Brain Train

2012-01-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

- Mark Twain

2011-12-11T21:52:00.001-08:00

The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.

2011-12-07T21:13:00.001-08:00

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered, "Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

2011-11-07T07:51:00.001-08:00

Understanding means having nothing to forgive.

The Rich and Us

2011-09-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

‎"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there -- good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea -- God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

- Elizabeth Warren, US Senate Candidate

Do you make other people happy: a quiz

2011-08-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

Do people seem to feel comfortable confiding in you?

Do people follow your recommendations?

Are you a source of material comfort or security for someone else?

Do people whom you’ve introduced often go on to have a continuing relationship?

Do people seem to drift toward you? Join a conversation that you’re having, sit down next to you at a meeting?

Have you recently been involved in the improvement or growth of an organization, group, or process that involves many other people?

Are you providing opportunities for other people – job leads, blind dates, contacts in a new city?

Do people whom you hardly remember go out of their way to greet you warmly? Say, the friend of your old roommate, or a former co-worker?

Do people seem to want to connect with you -- by making plans or by emailing, calling, or texting?

Do people seem energized by you? Do they smile and laugh in your presence?

- from The Happiness Project

2011-08-24T21:33:00.001-07:00

An old Cherokee told his grandson, "My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside of us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies & ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy & truth." The boy thought about it, and asked, "Grandfather, which wolf wins?" The old man quietly replied, "The one you feed."

- ?

Fear and Love

2011-08-11T12:29:00.001-07:00

"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."

- John Lennon

Borrowed wisdom

2011-08-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

Study changes a man, puts pride into him. You need it to get to the bottom of life. Without it you just skim the surface. You think you're in the know, but trifles throw you off. You dream too much. You content yourself with words instead of going deeper. That's not what you wanted. Intentions, appearances, no more. A man of character can't content himself with that. Medicine, even if I wasn't very gifted, had brought me a good deal closer to people, to animals, everything. Now all I had to do was plunge straight into the heart of things. Death is chasing you, you've got to hurry, and while you're looking you've got to eat, and keep away from wars. That's a lot of things to do. It's no picnic.

-Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night (borrowed from my friend's Facebook profile)

The People and the Tsunami Effect

2011-07-29T16:49:00.000-07:00

Beyond immediate economic benefits, though, showing off by rich people also often leads to permanent improvements in the way the rest of us live. ... The rich ... were the first to introduce the use of textiles, metals, open ocean boats, leather shoes, finely milled grains and white bread, plastics, plumbing (America's first flush toilet was at the Reading Room, an exclusive men's club in Newport, Rhode Island), ceramics, glass, automobiles, writing, and books. It isn't that the rich themselves necessarily invented any of these new technologies; but they served as patrons for the artisans who did. By making these innovations part of their conspicuous consumption, they also induced emulation by the rest of society. [Archaeologist Brian] Hayden credits the process by which the playthings of the rich get transformed into the bread-and-butter of ordinary people with producing "a progressive but dramatic inrease in the standard of living over the past ten millennia."

-The Natural History of the Rich, by Richard Conniff

I assume that technological, as well as political, innovation happens when you're living comfortably enough to have time off, instead of slaving away for a pittance. Marx, Che, Lenin, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., to name just a few of the big guys, all came from well-educated, middle-class or wealthy families. Imagine, instead, how much more innovative, in thought and action, our world would be if everyone lived more comfortably and could sit back and wonder, What if? That wouldn't just be a trickle-down effect. That would be an entire tsunami!

No, thank you

2011-07-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

Different though we are, men and women were designed to be allies, to fill out each other’s limitations, to raise children together and give them different models of adulthood. We have often botched attempts to do this, but there is valor in trying to get it right, to heal the world and the rift between the sexes, to pursue the healing of home and by extension the healing of the earth.

Physical pleasure binds two people together and lets them endure the inevitable pains and losses of being human. When sex becomes boring, something deeper is usually the problem — resentment or envy or lack of honesty. So I worry about the sudden craze for Lysistrata’s solution. Why reject honey for vinegar? Don’t we all deserve sugar in our bowls?

The last two paragraphs of yet another presumptious NYT opinion piece on an apparently wide-spread unique social trend (the "craze for Lysistrata's solution.") Actually, I don't argue that some women feel this way, but to say that many of us, young women, are finding control through Internet sex or avoiding men in general? "Sex itself may not be dead, but it seems sexual passion is on life support." Please. However, I do think these paragraphs above are a tender and a beautiful view of relationships.

The Other Woman

2011-06-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

From an interview with Elizabeth Edwards printed in the June 2009 issue of Oprah's magazine, O.

Oprah: Do you blame her?

EE: I blame John. But I think that women have to have more respect for other women. I've created this life. It takes a lot of work to put together a marriage, to put together a family and a home. You can't just knock on the door and say, "You're out, I'm in." You have to have enough respect for other human beings to leave their lives alone. If you admire that life, build it for yourself.

The Insecurities of Men

2011-06-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

The four young men seated in this classroom are not merely judges. They are the victims of a very long and very old tradition of man's capitulation before Destiny. For them the decision of the group is the only thing they must defend and assert by whatever means. They train themselves to become executioners, all the while believing themselves to be judges.
They are moved by a sick sexuality, a mad love, where images of crushing and cries dominate. It's not they they are deprived of women or men if they like, but rather are inhibited by a profound distaste for the sexual thing. A sense of the uncleanliness of pleasure torments them and keeps them from ever being satisfied.
...
It's not the first time that an Arab woman has shown such courage before them, but their memories are rebellious. They see greater virtues in their cars than in their women. Their women only exert indirect powers over them, powers that seem ineffective, or else are so strong that they, the men, can't recognize them as such. But a woman who stands up to them and looks them in the eye is a tree to be cut down, and they cut it down.
...
The combatant has the mentality of a cave man, and despite his courage, goes forward with a mask, or huddles for hours behind sandbags. Snipers, mercenaries, attracted by the bad smell of this war, lie in wait for their prey, like snakes. They are ashamed of their appetite for crime, and odiously proud of their ability, and yet they hide, in the night of their veins, a kind of panic that drove them to kill Arabs in Algiers, blacks in the Congo, and Moslems or Christians in Beirut. The citizens of this country are accustomed to fear, fear, the immense fear of not deserving their mother's love, of not being first at school or in the car race, of not making love as often a the other guys at the office, of not killing as many birds as their neighbor, of being less rich than the Kuwaitis, of being less established in their history than the Syrians, of not dancing as well as the Latin-Americans, of being less of a break-neck and extremist than the Palestinian terrorists.

Sitt Marie Rose, a novel by Etel Adnan. The book opens as four men set out on a hunt, in cars, for birds in the Syrian desert. It's based on the true events during the Civil War in Lebanon in the 1970s.

Laughs, finally!

2010-12-21T22:06:00.000-08:00

From Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, who spent ten years reporting on one family and all their friends and acquaintances.

But Mercedes tested her mother's patience with comments like "I'm gonna get a tattoo and get me a man" and "I want a boyfriend." "Wait till your father hears you want a boyfriend, Mercy," Coco warned. "How old do I have to be to have a boyfriend?" Mercedes persisted. Coco shouted, "You don't even know what a boyfriend is!"

-this girl's like 8 years old, her mom Coco is 23, and Coco is trying hard as hell for her 4 girls not to wind up like her

And if she, Coco, were going to send a man a picture, she'd send a sexy one: this stupid girl had sent Frankie a regular picture of herself looking regular, on a couch.
-hehehe, jealousy

I wonder ...

2010-11-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

... if pen names will confuse historians.

Love: Cesar's letter from jail

2010-11-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

Coco take care of our baby because if any thing happens to it I'm going to murder you I know I always tell you that for little stupid things, but this time I mean it. I better not find out that you had a boyfriend or even attempt to kiss anybody even close to the lips Im going to beat the shit out of you, the reason I say this is because I love you a lot ... if I didn't love you I wouldn't give a fuck ...

[sic]

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, who spent ten years reporting on one family and all their friends and acquaintances.

Boy George (heroin dealer, 1980s, South Bronx) and Jessica, one of his girls

2010-11-27T11:50:00.000-08:00

He marveled at her apparent loyalty. Had Jessica been the one locked up, George said, "probably the same day I woulda been fucking somebody else."

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, who spent ten years reporting on one family and all their friends and acquaintances.

Boy George, heroin dealer, 1980s, South Bronx

2010-11-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

But like so much about the drug trade, the game as it was imagined by nonparticipants and described in the press sounded far more organized and sophisticated than what really happened on the street. Dealers made dumb mistakes. Employees overslept. Lookouts watched for girls instead of for undercover cops. Lots of people worked drearily long hours and barely scraped by. Some boys spent down a day's wages on junk food for themselves and their friends. Other workers smoked up their earnings or took an advance on the product and never climbed out of debt. The business earned its reputation for violence, but plenty of people went down for foolish mistakes and capriciousness. For most, living large remained a fantasy. Those who did well in the trade - who survived it and had something to show for it later - tended to be not only ruthless and calculating but lucky. For a time, George was all three.
.......
George sometimes stayed with Miranda, but Miranda soon discovered that he had another girlfriend - who was pregnant - and she kicked him out. George's other girl, Vada, gave birth to a son. George named him Luciano. Another girlfriend, Isabel, gave George a second son, but George considered Vada his main girl - his wife.
.......
"I didn't need a high school diploma to do what I did. I did what most people are too scared to do, and that's to take control of something very powerful."
.......
James Bond, one of George's heroes, inspired the $50,000 worth of special features added to the 190 Mercedes in which he'd taken Jessica on their first date: radar detectors manned the car's front and rear; the license plate slid into a side compartment and a strobe light blinded anyone following him; secret compartments in the door panels and the floor hid weapons and suspicious amount of cash. One device gushed gobs of oil from the tail, while a hidden switch flipped a box in the trunk that sprayed nail-like tacks.

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, who spent ten years reporting on one family and all their friends and acquaintances.

His Woman

2010-10-31T23:30:00.000-07:00

"Ok, we all know Garance is my woman so anything I write about her will sound overly gushy or be taken that way." - The Sartorialist. He goes on to gush about her. Swoon

Bwa ha ha ha ha!

2010-07-16T03:04:00.001-07:00

Funniest thing I've ever heard on the radio: Interview with Billy West, voice of Fry, Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan (Futurama) and many others

LISTEN TO IT!!!

Feet

2010-07-15T03:56:00.001-07:00

my brother's beautiful photos, on his Flickr

Oh, Mama!

2010-07-07T23:45:00.000-07:00

From the French series Minuscule, about the lives of insects

This is one of my favorite animation collections out there. Check out a few of these 5-minute films. They're very fun, often hilarious, often thoughtful, but really, just very very simple. They make me appreciate the tiny creatures teeming in the little gaps where no one's looking. What are those ladies and gentlemen up to?! Let's find out.

Hark!

2010-07-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

My favorite comic: Hark, a Vagrant! by Kate Beaton. Find her off-hours doodles on her Twitter.

She's a major genius, obsessed with history, mystery solving teens, Napoleon, Canada, duck face in Facebook pics, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, and the French Revolution, among other awesome topics. She's my hero!

What's in the butt?

2010-07-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

The rectal electroejaculator: Far from the worse thing that ends up in rectums. "Rectal Foreign Bodies: Case Reports and a Comprehensive Review of the World's Literature" includes a list of objects doctors have removed from rectums over the years. Highlights: a frozen pig tail (one of the 7 female cases in the total caseload of 202), a bottle of Impulse Body Spray ("incarcerated" in a thirty-seven-year-old lawyer), a parsnip, a plantain (with condom), a dull knife, a cattle horn, a salami, a jeweler's saw, and a plastic spatula. Multiple holdings in the same rectum are listed under the heading "Collections." These include several that could pass as still-life titles ("oil can with potato," "2 apples," "402 stones"), several that probably couldn't ("umbrella handle and enema tubing," "lemon and cold cream jar") and one that suggests a quiet evening in the Biltmore ("spectacles, suitcase key, tobacco pouch, and magazine").

-Bonk: the curious coupling of science and sex, Mary Roach

The rat that wore pants

2010-07-06T02:26:00.000-07:00

[Dr. Ahmed] Shafik won my heart by publishing a paper in European Urology in which he investigated the effect of polyester on sexual activity. Ahmed Shafik dressed lab rats in polyester pants. There were seventy-five rats. They wore their pants for one year. Shafik found that over time the ones dressed in polyester or poly-cotton blend had sex significantly less often than the rats whose slacks were cotton or wool. (Shafik thinks the reason is that polyester sets up troublesome electrostatic fields in and around the genitals ...

-Bonk: the curious coupling of science and sex, Mary Roach

The seamstress and her little secret

2010-07-04T07:53:00.001-07:00

If you think there's no link between sex and sewing machines, think again. Early sewing machines were treadle-powered, and medical complaints among seamstresses common. Somehow, the men of Victorian medicine decided that the rhythmic pumping of the treadles was arousing women and leading them down the scarlet path to wanton masturbation - and that this "self-abuse" was the cause of their complaints.

-Bonk: the curious coupling of science and sex, Mary Roach

The last hug

2010-07-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

The spinal reflex known as the Lazarus sign has been spooking doctors for centuries. If you trigger the right spot on the spinal cord of a freshly dead body of a beating-heart cadaver - meaning someone brain-dead but breathing via a respirator, pending the removal of organs for transplant - it will stretch out its arms and the raise them up and cross them over its chest. How often do the dead move? A research team in Turkey, experimenting on brain-dead patients at Akdeniz University Hospital over a span of three years, were able to trigger spinal movement reflexes in 13 percent of them. (In a Korean study two years later, the figure was 19 percent.) Most of the time, the dead just jerk their fingers and toes or stretch their arms or feet ...

-Bonk: the curious coupling of science and sex, Mary Roach

(Real) change we can believe in

2010-06-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

Change!
Yes, we can!

Change?
No, perhaps we shouldn't.

Obama's new, unspoken slogan. No matter how "outraged" he seems about the oil spill in the Gulf, about the cleanup, about all that, he's not really outraged. The halt of drilling is temporary. There'll be a shakeup in the bureaucracy that looked the other way when it came to regulating the oil industry, some people will be fired or will quit, but then the drilling will resume, Obama will be distracted with all the other stuff on his plate, and soon enough, another disaster like the current one will happen. The oil industry is a heavy weight lobby in Congress. It, its products and its consumers (hello!) are major polluters. The bigger picture is not the spill, but the industry. But changing that reality, getting rid of that industry is change neither Obama nor anyone else has the guts to make.

Now's the perfect time, and it's been the perfect time, to develop alternative energy like the American highways were developed in the days of Eisenhower. Instead of giving a polluting unsustainable industry a seat in Congress, Obama and Congress must do something as absolutely crazy as funding the development of alternative energy, the proliferation of wind and solar power, the research and development into other energy sources. BP's failure underlines the risks associated with the oil industry. Yet we keep drilling, pumping, chugging along. If we change, there's endless potential for new jobs, both in the sciences and in labor.

But, a government-funded (SOCIALIST?!) energy initiative?! You bet! But by these measures, the oil industry is no less socialist. Without government support, without its lobbyists, without its supporters in government (Drill, baby, drill!), it wouldn't be where it is today. Let's turn the tables and support something sustainable. Not something that'll wash up on our beaches, killing our animals, our tourism industry, our fisheries, our habitats, etc.

It's a drug, like tobacco. Just more deadly. And we took on the tobacco industry and won.

Making a movie

2010-05-11T06:46:00.000-07:00

reminiscent of the cinematographic magic of old Soviet cartoons (like the Yuri Norstein films Tale of Tales and Heron and Crane)

Oh my God, another romantic aside!

2010-04-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

The marriageable guy shopping list from Times Online

1) Must genuinely like women (as in all women, not just fit under-thirties). You can test this. Your fat single best friend will help. Also, he should totally get Sue Perkins, Miranda Hart and scary Sue in Glee.

2) Must have some men friends from way back (and, no, footballers do not count).

3) Must be kind. Without exceptions. Mean cracks about SuBo or Patsy Kensit or Rebecca Adlington are a giveaway.

4) Must not be gay. (Seriously. I know at least three people who married gay men thinking they were just artistic. It doesn’t end happily, ever). Can be almost gay and should genuinely enjoy Mamma Mia! and Alan Carr.

5) Must be capable of equating love with responsibility. Owning a dog is a start.

6) Must have a passion besides you (his work would be a good one).

7) Must have the same attitude as you to sex, money and family. (How much of each is desirable. The best use of it, and so on.) Shopping together and agreeing on what the word “holiday” means is a bonus.

8) Must have some pride.

Note: infidelity is not a deal-breaker for everyone (see Jude and Sienna). But being willing to sell your last ounce of self-respect definitely is.

Another romantic aside

2010-04-22T07:06:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest, my biggest obsession in life right now is not better shoes, more suits or a bigger career but, to simply be a more graceful man for my graceful woman.
- The Sartorialist, Jan. 31, 2010 (how come I didn't know about this blog until today?!)

More loving words have never been spoken, I believe.

A Romantic Aside

2010-04-11T04:13:00.000-07:00

My love story is that of Katerina, the lead in the famous Soviet (obviously) film Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. By "my" I mean that it's plausible, pleasing, pleasant. By "my" I mean it's the love I want, according to the character - Katerina - I think I am very similar to.

The movie is a two-parter and the woman I refer to is the mature one in part two (not the school girl in part one). She's having an affair with a married man. She herself has never been married but has an adult daughter from a man who was her lover but who left her before he knew she became pregnant. She is beautiful and has a deep and strong voice and an assertive air about her; she acts like she's always aware of everything going on around her. She's a boss.

About the affair: she is more Marie from When Harry Met Sally than Samantha from Sex and the City; she is truly involved in this affair, perhaps even despite her self-assurance she's doubtful of herself, and hopeful. But coolly so. It is after all Katerina we're talking about, who is never desperate, no. Anyway, she leaves the married man after witnessing his fear of being caught with her by his mother-in-law. She needs a man, not a coward.

As much as I admire Samantha, who uses men to her own end and lives a very hedonistic life, and at times want to be like her, I am of course not.

Back to our heroine, Katerina.

The man she meets is Gosha. He's the kind of guy she needs. Tall, dark, handsome, sure. But he's also as strong as she is, if not sometimes stronger. He is a leader but not her shepherd. It is after all Katerina we're talking about. She's no baby, but she also doesn't need a baby to coddle. Gosha is self-assured. The second time he meets her, he cooks dinner for her and her daughter at their house, uninvited. He sets plans without second-guessing himself. He knows what he wants (he wants Katerina, {swoon}). He's bullheaded and in part he's old-fashioned (I'm not going to give the conflict of the film away here), but to a point. After all, in dating and marriage, we're adults, not children dependent on approval or even perpetual compromise. It's nice to be directed, surprised, shown things, taught, instead of being constantly asked, is this ok with you?, or worse, to be followed.

Since this is a post about what I look for, here's a few words about the "old fashioned": flowers are a treat, like a delicious home-cooked meal. An open door, a pulled-out chair, a carried bag, are not responses to the woman's weakness, but ways of showing tenderness and care, attentiveness, thinking and longing. Women show it, men show it, for lovers and for friends. Perhaps it's the more hands-on approach that scares people who grew up being preached the Word of "Independence," instead of, say, interdependence.

No wonder girls like me swoon over boys like Gosha {sigh}.

Human Cheese

2010-04-10T03:22:00.000-07:00

So Megean and I have been beaten to the punch. Someone's making human cheese.

Let me explain, although I don't think the explanation will lead to any kind of understanding. My friend Megean and I started developing this idea years ago, if only in jest. Along with cultural taboos, the only issue so far has been, where to get the breast milk. We're still young, unmarried, childless, as are most of our friends. Further thinking led us to realize that a line of human milk products would create an underclass of milking women. It'd be a sad ridiculous venture, if we decided to actually promote it like this doofus at his restaurant in New York. Now, he's promoting it and it tastes bad? Come on, man!

This drawing illustrates what happened after we learned of the news.

You must admit, it's a fascinating concept.

2010-03-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

"Most Mongolians will tell you in their opinion, the Russians were quite smart — first they brought vodka, then they brought communism, and after vodka, anything would seem like a good idea."

-from "Widespread Alcohol Abuse Clouds Mongolia's Future", NPR

O.M.G. !!!

2010-03-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

The Eye also offers special packages, including private capsule flights, flights with champagne or cocktails, flights with wine tastings, flights with breakfast and the list goes on.
- text and image from "How the London Eye Works," How Stuff Works

What's with the taste?

2010-03-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

I love reading about food. But especially, I love reading about people who love food. You can write me a recipe that includes canned tomatoes (very convenient, but I've read about some harm that toxins from the cans in canned food can cause a human body ... everything in limitation, especially poisons?), but I'd prefer to know about how the canning process happens, where the tomatoes come from, who cans the tomatoes, is there one big cauldron where they're cooked (if they're pre-cooked), who dices them, how did canning get started, you get the idea. I love to read about these processes, just as much as I love to read about the processes of food-making. Not necessarily the 2-cups-3-teaspoons-mix-well business but how this or that recipe came about.

Note the La Tartine Gourmande blog from Boston. The writer, chef, photographer and food stylist, all in one, divulges recipes prefaced with stories of digging in her garden with her mom, canning jams with her mom, peeling, cutting, all these great stories of growing up and cooking alongside her mom in France. Then there's stories of meals for friends, built from the ground up, from an intriguing ingredient, an encounter, something small, into this beautiful great big THING on her blog that just makes you almost roll your eyes because it's so perfectly styled and told, that you feel like you're reading a book and not someone's poorly thought out edgy but kind of dirty rants (Hello!).

For another example, take Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. I wrote on various topics related to the book on this blog, for example here. Specifically to dissecting food industries, Pollan looks at four different meals and tells us what's in them, the politics behind them, the taste of them, and the feel of them in his heart; he shoots a pig, he picks some fruit, he eats a burger. Food isn't just food. Eating isn't just eating. It's a study of our morals.

There's one man he befriends in Berkley who takes Pollan out hunting. I think he was French. Later, after undoing the pig, the French guy grinds up the scraps to make a tomato sauce, makes noodles from scratch, they have a meal. Reading about these kinds of people makes my heart swell with ... something, nostalgia for my home in Russia maybe, nostalgia for the mountains of Shizuoka, both places where people do everything from scratch, use everything, know - seemingly - everything: how to grow mushrooms or where and how to pick wild mushrooms and wild vegetables; how to cut and grill a fish; how to fish; how to pickle; how to grow and harvest fruit and vegetables; how to make jams; how to bake; how to spoil people silly; how to make sauces; how to hunt; how to cut up an animal for meat, etc.

I just got finished reading the article called "Butcher," from Esquire, by Tom Chiarella. He found a butcher shop in Indianapolis after people at his local grocery store couldn't provide him a rib roast that day or explain a thing to him about one, primarily what to do with it. Then he became a regular, and then he started working there, to see what in the world a butcher does, who a butcher is. "A shop like ours," says Shawn the butcher, "is an intermediate step. We humanize things a little, help them see the culture of meat, I suppose you'd call it. People don't have time to know everything about meat. That's what we do. And we don't have time to know anything else." That kind of talk is stark contrast to Pollan's writing, where the man had to know everything. What's in my food? he asked himself and wrote the book.

But as he himself has probably written, we can't know everything about our food. We can sure try. But most of us don't have time to, and we can't all go slaughter our own pigs, and so we rely on people we trust, like farmers who grow our vegetables, neighbors who sell us their fruit surplus, or Shawn, who gets to know his customers, whose fellow butchers make female customers blush from how they talk old-fashioned-like.

Reading about these butchers gets me all giddy. Some people still care enough to sell and buy food that's tailor made, like an expensive wedding gown. And others, the writers, care enough to find out what's in that can of tomatoes. Being a food addict, I find this all deliciously entertaining.

I'm a pro

2010-03-04T16:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I decided to peruse the journalism job market back home. A look that wasn't completely brief wasn't very encouraging. Many if not most internships are for college students or recent grads, except the one This American Life Internship with a $3000 stipend in New York. And there's barely any jobs out there.

Good thing I'm a talented trained journalist. I'm starting my own magazine when I get back home. This daily mag will follow the lives of my two easily entertained pugs, Sherlock and Gosha. Here is the cover of the pilot issue.

(cover photo by resident photographer, Pavel Safronov)

I'm a freakin' genius!

There will be no more ... people

2010-02-21T23:53:00.000-08:00

The last paragraph of the non-fiction book The City of Joy, about a slum in Calcutta, written by Dominique Lapierre.

"Max, Big Brother, have you heard the news?" the Angel of the City of Joy called out breathlessly. "We've won! Now we're as strong as the people in your country, as strong as the Russians, the Chinese, the British ... We shall be able to irrigate our fields, to harvest our rice several times a year, and to put lighting in our villages and slums. We shall all be able to eat to our heart's content. There will be no more poor people. Our great Durga Indira Gandhi has just made an announcement on the radio; this morning we exploded our first atomic bomb!"

After nearly 500 pages of narration about the inescapable poverty and oppression, perseverance and resilience of the people in the slum, as well as their acceptance of seemingly the worst lots anyone could be handed in life, about a French priest and an American doctor who come to the slum to live among and help these "people of God," as Lapierre romantically and patronizingly refers to the Indians, he ends on this note, an irrelevant suffix.

I walked away from the book thinking initially, "those ignorant fools." Yet that last paragraph is unrelated, not fleshed out, not detailed, just thrown in, with a delivery that for me pushes Lapierre's egotistical train off the tracks and down a ravine (His self-promotion is thick in the forward and the numerous afterwords, and the cover features a review by the Pope while the responses inside feature Mother Teresa. Come On!)

Not to say that the man didn't respect the Indian characters in the book, but in general, he treated them like the unwashed mysterious "others," kids playing with unfamiliar toys, poking at strange concepts. Sure the foreigners didn't know what they were doing either when they arrived in the slum, but they learned, they gained respect. The Indians were jsut silly ants throughout.

But back to the bomb: I'm wondering how the discussion actually happened in India of this "achievement."

2009-11-13T15:00:00.001-08:00

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Photograph by Paul Nicklen. Text from NPR's story about his book Polar Obsession.

In one Antarctic adventure near Anvers Island, Nicklen befriended an enormous female leopard seal. In Nicklen's words, a seal's natural response toward an intruder is "breed or feed." After realizing that Nicklen was nonthreatening, this seal tried to feed him penguins, not knowing how else to interact with him.

The photographer grew up in an Inuit community in Canada. I remember reading about him before; his parents moved the family there and he grew up learning to be wary of what lurks beneath the water. He studied biology in Canada, and returned to the Arctic to photograph. He shoots for National Geographic.

2009-11-10T05:24:00.000-08:00

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A newly born gibbon gets some early discipline and love from his doting parents. This baby gibbon was just about 12 hours old, born at the Columbus, Ohio Zoo in August of 2009.

- image and text from National Geographic Magazine

Record keeping

2009-11-03T05:57:00.000-08:00

When I was in school, teachers made me write lists of goals: short-term, long-term, and life-long goals. I'd write them in my notebook and be done with it. Of course, the goals would be forgotten or stashed into the lower part of my consciousness; out of sight, out of mind. These goals were around until I turned the page in the notebook, and completely trashed when a new school year came.

I'm faced with a dilemma now; where do I write the goals I've realized I've been making? I must write them privately, so the Internet is out. It's also out because I want wireless, computer-less, access to them. I don't often check my planner. And pen marks on the hand last only as long as one can go without going to the bathroom. I hear they're coming out with tattoo ink that can disapear within months ...

What are they teaching you?

2009-10-31T02:40:00.000-07:00

All quotations except for those from the Bill of Rights are from the article The R.O.T.C. Dilemma from the New York Times.

The R.O.T.C.: I get it. Money for school, to train for the military, while you're still in school, with promised military service after graduation. I can give my opinion about the inhumanity of the military (there's the opinion), but I'll clearly walk into a discussion about class and families. I went to college because my parents made it possible for me and they are paying a huge share of the cost of my education. Not every student can say that. The R.O.T.C. is one option for making secondary education affordable. But is it worth it?

The New York Times article that sparked my question discusses the fact that several Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale don't even offer the R.O.T.C. option on their campuses, following bans after Vietnam War protests. Instead, their students who choose to participate in the program commute to nearby campuses for the training. This fact drew a scoff from me, because I immediately thought that only rich kids went to Ivy Leagues and they didn't need financial aid anyway, so why is this even news.

Turns out some Ivy students think this way too.

At Harvard and Yale there are so few R.O.T.C. students that on days they wear uniforms, they are mainly a curiosity. Their classmates can’t seem to conceive that a student at an elite college would be preparing to go to war. Mr. West said that after explaining that he was training to be an officer, “they’d say, ‘But someone like you wouldn’t be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan?’ They just didn’t get it.”

A big reason for that, according to the article, is that Ivies have large endowments and are actually able to provide a lot of aid to their students. "At M.I.T., 60 percent of undergraduates now receive need-based scholarships."

But there's more than money behind a stint in the R.O.T.C. Military service is a highly respected pursuit; it is still described as the duty required of citizens, as the power behind free nations.

R.O.T.C. was established during World War I, and in 1916, President Lowell spoke about why it was important for Harvard and other universities to do their share: “The aim of a country which desires to remain at peace, but must be ready to defend itself, should be to train a large body of junior officers who can look forward to no career in the Army, and can have no wish for war, yet who will be able to take their places in the field when needed.”

So why don't the Ivy League schools have R.O.T.C. programs? Are the Ivies so elite and profound that they've figured out that citizenship, patriotism and duty are all fickle concepts that don't fit easily with the individual pursuit of freedom; that in war there are no winners; that higher education doesn't have to be purchased by you handing over your body and mind to a military complex ruled by the whims of trigger-happy bureaucrats. Are they "above" it?

According to the article, that's in part the issue. Namely, the schools are above the inequality of the military; the "don't ask, don't tell" policy is at the heart of the matter. As liberal educational institutions, how can they possibly go along with establishing on campus a government organization that discriminates against a section of the student population? But hypocrisy on campus isn't new - racist mascots, for one - and the military's homophobia isn't the only issue at hand, at least for this blog post.

Speaking at commencements, military commanders and politicians elevate the service to an intellectual and physical pursuit of excellence. Although after hearing from some students involved in the R.O.T.C., you wouldn't think it's such a noble pursuit at all.

As for the R.O.T.C. members, they have been trained not to answer political questions from reporters. None of the 15 interviewed would discuss their feelings about “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“I have no personal opinion,” said Vanessa Esch, 21, a naval R.O.T.C. midshipman who graduated from M.I.T. in June. “I was politically active in high school but as I got closer to serve, I got away from the nitty-gritty of these issues. My professionalism as an officer depends on not giving answers to those kinds of questions. The commander-in-chief does that.”

The fact that Esch has relieved herself of all responsibility as a citizen of the country she calls home and pledges to defend ticks me off and exposes a fundamental flaw with military service.

Esch may feel that her duty is to serve her country in the R.O.T.C., but I know that her duty as a citizen of a democracy is to be a participating member of that democracy, which includes but isn't limited to, having opinions on political matters, and speaking out in a public forum on those matters. If she's not participating - and especially if the government is specifically telling her and other R.O.T.C. members not to participate - she's no citizen and America is no democracy.

You can say that anti-military people are ignorant of the reality of life, where diplomacy can only go so far, and citizens must recognize their duty to protect with their lives the kind of life afforded them by their home country. But I know that a democratic society must be entirely democratic, or not call itself as such if it makes exceptions.

Yes, we make sacrifices for our jobs. Teachers must appear put together and responsible in public, for example. But the U.S. government asks American citizens to give up at least one constitutional right:

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ...

If there was a draft, the government would be violating citizens' Fifth Amendment rights, which states "nor shall any person ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ..." But I'd argue that even now, the government is in violation of that amendment too. How else do we justify the thousands of deaths in our various wars over the years?

So why is Esch defending the U.S. through her service in the armed forces if she herself isn't even a full citizen of this country? There must be other ways to afford secondary education.

Please let me know what you think. I welcome your comments.

How strange

2009-10-28T17:52:00.001-07:00

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Traditional fishermen in Dali, Yunnan, train cormorants to do their work for them. "The string tied around the neck prevents it from swallowing any but the smallest fish," explains Kathleen Nevin, who shot this while on holiday. "The fisherman takes the catch from the bird's throat and puts it on his own table."

- image and text from National Geographic Magazine

When trees were tall ...

2009-10-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

Ultraviolet Bath, Russia
Photograph by Joe McNally

Make-believe summer lasts for a minute or two as kindergarten children in sunless Lovozero bathe in ultraviolet light. Brief exposure to UV radiation provides the children with vitamin D, normally supplied by sunlight. The "sunshine vitamin" strengthens young bones.

Photo and text from National Geographic.

My parents used to set up a little tanning studio in our two-room apartment in Moscow so my brother and I would parade around in our underwear with these goggles. I don't remember if I knew why we were doing it at the time; tanning wasn't so important to kids. It made more sense with time.

Remarkable

2009-10-27T08:47:00.001-07:00

The photographs of Russian chemist and photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, show Russia on the eve of World War I and the coming of the revolution. From 1909-1912 and again in 1915, Prokudin-Gorskii traveled across the Russian Empire, documenting life, landscapes and the work of Russian people.

-huge collection and text found at this Denver Post web page

2009-10-27T01:22:00.001-07:00

The things they ate

2009-10-27T00:23:00.001-07:00

From a National Geographic map describing some of the more unusual items the Egyptians mummified to keep themselves entertained.

My breasts are saying "Thank you"

2009-10-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, women's magazines and health magazines publish articles about prioritizing sports bras that fit properly. I would read the articles, nod, flip the page, then the following day put on a bra that I bought a couple years earlier - when I weighed 20 pounds more - and go out for a run. And the dance of pain would begin.

When it comes to my body, as I lose weight, my breasts shrink. And since I hadn't bought sports bras since I was - pause for suspense - 50 pounds heavier, I was wearing sports bras drastically unsuited for my body, even as my lifestyle was becoming more active; I started running and doing hour-long aerobic classes in a gym a couple times each week.

It wasn't until I started jogging in a hilly town that my breasts really starting hurting though. After one after-work jog, I immediately put exercise on hold until I found another bra. I had a similar awakening moment with my running shoes. I went from regularly jogging in urban sneakers to actual running shoes, for better support as my feet were hitting the pavement. (A recent NYT article about running barefoot ... as cool as that sounds, I imagine I'd be encountering painful debris with each step.)

Anyway, effects of a poorly fitting bra may be any or all of the following: pain, stretching of tissue, bouncing of breasts which may lead to balance problems and an annoying distraction. Go get a new bra right now. I have also found and read somewhere that bras that separate the breasts into two separate cups instead of meshing them into one "sack" offer even more support. From personal experience, I agree.

As for price, I shopped around. Expensive sports brands like Nike didn't offer the structure I was looking for; they offered uni-breast bras with two breast pads seemingly slipped in to provide a shapelier look rather than actual support. Expensive Japanese brands were either very very expensive (approx. $60 each), or made from excessively rough fabric that would've chafed my shoulders and chest. I bought a bra that cost about a third of that, designed for school girl athletes involved in very active sports. It had everything I was looking for - efficient evaporation, thick straps for support, individual cups, good price. And running has never felt more comfortable.

We're all alike

2009-09-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

From Stuff Christian Culture Likes:

Hi Robert,
I don't know what the point of my blog is really but I've always felt that Christian culture doesn't have anything to do with Jesus himself. But people in Christian culture feel that doing many of these cultural things are imperative to relationship with him, and they're not. Also, Christian culture is a way to avoid true relationship and a way to "play house" if you will, little rituals and mandates not decreed by God yet they make us feel like we are closer to God. Anything can be used to avoid relationship of course, we are endlessly creative in finding ways to avoid it, because true relationship is messy and reveals things to us about ourselves that we'd rather not see. Christian culture is a very pervasive thing that isn't clearly addressed and I think it should be. So I'm writing about it.
xo, s

I've been reading the blog Stuff Christian Culture Likes (linked by Maria) obsessively for the past two days. This is its writer, Stephy, commenting on another comment about her entry about how Christian culture really doesn't like masturbation (namely, male masturbation. It ignores the concept of female masturbation, as if it doesn't even exist.)

I enjoy the blog a lot because it pokes fun at a culture - the American Evangelical culture - I often find absurd. It seems to literally sell to people a life of supposed freedom and happiness and enlightenment and love and all that, meanwhile demeaning them by restricting their humanity (ex. stifling their sexual identities and their reasoning skills) and isolating them from those who don't fit into the clique, like the "non-believers", all in the guise of making them "pure", "God's children", "saved" and above the "urges of the flesh".

Stephy says that their rituals are all ways of avoiding "relationship" (by which I guess she means real understanding of their lives and of other people) which is "messy and reveals things to us about ourselves that we'd rather not see." I read her comment and it really put her blog and this competition for "Best in Life" we've got going on between countless religious and secular groups and individuals into perspective: Her blog is as much about Evangelists as about everyone else and everyone else's little weird ceremonies, obsessions and fears. Adherents of the Christian Culture compartmentalize their god, attribute to him desires (like for you to get your hand off your dick), create castes among people, worship the patriarchal household, and communicate with others more like marketers than honest, doubtful, not-all-knowing everyday people.

And, aside from the god part, everyone else does it too. We talk like pretentious all-knowing fools, worship our ideal households (unmarried two-parent household, no-child household, no household, etc.), discriminate against others based on everything from their looks to their religious affiliation (check out those weirdos, the Evangelists) to their nationality to their skin color to their political beliefs, and preach every day from our own pulpits about what parents should or shouldn't be teaching kids what Israel should or shouldn't be doing in Palestine and what celebrities should or shouldn't be eating.

Of course, there are exceptions. But reading the comments on Stephy's blog, many of them from Evangelists and other Christians, you find out that there are exceptions in that group too.

I guess that's what I love about humor; it works by making fun of the differences between people (politically correct humor is an oxymoron), meanwhile showing that we are all ridiculous in the same ways.

What choices do women have? A Reflection

2009-05-14T22:18:00.001-07:00

No woman should be forced to have a child if she doesn't feel emotionally ready. But we can't claim to be offering women real choice without a societal structure that supports mothers and children and truly makes it possible to have a healthy work-family balance. If women are terminating their pregnancies because they can't afford their babies, reproductive activism hasn't gone far enough.

- The Nation: Raising the Baby Question, by Nona Willis Aronowitz
The abortion debate has failed to evolve. It is a pivotal issue for conservatives and liberals, and namely for feminists, alike. Yet abortion is not an end in itself. The ability to have an abortion is one of the means to achieving equality in society and true reproductive rights. But both sides focus on nothing else but the fetus, leaving the mother and sometimes her family and partner with the following `choices`: having a child in a country with frequently unaffordable or unavailable daycare and health insurance, scarce family networks of support for new parents, and no guarantee of paid maternity leave; or aborting the organism growing inside her, that may or may not mean the world to her.

That`s why this article is so important; it talks about a dibilitating evolutionary gap in feminism, which directs its activist might more often to fight for the right to abortion than to parents` rights and the right to have children.

Both sides of the abortion issue fail to see their fight as irrelevant, because they lack foresight on the issue of parenthood in general.

Aronowitz writes about the disconnect between the mainstream feminists and motherhood and parenting issues. Perhaps some feminists hope to distance themselves from the traditional demands placed upon women to reproduce. Instead, Aronowitz writes, minority women and women with less money are the ones who have a strong presence in family activism. The two camps don`t meet. Feminist group meetings happen in bars, offer no child care, or happen when mothers are busy. Yet the issues they fight for are shared, all from the same school of thought called feminism, or, as one quotation goes, “The radical notion that women are people.”

Women are not simply baby machines. Nor should mothers be the sole caretakers of all the children in a society. Women are not bound to the household or to their husbands. Women must have networks of support when raising children, for their own good and health as well as for the wellbeing of children and families.

No one is talking about welfare queens sitting back and enjoying nannies and benefits as their children are raised by grandmothers. Instead, this is a call to act and demand that mothers and parents in general not become second class citizens just because they decided to have children in America and countries like it. Aronowitz writes:
Everyone knows that motherhood is inherently challenging, but it should be the good kind of challenging, the kind that makes women wiser and more fulfilled, not the kind that leaves them frustrated, isolated and burnt out. Don't we—and our future kids—deserve that much?

Foreign Degenerates in Cambodia

2009-04-21T06:14:00.000-07:00

Just think about all the bullshit you have to go through to get laid back home. Wouldn't it be great if you could use the same line as here; you know, "Here's five bucks, now get your clothes off and suck my dick."

-anonymous quote of a foreigner hanging out at the Majestic Guesthouse, a popular place to stay for expats while in Phnom Penh; from Off the Rails in Phnom Penh by Amit Gilboa

Arguing against vegetarianism

2009-04-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

Animal rights` exclusive concern with the individual might make sense given its roots in a culture of liberal individualism, but how much sense does it make in nature? Is the individual animal the proper focus of our moral concern when we are trying to save an endangered species or restore a habitat?

[...] a human morality based on individual rights makes for an
awkward fit when applied to the natural world.
[...] just as we recognize that nature doesn`t provide a very good guide for human social conduct [examples are intraspecies killing and rape], isn`t it anthropocentric of us to assume that our moral system offers an adequate guide for what should happen in nature? Is the individual the crucial moral entity in nature as we`ve decided it should be in human society?
[...] To contemplate such questions from the vantage of a farm, or even a garden, is to appreciate just how parochial, and urban, an ideology animal rights really is. It could only survive in a world where people have lost contact with the natural world, where animals no longer pose any threat to us (a fairly recent development) and our mastery of nature seems unchallenged.

-Michael Pollan in Omnivore`s Dilemma, in a chapter where he argues for animal welfare over animal rights

A Lovable Soviet Film

2009-04-04T07:29:00.000-07:00

I watched four episodes of the Cheburashka cartoon series today. Cheburashka is a very popular Soviet cartoon character who was created some 30 years ago. I last watched the cartoon as a child and I still know the songs by heart. The series was made using still animation and was aimed at very young children, focusing on themes like friendship and protection of the environment.

However, like many other Soviet-era cartoons (and much of the animation outside the peachy world of Disney), Cheburashka featured much social commentary that I only now realized was there. Soviet-era censorship required people to express their frustrations creatively; song-writers, authors, and movie makers had their work checked by censors before it was released to the public. (A story my dad keeps repeating is about censors who found it troubling that a scene in some film featured a large puddle. The scene had to be reshot without the puddle, lest the puddle was suggesting criticism about the current state of affairs.)

While for average people, a hugely popular way to criticize the government and everyday life was humor, artists had to make hints in their work, never allowing those hints to be central to their work. The Cheburashka series, for example, constantly featured employees who cheated their customers and the system, like a man selling oranges who lied about the weight of the fruit. Or a clothing store employee who, while tidying up the store, stuffed a whole roll of cloth down his shirt.

One episode criticized the pioneers, a Soviet youth organization for children and teens which organized community activities (like tree plantings) and camp outings. The pioneer in a white shirt with a red bandanna tied around his neck was the face of the Soviet child at all the Soviet events and on all the propaganda posters. In the episode, Cheburshka wants to join the group and march around with the pioneers, but he has no previous experience doing things pioneers do (I am actually not sure exactly what things they mentioned in the cartoon because I watched it in Japanese and didn't understand and I don't remember the details from when I was a child). The pioneers turn Cheburashka away and go back to building the ubiquitous birdhouses that pioneers would build. Meanwhile, to get more experience, Cheburashka and his crocodile friend Gena set out to try and build a playground for some neighborhood children who have nowhere to play.

While the pioneers spend their time marching in proper formations and spending afternoons on bird needs, Cheburashka and his friend observe what's going on in the world around them and set out to fix the problems they see, like giving curious children who lack supervision a place to play together. To me this was a smart criticism of the government's obsession with doing things for show, for propaganda opportunities. There was little substance to these staged acts. The Cheburashka series, instead, told the viewers (children and adults alike) to be caring and see for themselves solutions for the problems around them. Cheburashka and Gena the Crocodile single-handedly stopped the operations of a polluting factory in another episode and built a "House for Friends" where people could go to meet others and enjoy their time together. Curious onlookers lent a hand in what resembled a barn raising more than a state-initiated project.

In one of the most interesting scenes in the series, we get an inside look at the Moscow zoo. The animals are as commonplace as any, reading their newspapers and enjoying their pens, until closing time, when they all put on their suits and clock out, leaving the zoo to go home. Although this clever anthropomorphism could, on the surface, be seen as just an adorable way to represent the animals, I think the creators had something else in mind.

In the Soviet Union, work and, by extension, participation in state-sponsored activities defined the individual. You were a cog in the glorious machine and your input was mandatory to making the machine the best in the world. Even stay-at-home mothers were driven out of their homes and into the workplace while public institutions raised children because there was no home life. There was Life, which was public and state-owned. In this life, work was dignity, and to mock this idea, the creators of Cheburasha, I believe, took the idea to the next level by taking animals out of their natural (lazy) element and putting even them to work.

As a child, I saw none of these messages and tongue in cheek references, but my parents must have. That's why these cartoons have remained in our culture for so long, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Watching it today in a Japanese movie theater, however, made me wonder what the Japanese saw in the series, aside from incredible cuteness of the cartoons. I'm positive and saddened that the important references were lost on them unless they specifically studied about life in the Soviet Union.

Lenin and Reagan share bisquits and fond memories over tea

2009-04-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

We live [...] in an era of "sentimental economics," since the promise of global capitalism, much like the promise of communism before it, ultimately demands an act of faith: that if we permit the destruction of certain things we value here and now [e.g. the environment] we will achieve a greater happiness and prosperity at some unspecified future time. As Lenin put it, in a sentiment the WTO endorses in its rulings every day, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

-Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma

But to be fair, the capitalist countries have higher standards of living than communist countries have ever had.

A common fault (edit 04.03)

2009-04-02T03:55:00.001-07:00

A couple winters back, I took a brief trip to Washington D.C. to cover a war protest for a magazine. I accompanied a group of socialists who came to announce: stop the war in Iraq, end the occupation of Palestine, etc. One chant went like this: "Blacks, Latinos / Arabs, Asians and Whites / No racist war / No more, no more / Defend our civil rights." After the march, they and other activists hailed the event as a true democratic gathering; there were veterans, feminists, teachers and children; college students, parents and grandparents; there were people of many races and probably many religions. The marchers were far from the treasonous monsters the other side portrayed them as.

Our group was lucky enough to find free lodging offered by an area Hare Krishna temple. We stayed at the temple for the night. But first we were fed a bountiful free meal and were given a lecture about the contributions of the faith to the world. We slept comfortably and had we stayed longer in the morning, we would’ve been stuffed silly with freshly brewed chai, dried fruits and breads and crackers.

Despite the kindness of our hosts who asked for nothing in return, the leader of the group skipped the dinner and the lecture and rolled in drunk late at night, because he couldn’t give a damn about the Krishna and their faith. He told me so when expressing his dislike for my article about the trip, in which I made a neutral comparison between the socialists and the Krishna.

The irony wasn’t lost on me of a guy shouting for the defense of civil rights who wouldn’t have it that the Krishna would exercise their own – freedom of speech, freedom of (and to) religion, etc. Plus, he was just a jerk for not being a grateful guest.

(edit) I notice that for all of our supposed tolerance and acceptance of people from different backgrounds, we are still hypocrites when it comes to accepting others. We don’t learn from the near and distant past. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy, whether or not we’re shouting for tolerance and acceptance the rest of the time.

This post was inspired by this example from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: (edit)

… the antipathy of city and country still runs deep - and in both directions. I once encouraged a food writer from a big city newspaper to pay a visit to Polyface [a sustainable farm in Virginia]. The day she got back she telephoned me, all in a lather about the alien beings she'd had to spend the day with in Swoope: "You never warned me he had a Jesus fish on his front door!"

Does the farmer's faith influence his work? It does. But the same goes for an international foods shop, the owner of which is a Muslim, and a local hip-hop clothing shop, the owner of which is a Nigerian. The same goes for anything created by anyone, ever. We infuse our personalities, our interests, our passions and prejudices into our work and hobbies. To say that people have agendas - the farmer spewing God - is to overlook the basic fact that we have personalities, to say that our work must be devoid of everything human and must exist in a realm untouched by the people doing it. Avoiding contact with a Christian farmer just because he is a Christian is akin to avoiding the writer's articles because she lives in the city (and thus is, to some, an alien).

The pendulum of tolerance is a curious thing to watch; it seems to stand in the middle only briefly, most of the time swinging this way or that differently for different individuals and different groups. When will we learn how to trust each other despite our different beliefs and backgrounds? Or shall we keep repeating that question until we forget completely its meaning?

Farming

2009-03-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

"Whose head is the farmer using?" Berry asks in one of his essays. "Whose head is using the farmer?"

"Part of the problem is, you've got a lot of D students left on the farm today," Joel said, as we drove around Staunton running errands. The guidance counselors encouraged all the A students to leave home and go to college. There's been a tremendous brain drain in rural America. Of course that suits Wall Street just fine; Wall Street is always trying to extract brainpower and capital from the countryside. First they take the brightest bulbs off the farm and put them to work in Dilbert's cubicle, and then they go after the capital of the dimmer ones who stayed behind, by selling them a bunch of gee-whiz solutions to their problems." This isn't just the farmer's problem, either. "It's a foolish culture that entrusts its food supply to simpletons."

[...] When a livestock farmer is willing to "practice complexity" - to choreograph the symbiosis of several different animals, each of which has been allowed to behave and eat as it evolved to - he will find he has little need for machienery, fertilizer, and, most strikingly, chemicals. He finds he has no sanitation problem in a crowded monoculture and then feeding it things it wasn't designed to eat. This is perhaps the greatest efficiency of a farm treated as a biological system: health.

-Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma

I'm about a half-way into the book now and it's getting me really interested in learning more about farming and in ways we can eat and live smarter. Some people I talk to about food say that they want to enjoy their food and they use this line to excuse their ignorance of food sourcing and food culture. Surely we can't know about everything, but we can try. Or is compartmentalizing knowledge - leaving whole parts of your life completely to the control of others - just a favorable option even when you realize that there are alternatives?

It makes me wonder if knowledge is a luxury; I had a comfrotable time in college and I have time now to read news and books. I have enough money to avoid highly processed foods with mystery ingredients and buy fresh produce (of course probably chock full of its own mystery ingredients in the forms of pesticides and such - the issue here is more with my inability to read in the native language so the inability to make an informed choice when shopping).

Or maybe it's all about priorities. Food safety is such a long-term overarching issue that there are more pressing issues we have to deal with. I believe this is the more important issue.

Ok, but someone makes these decisions about our health and the health of our crops and animals. Those are the people we elect and at some points in their favor-seeking careers, they do have to make decisions about crops, about subsisidies, about a national culture of food. The fact that our government favors the health of companies over the health of the electorate should be our priority. That seems like a more pressing issue, no?

But then we're back again to sqaure one where we rely on others - the people we elect - to make decisions for us. But that's a whole other story.