This Side Of Paradise, Part III -- June 9, 2015

Pardon the interruption: the wells coming off the confidential list have finally been posted. NDIC posted them early this morning, but I was delayed due to so many other things to do, this side of paradise.

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Demographics

I am posting this link now so it's not lost. I will come back to it later. StandardSpeaker is reporting this about Hazelton, PA:

According to the U.S. Census, Hispanics made up 5 percent of Hazleton’s population in 2000. By 2010, that number increased to 37 percent. 

Hazelton appears to be sort of out in the middle of nowhere, southeast of where Steve Carell used to call home.

Hazelton is 130 miles west of New York City.

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One Has To Ask The Question

Why Baltimore? Why Ferguson? Why NYC? Why Irving?

I'll get back to this later.

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This Side Of Paradise

My reading is back on track. I've "finished" the Theory of Everything, the memoir written by Jane Hawking. I haven't really finished reading it all and haven't decided whether I want to. I have come to that part of the book when Jane has just begun the separation process from Steven. It is a most pleasant moment, it seems, in the book, and I'm not sure I want to spoil the "feeling" I have for her, for Steven, for the book. So, we'll see. I suppose I will eventually finish it.

I finished the biography of Joseph Duveen by Meryle Secrest; Duveen was perhaps the most influential art dealer in history; his collection was eventually bought by Norton Simon, Pasadena. An excellent book. Unfortunately it ended without an epilogue. I was hoping there would have been an epilogue describing the sale to Norton Simon.

I finished Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I never thought I would read this book; indeed, I did not even know it existed until a few years ago, that's how "sheltered" I have been. It is really a very, very good book. Not one for high school students. I've talked about that before.

I began reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise at the very same time I started reading Dorian Gray. I enjoyed the latter much more and that's why I finished it first. I went back to Paradise and find it interesting enough to complete, but it's nothing special. I understand why it is important and why it is ranked so high by critics, but halfway through I don't find the book particularly special. I know I am wrong, and by the time I finish the book, I'm sure my feelings for the book will change.

The interesting thing is that I am eager to re-read (for the third time) Catcher in the Rye because of Paradise. For some reason, This Side of Paradise makes me think of Catcher in the Rye, and my hunch is that the latter will leave me more emotionally drained even after a third reading.

I'm also reading The Supreme City, a biography of New York City between 1926 and 1932. It's an incredible book for those interested in the history of New York City, but it seems a a bit dry. I can't decide if I like it or not. The nice thing, after reading the introduction and the first chapter, one can sort of skip around and read the chapters that one might be interested in.

Finally, my "serious" book for the next few weeks is Armand Marie Leroi's The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science. I started it some time ago and then set it down, but am starting over; my mind is prepared to read it this time. I have finished the first two chapters and find it delightful. Incredible. Awesome.

I am in Dubai this week. Not THE Dubai. More like Dubai-Lite, or perhaps, even better, Dubai-Like. It came as a complete (and wonderful) surprise. Our son-in-law signed our granddaughters up for a one-week "computer camp" at the beginning of a very, very busy summer.

Yesterday, was the first day of computer camp. My daughter drove; I tagged along so that I could help with taking them and picking them up during the week. It was a quick drive despite very, very heavy traffic around DFW on 360, 161, 183 and then Northgate Drive south of the airport in Irving, Texas.

We found the address with no difficulty, a somewhat large, somewhat non-descript white building on the edge of a residential development with a nice shopping mall on the south side. As my daughter pulled into the driveway she said it looked like a church. I said, "No, a mosque." I didn't really consciously think a "mosque" but with loose association that's how my mind works, I guess. The doors were locked; no one was there; we were twenty minutes early.

About ten minutes later a late-model SUV pulls up and out pile three women and a child. The three women appeared to have come directly out of Hollywood casting for a Mideast production.

It turns out the "school" is a STEM -- science, technology, engineering, math -- school run by and founded by a Muslim woman. Her staff appears to be entirely Muslim women except for the teachers which appear to have whatever background is necessary for a successful STEM school.

The staff was incredibly friendly and welcoming. I spent just a few minutes with them yesterday but had more time today. I drove the girls myself while their mother stayed home with the baby and studied on-line. (She is enrolled in an advanced nursing degree program out of Chicago, IL.)

The STEM school was founded one year ago. They had hoped for 25 students. I assumed the school was oversubscribed and I was correct. This past year, the first year, they had 76 students at the beginning and by the end, about 118. They are expanding and will have upwards of 125 or so next year; their capacity is limited by facility space. In a metroplex like DFW, I'm sure there is no difficulty finding capable staff for STEM.

I am learning my Muslim headwear. Most of the women had simple (and colorful) hijabs. It is the most common headscarf seen in the UK and probably in the US. It covers the head and neck but leaves the face clear. I saw one woman in a niqab: this covers the woman's entire face except for her eyes. I saw no one wearing a burqa. It turns out that in the UK, the terms burqa and niqab are often incorrectly used interchangeably. The niqab covers the face while the burqa covers the whole body from the top of the head to the ground. It is the most concealing of all Islamic veils, covering the entire face, including the eyes (with a mesh cloth to see through) and the body. Source here.

All the women on staff wore abayas or dresses commonly associated with Islamic women.

I spoke with one of the woman on staff; middle-aged, and by her diction, vocabulary, and subject matter, was obviously very, very well educated, very worldly, and very, very well-off, but probably living an upper-middle class lifestyle. When I mentioned my time in Turkey, eastern Turkey to be exact, she said that she had been in Turkey once, enjoyed it, but really enjoyed Spain. Southern Spain was what she enjoyed most in her travels.

It turns out she is a "trivia" nut, loves to play "trivia games." That is also true of my wife; I told her I would bring my wife to introduce the two of them tomorrow. Hopefully that works out.

I would have loved to have continued the discussion but she had work to do.

At a linked article at the top of the page, there is a story about the demographics of Hazelton, PA, reporting a huge shift in ethnicity. It's a challenge to find statistics on religion but one source suggests that of the 230,000 people living in Irving, TX, up to 40,000 are Muslim (17%). Of "notable" mosques in the US, only three are listed for the state of Texas; one of them --- and it is huge and growing -- is located in Irving. In the 2010 census, about 40% of Irving residents were Hispanic.

My hunch is that the demographics will change significantly by the 2020 census, just as the demographics shifted significantly for Hazelton, PA.