Life Barrels on like a Runaway Train

This blog has been tabled

2011-08-22T14:25:00.000-04:00

For the time being, this blog has been tabled. As far as I can tell (though perhaps I am a tree), I have used this blog to write my own longer passages or share others' passages that I enjoy. Tumblr (my little blog) has taken the place of all short and medium length posts. The only thing left are longer posts of my own, and I have created a new way to present those.

I came up with the idea years ago (and by, "I came up with" I am pretty sure Facecat told me about someone else doing this) to collect my favorite bits of writing throughout my college years and put them into a little collection. I didn't do that before I graduated, because school is quite distracting. But I am attempting to do such a thing. I found a fantastic book package for LaTeX in the style that Edward Tufte is known for. I'll post a copy after I get a few more things in there.

I doubt I will update this blog again.

Black Swan

2011-01-01T02:00:00.001-05:00

A review of the film written while the movie plays (twice).
Awful spoilers to be sure.

* * *
Doubt, mistrust of one's own mind. A woman betrayed.
A transformation.
I felt as though the film swept me in and out of reality. I hardly needed my eyes, and closed them often. I found the tactile sensations too much to bear. Portman cries and breaks down, skin tears, Ryder stabs herself, my heart races, and I feel sick. The paintings on the wall cry out. Her legs break. The feathers come. The music, the screams overwhelm me.

I don't know what is real anymore. I can't tell. I hear the music. . .

I know this movie messed with my head because I have always thought bodies and ballet to be so beautiful. Not something seen, but felt. Erotic, but never sexual. I watch bodies move and see them slower than life, like every move leaves a trail in the air, and I feel them through my eyes. My muscles tense, my breathe is heavy.

But not at the end of this film. My mind was too preoccupied. The beauty was lost in the perfection and the madness. I couldn't feel anything, and I could only cry. I am left alone with my tears, the music mocks me with pity.

* * *
Quite a trip, no?

I can't believe that is all I have to show for watching it twice. There is no way I am watching any part of it again tonight.

I haven't had such a jarring emotional swing in a LONG time. That movie was far to intense to experience alone. I am glad I am feeling especially empowered tonight.
What a ride.

A Purpose for Disaster

2010-11-17T14:04:00.000-05:00

Did you know that DNA Polymerase both catalyzes the synthesis of DNA molecules and repairs strands? I know! How interesting! Does this fact play into your life at all? What about if 99% of the world's population died?

That was the thought that struck me as my professors monotonous voice droned on through the lecture. What knowledge would be important if I were one of the few people left on this planet? So I started making a list:

Know how to find food at any time of the year
Know how to grow food at any time of the year
Know how to build a very well insulated shelter both in the wilderness and in the city
Know how to deliver and raise a child
Make a list of potential natural disasters in your area and have plans for how to survive each
Know how to produce energy
Make hard copies of survival information in case you can't recover electronic data
Invest in very secure, very durable electronic data storage
Know how to repair said data storage
Know how to communicate across long distances
Know how to speak a few phrases (greetings, locations, etc.) very well in a number of widely spoken languages.
Know how to set up automatic communication recordings so people can pick up the information
Know common diseases and how to survive them
Know plant and animal diseases and how to cure/avoid them
Know how to not go insane when alone for an extended period of time.

My Momma

2010-10-20T23:44:00.000-04:00

You may remember a letter I wrote to my mom the other year when I went to the National Equality March.

Well, I got a message from her this morning. She is working with a few people to start a PFLAG chapter in Saline, conservative as hell, MI. (She also came out and gave two rousing speeches at the SAS board of education meeting.)

I love you, mama.

A Tweet of Insight

2010-09-11T20:56:00.000-04:00

I was walking home with a sandwich in hand when I suddenly started contemplating how people tweet. Since I started using twitter, it has always been a restricted blog. It was a way to cram as much information as possible into a 140 character dose, like a blog reduction. I am not alone in this venture. I have seen stories, recipes, and general life updates. These types of posts are the "microblogs." These are great for the lazy blog readers. In three minutes, I can catch up on everything that happened in the past week.
What I realized today is that Twitter is an excellent opportunity to practice simplicity. The 140 character limit isn't a restriction within which I need to force the account of my day. Instead, it is a challenge to write whatever I want to say in the simplest form. My new goal is to practice simplicity when I tweet. . . at least some of the time.

You Gotta Give 'em Hope.

2010-09-02T13:43:00.000-04:00

As you know, I dearly love This American Life. I love it so much that I keep episodes and listen to them over and over again. So much that I enrolled in a minicourse on the Audio Essay. Well, I'm listening to episode #178: Superpowers, and this particular quote struck me:

"Typically, this is how it goes. People who turn invisible sneak into the movies or onto airplanes, people who fly stop taking the bus. Here is one thing pretty much no one ever says, 'I would use my power to fight crime.' No one seems to care about crime..."
"...Going-to-Paris man is not a superhero, and I have to say this drove me crazy a little bit, we are, after all, talking about super powers. Why not take down organized crime, bring hope to the hopeless, swear vengeance on the underworld, if only a little bit?"

Do we really need superpowers to inspire hope? I think not. Hope is a funny thing. Now I'm no philosopher, linguist, or sociologist; but I think hope is simply our belief that something will be the way we want it to be. Kind of like wishing, but hope has a little more wiggle room. When you wish for something, you are usually pretty specific, "I wish I had a bit more money," or "I wish things didn't turn out like this," or even, "Do you think we will make it to the top? ...I wish."

Hope, in a way, prepares you for disappointment, but gives you that little bit of light inside. "Oh, I hope so!" has a much lighter feeling than "I wish." People inspire hope, desire generates wishes. Hope gives you the strength to continue, wishing makes you realize where you are. "You cannot live on hope alone, but, without it, life is not worth living."

Go give some hope out today.

Some humor long overdue

2010-08-29T23:14:00.000-04:00

One of these days, I will transcribe some of my favorite sketches from I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again. Until then, enjoy this one I stole from wikipedia:

Transcript of "Murder on the 3.17 to Cleethorpes" (March 1970).

'Cliff Hanger-Ending' of the British secret service has been asked to take secret documents to Cleethorpes. He arrives at the station.
Cliff Hanger-Ending (Hatch): I decided to go by that famous train, the 3.17 to Cleethorpes. Whenever its name was mentioned, men whispered of danger and excitement.
Crowd: danger and excitement, danger and excitement etc.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: I went to the ticket office and tapped on the shutter
Tap Tap Tap
Ticket office operator (Oddie): G'morning sir, can I help you?
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Yes
Ticket office operator: Wrong, Ha-
Shutter slams shut
Knocks again
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Look here, I want a return ticket
Ticket office operator: Where to?
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Back here, of course
Ticket office operator: Congratulations, sir, you're the one millionth passenger to have cracked that joke, you can have the ticket free.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Thank you very much. I'm going to Cleethorpes
Ticket office operator: Well, in that case, your train will be the 3.17 to Cleethorpes.
Crowd: danger and excitement, danger and excitement etc.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: And what time does it arrive?
Ticket office operator: Well it gets in at exactly, on the dot, precisely, 7.59 and 3.8 seconds. Give or take a couple of weeks.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Is there a buffet car on the train?
Ticket office operator: Oh, Yes sir, Yes sir, Yes sir. British Rail guarantee that there is definitely and certainly a buffet car on the train. On the train there is bound to be, without a shadow of a doubt, positively and without fail, unquestionably and absolutely, a buffet car... I should take sandwiches just in case.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: And what platform does it leave from?
Ticket office operator: Get lost
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Now look here my little man, you have been consistently surly, unhelpful, obstreperous and downright rude.
Ticket office operator: Well that's what I’m here for, just doing my job.
Interjection: Oh, is that it?
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Well, I'd better get a porter to help me. I say, Porter!
Porter (Brooke-Taylor): And I say potato.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: I say, you there
Porter: And I say potato.
Cliff Hanger-Ending (Angry): Porter!
Porter: Potato!
Cliff Hanger-Ending: You there!
Porter: Potato!
Cliff Hanger-Ending and Porter (singing): Let's call the whole thing off!
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Now look, that's just silly. Are you a porter?
Porter: Yes, guv, I am guv, thank you guv, thank you very much, guv.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Well, carry my suitcase to the 3.17 to Cleethorpes.
Porter: You must be joking, guv'nor, cheerio, I'm off.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Oh dear, only two minutes to go and I still don't know where to get on the 3.17 to Cleethorpes.
Crowd: danger and excitement, danger and excitement etc.
Tannoy (Kendall): The next train to arrive at platform two will be Stephenson's Rocket. We apologise for the delay to the surviving passengers. Also delayed is the 2.25 to Hull. It will be leaving at 2.26, tomorrow. Or the day after. Perhaps not at all. It just depends how we feel, and don't you forget it.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: Well, perhaps they'll have some information about my train.
Tannoy: Not if we can help it. Here is an important announcement. The 2.50 to the West Country will not now be stopping at Land's End (note: Land's End is the most westerly point in Cornwall). The train standing at platform 5 is the 2.31 to Glasgow. Passengers will have to change at Crewe as the seats are extremely dirty. And now, British Rail wish to announce the following important joke. The train now standing at platforms 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 has come in sideways.
Interjection: That is a very, very old joke.
Tannoy: We apologise for the late arrival of the last joke.
Cliff Hanger-Ending: And soon, at last, I was soon aboard the 3.17 to Cleethorpes (Danger&Excitement), carrying those important secret documents.
Interjection: Oh, come on! Everyone's forgotten about the plot by now. You've spent so much time on cheap jokes at the expense of British Rail.
Tannoy: British Rail apologise for the delay in the development of the plot.
Train leaves

Food: Good vs Bad

2010-06-03T20:54:00.000-04:00

I have a dilemma. I like when people ask me about the nutritional contents of food and the kind of diet one should maintain to be a healthy person. That is not what people ask. People, take my mom for example, will ask, "Is this particular food good for you?" I always try to provide some kind of answer first. If the question is, "Is tofu good for you?" I might start by saying that tofu is made from a vegetable (which means nothing considering everything from show polish to cups can be made using vegetables), and that soybeans and tofu are often good sources of complete vegetable protein. I then try to get the interrogator to think about what it means for a food to be good or bad.

What does it mean for a food to be "good" for you?
Well, it must be a food that extends or enriches our lives in some way. However, there are now easy answers. No single food has everything that we need, what is worse, we don't even know all of the things we need to consume to lead happy, healthy lives (we think we do, but we don't). So far, a "good" food is one that has some chemical or substance that discourages a visit from the skinny fellow with the scythe. We must now ask the question, "Is any food that has at least some life preserving property considered good for us?" Probably not. An item that is filled with whey and calcium sounds like it could be a pretty healthy bone builder...until you realize it is Easy Cheese (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/start.html?pg=4).

Obviously, a "good" food is one that is more live preserving chemicals than life stealing chemicals. That means vitamins must be amazing! Wrong again. One can't live entirely on vitamins alone, we need carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. But wait, aren't those bad or something? No. We are just confused, and I haven't even begun to talk about the social aspects of food (for example eating regularly with the family often leads to better students http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1200760,00.html). That isn't a good source, but it just goes to show that food most definitely has a social aspect.

It's pretty clear to me that in the government's attempts to give health advice, big business's attempts to sell their products, big science's attempt to be right, and a handful or people's attempts to get rich (cough*Atkins*cough), the true meaning of "good" food has been completely lost. So next time you ask me whether bread or beans or nut bars or whatever is "good" for you. You know why my response is delayed: I think about everything I just wrote (and more) before I tell you that, "it is made from vegetables."

Grand Poject Idea

2010-04-22T12:53:00.000-04:00

Brian and I want to make a grand project for next year and one of the ideas we had was to have a problem solving competition. The competition would be like a hybrid of Odyssey of the Mind and Science Olympiad-- teams of students would work together to solve problems. Teams would consist of students from different areas of study and knowledge bases. The problems they would solve would be crafted by university faculty or other students and would require knowledge of a variety of subjects to solve. Teams might be given a month to solve the problems and would come together to show off their solutions to a panel of judges who would determine a winner or something.

We need to talk...

2009-10-18T18:03:00.003-04:00

This is a break-up letter I found the other day. I've been thinking about it a lot, and had I been around for the writing, I would have signed my name at the bottom in approval. I lifted it from this page in its entirety.

The Generation M Manifesto

8:01 AM Wednesday July 8, 2009

Tags:Economy, Generational issues, Global business

Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.

You wanted big, fat, lazy "business." We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.

You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks.

You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs. We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.

You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today's markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.

You didn't care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.

You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff thatmatters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We're not for sale: we're learning to once again do what is meaningful.

There's a tectonic shift rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. The last two points above are what express it most concisely. I hate labels, but I'm going to employ a flawed, imperfect one: Generation "M."

What do the "M"s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It's a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth "M"s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who's Gen M?Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Gen M isn't just kind of awesome — it's vitally necessary. If you think the "M"s sound idealistic, think again.

The great crisis isn't going away, changing, or "morphing." It's the same old crisis — and it's growing.

You've failed to recognize it for what it really is. It is, as I've repeatedly pointed out, in our institutions: the rules by which our economy is organized.

But they're your institutions, not ours. You made them — and they're broken. Here's what I mean:

"... For example, the auto industry has cut back production so far that inventories have begun to shrink — even in the face of historically weak demand for motor vehicles. As the economy stabilizes, just slowing the pace of this inventory shrinkage will boost gross domestic product, or GDP, which is the nation's total output of goods and services."

Clearing the backlog of SUVs built on 30-year-old technology is going to pump up GDP? So what? There couldn't be a clearer example of why GDP is a totally flawed concept, an obsolete institution. We don't need more land yachts clogging our roads: we need a 21st Century auto industry.

I was (kind of) kidding about seceding before. Here's what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday's profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century - or the 21st?

Love,

Umair and the Edge Economy Community"

A letter to my mom

2009-10-12T17:27:00.001-04:00

This is the email I wrote to my mother when she asked about the National Equality March this weekend.

Hi Mom!

I had a really great time. I am a little sick now which is no good. I have a yucky lung cough, but not a fever, so I don't know what to call it. I felt pretty bad during the march (not much food, it was hot, lots of marching), but I feel much better now (but not well yet). The trip was so exciting! One Saturday, I went through one of the smithsonian museums, and then joined a "flash" protest against Don't Ask Don't Tell. I don't know why they called it a flash protest, because "flash" usually refers to something that only takes a few minutes. This protest took a few hours, and was very long and tiring. Afterward, I went back to the hotel and relaxed. The actual National March for Equality was on Sunday. There were 150,000 to 250,000 people there marching! It was incredible. I marched past the whitehouse on the way to the capitol.

I have to think that being out and going to the white house and fighting for my rights as an American and as a human being makes a difference. If I don't believe that, then I might as well pack up and leave. Even though we haven't seen the change President Obama has promised, we are getting closer. On the night before the march, the President announced that he was with us, and that he is working on repealing don't ask don't tell. While I don't believe in war, I do believe in justice and equality for all, and that means fighting for the kind of country where anyone can do what they aspire to do, even if I disagree with them and even if it doesn't affect me. While I can always wish that more people would contact their legislators, I am the only person I hold myself accountable for, and I gave up my weekend to go to Washington D.C.

Love,

Boy

National March for Equality

2009-10-10T10:53:00.002-04:00

Think about me. Think about the kinds of things I like and the things I am interested in. Now imagine a restaurant perfectly tailored to me and those things. That is where I am right now. The restaurant is called Busboys and Poets, and it is basically the most hippie restaurant I have been to. Check out their website here.

We have been in DC for about three hours and we have done plenty of walking, visited two Starbucks, and found the fairtrade/wage/everything restaurant.

The plan for the day is to eat, hit up the Smithsonian, and then try to go to one of the many National Equality March events that are happening before the actual march tomorrow. NEM events can be found here.

Enough reading. Look at some pictures!

MBLGTACC

2009-09-25T15:42:00.004-04:00

Last night, I headed up to the third floor of the Union for the M-PAW meeting, and I left feeling charged. M-PAW is the central planning team for the 2012 MBLGTACC at U of M. We covered the things you expect to cover at the first meeting for a conference that we have never hosted, until Mitch suggested that we share our visions. He said that we should just say what we think about when we think of the conference. Mitch's vision was of himself standing with a clipboard, directing people. My vision was of 2000 people who physically come together, although they have been digitally connected since the end of the 2011 conference.

My vision for the conference is visibility and transparency. I see the CPT blogging about what they are doing to prepare the conference. I see vlogs, blogs, tweets, texts, promotion videos, and photo streams. I see web cams and live blogs, revolutionary workshops, and youtube celebrities. I see digital maps, iphone friendly websites, and intuitively found information. I see the

conference as an opportunity to use the cool technology that has been created.

So, yeah. I see a lot of things. In anticipation of Wisconsin's conference, I present to you, their website!

Statement

2009-09-20T01:01:00.003-04:00

This is another of my favorites from This American Life. It also happens to come from the same episode as "Up Where the Air is Clear".
Note from the editor: As you can read in the comments, this work is called "Title" and was written by Greg Allen in 1989 and is part of the show "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind Blind." As is any work that is penned anywhere (in the US at least), this is copyrighted material, so don't go thinking I am the creative genius behind it.

The following script was transcribed by myself from the audio of the short as performed by the Neofuturists on This American Life Episode 241.

"Title"

Person 1: Statement. Statement. Statement. Question?

Person 2: Agreement.

P1: Reassured statement. Confident statement. Overconfident statement.

P2: Question?

P1: Elaborate defensive excuse.

P2: Half-hearted agreement

P1: Insecure statement. Distracted statement. Absurd statement.

P2: Clarification question?

P1: Panicked bullshit explanation! Quick meaninless comic non-sequiter

P2: [laughter]

P1: [laughter] haha, fake laughter, haha, fake laughter

P1: Accidental compliment of physical characteristics.

P2: Pleased response.

P1: Shocked continuation of meanililess comic non-sequiter.

P2: [laughter]

P1: haha, relief laughter, haha.

P2: Superficial compliment.

P1: Self-assured agreement as denial.

P1: Exagerated statement. Exagerated statement. Grossly exagerated statement.

P2: Clarification question?

P1: Extremely exagerated elusidation.

P2: Mental compliment with accidental double entendre.

P1: hohoho, confident laughter, haha.

P2: Embarassed laughter, haha.

P1: Confident suggestive proposition.

P2: Violent denial!

P1: Aghast repetition as question.

P2: Disgusted, violent denial!

P1: Defensive incriminating implication.

P2: Offended retort.

P1: Aggressive childish insult.

P2: Disbeleiving retorical question?

P1: Aggressive childish insult.

P2: Stunned silence.

P1: Aggressive childish insult!

P2: Defensive childish response!

P1: Aggressive childish insult!

P2: Defensive childish response!

P1: Aggressive childish insult!

P2: Defensive childish response!

P1: Attempted condescending conclusive statement!

P2: Brilliant scathing remark with iterary allusion and longterm devestating scatalogical implications.

P1: Pathetic self revelation.

Check them out at Neofuturists.org; And of course, check out This American Life here.

A favorite story

2009-07-29T01:57:00.006-04:00

This is one of my favorite stories. I heard it this past December on This American Life's repeat episode of "20 Acts in 60 Minutes" from 2003. I love it so much, I transcribed it for your viewing pleasure. You can listen to the episode online for free; the story starts around 17:50.

Up Where the Air is Clear
by Jonathon Goldstein

Before he ever moved to Gotham city, before he grew into the overweight obsessive sad sack of his later years, The Penguin was a poet and a dandy, who lived in London. He wrote complex villignelles and threw lavish dinner parties at which he only became more charming the more he drank. He wore a monocle, a top hat, and carried an umbrella. One evening at one of his dinner parties, after hours spent sipping absinthe, The Penguin ran up to the roof of his building, opened up his large black umbrella, and leapt off into the air. As he coasted to the ground, he hollered out lines from Blake...stuff about grabbing life by the fat of its stomach, and giving it a twist. He was that crazy. He was that bursting with life.

From that night on, he made it his habit to jump off roofs ever higher, while clutching an umbrella. After a while, he got pretty good at it too. He saw that by kicking his legs and twisting his back a certain way, he could actually prolong his flight, coasting all over the place, sometimes only landing after several daring minutes aloft.

It came to pass that The Penguin started hearing more and more about a certain nanny named Mary Poppins. She too, he was told, had been floating around London hanging from an umbrella handle. Everywhere he went, The Penguin kept hearing about her. How it was simply insane that they had not met each other yet. So finally, a dinner party was arranged by someone who knew them both; and on the evening of the party, The Penguin walked into the drawing room, saw Mary Poppins on the divan, doffed his top hat, and bowed low as was his style in those days.

He'd planned a few things to say and do when first meeting Mary Poppins. He thought he might lift up his umbrella as though challenging her to a duel. He imagined she would smile, and take up her own frilly, perhaps pink, umbrella; and then, together they would dance about the room, leaping over furniture, parrying and thrusting, perhaps even winding things up breathing heavily nose to nose.

Instead what happened,was The Penguin became very shy and quiet. As he stood there staring at her, his top hat felt needlessly clumsy, his monocle too small for his face, and the squinting needed to keep it in place was giving him a slight headache. For the first time in his life, The Penguin felt ludicrous.

"I imagine you two must have an infinite amount of things to speak of," said their host as he sat them together at the dinner table. The Penguin nodded uncertainly.

After three or four minutes, it became clear that The Penguin and Mary Poppins had absolutely nothing to say to one another that did not deal exclusively with umbrella travel--getting stuck in trees, the shoulder aches, anxiety about tipping over in the wind. Everyone at the table just sat there, staring at them expectantly, which made the whole thing even more awkward.

Trying to move things along, Mary Poppins asked The Penguin if he liked to sing, to which The penguin responded, "only when I'm drunk." Then she asked if he enjoyed children to which he replied, "yes. In a sweet wine sauce."

The Penguin then asked Mary Poppins how she kept people from looking up her skirt when she flew. She smiled politely, then turned to the man on her left, and asked him how he was enjoying the lamb. The man on her left was wearing an elegant, aristocratic cape. Mary, a bit drunk on the sherry, noted that if he spread his cape out, he might be able to glide about like a bat. The man on her left chuckled, and suggested that after dinner they head up to the roof and give it a try. Which they did.

Stressed about love, school, or evil wizards? Grab a pint.

2009-07-28T11:44:00.005-04:00

I just read the article Harry Potter and the Pint of Liquid Courage by Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times and, while I was quite amused at the title, I was unimpressed by the article itself. Actually, I think it is a decent article that isn't very biased...a good piece of journalism; however, I think one sided arguments are more fun, so here is my take on the issue:

Not having seen the most recent of the magical cash-crop movies, I am not in a position to confirm or deny the amounts of drinking that occur in the film. It is to my benefit that all of the people the Parker-Pope interviewed seemed to acknowledge that alcohol had a noticeable role in the movie.

It has long been known that advertising (which I am going to extend to the use of certain products in popular media) does not have a direct, immediate, and powerful effect. This idea, known among media officials and undergraduates who take a communications 101 class (me), is called the hypodermic needle model. I do think that popular media, especially when directed at teens, has a powerful effect on some, but not necessarily direct or immediate. For me, it is an emotional connection. Of course I know that HP isn't real. I also know that those teen's troublesome situations are quite different from mine, and that the solutions to those situations and stresses should also be different. But stress is stress, and it seems like a little booze worked well for them, so why not give it a try?

I don't want to say that this is how it is for everyone, or that it is that bad of a thing. The acceptability of drinking alcohol and the definitions of alcoholism are socially relative*. So, in a way, this movie is simply helping acquaint the young with acceptable social standards. In this light, I think the role of alcohol makes much more sense. In many European nations, England especially, alcohol is a strong part of the culture, and there is little taboo about drinking if you are younger than legal buying age.

This idea reinforces my belief that popular media has a responsibility to promote social norms. I wrote an article about it in 2007, and I would like to warn about a few things you before you read it: 1) It involves a strong dose of Battlestar Galactica. I am a nerd. 2) It is political and annoyingly leftist. Don't judge. 3) It is written in a silly format. Again, don't judge.

Assuming you have at least skimmed that article, I will continue. For all I know, everything I see in the media is the result of extensive debate, a lot of thought has gone into it to ensure brainwashing, and great care has been taken to make sure that the viewers know that the black character dies first, the gay man has a lisp, the lesbian woman wears flannel, biracial and transgendered people don't exist, anyone from a country in, near or around the Middle East is a terrorist; and immigrants are all terrible people who steal jobs only because they can. If this is the case, I would be pretty sad. More likely, these stereotypical representations are what the majority of media watchers expect to see, so they are used to bolster viewership. Mass media is catered to the masses. In the case of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 16 year olds grabbing a pint to wind down after their run-ins with evil wizards is a typical response in Europe, but is surely not something that any of the pure youth of the USA would do.

*What I mean by this is that the limits for drinking are social standards, until it is life threatening, and even then, I think that if that was the norm in a culture it would be socially acceptable. Our society is adverse to drinking "too much" and drinking if one is "too young".

Life Update: Summer is coming to a close

2009-07-26T20:45:00.004-04:00

Living in Portland for the summer has given me a wonderful opportunity to relax, rejuvenate, and reflect; and with one week to go, I have a few thoughts.

One is that I have yet to find an area of study that reaches out and grabs me. But instead of waiting for it to appear, I should choose to pursue something I am mildly interested in, at least. While out running the other day, I realized that I have at least a mild interest in food science. I have really enjoyed human physiology, health, and the books I have read on food, food systems, the food industry, and global issues around food. Add to this the increasing importance that food science is going to have as the human race expands, as people realize that we have yet to solve world hunger, and as we potentially lose arable land to climate change. I am going to stick with the Bio major and Peace and Social Justice minor, while I start looking at my options for post graduation.

Another thought I have had is that I have done a pretty good job of developing diligence over the summer. I am glad to have the time to develop this much needed quality, the lack of which cost me in GPA last year. In order to start the semester right, I will be fasting for Ramadan. I made the decision when I received an email from my hall director asking who was fasting for Ramadan so we could be accommodated for during training. The thought of fasting had crossed my mind a few months back, but this time, it was serious. After some thought and a chat with one of my housemates--She has celebrated Ramadan for a few years, but does not identify as Muslim-- I replied to the message. I decided that fasting for Ramadan would be a good way to do several things including being an ally for the Muslim community, improving my self control, and carrying the things I have learned and developed this summer back to Ann Arbor. Apart from those personal reasons, I also agree with what Ramadan is about: recognition of, solidarity with, and aid to the less fortunate; purification, which I interpret as breaking bad habits and minimizing bad thoughts; and forgiveness. All in all, I see these good reasons to fast. To clarify, I am not spiritual or religious in the least. But I can respect the good things that are done in the name and spirit of religions, and I think I can learn some powerful personal lessons through this experience.

That is all of the big news I have for now. I'll be back in AA soon, and I can't wait to see everyone again.

We Are SO Over Space

2009-07-09T21:20:00.008-04:00

I was reading The World is Flat today I took interest in a particular passage. According to Friedman, fewer and fewer Americans are entering the scientific workforce.

Dirty little secret number one is that the generation of scientists and engineers who were motivated to go into science by the threat of Sputnik in 1957 and the inspiration of JFK are reaching their retirement years and are not being replaced in the numbers that they must be if an advanced economy like that of the United States is to remain at the head of the pack.

I thought, perhaps it is not that America's production of communist fearing scientists is slowing, but that the global interests in science have changed and the American education system is lagging behind. ₁

The Space Race and the First Cold War were immediate incentives to steer young students toward the sciences. This generation of young scientists interested in space technology and nuclear physics had profound effects on the United States and its workforce. As Friedman points out, however, something has changed over the years. Let's first compare what students are being taught and why.

To start, we take a look at what public schools are required to teach by the federal government. Wait a minute. . . there aren't any national requirements. It turns out that the curricula of the US education system is largely determined by school boards in each state and district, so instead of looking at the curriculum of each district, let's think about what schools across the nation are preparing students for. I would think that the majority of public schools are trying to prepare students to continue education at a college or university, and most public colleges and universities require some kind of standardized test score to be considered. It follows that schools must prepare students for these standardized tests that are required if students are to continue their educations. Two widely used standardized exams are the SAT and ACT. The SAT assesses reading and mathematics, as well as the recent addition of writing². The ACT assesses English, Math, Reading, and Science (in order of the number of questions on the exam), as well as an optional section in writing³.

At this time, I would like to point out that having gone to a public school in a wealthy neighborhood, I am have a bias about the kinds of things taught in public schools across the nation. Without the will to research this aspect of education in our country, I merely point out the fact that I am covering issues in the US educational system that I have experienced and heard about at length.

About 50 years ago, the US education system was transformed by the 1958 National Defense Education Act. At east, that was the plan. The act "provided support" for the development of foreign language, mathematics, and science programs in primary and secondary education⁴. Presently, the necessity of a degree from a higher education institution encourages primary and secondary schools to teach certain information, mainly reading, math, science, and writing. Evidently, it is not the subject matter being taught in schools that has changed since the 1950s.

What has changed is the reason these subjects are being taught, and I think it is about time for another change.

1.Friedman, T. L. (2007). The World is Flat (3rd ed., p. 343). New York: Picador.
2.http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/about/SATI.html
3.http://www.act.org/news/aapfacts.html
4.http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html

My Sad Morning News Round-Up I

2009-07-04T10:54:00.010-04:00

This post is not a round up of sad news, as you might expect. Rather, it is a summary of various articles that lead me to believe there is no hope for the future (similar to Slap Upside the Head's occasional Pile O' Slaps). The topic for this round-up is food and agriculture from Wired! (Note: While these articles date back a few months, they were all on the first page of Wired articles tagged with agriculture.

In a development with potentially profound implications for agriculture, just three genetic mutations could change the way most crop plants reproduce....In a study published Monday in Public Library of Science Biology, French biologists found that this form of reproduction is linked to a gene mutation that stops sex cell division after the first parent cell split. When they added this and two other meiosis-regulating mutations to A. thaliana, the plant produced genetically matched pollen and ova through mitosis rather than meiosis. [Brandon Keim. June 09, 2009. Link]

Once again, the farming and agribusiness community is interested in monocropping. Not only monocropping, but should this work, cloning. If this breakthrough makes it, we will be able to take our relationship with seed corporations to the next level! "Yes, Mansanto, we are ready to upgrade from seasonal subscriptions with terminator seeds to a lifetime membership! Dear people of the world: science is good and can help us understand food better, but it is becoming increasingly evident that human economy and food do not play well with each other. Agricultural science is drafting the essence of our survival into the irrational and uncontrollable world of business. Stop it. Please.

Public health experts worry that another potentially lethal pig-borne disease could establish itself among farmworkers in the United States. Unlike the new swine flu virus, Streptococcus suis doesn't pass from person to person. But it's also more virulent, killing about one in 10 people in whom infection progresses to full-blown disease. [Brandon Keim. May 06, 2009. Link.]

Thank you, Brandon, for reporting that science has discovered that more evidence against industrial farming. This is rather bittersweet, as I am not very fond of the large scale farms that make wonderful incubators for these kinds of viruses, but I have heard just about all I can stand when it comes to "swine flus" See this post for a rant. Moving on...

Nature is gone. It was gone before you were born, before your parents were born, before the pilgrims arrived, before the pyramids were built. You are living on a used planet...So what now? First of all, we've got to stop trying to save the planet. For better or for worse, nature has long been what we have made it, and what we will make it.And it’s time for a “postnatural” environmentalism. Postnaturalism is not about recycling your garbage, it is about making something good out of grandpa’s garbage and leaving the very best garbage for your grandchildren. Postnaturalism means loving and embracing our human nature, the nature we have created to feed ourselves, the nature we live in. What good is environmentalism if it makes you depressed about the future? [Op-ed by Erle Ellis. May 06, 2009 . Link.]

Oh, please! You are arguing that we should stop trying to prevent human interaction with the planet because our ancestors have already made irreconcilable changes. Hey, the planet is already trashed so let's party! Perhaps I am just an drugged up hippie when I think that humans are not the only ones around and that the least we can do is not mess things up, try to discover how everything works, and screw up the aesthetics of our super complex biosphere. Also, assuming the ice age is coming pretty soon, I would rather be planning how to survive than doing arts and crafts with my trash.

Farmers in America grow two things, mostly: animal feed and corn for ethanol.In fact, Michigan State University agriculture researcher Bryan Bals noted the feed requirements for animals are an order of magnitude larger than Americans’ food requirements. That insight has led an MSU team to propose getting more out of the same amount of American farmland by increasing the amount of animal feed that farmers can harvest from an acre, thereby creating more land for biofuel crops. [Alexis Madrigal. May 06, 2009. Link.]

I have more problems with these topics than I can fit in a short ~~rant~~ commentary. I am not one for University grudges, but I have to say something. Bryan Bals, I am not sure what your insight was, but I am frightened that it didn't somehow include the dangers and inefficiencies of monocropping (soil nutrient depletion and chemical reliance to name two), the realization that biofuels are not the answer(little pdf with info), or that feedcrops are bad news bears (Watch King Corn or read In Defense of Food).

Now I know Wired is not a terribly great news source, but I had previously thought it more reliable and accurate than the sensationalists. I am sure there are things they do well, but my bitterness doesn't care about those right now. Instead, I am going to turn my attention to SEED, a magazine I had formerly cast off as hyper-progressive and unreadable. The turning point came when I stumbled upon an article about using and IBM supercomputer to recreate an underdeveloped neocortical column. (I have just taken about 10 minutes to look for this news on Wired and it was nowhere to be found...) Essentially, they are programming neurons that interact with each other using digital electrochemical signals. (...Look, Wired...no, it isn't just that SEED has superior design and layout, including the fact that they use 2 fonts intelligently compared to the five on your homepage. No, that's not what I meant...) Assuming my fruitless 15 minute search reflects the low impact of this story, I wonder why this did not make bigger news. Is it because it is a small project with little immediate impact? Is it because it is hard to categorize involving an incredible combination of research technology, programming, neuroscience, and general biology? Wait a minute, isn't that the kind of thing the world is heading toward? It seems like everything I am reading recently is advocating small groups, big ideas, and synergistic knowledge. (...I am at a different place in my life and I think it would be best if we both moved on. Wired, we are breaking up.) Whatever the case, it is evident to me that the world is heading in a different direction, and I want to be aware of what is happening.

So it looks like this post evolved from "bad news and my discontents" to my break up with Wired. Isn't it funny how these things hit you when you least expect it?

Links
Seed [Home]
Slap Upside the Head [Home]
Wired [Home]
LOL [XKCD]

A little extra: While writing this, I noticed a few things. I really wish I could have written this with LaTeX and imported it. Also, Blogger randomly inserted needless code into my post. I am not sure what it means, but I will be wary in the future. SEED also has superior vertical line spacing than Wired.

5k-ish Time Trial

2009-07-01T22:36:00.006-04:00

I knew something was wrong when I passed the 1.5 mile marker at 6 minutes 55 seconds. Uh oh, I thought, this either means I am much more fit than I thought I was, or more likely this path did not start at 0. With only an idea about which one was most likely, I decided to keep running and estimate how far I had run. At the beginning of the Spring Water Corridor, there is a small sign that gives distances to various landmarks along this 3 mile stretch of path. I knew that it was 1.8 miles to a wildlife reserve, so I decided that I would just run until the entrance was in view for a bit, then turn around and run back.

I passed the 2 mile marker and rounded the bend, revealing the entrance to the reserve. I thought I had a good pace even though I felt a bit heavy. I turned around and started the return journey. I did not catch my time at this point, so I don't have a halfway split. I started feeling it after I passed the 1.5 mile marker on the return trip. All I new for sure at this point was that I had run at least one mile, and at most two. Around then was when the trees stopped revealing the river and the setting sun (the rays of which took my mind of running pains by stealing my sight and my ability to keep cool).

After another two minutes I could see the bridge that was close to the entrance. I've noticed that knowing where my finish line gives me confidence that I can finish, but it also messes up my body. Knowing how far I have to go almost always results in feeling tired and wanting to stop. Maybe it is just because I try a push a little harder without knowing it. Maybe it is just because I take my mind off of my pace and technique. Maybe it is a subconscious thing. Whatever it is, I felt it...that is, of course, until I saw the 1 mile marker hiding in a bush.

I now knew that I had run at least 2 miles and that I was pretty tired. The bridge was getting closer and closer, so I kept running. I eventually saw the gateway that marked the beginning of the path and started my sprint. I knew I was close to vomiting, but I thought that I should try a little extra hard because I was timing it. Lo and behold, I did not vomit! I passed the finish line, stopped my timer, and heaved a few times; but none of my pre-TT meal was to be seen. My time? 25.51.96

I am not terribly happy with this time, but given how I felt during the run, I will not be surprised if I shave off at least a minute or two on my next attempt simply by learning a few lessons from this run.

Things to keep in mind before my next time trial:

Eat much earlier. This time I gave myself about three hours after eating some whole grain pasta. Next time, I am going to eat light before my run.
Run earlier. I started the run around 6:15pm. The heat wasn't too bad, but I think I will have a better time if I give it a shot earlier in the day.
Know the course. I will probably run the same course, but next time, I will be aware that the path starts counting at .5 miles. Obvious.

Are you a better runner than me? Give me advice!

Research^3

2009-05-31T20:12:00.001-04:00

With a preliminary idea of what I am writing about, I did a quick search on U of M's database search tools and found quite a few promising and recent articles. I am going to try to read through some of them tonight, switching to Russian when I get bored. I'm excited because this essay gives me extra motivation to finish In Defense of Food and start (and hopefully finish) The Omnivore's Dilemma; both by Michael Pollan.

The End of May - A Life Update

2009-05-31T19:59:00.005-04:00

What an adventure! This month has had all sorts of ups and downs, and I am happy to say that it is ending on a wonderful note. Tomorrow I will move into a new house that is further away from nature (sad) but closer to fiends (happy!). I have been keeping myself quite busy thinking, writing a little, learning Russian through RS, and tutoring when I can. In my efforts to improve my reserach writing, I have discovered the questioning that just comes from within (my last post is proof of this). To help inspire these questions, I reacctivated my netflix account and I have two films to suggest.

The first of these is You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train, a documentary about Howard Zinn that takes the title from one of his books. The film is a easy on the eyes; it has collages of old pictures and videos narrated in part by Zinn and in part by Matt Damon (LOL). It is a blend between biography, historical documentary, and an inspirational political film. Well, that description might give you the wrong idea. The film, like other historical documentaries, moves pretty slowly (which is not my favorite), but it makes up for it in inspiration. I reccommend that if you have some time on your hands, and if you have read any of his books, take some time and rent it. However, if you don't have any money(, can't find it online,) and only have enough time to watch one film . . . read on.

The second is Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? It is a documentary that follows Jeff Smith, a professor at Washington University who decides he is going to run for Congress. He grabs some people and friends to work on his campaign, none of whom have ANY camagin experience. This is truly a mind bending film. This film inspires me much more than President Obama's candidacy and election. Sure, President Obama's was bigger and more impressive, but Smith just decided that he was going to do it, and he did it. It has made me think a lot about politics and how the democracy we want is possible. It alos reminded me that I have not defined my thoughts on hot button issues. I know what my views on them are, but I have not fully explored why they are my views and whether the should continue to be my views. Anyway, if you are relaxing in the afternoon, I suggest you watch this film (see the link at the end of the post).

Finally, I took some pictures the other day. I call it...

A Walk in the Park or Least Scary Graveyard Ever.

Music to listen to while you are looking at pictures:

Some Guster show I did not attend.

(Hit the >> to skip the intro.)

Links

Zinn Film (Trailer | IMDB)

Mr. Smith Film (Snagfilms | IMDB)

My pictures (flikr)

2009-05-31T02:41:00.003-04:00

Here is another essay I would like to write: I would like to address why bad things still exist in the world.

Why does war still exist? Why do we still kill? Why do we judge and hate and lie and steal?

We do we not trust? Why do we not believe that just as I do not want to be cheated, I would not want to cheat another? Why, tell me why, can we not just live and let live?

I am seriously perplexed by this. I don't have the will to write about here at the moment, but maybe soon. I need the help of philosophers and historians and sociolgists and scientists and workers, but most of all I need people.

People, please tell me why.

2009-05-30T14:44:00.004-04:00

English Mania

Revelations

This video blows my mind. Not just because of the message, but because this is the first time I have been able to take a great message away from a TED video without being cynical.

My first revelation: For more than a year (probably two) after I first discovered TED, it was the pinnacle of global problem solving and innovative ideas. This was, of course, until someone pointed out that it was predominantly rich white old men 'innovating' solutions to the problems they (generally white old men) caused in the first place. This point has tainted my view of TED ever since, though it is beginning to loose ground. Having learned a little about social justice and identity relations, I don't think that point is much of an argument. An individual should not be blamed for the issues that have been caused by those who share their identities. While I think they should be conscious of how they appear to EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD (namely those who are not privileged, rich, white, old men), I can't discredit their ideas primarily on the fact that they are agents.

My second revelation: I have developed a sort of world view that seems to be rather literal. As far as I can tell, I generally believe that people are global citizens that happen to be confined by geopolitical boundaries. We speak different languages and do different things and look different, but we are all inherently human. I don't want to sound like a hippie (thanks Portland), but when I think about it, what feels most natural to me is that humans exist around the world, and I think that defining a person based on where they were born does not make sense. Surely, it is an easy way to classify people, but I am not country any more than my friends are their countries any more than the immigrants that 'stole' 'our' jobs are the countries they came from. Zooming out breaks down some walls and helps reduce prejudice.

My third revelation: Playing of of the second, I want to move away from viewing language as a barrier to communication. That view, one which I have held for a long time, seems counter productive. With this new world view of global citizens, not to mention globalization and "English Mania", it would make more sense to think of language as a tool. I think Walker points to this when he calls English "the language of problem solving" (see video). Just as math and music are languages, so is English; and I argue are all languages. Freeing people from the labels of geopolitical identity does the same for language. What know I am failing to communicate, (I don't want to edit this...so I am going to discredit myself instead of rewriting this paragraph) is that this is happening. English has definitely already escaped the borders of English speaking nation states. People from China speak Chinese. People from Russia speak Russian. People all over the globe speak English. As obvious as this sounds, it only just dawned on me. I want to take that idea a little further and argue that all language should be viewed as global communication tools. Because I am learning Russian (which is true) does not mean that I am becoming Russian or identifying with the nation state of the Russian Federation. I simply want to expand my capacity for global communication with other people around the world.

Not quite polished prose, those are the epiphanies I had while I watched that video a few times. I am eager to hear what you think. Comment!

2009-05-28T15:20:00.007-04:00

R & D

The next step, according to The Craft of Research, is to look at my questions, throw out ones that can be easily looked up and answered, those that have no greater significance, and those that are purely speculative. They then suggest creating a three part statement that 1) names the topic, 2) includes an indirect question, and 3) answers the question, "so what?"

Here is my statement:

I am researching the emergence and adoption of vegan diets* (historic and contemporary)…
…because I want to find out how diet choices affect people, animals, and the planet…
…in order to help my reader understand why people adopt vegan diets and lifestyles (which may help readers think about what influences their diet choices).

*It is worth noting that in talking about the history and relevance of vegan diets, I must also talk about vegetarian diets in general. It should be assumed hence forth that my use of the word vegan does not mean diets and lifestyles completely absent from animal products, but instead means diets (and sometimes lifestyles) that do not include animal flesh, and sometimes animal byproducts such as milk, eggs, cheese, butter, and honey. Because this is also sort of an essay about why I personally am vegan, I think I am going to focus on diets, but I can't promise non-diet animal products won't work their way in there.

In the essay, I want to address the following things: The emergence of a diet as a social construct rather than just something we happen to do, how diets have been incorporated as important agents in various capital industries (making the choice of what we eat much more complicated than it should be), the health and environmental impacts of vegan diets, the arguments for and against veganism (and maybe any other particular diet or lifestyle choice), and a general idea of how people change lifestyles (and why not many people seem to do it).

I am still debating how broad I want this essay to be. I would like this to be the longest essay I have written to date. In fact, I almost require it to be long enough to constitute a table of contents, end notes, and indices just so I can practice using them with TeX.

Reference

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Links

The Craft of Research (Google Books)

2009-05-28T03:23:00.005-04:00

My reSearch for Treasure

I bought a book the other day titled The Craft of Research. I am not sure why, but I was definitely drawn to the book. Perhaps it was my desire to be successful in the academic world. Perhaps it was my way of feeling competent in Powell's. Perhaps it was a call to English and away from Biology. Who knows? What I do know for sure is that I wandered that store for a very long time looking for something to read while I rehydrated, and this is what my exhausted self decided on.

It turns out my choice was a good one. I decided earlier today that I wanted to write an essay on why I was vegan. Unfortunately, this is a generally uninteresting question; one I can answer in a few words: because I thought I could. So, to improve my chances of writing a decent essay, and to practice my writing skills for the future, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to apply the suggests of this book. It is rather convenient that I am in Part 2: Asking Questions Finding Answers | Chapter 3: From Topics to Questions. While I am on the topic of practicing things I am learning this summer, I would also like to add that this will be very good TeX/LaTeX practice. Hopefully, I will improve my LaTeX skills to be proficient enough to write an essay I paid money to write...er...for a class, I mean.

The details of my preliminary questioning / brainstorming is too banal and space consuming to post as a real post, so it instead gets buried and linked to. There are six categories, some of which have subcategories, with a total number of eleven ways to ask questions. My goal was to ask at least five questions for each way, giving a grand total of at least 55 answerable/reserachable questions.

Topic: Veganism

Links

My Reseach Questions (My blog)

2009-05-19T19:03:00.004-04:00

Please, remember me...

When I was staying at Funkytown, I learned about a typesetting program that is widely used in academia called TeX. This definitely appeals to my relatively recent fascination with typography. Esentailly, you use a markup called LaTeX to write your document and tell TeX how to format it. TeX automatically follows all of the necessary typographical rules that other word processors do not follow. In short, it makes your document look like it should without me having to know exactly all of the rules (of course, I am still going to try to learn them. But I can make still make pretty documents until then).

My first document is a copy of the lyrics to the song The Trapeze Swinger by Iron and Wine. I am still perfecting it. I don't like that it splits stanzas, so I am looking for a way to prevent page breaks inbetween verses.

I will find a way to get it up here so all can see.

Links

The Lyrics (Mfile woohoo!)

2009-05-16T16:35:00.002-04:00

Success!

It is now time for a quick test ride to make sure everything works, then off to SE!

2009-05-16T13:41:00.006-04:00

The Great Bicycle Adventure Part 2

I have fiddled with it this morning and I give up. I am going to take it to the shop to see if they can do it for me. I just need to attach my front wheel and I'll be good to go.

Front Wheel

There was a little |_| bit of carboard on the wheel and the tightening/securing screw that goes through the axle was ziptied to a spoke.

Ok, the front wheel is attached. Time to see if I can catch the bus!

(A little while later...)

While I said I had given up, I really had not. I figured out how to put the derailleur cable casings in their crowns (I just had to play with the derailleurs, pushing them into a lower gear...they were in the highest gear which made it really hard to pull the cable! I have also adjusted the tensions enough to be satesfactory. I think they should be fine. Now I need to attach pedals and my front brake callipers.

Great news! Everything is on my bike! Pedals, brakes, the whole deal. Now I need to inflate the tires (easier said than done- I have an awful little hand pump) and I should be good to go.

(Another little while later...)

Finished! My bike is ridable! Almost. I hopped on to check the fitting and my handle bars twisted forward. I am gladd about it though; they only twist when I put pressure on them. Yes! I did that on purpose so I could adjust them when I was ready to fit it! Well done...I mean...I am so smart for thinking ahead like that!

2009-05-15T19:02:00.012-04:00

The Great Bicycle Adventure

My bike has arrived! Oh happy day! Now I just need to assemble it. For convenience, I am going to put everything on here. Please let me know if I screw something up.

Things to do:

Figure out what tools I need and get them

Reattach fork and front bearings

reattach handlebars

reattach front brakes

fix cables on handlebars

insert seat & seatpost

calibrate brakes and gears

reattach pedals

I think that is it. While this is a little more than I expected to do, I look forward to getting to know my bike a little better. This will also help if i ever get around to building a bike and fixing my own bike! I will hopefully update this as I move down the list. The only bike store relatively close opens at 9 tomorrow, so I am going to pay them a visit in the morning so I can pick up any tools I need. I might as well buy the tools because I am going to have to take it apart later.

To improve the my chances of putting this back together and taking it apart again, I am going to try to write everything out (Finally! A chance to practice my orientation terms!).

First rule of unpacking things: Document everything!

Seatpost and Saddle

The seat post is wrapped first in a plastic bag, then in cardboard. The cardboard covers the bottom of the seatpost, but is about a forefinger's length from the saddle. About two inches from the top of the cardboard, the plastic is pulled out and around the cardboard. The plastic and card board are wrapped tightly with two separate pieces of packing tape.

The saddle is wrapped in a similar way, first with plastic, than with two pieces of cardboard. The bottom piece is under the posterior part of the saddle and the top piece of cardboard spans the entire saddle. The two pieces of cardboard are wrapped in masking tape... It looks like the bottom piece was attached first as there is tape wrapped around the bottom cardboard and the plastic on the top of the saddle. Then the top piece was added and a piece of tape was wrapped around the entire thing. With the combined piece in front of me posteroanterior(ly?), the tape goes from the posterior left lateral side, down and around the bottom piece of cardboard (anticlockwise), comes back up and across the top piece of cardboard (overlapping the the starting place; still anticlockwise), down and around the bottom piece again (overlapping itself). Then, when it reaches the posterior right lateral side, it moves diagonally to the anterior left lateral side. It then wraps underneath the the anterior of the saddle (anticlockwise). the piece of tape ends on the anterior left lateral side by just overlapping itself. OK. That's enough Colin. Just unwrap it fo goodness sake!

Second rule of unpacking things: broken tape is ok, broken packaging (cardboard and plastic bags) is less ok.

Notes: I've noticed that may marker rubs off of the plastic, but considering I won't be handling it much, I think it is ok. If it turns out to be a problem, I will use tape. Oh Wow! The carbon fiber seatpost is so light! I really want a bike mide out of carbon! Alright, the seatpost and saddle have been freed from their travel garments. Time to tackle the main course. I feel like a forensic biological anthropologist or something...a mortitian perhaps. I wish I had a recorder.

Frame

Viewing the bike from the right lateral side, observations are posteroanterior. The seat stays and chain stays seem to be wrapped in a cardboard-esque paper that is sealed by some doublesided tape...not tape...glue. The cardboard wrap around the left chainstay is wrapped in red cord that is threaded through the hole in the crank arm where the pedals go.

Crank Arm

The left crank ("not the same side" to the drive train) had red cord threaded through the pedal hole and around the chain stay on that side. Both were covered in a sheet of plastic with a sticky side.

Bike Rack

The left (arms/spokes/bars) that reach down to the rear axle had a little bit of cardboard on them...but not the right one. >.<

Here is a brief description of what packaging is left to strip:

Front wheel is attached to top tube and has some cardboard, cardboard around top tube and down tube, plastic around headtube and fork, carboard and ziptie around chainrings, cardboard on the handlebars, cardboard on front brake calipers.

Front Wheel

The front wheel is secured to the frame with two thick white zipties. Both are around the top tube, two spokes apart. There is a little slab of cardboard on the outside of the wheel under one of the ties (posterior) and there probably should have been one under the other...perhaps it slipped out. The posterior ziptie is also looped around the handlebars, keeping them elevated.

Notes: Success! I have removed the top two zipties without damaging them! But now I need a way to keep my bike stable so I can work on it. Normally, I would turn it upside down and rest is on the handlebars and saddle, but neither of those are attached...I am going to try to do that before I remove anything else. (A few minutes later...) Hmm, Forester says I can hang it from rafters (which I conveniently have in my garage) with clothes line. I will have to insert the seatpost though, and I don't know how well that will stay without the right tools. I will remove the rest of the packaging, then see what I need to do to insert the saddle and the handlebars. Perhaps my roommate will be nice and drive me to a hardware store.

Fork, Headpost, and Handlebar Post

The plastic wrapped around this set of components covered the entire thing. I looks like the fork went in the bag first and reached the bottom. Part of the opening of the bag was pulled over the handlebar post and secured with a rubberband. the rest is underneath the cardboard on the down tube.

Frame (Continued)

The top tube is protected by two overlapping pieces of carboard paper (same material as the seat and chain stays). The first piece was wrapped around the anterior of the top tube and the second piece covered the remaining posterior area.

The down tube has similar packaging with the addition of a folded piece of cardboard near the superior, anterior part of the tube (where the down tube meets the head tube).

Notes: One of my housemates generously offered to let me borrow her car if I need to run to the store...I wonder if there are any hardwear stores in the area... I don't really want to wait until tomorrow to finish this project. Then again, it might be a better idea to wait so I don't have more than one of the same tool (I am going to buy a multipurpose tool tomorrow no matter what so I can have on when I ride). All that is left is the carboard around the chainrings, front brake calipers, and handlebars.

Chainrings

There is a thick sheet of cardboard in a "|_|" shape that is secured around the chainrings with a white ziptie. The ziptie went through all three chainrings and was tightened around the cardboard.

Handlebars

Two pieces of cardboard. The long skinny piece was wrapped around the shift/break levels, and the bigger piece was wrapped around the shift level stub.

Notes: I should be time stamping this. It would make it more dramatic. Let's just say it has been several hours. My awesome roommate suggested hitting up Fred Meyer (West Coast Meijer)! Great idea! I am going to go there right now!

I have returned from Fred Meyer with Hex Keys! I can secure my saddle and handlebars! Though I need to figure out how the cables go. They are thoroughly confusing.

Alright. I am going to call it a night and finish working on this in the morning. I have reattached the seatpost and saddle, handlebars, and fitted the rear brake calipers. I am having trouble fitting my shift cables. There are these little notches that keep the cables in place on the bike, and I can't seem to get them in there. Once those are fitted, I need to add the front wheel and pedals, then calibrate everything. Not much at all. From what I have seen, calibration is relatively harmless and should only take an hour or so at most.

2009-05-12T16:48:00.007-04:00

Life Update

Well folks, I have made it. I donned my cap, grabbed my axe, and became a lumberjack living high up in the hilly areas of Portland, OR. It is definitely beautiful up here. I can walk a few meters down the road and see hills and mountains in all directions. I have created a flikr to keep track of all of my pictures by month. So if you are interested you can check them out here. I am going to run around and take pictures of things later when the lighting is better. The weather is not bad either. I arrived on the last of a series of cloudy and rainy days, and it has been nice ever since. It is usually mostly sunny with the temperatures in the 50s and 60s and a little wind chill. It is a little cooler than I expected it to be, but I am sure that will change in no time at all.

Now, about bikes. In an effort to become more bike savvy, I have decided that I would like to build a bike. I am going to try to accumulate almost all of the parts on the cheap, and learn about things as I go. I have a wonderful book that I bought for a few bucks on amazon called Effective Cycling by John Forester. The book is a tome of cycling knowledge that ranges from the inner workings and assembly of bearings to the physiology of cycling to cycling culture and road rules. It includes many wonderful hand drawn diagrams of parts that I hope to recreate using my own parts. My Giant should arrive in about a week, which is going to be super helpful getting around and accumulating parts for my new bike.

I am having a little trouble deciding what to do about a job here in Portland. Firstly, I live pretty far away from everything which a) makes jobs scarce and b) makes me contemplate moving closer to town. So finding a job is not on the tippity top of my list. Whats more, the west coast time makes non-scheduled tutoring easy. All of the west coast students are logging on around 6pm Pacific Time, and staying on until 10 which is getting a little late for East Coast tutors. So far, I have been able to get on around 8pm and float for two hours to problem. Now the trick is to schedule hours that are harder to get for my time zone, then log back on later when students are abundant. I figure I have about another month of this four hours a day tutoring schedule, so I need to try to secure a job and a new place to live soon.

If you ignore the location, it is really great. I took the bus downtown and it took about 45 minutes, which could by much worse I suppose. On the way back, I had to wait at a bus stop for 20 minutes and it was in the middle of nowhere. At first, I thought oh great, this is really annoying, and I stared at the traffic. while sitting there on a medium sized road, I saw several cyclists. Some were all geared up, some looked like they were headed to work, some flew through the intersection, others labored up the hill. All in all, it was really encouraging to see people at all different levels biking for different reasons. I am glad I had the chance to just sit and observe for a bit....but now I want to join them.

Also big news: I am turning 21 this Sunday! Hooray! To make things even better, we might be hosting our first couchsurfer this weekend. He is a student from London and he is just out here exploring for a few days. What a welcoming party, eh?

Also Also not big news at all: I have suddenly become interested in maps. I started making a paper version of google's street map of SE Portland, but I was interrupted by the internet's distracting abilities. I am sure I will work on it more soon. I am also working on a google map that will document all of the cool things I find and whatnot. Check out the links for a bare-bones version I just made. I will try to find a fun way to map my explorations and escapades. (I don't actually know if the link will work. Let me know if it doesn't.)

Stay Tuned.

Links (by title length, shortest to longest)

My Maps! (Google)
My Pictures (Flickr)
Couchsurfing! (My Profile)
How about my job too? (Tutor.com)

2009-04-22T20:42:00.005-04:00

The Last Lecture

by Ralph Williams

How does one write about beauty without losing that which makes it beautiful? Taking something beautiful and turning it into words will never truly capture its essence, but I guess that has always been the case. In a way, that is was makes beauty so special. It is a moment when you are mesmerized, you feel something that you cannot recreate through words or dance or any other kind of medium. Last night, I experienced something beautiful. Something that made me feel and that I can not recreate. Below is an audio recording of the entire Golden Apple Lifetime Acheivement Award Ceremony celebrating and commemorating Professor Ralph Williams.

I admit that I made this recording without any of the speakers knowing, which is probably against the law. Listeners should probably know that my recorder has a tendency to stop recording for small amounts of time when it doesn't hear anything. That is the blipping you hear at the beginning of sentences. I have not listened to the enire thing, but I am afraid that some of Ralph's quieter moments might not be there. If you are really upset about it, you can buy the DVD from the link at the end. Alternatively, you may be able to find it on youtube.

The Giving of the Golden Apple and Ralph Williams' Last Lecture

(Ralph begins his speach around 31m)

Links

Purchase the DVD (Awaiting Link)

Ralph Williams (His website)

Golden Apple (Foundation)

SHOUT (Website)

2009-03-29T23:48:00.024-04:00

And Then There were 8 Plus a Gay

If you are truly observant, you will have noticed the addition of a new link to my blogroll. Slap Upside The Head is a fantastic blog that highlights LGBT issues while providing wonderfully amusing drawings. Each picture comes with a story. Check it out for yourself. Here are a few of my favorite drawings:

These pictures are posted without permission. Please don't tell Mark.

2009-03-28T14:53:00.005-04:00

A Most Wonderful Story on This American Life

I heard this story when it aired, but it was replayed today during the NPR pledge drive. The second act tells the story of two transgender kids, their realizations, coming out, and how the two met at a conference and became instant friends. I think they did a great job telling this story. It means so much to me to hear the struggle of these kids from their mouths. The parent's also have quite a bit of air time expressing their struggle, their acceptance, and their progression into advocacy. Check it out:

Act Two. Tom Girls .

Lilly and Thomasina have a lot in common. They're both 8 years old. And they were both born boys, although it became clear pretty early on that they'd prefer to be girls. There aren't all that many kids in the world like them, but recently, at a conference in Seattle on transgender parenting, they met. And they immediately hit it off. They could talk about things with each other that they'd never been able to share with other friends back home. And that's comforting, even if they never see each other after the conference ends. Producer Mary Beth Kirchner tells the story, with production help from Rebecca Weiker. (17 minutes)

Picture and caption from This American Life website.

2009-03-16T23:32:00.007-04:00

Happy Pride Week!

Today was the Pride Rally for Spring Pride 2009, and it was marvelous! The speakers included Steph Parrish, Salt Lines, Jeff Sheng, and Ralph Williams.

I will update this with pictures as soon as I have them, but until then imagine the diag cool and open. It was sunny and music was blaring through the speakers. There were rainbows everywhere: big flags, a huge banner being carried by two people, on shirts, buttons, and ribbons. Then Chris Armstrong, Mical DeGraaff, and Amy Dickinson walked up the steps to the grad library to the spot where the microphones stood. They welcomed everyone to the Spring Pride 09 Rally, and the crowd responded with cheers and applause. They proceeded to invite the first speakers, Salt Lines, to the mic. Salt Lines performed one piece as a group, Tara Hardy performed solo, followed by another solo performance by Andrea Gibson. I have separated these three performances for your listening pleasure. (Note: There was a bible thumper on the diag with us, you can here him at the begining of the group performance. I do not know why his chants of, "a man, and a woman, get married," faded away, but I am glad that they did. It is a foreshadowing of our future as a nation.)

Salt Lines

Tara Hardy

Andrea Gibson

After this, Steph Parrish, a student, shared a personal story that I did not record. Jeff Sheng, creator of the photo documentary "Fearless" spoke next. He mentioned his exhibition that was going on this week, but the majority of his airtime was a story about the California prop 8 talks that have been happening in the past few weeks. I recorded it, but did not do the work to be able to get it up here. It will be up eventually.

The amazing Ralph Willaims brought the rally to a close with a rowsing speech. I recommend that you listen to it.

Here are links to people I talked about in this post:

2009 Pride Week (Program PDF | Video)

Salt Lines (Myspace)

Jeff Sheng (Fearless | His Website)

Ralph Williams (His Website)

2009-02-28T16:08:00.007-05:00

Life Update

Here are a few updates about my life:

Diet: After twelve days of being vegan, I am positive that I will continue this for as long as is possible. I feel absolutely fantastic, and I am sure I have reduced the probability of developing many 'western diseases'. These diseases (things like obesity, various cancers, diabetes, hypertension, dental problems, etc.) have been brought to my attention by Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food (MP's website). I have only read the first third of the book, so far, in which he covers modern issues about food, about how our views of food in the industrial West have developed over the years, and give a warning about over generalizing the results of food research.

Books: Speaking of books, I have decided to embrace my short attention span when it comes to reading and read several books at the same time. This does not come as much of a surprise to me; it just feels right. To keep myself motivated, I have used the Daytum beta account I was given to log the pages I read each day. As motivation, it has worked pretty well. I was so sad that my daily average (note: it bugs me that I do not know how this average is calculated) was only 36 pages, so I started reading more. It is up to 60.5...still pretty meager, but a good improvement. Click and it will come (My Daytum).

Summer: I am going to Portland, OR. As I have told everyone who asks, something incredible will need to happen for me to stay in Ann Arbor. I am so excited to get out of here and live freely. Yes, I am already living on my own , and no, I do not hate my current living situation; I just want a change. I have been living in the residence halls for a good 2.5 years solid now, but the convenience we all love comes with a price. I am ready for a breather from my cushy room.

I am hoping to be really eco consious on my summer escape. To do this, I think I will make a list of all of the things I want to do:

Compost (vermi- probably -> Instructable 1 | Instructable 2)
Create a CO2 scrubber (Wiki | Instructable)
Reduce my water consumption (start and stop water while showering, etc.)
Find a new way to wash my clothes (Instructable)
Air dry my sustainably washed clothes
more to come! I am open to suggestions. (really, I got distracted and want to finish this post)

Personal Development: Oh, I can never get enough of personal development. I am like my own life coach. I borrowed some "Value Cards" from Kevin, so now I have values! I am going to sort through them and see which ones I relate to most. It should be pretty interesting. I am just hoping my values don't end up being pretension, snobbery, and being a punk.

That's it for now kiddos.

2009-02-16T21:07:00.000-05:00

Wisdom?

2009-02-16T13:10:00.003-05:00

The Experiment
Today, history repeats itself. Three years ago, I decided to avoid eating red meat for health reasons. After a week, I found that I had eaten little meat of any kind, so I decided to become vegetarian. I have been doing well since. Today, I have decided to repeat this experiment by avoiding the consumption of animal products. I am hereby vegan for the week, and perhaps the future. It is 1:21pm, and I feel fantastic.

2009-02-01T04:37:00.001-05:00

My Research Questions

History

Larger Developmental Context

When/with whom was the first completely vegan diet?
Why did animals invade diets?
How did veganism as a social movement come about?
Why do people choose to eat/live vegan?
Is there a future for veganism? Will it become the new standard of living?

Internal History

How has veganism developed over the years?
When the terms vegan, vegetarian, lacto/ovo, etc. first occur?
How has scientific knowledge contributed to diet modifications?
How have vegan diets changed over the years?
How have the reasons for living/eating vegan changed over the years?

Structure & Composition

Larger System

How has the creation of veganism as a movement affect the food industry?
How did the development of lactose tolerance and agriculture integrate animals into human lifestyles and diets?
How does living/eating vegan affect the environment?
How does living/eating vegan affect a person's social/community standing in different environments? Why?
Why are the rates of veganism/vegatrianism higher in queers?
What is the relationship between vegans and other demographics? (age, ethnicity, general health, location, upbringing, religion, world view, personality) Why?

Fit together as system

How do vegans interact with each other?
Do vegans relate closest with vegans who feel the same as they do?
How do people's choices to be vegan affect their views of the vegan movement?
What is the relationship of people who wear/live vegan, eat vegan, or do both? Why?
Why are there issues like honey? What are the big contentious points of veganism?

Categorization

Groups

What are the different types of vegan diets/lifestyles?
Do the diets/lifestyles differ around the world?
What are the different reasons for being vegan?
Are vegans viewed (by vegans and/or non-vegans) as different depending on their reasons for becoming vegan? Is this a hieracrchy?
How do vegans order themselves? Does age or number of years vegan play a role?

Compare & Contrast

How do vegan lifestyles differ from non-vegan lifestyles?
Are vegans more consious of non-vegan related surroundings than non-vegans?
Just how much 'healthier' are strict vegans than lacto/ovo vegetarians and pescatarians?
How is veganism as a social movement present in other countries/cultures? Why?
How do strict vegans, lacto/ovos, and pescatarian's differ publicly?
How do the ideas and lifestyles of vegans by choice and vegans by upbringing C&C?

+ > -

Why is veganism NOT the norm?
If veganism is so amazing and friendly, why is everyone NOT vegan?
Why is it NOT a good idea to become vegan? (What are reasons NOT to become a vegan)
How is a vegan lifestyle NOT beneficial to people/animals/the planet?
How has living/eating vegan NOT benefited people (who have tried it)?

Speculation

New Context

How would the social view/idea of veganism be different if it originally developed in the third world? What if it caught on in the third world today?
How would veganism play a role in a perfect, liberal USA?
How would veganism be viewed if the presidential family ate vegan?
How would veganism as a lifestyle/diet be different if we kept different pets?
How would vegnaism as a lifestyle/diet be different if agribusiness did not exist and the USA went back to small, family owned farms?

If it Never Existed...

How would modern food culture be different?
What would the argument against obesity and other diet related health issues look like without veganism/vegetarianism?
How would food/diet culture be different?
How would modern food science be different?
Would the idea reemerge in the modern social/economic climate?

Sources*

Agree

Disagree

For this part, the book suggests looking at questions and ideas you agree and disagree with from sources. As I am just starting this project, I do not have many sources. I will leave these questions for the future.

2009-01-28T13:17:00.002-05:00

Conflict

Background: I have taken a training class for intergroup dialogue facilitation and I am currently teaching a class with similar structure to IG dialogues. Dialogues are small group conversations that revolve around understanding personal experiences as a foundation for understanding social issues. The goal is to have all participants be as open about themselves and their beliefs as possible with the goal of everyone inthe group fostering understanding of everyone else's views. Due to the vulnerable and personal nature of dialogue, conflict between members is inevitable. Another note, diference between safety and comfort. One can feel safe but uncomfortable, but not unsafe and comfortable.

Conflict is not all bad. That is not to say it cannot be bad, many kinds of conflict are terrible and have resulted in the most atrocious acts on this plaent(violent, ignorant, etc.). What I am trying to explore is the conflict that happens as a result of cognitive dissonance. When two people who have different beliefs are trying to understand each other. This kind of conflict comes up all of the time. Can't think of an example? Try families; teen rebellion is like an advanced course in conflict. In dialogue, we strive for (and occasionally instigate) this kind of safe, but uncomfortable conflict. To do this, it helps to feel comfortale with conflict.

This is the concept I want to get to. I certainly believe that a faclitator can feel comfortable with conflict, perhaps with the concession that they are not apart of the conflict. I am not at this point and I wonder howit might feel to be able to separate my own emotions from those of a conflict in my class. Will I need to distance myself from what is occuring so that I may help the participants explore the conflict? Is it possible for me to not feel uneasy when conflict is occuring in my class without being a sociopath?

The other part of this topic is how one manages personal conflict. I do not think it is possible to feel comfortable when experiencing conflict (note how this is different from above), but I do think it is possible to be distressed with the knowledge that the result of conflict is change, so life will be different when it is over. Personal example: Conflict with mother; something I have avoided at great cost. I have recently noticed that I am becoming increasingly comfortable with conflict with my mother. No longer will I sit in a puddle of my emotions with the passive agressive attitude I learned while growing up!

2009-01-13T00:13:00.004-05:00

Music Drop: Girlyman

Harmonies - if you had to describe the music of Girlyman in one word, this would be it. The story doesn't end there, of course: the band blends modern acoustic, americana, and folk-rock into a musical recipe The Village Voice has called "really good, really unexpected, and really different." The wide range of instruments - acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, djembe, electric baritone guitar - reflects an eclectic sound, and the band members switch off lead vocals and songwriting duties. But it is the stunning three-part vocal blend that creates the Girlyman magic.

-From their website http://www.girlyman.com/

Their description of themselves is quite accurate. They have some amazing harmonic power as well as a fantastic ability to entertain. Their album Somewhere Different Now, a live album, is gravid with satisfying music, hilarious tuning songs, and smart political commentary.

Check out their music page for samples of their music.

2009-01-07T18:00:00.003-05:00

DRM is Dropped!

Want to Copy iTunes Music? Go Ahead, Apple Says

Big news! Apple has decided, along with Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, to drop all DRM from iTunes. How fantastic is that!? Not only that, they will also be dropping the price for individual songs, unless they are very popular. I can now do all of the things I was prevented from doing with DRM like putting music on my non-apple mp3 player (I have an iPod) and...and...certainly not sharing music thats for sure.

2009-01-07T13:13:00.005-05:00

Adventures in Intro Biology Part 3

I walked toward the natural science building and was surprised to see a line of students queued up from one of the doors. At least 30 students were in that line or pressed up against the door and once in a while, a student would burst free from the cluster and exit the building. I laughed on the inside and put on my best expression that said, "huh, why are you all standing there like that? You are all so strange," as I walked in the door just to the right of the ones they were lined up against. I easily walked into the building, strolled into the lecture hall, and immediately found a seat in the front row. I know that the freshman who were waiting were ignorant of the lesser known portal, but superiority is a great feeling.

Having gotten off to such a great start, there was no way I was going to give my undivided attention to the review of the syllabus that has been elongated into an hour long lecture. Instead, I thought about all of the changes the biology department has been making. I do need to throw in the disclaimer that I only have three semesters of knowledge about the biology department so hopefully there will be some input from more experienced readers (or siblings or significant others of siblings that bought me a wonderful book of hilarious comics that shares the title of my blog). There is a noticeable difference between the biology classes I have taken and the other natural sciences and I assure you it was not the subject matter. The biology department has been trying very hard to teach "processes of scientific inquiry", a subject I find extremely valuable to know.

My attention was drawn away from class and to this idea first by why this was being included. Obviously, the process and method of scientific investigation is important to SCIENCE....that's what it is. Has this been taught in the past? Did it used to be a part of all science classes and slowly fell out of the course content? Has it ever been its own class? Why are they teaching this in an introductory class? That last question is easy to answer; because it is so vital to science that students need to be exposed to it before they continue. If it is so vital (it is the foundation of science), why is it not a separate class?

After having thought of more questions than I wanted to even think about answering, I started thinking about to whom they were catering. The knowledge of scientific design is important to biologists (scientists), professors (who, at least at research universities, are scientists), and....doctors? I hope so. The most represented demographic in the class was pre-med freshmen and my, oh my, how they looked stereotypical. I hope that despite their current conformity, they go on to become doctors who have a decent idea of real science. That way, my detestment and distrust of M.D.s can be directed completely at their arrogance and greed.

First day of class: successful and largely uneccessary. The reason I continue to attend classes is that being forced to sit in one place for an hour or so does wonders for my imagination. I have had some fantastic ideas during class, I just hope they come during intro bio part 3, not orgo.

2009-01-03T00:42:00.005-05:00

I Will Not Remain Silent

9 Muslims Are Pulled From Plane and Denied Re-entry; Airline Apologizes Next Day

“We regret that the issue escalated to the heightened security level it did,” the airline said, “but we trust everyone understands that the security and the safety of our passengers is paramount and cannot be compromised.”

...however the dignity and humanity of your passengers only matters if they are not from the Middle East.

This story is the exactly why I wear my "We Will Not Be Silent" in Arabic shirt. Why must we go to amber alert every time we see a hijab or hear someone speaking Arabic? Success is ensured in our cunning plan our scaring all 1.8 billion Muslims away from this country by perpetually inconveniencing them especially when we pick on the lawyers. Great Job Americans.

We Will Not Be Silent is a protest campaign organized by Artists Against the War as a call for action against the racism occurring against Arabs and Muslims worldwide. You can order a free shirt in Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, German, or Hebrew with Arabic. There is also a story about a gentleman who was harassed in JFK airport simply for wearing one of these shirts. My favorite quote is, "Many people called and complained about your t-shirt. Jetblue customers were calling before you reached the checkpoint, and costumers called when you were waiting here in the boarding area ..."We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don't have a translator. Maybe it means something else." Obviously! Terrorists have decided to stay away from technological communication and talking to each other; they have moved on to mass producing t-shirts with messages on them. How effective.

2009-01-02T23:02:00.006-05:00

Game Review: Amorphous+

I've learned an important lesson over the past few days: To survive, I can't sit at the computer and play web games all day. I learned this unfortunate lesson through the game Amorphous+. The game is so simple, but lethally addictive. You are a little warrior wielding an enormous, albeit blunt, sword which you use to squish various goos that squiggle across the ground. You win awards for doing certain tasks and get fun toys to play with if you recieve enough awards. I warn you, if you want to play this, but having anything to do in the next

hour, DON'T.

Click to play

2008-12-28T23:38:00.010-05:00

Reading Update:

The Drunkards Walk by Leonard Mlodinow

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 is more exciting than the past three and, though it covers a few principals found in most elementary statistics classes, it brings in new characters to the story like Galileo and Pascal! Here goes:

The simple space technique (using a space or coordinates to denote potential outcomes) can only be used when the outcomes are equally probable
The chances of an event depend on the number of ways in which it can occur. This is important, so how do you calculate it?
Pascal's Triangle
Mathematical expectation = probability of each outcome * payoff of each respective outcome, i.e. the cost of something, say a parking meter, is the probability of each outcome ($40.00 ticket 1 out of 20 times I use one and $0.25 on the rest of the time [19 out of 20]) so $40*1/20 + $0.25 each time I use it = $2.25. So the real cost of paying a parking meter is about $2.25 each time I use one if I average it out.
This idea has been helpful for winning lottery tickets. For example, if you calculate the expectation of buying all of the different combinations of six numbers from 1 to 44, and compare that with the payoff of about 27 million, you will find something quite interesting! There are 7,059,052 ways to choose those six numbers with a pot of that size, each ticket is worth almost $4. Now remember that it is possible for other people to win at the same time. Appropriate the probabilities of winning alone or with other people and add them all up to come to a grand total worth of $3.31. The price to buy one is $1. What is the appropriate course of action here? Hire a whole bunch of investors, fill out 1.4 million slips by hand (each with 5 games) and coordinate a massive ticket purchasing campaign. The result? 27 million dollars!

2008-12-28T00:11:00.013-05:00

Reading Update:

The Drunkards Walk by Leonard Mlodinow

Chpater 3

Chapter three covers quite a bit of history and a few specific examples. Here it is in summary:

Gerolamo Cardano existed and, more importantly, pioneered the idea that possible outcomes of a situation could be thought of as points in space (or coordinates)
This chapter covers three probability problems:

You flip two coins, what is the probability that at both will heads? The answer is 25%. There are four possible outcomes of the flip: (heads, heads), (heads, tails), (tails, heads), and (tails, tails). There is a 25% chance that both or neither coins will be heads and a 50% chance that just one will be heads. The other question addressed is this: Assuming one coin will be heads, what is the probability of both coins being heads? Is it 50%? No. The condition that one of the coins will be heads only removes one of our four possible results (tails, tails). The statement does not state explicitly which coin is heads, so it could either be (heads, tails), (tails, heads), or (heads, heads). Therefore, the chances that both will be heads, knowing one of them will for sure be heads, will be 1 in 3, or about 33%.
The next problem is a joke I read last week involving some college students that missed an exam due to returning late from a road trip. They appealed to their professor claiming they had a flat tire. The professor issued the exams in different rooms and, in an attempt to catch the students lying, wrote the question, “which tire was flat?" on the second page of the exam. What is the probability that they answer the same tire? The correct answer is one in four. This is because there are four tires for them to choose. Check out the table. The chance that they choose the same tire is 4 in 16, or 1 in 4.
Now for the most fun one, the Monty Hall problem. This one has been around for some time and has caused quite a bit of humiliation for many many Ph.D.s as you will see later. Here is the problem as submitted by Craig Whitaker to Marilyn von Savant's column in PARADE magazine:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?

The answer is yes! I will not take the space to explain why, but you can see this -- and the humiliation of numerous mathematicians-- on Marylin's website here.

And that is about it for chapter 3. I will keep you up to date with what else I learn in this book

2008-12-27T14:31:00.002-05:00

Oh I love it! Great work GLSEN!

2008-12-27T01:05:00.006-05:00

Movie Aftereffect*: Valkarie

I left Valkarie feeling confident that I would do whatever it takes to get done whatever needs to get done. I was very sure. Very deliberate. I was dedicated. I remembered the aftereffect for Milk and saw how they connected. It lasted for about 40 minutes before it started to fade. It was mildly diluted by an hour and a half. As usual, the television did a fantastic job of distracting me from everything and contributed to the dilution. It was still there when I went to sleep and was gone in the morning.

Cognitively, I was curious about what actually happened and who the people in the plot really were.

*Movie Aftereffects: After seeing a movie, I am always left with an aftereffect, a change in my perception and interaction of and with the world. I may leave the cinema feeling ready to inflitrate MI6, save the world, or solve a mystery. These changes in cognition vary in intensity and last for varying amounts of time.

2008-12-27T00:29:00.005-05:00

I am officially announcing my move from Firefox to Chrome. I am trying to move toward improved efficiency and fewer distractions. While I love Firefox and its many add-ons dearly, I don't have the RAM or time to spend on my glutenous usage of Firefox (I typically have at least eight tabs open at a time, one of which is a stumble upon dedicated tab). My next post will be from Chrome.

2008-12-26T11:33:00.010-05:00

NOW USING CHROME

Reading Update:

The Drunkards Walk by Leonard Mlodinow

I am up to chapter three and I have learned very little and read a twenty page review of the first quarter of a statistics class I took. Here are the first two chapters in summary.

Chapter 1:

The right side of your brain is 'intuitive' and always tries to find heuristics
The left side of your brain is 'logical' and always tries to find patterns
If two events are occuring randomly and event 1 occurs thrice as much as event 2, in guessing which event will occur next, you will be correct more often if you simply choose the event that occurs more often everytime.
Praising a person for good behavior is more effective than punishing people for bad behavior
This can seem counter intuitive due to regression toward the mean; that is, after someone does much better than they usually do, it is natural for them to do about as well as they had been doing before that accidental success, the same goes for accidental mistakes.

Chapter 2:

This is a review of probability rules
The probability that two events will occur can never be greater than the probability that each event will occur individually
You can predict the probability that two events will occur by taking the product of the probabilities of the two events ONLY IF the two events are completely independent of each other.
The probability that, given an event with multiple different and possible outcomes, the probability that one outcome or another outcome will be the result is the sum of the probabilities of two potential outcomes (assuming that the sum of all of the possible outcomes is 1 [100%])
When making a point about the potential outcomes of an event, make sure you are looking at the correct proability.

2008-12-25T00:56:00.003-05:00

Things it is not:

Saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays"
Giving gifts
Giving to charity
Being Christian

Things it is:

Only assuming that all white people that do not 'look Jewish' celebrate christmas
Only saying 'happy holidays' around the 25 of December
[obvious] Having the 25 be a national holiday and not have ANY OTHER RELIGION recognized
Thinking about others only at this time of year
Thinking about 'the poor' as if they are not human
Millions of people excluded from identifying with our consumerist culture who's advertisements focus on christmas celebrators

2008-12-11T01:08:00.003-05:00

I have chosen to minor in Peace and Social Justice, a minor that was created last year. I have now taken two classes that count toward it, one is Nonviolence in Action and the other is Intergroup Dialogue* Facilitator Training. I am most interested in talking about the prior. As a class, we noticed the lack of support or importance placed on us by the university considering we did not have a room for the 50 of us to occupy. We ended up having class in large lounge of the residence hall attached to the union.

...I have a paper to write, so I am cutting this short. Really short. All I wanted to say was that there is not a wikipedia article on it and I am in a bit of a wikipedia editing craze. I am trying to revamp the article Nonviolence, which means I also need to edit Nonviolent Resistance (Don't even get me started on this one), Pacifism, and several other articles with similar ideas. I also want to fix Social Justice and make an article for Intergroup Dialogue. Anyone want to help?

paper time.....less than a week left

*P once said the 'dialogue' sounded pretentious. Maybe it is, but there is a definite distinction to be made between debate, discussion, and dialogue. Dialogue is a particular kind of communication that is supposed to be the ideal learning conversation. When a group of people are in dialogue, members of the group are open with each other, take personal risks, share their social identities, seek understanding, etc. The term dialogue is used to convey a very specific kind of interaction. See "Intergroup Dialogue in Higher Education : meaningful learning about social justice" by Ximena Zuʹñiga, et al. I will loan it to you if you want it.

2008-12-10T20:54:00.005-05:00

I had a thought:

A good way to get word out about a cause is to be innovative for the sake of being innovative. Be the best at something: design, use of color, whatever. That way, the message will be spread not only for the sake of spreading the message, but also because it is amazing at whatever it is the best at. Problem I foresee is that the message will be lost in the hype of things. Example of this working. AIDS slogans at baseball games: visuals to come

Time to tutor more.

Update (12/27/08): Here are those pictures I promised:

2008-10-15T23:48:00.002-04:00

A Revolutionary Primer

There is never enough time.

And as many people are eager to advise use, time is the thing we have the least of. I decided that it would be more beneficial to write my initial thoughts on student movements and national movements before I did any more work.

I finished reading an article about the Black Panther Party that discussed the history, goals, effects, and downfall of the party. Intrigued and edified, I did a little bit of research on another group that was mentioned in the article: The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). At first, I was rather excited as I expected to find a strong student movement that was making significant progress towards change. One that had a large membership of student activists who worked as a nationally cohesive team towards progressive ideals. One that I just happened to miss these past twenty years.
What I found instead was disheartening to say the least. The SDS has fallen from the position it once had as an affiliate of the Black Panther Party. No longer does it carry a voice that can be heared on college campuses around the country. To me, it looks like almost every other student movement and organization I have seen. A short burst of activity and membership that withers as younger members lose interest and older members graduate.

Perhaps I am exaggerating a little. Apparently, in January of 2006, the movement to revive the SDS began. It looks to me that it lasted about a year. While it hasn't been around for very long and I can already see it start to fade, I am impressed with how far it has come.

ow that I have procrastinated enough on this by getting distracted doing other things I must retire from writing this miniscule primer.

Goodnight.

2008-08-22T00:30:00.000-04:00

Because I have never remembered this poem:

The Hollow Men

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer –

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

-T.S. Eliot

2008-07-17T15:02:00.002-04:00

‘The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.’

2008-07-04T15:03:00.000-04:00

My Problem with 'avian' and 'swine' Flu

I really dislike the term "Swine Flu". Let's do a quick review on Influenza. There are many different types and strains of the virus, but the type that we are always referring to is Influenza A (They strains vary by the make up of certain proteins eg H1N1, H2N5, etc.) . Some of them are specific to different animals including birds, pigs, and humans. The virus can mutate one of two ways. It can have random error in its replication, or more than one strain of the virus can infect the same individual and they can mix together (reassortment). So let's say there is a pig specific flu going around in the pig community, but it isn't too bad--little piglet ts only need to stay home from school for a day before they get better. There is also a human specific flu going around in the human community that has a similar effect on little kids. These two flus aren't too bad because each population has their respective immunities. One day, a human with human flu sneezes on a pig and the pig is able to catch it. Then, her piglet comes home from school and gives her pig flu. The two flus undergo reassortment and make a new hybrid that can be spread to humans. Farmers Jane and John both die because they have no immunity. Now that you know how influenza works, please realize that the 1957 flu could have been called "duck flu" and the 1968 could have been remembered as "swine flu". My point is that one cannot label a flu by the animal it originated from because it is misleading. When you say "swine flu" one thinks you mean that a pig has the flu.

2008-07-02T15:54:00.019-04:00

My Trip into the World of Calculus

For a long time, Calc has been a mystery to me. It has been referred to and talked about all around me; I feel like I have been missing out. For years, I have wondered what it is all about. The time to learn is now as I am taking Calc I at Eastern; although, I am beginning to wish I learned it on my own due to the disjointed and illogical nature of my lecturer. In an attempt to help study for what may very well be extremely easy quizzes (and to help me rationalize paying for and spending my entire mornings getting to and from this class) I am going to re-explain what we have done.

After 6 hours of class, this is what I have come up with:

First thing is first: Limits

Day 1: Say we had a function f(x)=x^2 (please note I am pretending by using the picture I found on google. Just pretend it is a parabola). At any point, we could say that as you approach any given value of x (lets say 2) you also approach the corresponding value of f(x) (in our case, 4!) That number is said to be the limit of a particular function as x approaches ___ (for us it was 2).
This is important because you need to use it when you want to find the equation for a tangent to a curve. Great. (The only practical example was when it is applied to mechanical physics in which they use the word 'velocity' to mean instantaneous velocity which bugs the senial-grandma-hell out of me.)

We are first going to find the slope then use the point-slope equation of a line to find the equation of the tangent. To find the slope of this tangent, we are going to find the slope of a secant whose pair of points includes the point from which we are drawing the tangent (P) . Slope is the change in values along the vertical axis divided by the change in values along the horizontal axis. rise/run (rise over run). Lets write that again replacing the words with variables corresponding to the two items we have. What do we have?
We have:
A curve
A tangent line
A secant line

The difference along the x axis is delta [x] and the difference along the y axis is [f(x+delta[x])-f(x)].
Therefore, rise/run is:

This equation gives the slope of any secant line; all one needs to do is fill in the variables with numbers.

Finally, we apply that thar limit thing to this. What we are trying to do is make the delta [x] as small as possible. In other words, we are going to make the point that is NOT the one we are finding a tangent on (Q) infinitesimally close to the one we are using (P). We do this by using a limit to say that as the difference between the x values of those two points gets closer to zero, our output of the equation will get closer to the slope of the tangent. Equationally, it looks like this:

Problems will consist of a given function, lets say x^2, and the point to which we would like to make a tangent, (2,4) for us because it's easy. So let's plug stuff in:

here, Xo was replaced with the x value of point P (2,4). Easy enough.

Now we know that f(x)=x^2 is the rule used to create the curve in the picture. In the equation, we choose another point by saying we are going to apply the function to the 'number' Xo plus some variable distance (written as Xo+Delta[x]). In this step, we plug that 'number' into the function to get (Xo+Delta[x])^2. We also replaced f(2) by what we know is the answer...4!

Now we simplify! We are going to end up with a squared Delta[x] plus four delta[x]s, no 4's all over a delta[x]. Extract a delta[x] from the numerator and cancel to get this:

Now that everything is super simple, we can directly substitute the number that delta[x] is approaching (ZERO!) for delta x and what are we left with? The slope of the tangent line, which is 4!

Plug that slope into the point-slope form of a line along with point P to get

simplify to get the equation of the tangent line:

That was day 1. Yay.

Day 2: A few additions on yesterday's material about limits.
*A function may jump around (graphically) allowing it to have several limits that may seem counterintuitive at first. A function can have a limit on a part of the curve that approaches a number that it does not reach. For example, a curve may approach 3 as the x value approaches 1, but not include it. In fact, the value that is being approached does not have anything to do with the actual value at that point (in our example function, 1 may correspond to 4,321.7).

*Limits can be viewed as approaching from the right or from the left. If the limit of a function approaching from the left is different than the limit approaching from the right, the limit (not from a particular direction) is said not to exist.

*These are things you can do to limits:

*It is possible for limits to approach infinity in either direction

Thats it for day 2...I had a half page of notes >.<

Day 3: Repeat Day One.

Ok, I bet you are all wondering how we did everything on day one! Well, we didn't. We used a different equation to do it...or something rather. Also, I did not feel like moving everything after I typed it, so it is going to stay where it is.

That's all for today. After all of that, I am going to be mad if I don't do well on this quiz. Also, please leave a comment and correct me if I screwed anything up...thanks.

2008-05-17T00:00:00.000-04:00

Happy 20th Birthday to Me

2008-05-11T22:45:00.000-04:00

I bought a bike!!!!

2008-05-11T22:28:00.001-04:00

2008-05-05T13:37:00.002-04:00

My Emo Heart is Crying at My Inability to Perform as a Real Person
current mood: Like Stephen Colbert blogging after not being invited to the Bush child's wedding

I have decided that it is time for me to become a real person and do real person things. I was partially inspired by this recent encounter I had with a friend of a friend that works at the Espresso Royal on State St.
I walked into Espresso Royal looking for cream, sugar, and cups. I was going to brew coffee the next day for my co-workers as one of them was giving me a ride and we were leaving at an absurdly early hour in the morning. The hour reserved only for people who workout before work and high schoolers involved in almost any extra curricular activity. My friend was working; she introduced me to her friend an co-worker by the same name. I hate to mooch off of my friends by using their employee status to give me discounts or free things; however, in this case the friend of a friend insisted. She had graduated and was getting a job in New York. She put it like this: "I am leaving to become a real person."

To begin my own quest on becoming a real person, I am making what seem like significant life choices , I am pretty frustrated at what is going on with my summer plans. I was planning to take online math and physics courses at EMU. Well, after an excruciatingly long and embarrassing phone advising appointment--phone advising appointments were created for people living out of state...I am just exploiting the system-- I have found out that I did not do enough research. As it turns out, there are no math and physics online courses and I will be commuting if I want to take them. As it turns out, I am a guest student, not a transfer student (that was the most embarrassing of my lack of research). (**I am sure that I have some form of ADD. This is not one of the things, I just wanted to excuse myself for what I really wanted to say which is that I just noticed that I push the space bar predominantly on the right side, judging from the wear of the coating on the key itself. Now that I am cognizant of it, it appears that I push it mostly with my right pointer finger. I feel to constrained if I leave my hands in one place, I like to move them around a little when I type...plus, my hands get sweaty if I rest my palms on the laptop.**) As it turns out, both the physics department and the math department require absurd prerequisites before I can take the classes I want: Calculus requires a college level Trig class (despite the fact I have taken an all encompassing pre-calc class at UofM). And as it turns out, I have to file at least three forms before I can even begin to enroll for summer semester as I gave up on Spring semester and I do not want any more fees. Oh yeah, and as it turns out, I don't like being wrong so you can imagine how I taste about all of this. Bitter, Salty with a hint of parsley...paltry I mean.
I do believe I made the right decision in dealing with this problem, I pushed my plan of action several weeks into the future. This gives me a little time to sort things out and not look like a fool. Along the lines of looking like a fool, I acted on what some would consider a foolish whim and bought a 1940 Royal typewriter for $26.50. It is in pretty good condition and everything works but the ribbon, of which only a fraction is usable. I have already used it to write on two page letter that I finally sent today to the Finlandian. At this point, I must make it known that as I write I lose energy and stop caring about what I am writing. This entry is just about done anyway; I have one final thought.

Manual automobiles, rather the drivers of manual automobiles, get automatic bonus points on my sexy scale. As much as I dislike the use of petrol, and most cars do still run on petrol, I can not deny the attraction I have to a man that can drive well. One that will have an engaging and interesting conversation with you in his luxury vehicle while driving back from the modern, upscale, yet eco-friendly vegetarian restaurant you just had dinner. He flawlessly shifts the well insulated car from gear to gear and while all you hear is the light jazz from the radio and the words coming out of his mouth occasionally accompanied by a muffled roar from the engine. HOT.

Now I should go do something to further my life as a real person. I may go to the bike shop and look at some bikes.

Summary
-----------
I am working on becoming a real person
I dislike being wrong
Typewriters are fantastic
The drivers of manual vehicles are way sexy

2008-04-14T00:08:00.002-04:00

"We are not supposed to have a dominion. If we have anything, we have the responsibility." - Morgan Freeman

On a completely unrelated note, I have decided that I have trouble doing things regularly. It seems that events in my life haphazardly place themselves into some sort of order without anything but my suggestions as to where they might fit best.

Over this summer I plan to try and accomplish several things at once by improving in a to be decided skill (hand writing, literature, studying, etc.) at a specific time everyday. As of now I operate completely without routine... this will be an experiment in will power. Soon I will make a time line of the plan; I will also have to choose a skill to improve. If I am completely indecisive I can change skills every month or so, or choose 4 and rotate every week, or I could choose a few and rotate daily, or I could choose a few and devote a majority of the alloted time to one while still finding a way to practice a smaller amount of the others (eg if the alloted time is 2 hours, spend 1.5 hours on the major component of that day and 15 on the other two). The last option could have many different variations to it.

In any case, I need to ensure that I have enough will power to initiate this.

2008-02-06T01:12:00.001-05:00

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

e.e. cummings

2008-01-10T14:00:00.001-05:00

When I speak to people who are steadfast in their beliefs and points of view, I have mixed feelings. I refuse to hold a belief so dearly, to have a position so unmovable that few things are capable of making me change my mind. That is just ignorance to me. There are few instances in which one can know absolutely everything about a given topic. Every detail, every person involved, every circumstance. One should certainly have reason for their belief, but in very few cases is that reason thorough enough to warrant sureness.

A problem inevitably arises when putting beliefs into action. If one is completely sure of a certain belief, putting it into action is easy as there are not any other things they must take into account. For rational things, however, it is harder as there will always be things that one has missed one way or another. The solution? Be able to either modify actions and policies or make up for mistakes.

I want to edit this and write more...I will if I find the time

2008-01-05T09:44:00.001-05:00

It's been a month....that was fast.

I get so excited with new things, but I'm afraid I get bored to quickly. This has been most prominent with jobs, jobs that I really enjoy, but I feel like its the same thing over and over and it isn't fun. Should it be? Is that what work is for? Can it be? I try to find ways to make it new and exciting to me. New variations, new attitudes, new people.
Thoughts?

2007-12-05T12:07:00.001-05:00

The reason I avoid writing is because I become consumed by it. It eats my life and my time. Please read the example below.

2007-11-16T12:01:00.000-05:00

Good Evening Citizens of the World,

Tonight I would like to present the issue of social responsibility in the media. Specifically in television. I, like many others, watch TV every so often and I enjoy it. The other day I noticed, after watching Battlestar Galactica, that I have been reflecting upon topics that are presented in the show ranging from genocide to biracial tensions to martial law to religious tensions. During the show I find myself thinking about what I would have done in that situation, how I would have handled it. I certainly would not have allowed the circle of peers to enact vengeful murders on people that maybe deserved it. I certainly would not have endorsed suicide bombings. I, as President of the Colonies would have done the exact same thing as Mary McDonnell's character because she is incredibly cool..and kinda hot. I know how not to commit treason. I know how not to think I am an alien species. Unfortunately, in most situations that I will face in my life, I will not have a chance to employ my new skills.

With that in mind I would like to zoom out and remind everyone about a little bit of child development. One prominent theory in child development is the concept of modeling. A child will watch someone do something and imitate that behavior. This includes both technical skills and social skills. Here's an example: A family is in a restaurant and there is a discrepancy about the bill. The parent reacts to this by yelling and being very angry about it. The child observes the whole things happen. Later that week the child is in the lunchroom at school and yells at a staff person for not serving him the correct thing. A social tactic he had obviously learned from his parent.

It is no question that children are watching more and more tv these days. With reason too! There are so many high quality, interactive, artsy, educational programs out there its unbelievable. Oh wait, that was a dream. Let me rephrase, there are so many masturbatory, dopamine extracting shows out there it's no wonder kids are glued to the tube. In our culture, it is more and more often that a child will grow up with fewer real life role models. Their parents are working more, they live in more separated places, they are eating more and playing less. TV is the babysitter. The more I learn about child development the more and more amazed I am with how powerful and adaptive the brain is, especially when it is young. More importantly than how much TV kids watch, young kids and adolescence alike, is how much it influences them. How much a person is influenced by the media is dependent on how much that person identifies with what they are absorbing.

Before I rant more I want to clarify a term I am going to use: Big Media. Big Media refers to the oligopoly of corporations that have complete control over all aspects of media including but not limited to news, entertainment (music, movies, shitty magazines), and information (Internet, books, etc.). I will admit that I am in now way an expert in communication studies or media culture, but I do know that all of media (with the exception being some independent tubes of the Internet and local newspapers and things) is owned and controlled by an oligopoly of companies that, believe it or not, was founded by immigrants such as Adolph Zukor(Hungary,founder of Paramount), Samuel Goldwyn (Warsaw , founder of MGM--on a side note, Zukor and Goldwyn were brother's in law. Goldwyn helped Zukor start paramount but disputes led to his leave and eventual creation of MGM), Carl Laemmle (Germany, Universal Studios), and Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner (Poland, obviously founders of Warner Bros.) These companies, which if you have seen any movies ever produce the majority of mainstream films. Here is a breakdown of who owns what:

Media Group <- Subsidiary of or high majority of ownership by

Dreamworks, MTV Films <- Paramount
New Line Cinemas <- Warner Bros.
--------------------------------
Paramount <- Viacom
MGM <- Sony
Warner Bros. <- Time Warner Inc.
Universal <- NBC Universal
--------------------------------
NBC Universal - General Electric

And pulling from the example I started with
Battlestar Galactica is a joint venture between Sky One and The Sci Fi Channel
Sky One <- News Corp (see below)
Sci Fi Channel <- NBC Universal

So there you have it folks. Some of the biggest players in Big Media (The others being Disney, News Corp. (owners of myspace; CEO is Rupert Murdoch), and CBS. If you are interested see stopbigmedia.com or check out Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig)

The point of all this is that what I watch, read, and listen to is controlled by a boardroom of old white men who are interested in the preservation of their companies and their company's image. Now I know people will say, "what about shareholders and their input or watching independent channels" or whatever crazy activist way of trying to take down big media they might be advocating to which I would respond yeah, it exists and it might work in some places, but it never gets rid of the fact that what is on the television and in the movies is completely controlled by a boardroom of old white guys...that either have lower ratings or receive a letter from a concerned viewer. Through an exhausting chain of people, a tv show or movie will be created, carrying whatever ideas and themes it may, that inevitably contains emotionally provocative material to entice viewers to watch it. "If you focus on the meanings, you might miss the selling points and nobody will watch it." So why think too much about what message you are selling until you get it sold? Because after it is sold it is too late. You can not erase something a person has seen or heard or thought about without extensive help from either an awesome rogue militia group or the government (different story)....or if you are the thought police.

All in all, those who have the power to influence the masses are also the ones who should be held responsible for the quality and content of the messages they are selling. In times when people are most influenced by the messages they hear from friends, family and other sources (...media!), also taking into account that people learn and imitate more of what they identify with and that the goal of media is to create things that people will buy and consume (things they identify with) it is vital that those messages present and reinforce behaviors and ideas that are socially constructive.

Thank you, and have a good evening.

~~Bite~~Cite me
Wikipedia
stopbigmedia.com
FEILITZEN, CECILIA V., LINNE, OLGA. (1975). IDENTIFYING WITH TELEVISION CHARACTERS. Journal of Communication, 25(4), 51.

2007-10-19T23:51:00.000-04:00

Ambition is a good idea but not much more,
people lose ideas because they are insubstantial,
they feel insubstantial guilt about not holding onto their ambition;
more importantly, my egg sandwich is going bad!

2007-04-22T00:00:00.000-04:00

The Meaning of What!?

Earlier this year I attempted to answer, or at least begin to answer the question, "Who am I?" After talking with several people and thinking about this at great length I have come to the definitive conclusion that I need to spend some more time thinking about it. In fact, I have not gotten very far; however, I will attempt to go through my thinking process so far. I figure, start with what you see.

The Body
The human body is an amazingly complex system of chemicals, organism, and carbon structures that interact at ridiculously fast speeds. More specifically, our brains are continuously in the process of creating and refining neural pathways that are essentially the most unique part of the body. Sure DNA is unique in people, but I would think that the way a persons brain is mapped is much more flexible and variable than DNA.

Ok, so I don't think that that is the best way to approach it, but it's at least a start. From here I often move into what makes someone unique in comparison to other people. One thing that is unique I have already hit which is the exact composition of a person's body. Brain, genes, etc.

One of the other things that I think definitively distinguishes one person from the other is the series of experiences that they have been through. Think about it. A person is born to a particular situation. Both parents, one parents, a village, siblings (or not), pack of wolves, you get the idea; and they are raised in accordance with them. No one person can have exactly the same experiences as another. There are an infinite number of combinations of experiences that any given person can have. It's unimaginable!

I 'spose whats next is to delve into the world of morals and beliefs, as they are ultimately the result of the combination of neural and environmental influences. This is the part that philosophers and scientists go nuts over....especially the squirrel scientists and philosophers (sorry, that was a cheap nut joke....one might even call it a bad nut). I'm not really in the mood to even attempt getting in to what that involves, free will, morality, self-centrism. No, instead I am going conclude with a conveniently broad and thought provoking quote from I <3 Huckabees :

"How can I not be me?"

2007-03-30T09:14:00.000-04:00

The American Dream

So, I never new it, but the American dream created by mostly Jewish immigrants film moguls getting rich. The underdog, finding your dream, all of the good ones. I also just noticed after watching a trailor for the film Meet the Robinsons that these movies definatly carry a feeling with them. I don't know what it is, maybe hope? But is definatly something that starts days. What I am worried about is that it is the kind of feeling that can only be let down. A feeling, given by these movies of underdogs rising up and making it give me this funny feeling that I can do something. Maybe its the American Feeling: If you work harder enough, you can do anything accompanied by that hope that everything will work out in the end. Unfortunatly, the American Feeling is invariably accompanied by the American Letdown: If you don't make it you didn't work hard enough, it is all your fault. That is completely untrue in my opinion, but it can be this terribly degrading feeling.
What I am trying to dcide right now is if the AF is a bad thing. Working hard, having hope, are those things bad? I hope not, because I love those movies. I love the American Feeling.

2007-03-09T13:23:00.000-05:00

Which is worse:

Love without lust or lust without love?

Edit: >.<>.<

2007-02-17T01:25:00.000-05:00

So, I know that I'm being a little emo and artistic here, but hang with me ok? I made some art:

2007-02-13T22:18:00.000-05:00

Hyperactive Analyzation Disorder Regarding Interpersonal Magnetism

I've said things like this before, but I will try to word it in an exciting new way for you. Our minds move at fucking incredible speeds every second. Over the course of a minute someone can think of puppies, death, sex, taxes, aqua teen hunger force, terrorists, music, sex, movies, boyfriends, Africa, girlfriends, being stupid, friends, and nothing; and that's just the top 10% of the iceberg (now that I am in college I use fancy things like percentages...that is the correct amount of iceberg that sticks out incase you didn’t know). Now think how many seconds you have been alive and all of the different things you have thought about. Now think of all of the things you have done. It is incredible isn't it? What’s more, you are truly unique in what you have done and there is no possible way for anyone else to have the same experience you can. However, people can have similar personalities.

From here I want to pull a few things: uniqueness, thinking speed, and personalities. This really doesn’t have anything to do with V day, but more what's going on in my life. One thing that I have noticed, not just with this but with everything, is that I (and I am sure other people do this too!) take all of these experiences I have had and project them onto others when we don't know them. We think about the future in the only way we can, which is by bringing to mind the first thing we think of. Daniel Gilbert talks about this his book, but I’m just getting there and I haven't read it lately. Anyway, in my situation I have had a recent encounter with someone that I thought went well. In any case, since then I have created many many different possible emotions to possible reactions. It's like preparing for the future. We like to be prepared, no matter how much we like surprises, we like to be prepared. Additionally, I have made millions of guesses at personality and lifestyle because I don't have anything to base it on. I feel like a really debated and hard to interpret scientific concept where any new information makes me rethink EVERYTHING if just for an instant.

My name is Colin and I have Hyperactive Analyzation Disorder Regarding Interpersonal Magnetism

"Maybe tomorrow would be the day"

(for people who haven't gotten it yet, I over think EVERYTHING and more)

2007-02-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

Recently I've Been Thinking
Get ready for a really trippy metaphor

So. so you remember those funny plastic ball things with the holes for the shapes? and the shapes were like square, hexagon, circle, and triangle? Now, and I'm sure everyone who goes to anywhere new feels like this, but I feel like I am an icosadodecahedron trying to be pushed where the hexagon goes.

Let me take you trough the whole metaphor. From the outside, the University first looks like one of these expandable ball things things. A collapsed one. And you think oh look at all the pretty colors, they accept everyone and everyone has their place here. It's so wonderful. Then you get here and it opens up. Now it is HUGE!!!!!. Inside this giant ball thing is a variation of one of those other child toys that you put the shapes into. The one I explained above. Except instead of putting the shape into the other ball, you just have to match up the sides. Now, everyone is a polyhedron varying in shape size and what kinds of polygons you are made up of. See this one for example. It has pentagons, rectangles, squares and funky shapes. Each one represents a part of a person and it connects up with the shape sphere thing I mentioned earlier. Now, each person is a polyhedron and each social scene or identity group is a shape sphere (that's what I will call them from now on). So, I'm sure you can imagine what this looks like, many polyhedrons all arranged in a crazy crazy impossible system that links shapes to spheres and people to people.
Just like anywhere you go there are identities ranging from brother sister and child to loner, from drunk to slut to stud, from nerd to dork from, gay to straight, etc. You know what I mean. Everyone one is apart of some group right? and some are more in some groups than others. But, groups don't matter when you are not with other people. In best case scenarios, your social and persona identities don't matter anyway with other people, they are just around you for the sum of those identities.
So, I have questions for readers: what identity of yours do you I identify with most? I was asked that question before and I really couldn't decide. I didn't feel right declaring one more important over others. Each had their special place, and I felt like they were all apart of ME and this funny ME thing was how i represented myself. this social identity grouping shit doesn't work very well because every one's view of their identity group is different and things don't seem to fit sometimes. ... ok I'm not making sense anymore and I'm tired.
Also, Middle and High School seem like these crazy places where people try on identities and find what fits best and then they have some presets to fall on when they go to a new place like Uni(versity, I like the English way of calling it Uni because its faster to type so I will further refer to it as such) and are lumped into identities. Now, there's a whole lot of stuff that can be said about not lumping or being lumped and getting treatment for cancer, but everyone does it (the first two) and I feel strange when people lump me into a group that isn't one that I identify with more than others. Plus, is it possible to grow as a person with out identifying to a major group? and when I see people that I think are well developed and know who they are and they identify with a major group or are well developed in their skill/trade/identity/ whatever, am i lumping them correctly? If you have heard this rant before and can better articulate what I am trying to say please do, even though it is very high school I'm afraid of the world self unsurity melo drama. I would like to know and its driving me nuts....along with the captain's wheel in my pants.

Later

2007-01-12T23:58:00.000-05:00

Off the Radar

I just finished watching an episode of Boston Legal.Let me first get you in my shoes, in my frame of mind:

Tonight I want to talk about something not happy.

Tonight I want to talk about something not happy.

The mere fact that I would WANT to talk about something that makes me unhappy seems against what humans are for. I am currently reading Stumbling for Happiness (and Power, Freedom and Grace) in both books, the authors have come to the conclusions that what we want in life is happiness. That is what people look for. Yet here I am, wanting to be unhappy. Not only that, I want to make other people unhappy too. Misery love company, eh? What I want to practice before I get into things is a little visualization exercise. There are going to be three, each taking you to a level of less and less happiness. My goal is to make you miserable. I'm sorry if I offend anyone. here goes:

1) What a great morning! How can it not be? It's your birthday! You look out the window, the sun is just now creeping into the sky, light purple. What a view. The room is a little cold, but the bed is just how it should be. Nice and Cozy. Only one thing missing. Your Partner! and that's when it hits you. Your heart starts racing...not there...you can hardly see...but you can smell, oh you can smell. That strong reeking smell, the kind that can make some people vomit, the kind that could wake you out of a coma: Colombian Coffee. How coffee could make someone vomit you're not quite sure, but you just woke up so who cares? You hop into your brand new slippers andwalk. Past the kids bedroom and down the stairs right into the kitchen where your partner is making breakfast NAKED....wait no, just wearing a shirt that resembles skin color. Breakfast for two as the sun rises, how could this day get any better? With work of course!
Work has never been like this before. Normally most people are gloomy and not looking forward to another day at work, but it seems like a wallmart greeter convention, everyone is smiling and cheery to see you...How strange, its only 8 in the morning! Your desk has a three cards on it, one from your boss, one from Jon(one of your co-workers, he's a sound engineer, funny guy) and the other is from your kids. Poorly drawn, four blobs, two purple, one red and one blue. Thats your family. Right there. How simple. It doesn't matter what you are really does it? You are family, you've got brothers and sisters and...that song hasn't been played in a LOOONG time. This day can't get any better. You're right. It can't. It's 8:46 a.m. There's an earthquake. 600 people die. Instantly, A blast of heat hits you and you see flames shoot out of the stair wells and elevator shaft. The day doesn't get any better. You're in hell, there is fire everywhere, smoke barreling in, breathing is hard. Can't stand anymore. All you need is some air, you need to get out, people are screaming. The card, your family portrait is in your hand which are both obscured by the smoke. You can't see much, all you can think about is crawling towards the light coming in the window. You get there, sitting where you can breath a little and there is only one thought going through your mind. You will never see your family again. You here a voice that sounds familiar. It's Jon! He's running really quick right towards you...not you, the window, he ran right out the window. But it doesn't matter, you will never see your family again. At exactly 10:28 a.m. that is a true fact. Your family will never see you again. In fact, they won't even find you. After they cleared all the debris, you were one of the 24 people that are missing and presumed dead among the 2,973 of 9/11.

2) You walk into the office. As it started, today was not a very good day. Last you had heard, there were an estimated 3,000 dead in the 9/11 attacks. Such a terrible event, you are gld that you are home. But there are more important things on your mind. Even with all this tragedy, you are still here, alive and kicking! It's been so long since you have seen the doctors, they ran a few tests the other week just to show that you were well. Nothing but routine. In fact, for such a dismall day, the office staff seemed to be quite friendly. Even, nice! First time its happened to you! Everyone has their days right?
Dorothy opens the door and calls your name. She had a look in her eye, like she was there for you...to help you if you needed any getting on the scale. now that you think of it, she might be having a good day to. You have a quick chat about how things are and she listens. Boy does she listen. It's such a great feeling to have someone listen to you once in a while. You make a mental note to invite her to your daughter's wedding. This doctor's visit is turning out to be better than you thought. She takes you to the office and instead of having to wait, your doctor is already there. Wow, now thats service. He breathes in deep, then out slow, as if some invisible other doctor had a stethascope on his back listening for any abnormalities. You get into the office and sit down. You tell your doctor how appreciative you are for everything that he has done and that he too is invited to your daughters wedding. Though, you have to stop there because your wife will kill you if invite anyone else. "I'm sorry, there is no easy way to say this. The cancer has spread to your brain and is untreatable."

You won't live to see your daughter get married.

3) Finally, you have to make a choice. Imagine the people you love. Each one lined up in a big long line balancing on puppy dogs and rainbows. Now, put them in a dank cellar with little light and a disgusting smell. much Better. If you had to choose one to torture ruthlessly, who would it be?

All of these are terrible. If you are like me, they make you want to sit down and cry helplessly. They make you feel powerless to do anything, they make you feel emotional pain, they make you suffer.
Now I want you to think about the next couple statements I am about to say. If you are like me, by this point, sad is an understatement. I'm only going to say a few things and I want you to read them one by one, take 30 seconds after each one and try and put yourself in that situation. use what you already know about those things and put yourself in these places:

-thousands of people killed themselves instead of being processed, shaved, striped, worked to death and ovened in the Holocaust

- A doctor who worked through hurricane Katrina said, "I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul."
"According to statements given to an investigator in the attorney general's office, LifeCare's pharmacy director, the director of physical medicine and an assistant administrator say they were told that the 'evacuation plan' for the seventh floor was to not leave any living patients behind, and that 'a lethal dose would be administered', according to their statements in court documents."

- At one point in time, other human beings were owned as property, bought and sold like sacks of fertilizer, only worth more because they could clear, plant and reap fields, instead of just make them grow better.

These things are worse, so much worse than the stories I gave. but these are even harder to imagine. These are too much more, too distant, too foreign; even some of mine were unfathomable. We don't know what it is like to be in a burning building with no hope of escape, we don't know what it is like to be a doctor, who has given a vow to help patients, after not sleeping for three days, working in a hospital in 100 degree weather without water or supplies. We don't know what it is like to be owned by another person, with no chance or release, no chance of freedom, no chance of escape. Instead, you work 16 hours a day until your body breaks, and then you work until you are told you can stop.

We do not know what it is like. They are bad, they are awful, unfathomable, they are off the radar completely. We don't even have the emotion references to be able to place those kinds of experiences.
When I think of these events, slavery, genocide, death; after the sadness and the grief and the angry, all I have left is love. All I want to do is embrace someone and go on from there, because if we don't keep going....well, then, we flatline.

Special thanks to Wikipedia, and various online news sources for quotes.

I'm sorry that that was so unhappy, so I have found a few things to bring a smile to your face

Edit: Here's some hope for the lost

2007-01-01T00:21:00.001-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2006-12-30T16:41:00.000-05:00

So I have a few things to say about gender and how I don't really think it is used for much of anything, but until then I would like to share with you a trade secret of making mixed drinks. Here is how the really good places make all sorts of mixed drinks ranging from James Bond's martinis to good 'ol chocolate milk.
Directions: Take ingredients to be mixed, insert into the head of the girl wearing gold. Run the dance number (watch the video) then pour in and empty glass, over ice, or how ever you like. Bar none, this is not only the most elaborate physical execution of the directions "shake well" I have ever seen, but also the best dressed.

2006-12-27T23:21:00.000-05:00

If you stay in Larissa, you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman, and you will have sons and daughters, who will have children. And they'll all love you and remember your name. But when your children are dead, and their children after them, your name will be forgotten... If you go to Troy, glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories in thousands of years! And the world will remember your name. But if you go to Troy, you will never come back... for your glory walks hand-in-hand with your doom. And I shall never see you again.

Doesn't everyone want to do something? Who wants to be forgotten? Does anyone want not to be remembered?
I talk to people every now and then, as most do, and have come to the conclusion that everyone wants to 'do something'. How specific. Some want to be doctors, some want to be doctors that go to places of the world that are in awful condition and help make things better. Some want to be politicians. Some want to solve the world's political problems and create world peace. OK. Great. Something will happen eventually. Never underestimate the power of the people of the world to do something. I'm not saying it will be a good change necessarily, but in the general trend of things in general, they usually improve. We will keep on truckin. I guess I am looking at two types of the same genre of question.

The first is the what do you want to do question. well, I'm not sure but, like everyone else I want to do something that will make an impact on the world and on people. I want my life to mean something, I want to look back on my life from my obviously present perfect in every way after life retirement home and see that my life made a difference in the scheme of the world. (The whole after life was a joke because I don't believe in it). Everyone does. Unfortunately, I think that our culture has a certain way that we think we can accomplish this goal. We call it school. Learning, and education. But isn't true that so many of the best inventions and breakthroughs in history were either by genetic anomaly created geniuses or by talented self-motivated people who had little uniform, school education. I think that if there were something I really wanted to do, something that could change the world and help people, getting and education is only postponing it. the only reason I would get an education, especially at my level, would be to get to a level where society deems it acceptable to do whatever it was I wanted to do. Wait a sec, no its not. I think there is a small part of that in it, but more than that, the education puts me at a position with more options. If I wanted to help people in a poor country and i just got out of high school, eventually I could do something like join the Peace Corps. Or if I wanted to help people I could become a doctor, make some money, then go spend all of my life's savings to build a hospital in the middle of a poverty stricken nation and help like that too. the thing is, many of the doors that I could take now stay open and increase in number as I learn more and increase my abilities.

I don't remember the second part of where I was going with this. I'm a little sleepy. So ill just keep going with what I was saying. If i became a doctor, I could still be in the peace corps and do the same thing that I could have done 12 years earlier. That would be a waste of talent though. A waste of me. The more I learn, the more responsibility I feel i have to put it to use in some method. Not just school learning, life learning. When.........nope lost it.

In conclusion, I want to do something, Now. I want some friends to comment and tell me what it is they want to do, and lets do something about it now. Lets feed people without food. Lets help kids in trouble with their families, lets do something while we learn. Just schooling is a waste of us. Yeah, I want to do something to be remembered, but it is more important not to waste myself on me. That is what far too many self-richeous self-centered college kids sit around doing all day long. Two hours at a soup kitchen or shelter a week really isn't that much. Stop wasting your lives. if the human race is ever going to survive, we need to help each other.

Just remembered the second part. If you really think about it, what is THE most pragmatic profession or study to get involved with? In my opinion it is the one that will help us better understand ourselves and our world. It's called science folks and I believe its the only thing that can save us. Even if we do stop the global warming we have caused, there could be another gigantic volcano explosion and we could go into another ice age. Its only going to be the scientists who expect, predict and forecast this. The engineers are going to have to come up with a way for us to survive off of alternative energy and other things. You get my drift. i need to sleep. I am really tired. Comment and help me develop something. I've said things really really generally.

2006-12-18T11:23:00.000-05:00

So I have an idea that I have read about in a few places and sort of relate to. i am still playing around with it so do some commenting and help me out here. the idea is that education fosters acceptance (of all kinds, racial, sexual, ethnic, gender, etc.) here is what I remember about my uneducated years.

The first is of more blind tolerance than I think ever exists except when you are young. I want food, I want to play, etc and who ever will feed me or play with me works because that is what I want to do. Does not matter! Just gimme a sandwich and lets play legos.

Now I also remember elementary school where girls had cooties, liked pink and yellow, and played with dolls. Boys, in these days, had cooties (XY cooties, duh!), liked blue and red (green was neutral territory), and fought on the playground. In these days it was strange for me to want to go play jump rope with some girls. In fact, it was more socially appropriate for me to hold one's hand and to 'like' someone, in the kind of way that my mother has often asked about.
So, something happened between these two eras. I think I know what it is too. In the first, when we are really young, we don't really have a developed psyche. In fact, most of us haven't really developed yet. Correct me if I'm wrong but our frontal lobes scarcely even exist do they? Any way, some years pass, and we develop a sense of self and what not. I think that the time we start noticing and caring about differences is when we develop identities. Then we say hmmm, we are different! Cool? or BAD! I think that the initial reactions are directly influenced by what we have learned. At that time, we haven't really learned much of anything except what we have seen, heard, and experienced with our parents. So, first step, our first reactions and ideas about other people, who are different in any way, come from what we learn from our parents.

Next we go to school. What we learn there is a combination of social interaction and what is taught to us. In other words, we learn from what other people have learned. If you are Asian and learned to accept everyone, but everyone else hates white people, I think that you may change your mind rather quickly, especially at this age. Maybe you won't change your mind completely, but you will at least be a closeted accepting person.
~~~~Wavy transition into the future~~~~
Then you go on to more education and the same thing happens, etc. You learn more, ideas change....you get the idea.

Now I would think, that as you go on, learning more about the cultures of the world and more about philosophies and ways of thinking and problem solving and spelling (though spelling doesn't really have a lot to do with it) you begin to see that there really aren't that many differences between people. Example: genetics. Differences between groups, for example race, are far smaller than the differences found between groups. I agree that there are differences, I am not trying to deny the fact that my skin is much pastier than many other peoples, I am just saying that there is far more similar between me and my less ghostly friends that it makes no reason for me to hate them because they do not glow in the dark with whiteness.
(try this at home: watch bill Nye's new show, specific episode on race.)

So, there it is, I proved that education is directly correlated to tolerance and acceptance using personal experiences, general knowledge, you tube, and a note from my mother. (My dog ate the note, he also got hit by a car, I can't prove that that existed)
Yes, I know that trying to base any kind of theory on my own experiences is absolutely ridiculous. What isn't ridiculous are two studies done in different areas of the world looking at different things, but both finding the same general idea.
The first is a Harvard study done on immigration in Europe (<-- pdf alert) found something really cool. "More educated respondents are significantly less racist and place greater value on cultural diversity than their counterparts." Huh. So, while this study isn't looking exactly at what I am talking about, they did find that in this case that more educated people are less racist. Neat huh?

The next study was one done by the University of Minnesota on whiteness
"Age and income have little impact on a white person’s awareness of their racial identity, the study found. But Southerners and social conservatives place more emphasis on their racial identity than other white Americans, while those with more education place less." So what does this say? It says that educated white people tend to not care as much about their whiteness. I can't technically directly apply that as a blanket theory to my idea, but it does help push me in the right direction!

In conclusion, I really do think that education is correlated to tolerance and acceptance of all differences including race, sex, ethnicity, and gender.

So, given what I have, let me know what you think. I know not everything is perfect, but its a start.

peace

2006-12-15T11:34:00.000-05:00

I am trying to learn the international phonetic alphabet. Im not sure I am doing this right, but at least its a start. I have much to learn. Try and figure out what it says!

2006-12-07T10:33:00.000-05:00

My Schedule for Winter

2006-11-26T11:15:00.000-05:00

Misunderstanding

Ill begin with a question: Why is it that people aren't able to understand accept other people's beliefs, thoughts, ideas, choices.

Here's an example. I am a vegetarian. My older brother doesn't understand why I am a vegetarian. Therefore, it is somehow a crime that I don't eat meat and he must make sure that I know that he thinks my belief is dumb. While I am not offended or angered by his continuous comments, I am a little bothered. When someone asks me about it, I tell them. Usually I say something about animal cruelty, wasting energy, cholesterol, and chemicals. Then he says something like, "Well I still eat animals." In some mysterious fashion, that is the answer and end all and he leaves the conversation. I'm not quite sure how that works. I get the same answer even when I am minding my own business, say, when I am watching a video on animal cruelty and he walks into the room. He then says something like, "I don't want to see that! Even if I did, I will still eat animals." Again, what he says doesn't offend me or anything, I have nothing against people who eat meat, seriously. That's just as much of a choice as my not eating meat, or you eating brussel sprouts (I do too,mmm). Who cares! Somehow I offend him or anger him in some way that he needs to defend his right to eat animals with me even saying anything.

What I don't understand is why he can't just accept a decision like that and say ok, cool, who cares? I mean seriously. Why do things like this always happen? Why must people always make a big idea of things? It's the same kinda deal with drinking. (around 2:50)

Like I said before, why can't people just accept it. Why does what we do define who we are? I know that what we do is a part of who we are just as much as our personalities, beliefs, and other things. Yet somehow, it is only one or two things that make us who we are to other people.

Its the same as being gay. Why does it matter to people? Why can't you just take it as fact that it is who I am and not worry about it. I don't need you telling me that I am going to hell in your religion because I like guys or because I don't eat meat or because I don't have an imaginary friend. I don't need you to tell me that you are better than me because you believe in god or you eat meat or you think that homosexuality is wrong. But even if you do that's cool. I'm not going to hold it against you. I judge people on personality and their actions that concern me. You eating meat, the only way that could concern me is that I'm glad that there is no possibility that you would want to eat me.

So please, why does it matter? Why do my decisions about myself and my own actions, that have nothing to do with you, matter to you?

2006-10-25T23:30:00.000-04:00

Dr Les Roberts, who led the study, said: "Making conservative assumptions we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more, have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq."

As a reference, the death toll of The World Trade Center attacks is officially 2,752 people.

****Please read the disclaimer at the bottom before you start bitching at me****

Words Can't describe what I feel right now. I just watched a movie called The Panama Deception in which I heard more lies then I thought was possible for one person to make. Those of you who have read Middlesex will understand when I try and say what I feel by saying Sadforwhatthiscountryhasdone-angrythatwehaven'tstoppedityet-
hleplessandhopelessthatthereisntanythingwecando.
Well, that's my own take in Euginides amazing description of emotion.

Someone tell me here, what have we done to this place and to these people? There is already so much conflict there, the ONLY thing we are doing is making it worse. What have we done? We have taken away any form of stability they had, make them rely on us for military power and basically just make sure things don't get too organized for anybody. How the hell does this make anything better?

Something needs to be done about this. You know, the funny thing is that one man's hero is another's terrorists. Some fundamentalists did their little thing here and what do we do? ROLL OUT THE HEAVY ARTILLERY BECAUSE THAT IS OUR REASON TO INVADE THE COUNTRIES WE WANT TO.

"When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
- Julius Caesar, Act II, sc. ii

It is the same reason we invaded Panama. We waited until something happened to the US and then we could basically do whatever the hell we please. I bet Osama Bin Laden isn't a real person. What if? What if he is being paid by the US? Why haven't we found him yet? We've certainly killed enough people. We HAVE the technology. Maybe we haven't found him because the govt don't want to find him. Maybe they are in businesss with him, not an official one, a skanky one where in return for the fear he creates, they pay him by not really looking for him. What kind of people are we?

Why would they want to find him? His tapes and his speeches are the key to making the people of the US subordinate and willing to do"whatever it takes" to ...Something mumble.. Something about peace (this is the part where the politician that must not be named says lots of things but really means whatever it takes to get our oil and world power....)

DISCLAIMER: I do not know everything about this conflict and I am not pretending I do. I know one thing: almost anything is possible. So humor me, what if? Think about it.What if the media is only allowed access to the 'good stuff'. I am so sure that there are places that they don't let the media go and its there that the worst happens.

I AM PISSED.

I'mm drowning
Save me
Wake me up

I'm not tired"

2006-10-15T22:57:00.000-04:00

why do we watch these dramas?

because we want to belong. We want to fit into the group of spectators that watch this show. We want an escape from our lives. We watch the overly dramatic things because they make our lives seem not as bad. But i can't help but think of how awful this is.

How we live in such an era where we need this. We are in the top 15% of the population and I can't stand it! There are so many people who are poor, dying, starving, the list goes on.

It makes me sad...

2006-10-08T15:38:00.000-04:00

not being chrisitian I dont feel right making any sort of christian argument on anything.
However, a person like DAVID MYERS!!!(who btw wrote the text book for AP Psych!) can. I saw him the other day and he gave a presentation on chrisitan support for Gay Marriage. I thought it was good. I attempted to record it on my mp3 player and i will post it after I overcome the two following problems:
1) The recorder was not very near to him, so it is very very quiet.
2) My mp3 player and program does not allow me to take things off of it, including recordings.

As soon as I get it on my computer and edit the audio with the sweet adobe program I have and dont know how to use I will put it up.
Until then, you can admire David Myers at his web site: http://www.davidmyers.org/
[I like writing the website because it is easy...I could hyperlink it for you lazy folks]

peace

2006-09-27T14:23:00.000-04:00

This Guy

Makes me MAD at PEOPLE
MAD at HATE
MAD at INTOLERANCE

2006-09-07T16:12:00.000-04:00

i need you here tonight like the ocean needs the waves

2006-07-15T06:17:00.000-04:00

I just posted a draft that I had on 10/28/2005 . Check it out. It most certainly wasn´t done...Its only a few lines, but My views have changed on the subject so I will talk more on it later.

2006-07-15T05:59:00.000-04:00

This is Badalona, Spain...A very poor picture of Badalona, Spain.
This is where I am right now and where i have been for the past week. Hope things are well. Im off to England tomorrow.

Bye

2006-07-08T12:08:00.000-04:00

2006-07-07T10:29:00.000-04:00

Question for all of you.

What defines a person?

What do we base or judgments of people on?

Are they the same?

Im leaving for Europe on sunday, I may be in touch maybe not. If I do have computer access, I will have a blog online somewhere. I'll keep you posted.

2006-07-06T22:43:00.000-04:00

"Overcast. Highs in the mid 50s; lows in the mid 40s. Chance of lonliness."

i know thats a little depressing, but ask me to tell you some time and know that I probably won't. I haven't acctually found someone I can relate to in this respect, so don't count on it. Don't worry, I'll be excited again tomorrow, but right now, im just pissed.

2006-07-04T16:08:00.000-04:00

imagine what it would feel like to do something very nice for a person, and not let them know about it. What would they think? Would it just be a lucky coincedince? Would the y get suspicious? I'm not sure, but I bet it would be cool.

What if that happened to you?

2006-06-28T19:54:00.000-04:00

Things I need to remember to think about.

"what is your purpose in life?"
"What makes you happy?"
"How do you change emotions?"

2006-06-25T21:31:00.000-04:00

"the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched...they must be felt with the heart." -Helen Keller

2006-06-15T07:50:00.000-04:00

OK, so im not the best at responding to comments on time and I hope you two stay interested. I promise I will get to them when I get a chance. (Both of you thanks very much for commenting, im so used to just blabbing and nobody makes me thinks, it isn't as much fun by yourself...haha that sounded sexually indicative.) By the way Rachana, if that is your artwork, I am humbled because it is so amazing.

Ok, back to what I was actually going to talk about, happiness. I am sure if you take a look through my blog you will see my ups and downs. A (Dr. Evil style >) "cycle" if you will. Downs suck ass, as im sure you all know, and ups are nice. In the past year, I have had ups that last about as few days and downs that last for a week of two, and the rest is more or less just stress. I figure that much of how we feel is grounded in how we react to our experiences. Take for example what happened to me this morning. I got a small coffee, open the door to my car, or so I thought. The door swung back and hit my hand spilling coffee (hot coffee mind you) all over my hand and car. Now, I can see someone really getting upset about that. What a crappy way to start the day. I got into my car thinking, 'great this sucks'. Then I thought, 'well not really, there is no reason for me to get upset about that.' So I just laughed and went on my way.

Why be angry and upset when you could be happy? That is my goal for the summer. So far, I have had 4 good happy days in a row. Honestly this is a first...and im really excited.

One thing that will always make me laugh are these fun laughing clubs that started in India, we watched a video featuring John Cleese about the brain in psych. The clip can be found here. Very funny

And today I leave you with this:

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Do one thing that scares you everyday." (Im working on that too, but that is much harder and I have no balls...ask me about it and I can maybe tell you. Those people know who they are.

I say, "Laugh stuff off, be less angry, no reason to (be angry that is). Too much anger and bitterness in the world. Let's be happy."

2006-06-13T23:26:00.000-04:00

So sometimes we hide from things, people....ourselves without knowing it. We get lost. If we are lucky, we notice this and break free and become ourselves again, and it is refreshing. The problem comes when we choose to hide, because if we hide for too long and too deep, we won't be able to find our way out. So...sing like an angel, dance like a raver, and show compassion like buddhist. Because only after we find ourselves can we decide what to do with ourselves.

If it doesn't make sense in the context you think I wrote it in, then use it in your own. Because that has no context that I am ever going to tell you... at leas not in the next couple years you nosey bavarian pig. sorry. I didn't mean it : ) (well not the bavarian part).

You are beautiful

2006-06-08T22:11:00.000-04:00

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something. "

- Crash

So much hate and anger and pain and fear in the world. We all contribute to it, and we know it. So why can't we see it. Is the forest too big? Are we still hiding behind trees? I think it is time to get out of our forts and stop being so dumb. Everybody is and does good and bad. Some people do more of one than the other. So I say we strive to love. Stop yelling and start listening. No more fighting.

For all you smart asses that want to ruin my moment, I'm not saying if someone points a gun in your head to hug him. Probably not the best idea. But say you get in an accident or somebody bumps into you or someone jumps in front of you in a que. Why do we have to get pissed off? Why cant we simply be ok with the fact that they might be having a bad day. Isn't that what you would want them to do? and maybe you cant do that all the time and that goes for everyone. But why don't we try to give the benefit of the doubt to the person who just lost a family member, or just got diagnosed with cancer, maybe once in a while. You you know an equal amount of what the parent that lets his kids run about on the subway has gone through as you do knowing what is in my pocket.

So for the sake of a little peace once in a while (holy crap I sound like a hippie) show some love and compassion. Regardless of their views, sometimes the only thing anybody needs is a little love.