples and hopefully talk about whether or not they were actually followed. 

Section 2 (a) Savings Clauses

(1)First amendment

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to impose a prior restraint on free speech or the press protected under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.

Plain English: This act is not meant to limit free speech or press in ways not listed in the first amendment.

Now we all know the clauses of the First Amendment, freedoms of religion, speech, press, expression, assembly and the like. Religion and assembly don’t really apply in SOPA and, but speech, press, and expression certainly do. It does clearly say things about free speech and press, but expression is oddly absent. Keep that in mind.

           (2)Title 17 liability

Nothing in title I shall be construed to enlarge or diminish liability, including vicarious or contributory liability, for any cause of action available under title 17, United States Code, including any limitations on liability under such title.

Plain English: Nothing within SOPA will change liability under Title 17 Sanctions for the United States Code.

Title 17 of the United States Code is copyright law, so this section also basically means that everything that is protected from copyright law or outlawed by it is still the same, and no extra punishments can be sanctioned for breaking Title 17. So if you get caught breaking copyright, it’s still the same offence and penalty.

(b)Severability

If any provision of this Act, or the application of the provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be unconstitutional, the other provisions or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

Plain English: If the courts say that parts of the bill are unconstitutional, that part can be cut out without repealing the entire law itself.

That part is pretty self explanatory, and it’s the end of section two. From this point onward, we’re into Title I of this act, and the most tedious section on top of that. We’re in to definitions.

Most of these we can skip over. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what their number 9, “including”, means. A lot of these are basic definitions of servers and domain names, all extended to more words than are really needed. An IP address was extended to “Domestic Internet Protocol Address”. But out of the 24 definitions, here are the difficult ones.

(10)Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator

The term Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator means the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator appointed under section 301 of the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 (15 U.S.C. 8111).

Plain English: This one I had to directly look up. Essentially the IPEC is a Congressionally appointed official who coordinates responses to IP theft. The coordinator can’t direct any law enforcement himself though, and is meant to form and lead an advisory committee within the President’s executive committee.

(15)Internet Protocol allocation entity

The term Internet Protocol allocation entity means, with respect to a particular Internet Protocol address, the entity, local internet registry, or regional internet registry to which the smallest applicable block of Internet Protocol addresses containing that address is allocated or assigned by a local internet registry, regional internet registry, or other Internet Protocol address allocation authority, according to the applicable publicly available database of allocations and assignments, if any.

Plain English: The person or thing that assigns IP addresses. Usually determined by dynamic host configuration protocol, which can be better explained by a computer scientist than me.

(18)Lanham Act

The term Lanham Act means the Act entitled An Act to provide for the registration and protection of trademarks used in commerce, to carry out the provisions of certain international conventions, and for other purposes, approved July 5, 1946 (commonly referred to as the Trademark Act of 1946 or the Lanham Act).

Plain English: The Lanham Act is the beginning and basis of trademark law in the United States. It’s supposed to ensure that trademarks are respected internationally.

(19)Nonauthoritative domain name server

The term nonauthoritative domain name server means a server that does not contain complete copies of domains but uses a cache file that is comprised of previous domain name server lookups, for which the server has received an authoritative response in the past.

Plain English: This part is a bit confusing, since I think there are multiple definitions for the term. But for the US government, a nonauthoritative domain name server seems to describe cached versions of a domains that a server has saved from previous searches. It’s sort of like how Google offers to pull up a cached copy if it can’t find your searched site again.

That’s all for this installment! Feel free to comment or discuss below, and if you have any requests for laws or court decisions for this segment don’t hesitate to email your request to activelynerdy@gmail.com.

Next Week:  The Attorney General, the Market, and Immunities.

And remember, it doesn’t matter what you get nerdy about, just as long as you’re active.

Plain English, Please? : SOPA

H.R. 3261: The "Stop Online Piracy Act"

Part 1: Getting Started

SOPA. Just the name of the bill is enough to send a chill down the spine of internet savvy individuals everywhere. It may not have been the first time that a bill like this was brought in front of Congress for a vote, but it was certainly the one we reacted to the loudest. But what does it actually say?

The complications of legal language are a pain to slog through, which means most people don’t actually read the laws that are being passed. Or at least the ones that try to be passed. Luckily, this one didn’t and luckily you have me.  But this one is long, clocking in at 77 pages. I promise not to be nearly as verbose.

Here’s how this segment is going to work. I’ll be as fair and unbiased as possible, but cut down the language to something simpler. Granted almost any language is simpler than legal text, and I admit I am just as human as everyone else so some bias is unavoidable.  I’ll go segment by segment, usually skipping the first section that tends to go something like this:

                Section 1. Short title; table of contents

(a)    Short title.---

This Act may be cited as something that won’t make our interns kill us when we make them type this up.

(b)   Table of contents.---

No really, this is an actual table of contents. Feel free to skip around as needed

There are also some sections that are unavoidable within Legislative bills in particular that we should go through first, or at least the terminology. Section one is always the least important of the entire bill, because it’s the title everyone uses and the table of contents but not much else.  Don’t be surprised if I skip straight to Section 2.

Section 2 gets more to the meat of things. The Savings and Severability Clauses. Savings clauses are meant to protect already engrained laws and sanctions from being restrained, particularly on Constitutional amendments. Never be surprised to see a 1^st, 14^th, or 17^th amendment savings clause in a bill. Whether or not the savings clauses are strictly adhered to is another discussion entirely. Severability clauses basically are admissions that they may not get every section constitutionally kosher the first time, and allow sections to be stricken down without the entire bill getting thrown out all together.

Section 2 is the end of the preliminary sections before it breaks up into Titles. The bulk of the bill and the important parts are in the titles, so that’s where I’ll be focusing the most time on and what will ultimately take the longest. There’s usually a section on definitions in the beginning of Title I, and some of those definitions come from other bills. I’ll do the legwork if they don’t do a direct definition in the text.

Other than that, welcome to the first in the Plain English, Please? Segment! Feel free to comment or discuss below, and if you have any requests for laws or court decisions for this segment don’t hesitate to email your request to activelynerdy@gmail.com.

Next Week:  Savings, Severability, and Definitions

And remember, it doesn’t matter what you get nerdy about, just as long as you’re active.

Lets Get Started

Welcome to Actively Nerdy. I’m Ren and I’ll be your tour guide through the recesses of my mind and interests.  For those of you who do not like political or feminist views mixed into your light reading, this is your chance to turn back. The same is true if you do not appreciate philosophical musings over movies, video games, comics, manga, graphic novels, books, and television shows. Otherwise, we should have a good time.

A little background, just for everyone to know just what they’re getting into. I’m a recent graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, and I majored in Politics and Government. My specialties were in the judicial system and I was particularly gifted at deciphering legal documents. Other notable traits are my D&D skills, love of Japanese RPGs, encyclopedic knowledge of characters in the Law and Order franchise, specialized experience in costuming techniques, love of Victorian and Renaissance fashions, and proficiency in medieval weaponry.  That last one is not an exaggeration. I was president of the campus’s medieval combat group and was active all four years of my tenure.  Oh, and my intense love and devotion for all things squirrel.  

My mind bounces around a lot, but here’s what to expect at the very least as repeat topics:

• ·         The [BLANK]s That Made Me     A look into the media that changed how I looked at the world from a young age,  and re-experiencing it now as a young adult to see if it aged well.  I’ll try to go chronologically, but sometimes that just doesn’t work out.
• ·         Plain English, Please?    If something important politically comes up, I know a lot of people don’t exactly know how to understand legalese. So I’ll translate. I’ll try and stay as unbiased as possible, while explaining the real world effects.
• ·         Political Player                 Political issues in modern gaming. Hopefully giving a perspective of the industry from someone caught in the middle of her love of games and politics.  Neither system is perfect, and there are so many ways to improve both.
• ·         Reviews               Entertainment may not always be influential, but still worth talking about. I don’t do rating scales, but I can recommend things.
• ·         Random Fiction                                I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons since high school. Sometimes the characters don’t want to leave their stories just at the table. The same goes for if I've been absorbed into the world of a book or game.  These may be a bit more sporadic, but it could be fun.

Of course, there will be other things I’ll write about, but these topics are sure to come up a lot. But I do have some surprises in the works that I hope you’ll all like.

It may take me a while to get into the best schedule, but expect posts on Wednesdays. I appreciate all feedback or recommendations for things to watch, read, or play. It may take me a while, but I’ll try to get to them all! Please feel free to leave comments, but I will not tolerate hatred or bile here. It should be a safe, open environment for everyone.

So if you’re still with me, welcome. Welcome to my mind, my passions, and my life. Things are going to get hectic in these next few months, and I’m never sure what is going to happen next. Life after college changes so fast. But I’m always willing to share.

This is Actively Nerdy. Let’s get active.