| I was listening to "Wicked" the other day, and a few of the lines made me think of Obama:
From "Popular": ... heads of State or specially great communicators. Did they have brains or knowledge? Don't make me laugh. They were popular. It's all about popular . . .
From "Thank Goodness": It's strange, but it seems a little - well - complicated. There's a kind of a sort of : cost. There's a couple of things get: lost. There are bridges you cross you didn't know you crossed until you've crossed.
After all the hope that Obama would be another JFK leading us to Camelot, these just seemed to have a poignant ring to them. | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment   |
| I decided to switch over to making popcorn on the stove, but after reading the instructions, maybe I'll switch back to microwave popcorn:
Heat 2-3 tablespoons of cooking oil and one kernel of popcorn in large, heavy covered pan. After kernel pops, pour in 1/3 cup popcorn (or enough to cover bottom of pan, no more than one kernel deep); recover. Shake or stir until all is popped. Season to taste.
Sounds like people will swoon after pouring in the popcorn! | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| Mark & I went to the Newseum (a museum of journalism) on Monday. One of the exhibits was talking about how news has changed with the advent of the internet, blogging, cell phone cameras, etc.
I've heard all the concerns about how the bloggers aren't trained journalists, and may not follow the same code of ethics (such as it is), and that does concern me about news in the future.
However, the museum pointed out something that I hadn't really been thinking about: it's possible that "News" providers (whether TV or "newspapers") will start using these other sources as part of their cost cutting in order to survive. However, who then will pay for true investigative reporting? Very few bloggers or whistle blowers are going to invest a lot of time and money into really getting all the parts of the story. It may be that we'll get more little pieces of a story, but never really an in-depth investigation. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| As part of the Ashland Independent Film Festival, today I saw Food, Inc. (also here).
I was already aware of most of what the film talked about -- I've read Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma (and both of those guys were in the film).
I did walk out with a couple of thoughts I wanted to share:
1) The film blames much of the problem on the industrialization of food. I think doing so misses the important point that without industrialization, then poor people just won't be able to afford things. Look at mass production as applied to the car industry: only rich people could afford cars when they were essentially hand produced. Only after Henry Ford introduced mass production could the average person afford a car. Of course, mass production has its own dark side, but it isn't as one-sided as "mass production bad".
2) One of the most interesting things to me was the reminder of how our capitalistic society fails because we don't give the consumer the tools and knowledge to make an informed decision. It's shocking to know that the food industry can sue someone for "slander" for simply saying what their own food preferences are. It's obscene to think that laws exist which can make it illegal to publish photos of what goes on at a feed lot. Without having access to information, consumers can not make informed choices.
How many people really understand that the low cost of that soda they are drinking isn't really so low when you look at the actual cost. For example, through taxes, we pay corn growers a subsidy which has the net result of keeping corn prices low. If one were to add that back to the can of soda, that would raise the price slightly. There's the rising health costs to treat diabetes and other health problems caused by the food people eat. Add that in to the cost of your soda as well. I won't even start on the ecological impact of the pesticides used to grow that corn, or the fact that we essentially have a "monoculture" when it comes to farming, so if anything upsets the crop, it could be truly devastating (whereas if we had true diversity in farming, one crop might fail, but others probably wouldn't).
The film did end on a positive note, however. It reminded people that they can vote with their dollars at every meal, by choosing to spend a bit more money (if they have it) to buy something that is better for them, or better for the factory workers, or better for the animals involved. The film also reminded people that when they are depressed because the FDA doesn't shut down plants that sell contaminated Peanut Butter and that it looks like the foxes are guarding the hen house, that not too many years ago the tobacco lobby was strong and kept any anti-smoking rules from happening. With enough grass roots efforts, the tobacco companies lost their fight, and the "big business" food producers can lose as well. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Today, we saw Prom Night in Mississippi (also promnightinmississippi.com). This documentary tells about a small town high school in Mississippi that has held separate black and white proms. Morgan Freeman (who was born in that area) offered to pay for the prom if the prom were integrated.
There were two things that I found incredibly amazing about all this. First off, there are still places where racism is so rampant even in the year 2008 that white parents didn't want their children going to a prom where black kids would be present, even though all these kids are in the same classes every day at school.
What I found even more amazing, though, was how well spoken the kids were. I don't believe the film showed any footage of the people who actually opposed the prom (including the small number of white students who wouldn't go to the integrated prom), so I can't tell you how smart or eloquent they were. But all the kids they showed on the film (who were all supporters of the integrated prom) were very well spoken and often insightful. I know that I would not have been as well spoken or composed in front of a camera when I was that age!
Yes, there were times when I wish that the movie had subtitles (I don't understand deep southern drawl very well), but even the kids who were obviously not the "college-bound overachievers" were well spoken and obviously had thought about things.
When I feel despair over the progress of gay rights in this country, sometimes seeing how racism is still a major issue makes me despair even more. But then I see how the majority of the kids are overcoming the prejudices of their parents, and I start to believe that we just need to wait for a generation or two to die off and things will get much better.
[I forgot to mention that one kid in the school appears in the movie only blurred out -- he was afraid that his parents would disown him for not being racist. Just about every gay kid in America knows how he feels.] | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| The Ashland Independent Film Festival is going on right now. Tonight, Mark & I saw a pair of documentaries: Ask Not (about Don't Ask, Don't Tell) and The War of 33 about the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in 2006.
"The War of 33" showed the horrors of war -- the "innocent" people being hurt and killed; homes being destroyed, leaving families homeless. One can argue whether anyone is innocent who silently supports -- or even does not actively fighting against -- "bad" organizations, but the people in this film were not the ones who were directly shooting or bombing Israelis.
By contrast, "Ask Not" was all about people wanting to become soldiers. Particularly poignant was one gay man who signed up to fight in Iraq because he believes that we need to stabilize that country. Having just seen "The War of 33", the thought that this soldier's actions might be viewed by the Iraqi civilians in the same way that the Lebanese viewed the Israeli army made me really think about some of my own attitudes.
It's hard for me to know whether war is ever justified. Knowing what we know now about Hitler and the atrocities committed, I think that I would say that WWII was "justified", just as I think that invading Iraq as a "preemptive" maneuver was not "justified".
There are times that I truly admire Gandhi, but I don't know if I have his patience or belief in the human race that things will actually get better.
Coming back to these two movies, the theme in both of them was humanity -- wanting to be able to do what you believe in without having overly harsh consequences. And in both these movies, it's clear that there is no happy end in the near term. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I got an envelope in the mail recently trying to get me to sign up for some magazine. As part of their bid to get people to sign up, they have a contest for winning a free KitchenAid stand mixer -- all determined by whether or not you have the appropriate sticker to put on your entry form. The sticker on my envelope says "FREE STAND MIXER". Sounds good, right?
The instructions say:
Did you win the Mixer? A lucky sticker tells all.
Reply with one of the special "winning" stickers and win this
KitchenAid Stand Mixer FREE!!
I'm betting that they used quotes appropriately in the sentence above, and that the sticker needs to have the word "winning" on it -- that a sticker saying "FREE STAND MIXER" isn't actually a winning sticker. | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| A while back, someone recommended that I read a Scienterrific American article on photo-tampering (see this, and this, and this. I finally did, and it kind of blew me away - not the article itself (which was good), but the realization that people -- including me -- treat photographs as trustworthy.
There is evidence of photo-tampering since basically the beginning of photography. This isn't just since the advent of digital processing; it's been going on since the first days of photography. But people still react very strongly emotionally to a photo, treating it as "evidence", where they wouldn't react as strongly to an oil painting. And the oil painting may have just as much basis in reality as the photograph.
Sure, I've trained myself to never trust photos shown me by individuals, knowing how easy it is to doctor them. But, I still treat photos in newspapers or journals as being "real", even though there is evidence that faked photos have gotten into the print media. [For what it's worth, I don't trust any photos shown on TV news; it's the print media that somehow I "trust" more.]
How much more will it take before I view all photographs as equivalent of a drawing? | | comments: 17 comments or Leave a comment |
| ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wooddragon sent me the book "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely. (I think it was a comment on my square dancing)
It's a somewhat scary book, as it really tries to show that people make some pretty strange decisions. There are many implications for economics based on his findings, because most economists believe that people will act rationally.
One of the scary things is how people react to a situation when cash is involved -- or even more important, when cash is not directly involved. He was basically trying to see how honest people were, and whether that honesty was directly related to whether money was involved. Several groups of people were asked to take a simple test, and would be paid based on the number of correct answers. The control group handed in their papers, had them graded and were paid (the average was 3.5 questions answered correctly). Another group graded their own papers, tore them up, and then walked up to the front and told how many answers they had correct. This group lied a bit (their average was 6.2 questions reported correct -- 2.7 more than the control group). The third group also graded their own papers and tore them up. However, instead of given cash directly when they went to the front, they were given a token which they took across the room and exchanged for cash. This group reported an average of 9.4 questions answered correctly!
Assuming that the people chosen for the experiment really were roughly equal in ability, this is an amazing result. When the monetary result is somewhat removed (but still present), people will cheat more than if they are dealing with cash directly. This may explain companies cheating their customers (and vice versa). It may also be more of a reason to return to a cash based society rather than use credit cards so much! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Mark & I watched a PBS special (fairly Oregon specific, so not sure how widespread it was shown) about invasive species like star thistle, and some mussel that is spreading around and causing all kinds of damage, and various other similar things.
The invasive species do so well mostly because they have few natural predators, but also because some people actually like them and help spread them (e.g. English Ivy). One of the points the documentary made was that globalization has made this a much larger problem than it was in years past -- goods are shipped from all over the world, people hop on planes and unwittingly bring along pests (or knowingly bring along something that may turn out to be a problem).
One thing that really struck me after watching the show was that Burger King/MacDonalds/Pizza Hut/Starbucks are basically the same thing -- invasive species that spread around the world. Yep, some people really like them, not caring what they might be doing to the local economy.
From there, it was a small step to consider mankind itself to be an invasive species. If you think about it, mankind does fit many of the parameters of an invasive species.
Many years ago as a way to decide which of the many charities to support, I made the decision to focus on those that directly helped people (medical aid, food, etc.). It was just my way of making it easier to decide which charities got my money, and which ones didn't.
Now, however, thinking of mankind as an invasive species, I'm wondering if I should be re-thinking that strategy, and instead giving my money to organizations which help reduce the impact that mankind has had on the earth. | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| They have a campaign linking Bush & McCain, and now they've gone too far -- they are using the theme song from The Patty Duke Show as part of some recent ad stuff.
First off, it pisses me off that they are taking one of the greatest shows ever on TV and linking it with Bush/McCain.
But, what really makes me mad is that this idea obviously came from some moron who knows nothing about the show! The central conceit of the show was that Patty & Cathy were superficially alike, but that they were very different in their thoughts, preferences, how they would react to situations, etc. Now, either the MoveOn people are actually hoping that McCain wins (by implying that Bush & McCain may look alike on superficial levels, but that they're really different), or the fools who came up with this marketing program never bothered to understand the material that they are using.
If you want to see this travesty, click here. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Seems like I'm reading about a lot of people on LJ who are agreeing to a challenge to lose X amount of weight by some particular date.
I've commented in some of the journals that I read, but I decided to post a entry as well.
It makes me cringe whenever I hear that someone is trying to lose weight, especially when they have explicit goals about it. While I think that Weight Watchers does some very good work, their "weekly weigh-in" makes me want to scream.
It's really important that everyone realize that the number on a scale isn't a measure of how healthy you are. It's a number derived from a broad range of items, and is very hard to decipher. Making the number go down does not mean that you are getting healthier. It might be indicating that, but it might also be indicating that you're dehydrated, or that you're losing muscle mass or bone density, none of which are good for you.
My first thought whenever someone says that they want to lose weight? It's "cut off your leg". That will reduce the number on the scale. OK, I rarely (well, usually) don't say that out loud, but that's my first thought.
You may think that I'm just being difficult, that I know what you really mean, but I don't. I don't know whether you mean "I'm sick of buying bigger clothes every year" or you might mean "I miss seeing my toes" or you might mean "I want to live a longer life" or you might mean "I want other people to find me attractive". Heck, you might even be thinking "I don't want to spend as much money on food as I've been doing".
Without really understanding your goals, it's difficult to know how to plan to achieve them, and how to know whether you're making real progress towards them. It's also hard to make an informed decision when two goals conflict (for example, the goal of "enjoying life" vs. the goal of "seeing my toes").
For those of you who want a way to avoid using the scale, I recommend Scooby's advice.
In typical apparentparadox fashion, I have some particular fitness goals in mind for myself, but I won't post them. | | comments: 22 comments or Leave a comment |
| It struck me the other day how much of life is really trying to understand the "extremes" of many different things, and trying to decide where "in the middle" you want to be.
Here's an example: when we were looking for a new house last year, we looked at lots of different houses, and finally picked one that we're very happy with. Because of the house that we picked, I know that our lives are different than they would have been if we had picked one of the other houses -- not necessarily better or worse, but different. Well, I think that it's great that we're flexible enough to adapt to our surroundings, that we change with the different requirements or opportunities provided.
However, I don't want to be so "spineless" that I'm completely different based on the environment.
So, I've got to choose where I want to be on the scale of "affected by the environment vs. holds to things regardless of environment".
As I got to thinking about that, it seemed like there were literally millions of things to think about, and with each, I've got to decide where I want to be on that scale.
And it seems that (for me, at least), it isn't until I can understand the extremes that I can really choose where I want to be.
The hard ones for me are always the ones that come from my upbringing -- where what I thought was an extreme really isn't -- that the scale goes on past my previous idea of the end. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| I find the whole "perception vs. reality" a fascinating subject. I'm reading several books right now that have different aspects of this.
Flatterland is a "sequel" to Flatland (one of the worlds greatest books). Basically, the author wanted to add new ideas that hadn't been around when Flatland was written. As with the original, much of the book deals with trying to get you to realize that the world as you know it might be viewed in a completely different way. The "Flatland" residents live on a plane, and so don't have a "third dimension". Their perception is obviously different from someone who normally resides in 3D space.
Lies my teacher told me deals with errors in High School American History books. Although I knew some of this before, there's lots more that I didn't. I'm not quite through the civil war section yet in the book. It was interesting to me the way that Native Americans were described in glowing terms in letters and so forth during the 1500s, but later they were described as savages (probably to justify taking their land). I'm not just talking about "history is written by the winners", but more about how people's "reality" is influenced by the way that the information in the books is presented -- and the sad fact that the history books don't even portray that the material has been presented with different slants over the years.
I guess the thing I find the most important is for people to realize that "reality" really is a difficult thing to grasp -- that everything is colored by your perceptions. It always scares me when people can't even conceive of the possibility that their idea of reality might be wrong. | | comments: 20 comments or Leave a comment |
| There was a major storm around these parts last night -- high winds, rain, etc.
We lost power just before 5AM and didn't get it back until about 5 hours later.
Here's a bit of the scorecard for what happened:
Emergency flashlights: We have several that plug into the wall so that they are always charged. Unfortunately, we left them in the "auto" position which means that they turn on automatically when the power goes out so that you have some emergency light if you're around and the room suddenly goes dark. We did wake up when the power went out (the smoke detector chirps when it switches from power to battery), we didn't get up & turn off all the emergency flashlights that had come on. So, by the time we got up, several of them had already drained their batteries.
The storm was the winner on that one. From now on, I think that I'm switching them all to "off", so that they'll charge when the power is on, but not automatically turn on when the power goes off. Sure, this time we could have gotten up to turn off all the flashlights, but what if we had been away from home? The only thing worse than coming home to a dark house is coming home to a dark house with exhausted rechargeable flashlights.
Radio: We do have an emergency radio, and the batteries did work. Unfortunately, the storm had knocked out the one station that we normally would listen to for information, so I was forced to scan the dial to find info.
The storm wins that one, too. I now have a list of radio stations for the area, and will make sure that I have a print-out of that put near the radio.
Phones: We do have a land line, and it did work while the power was out. Cell service was also available, but both Mark & I had cell phones that weren't fully charged. We could have charged them using the car charger, but it would be better to have them kept at a reasonable charge amount.
I think that we win this one, because we did have phone service and a way to charge the cell phones.
Food/Water: We're always pretty well stocked on this. However, everything would have to be eaten cold, as our only cooking option without power is the gas grill outside -- and it would be quite unpleasant to go outside to use that in the driving wind & rain.
We win on this one, but only because I have enough stuff that can be eaten cold. Eventually, we'll remodel the kitchen & put in a dual-fuel range, so we would have gas burners. In the meantime, though, I should get a camping stove.
Heat: Without power, we don't have heat. Luckily, it wasn't that cold outside, and the house had only dropped to 60F by the time the power went back on. But, if the power stayed out for another day, it would have gotten mighty cold in the house.
The storm wins this one. We need to get some kind of emergency heat system.
Light: Other than the discharged flashlights, we've got a ton of emergency lighting options, including small keychain lights that we have with us at all times as well as a candle lantern that I just bought for emergency preparedness.
We win this one.
Entertainment: There are plenty of books and games (and appropriate light for using such). My iPod was fully charged, so I could listen to podcasts & tunes for quite a while. I rarely put my laptop to sleep at night, however, so its battery was nearly drained by the time we got up in the morning. From now on, I think that I'll make sure to "sleep" my laptop, rather than leaving it on -- that's more energy conscious anyway. [For those who care, the reason why I haven't been using "sleep" before is that sometimes my Mac laptop doesn't find the wireless network when it wakes up, so then I have to reboot the damn thing, and that's just annoying.]
We win this one, although with a few minor changes, we could have a more enjoyable time even without power.
Overall, we did OK. We certainly could have survived an entire day without power, but it would have been iffy if we had to spend multiple days without power. Definitely some things to work on before the next time.
I'm curious how you all would have fared in the event of losing power for 5 hours (or for a day or two). | | comments: 22 comments or Leave a comment |
| You have to love Despair.com. I can't decide which of these shirts I should get:
or
Probably the second ("Your blog"), since the first one is just true while the second is snarky. Go here to order one of your own. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| With all the goodies around (many of them baked by me), I've decided to go back on my should-be-patented "toothpaste diet".
Here's how the "toothpaste diet" works: basically you eat whatever you really want, but you have to go brush your teeth after each eating episode.
This accomplishes several things:
- Brushing your teeth helps kill the taste of the previous goodie, and makes it less likely that you'll grab another cookie when walking by.
- Any joy you get from eating that hunk of chocolate will only last as long as you are chewing it. This makes it a bit easier decide that the calories from ingesting said chocolate might not be worth the enjoyment you'll get while chewing. Or, it could make you chew slower which will let you enjoy the food for longer without getting any extra calories!
- Having to go do something (like brushing your teeth) also helps break the cycle of sitting there munching away. You actually have to get up and walk away for a few seconds. (I guess it's no fair keeping cookies in the bathroom next to your tooth brush)
- Toothpaste doesn't really taste good (to me, anyway), so it also serves as a kind of dis-incentive. Do I really want that cookie badly enough to make dealing with toothpaste again worth it? Even if you really like the taste of your toothpaste, the whole "now I have to go brush my teeth again" is a bit of a dis-incentive.
- Watching yourself go through lots more toothpaste in a couple of days than you normally do in a couple of weeks is also something that helps curb your appetite.
I hate obsessing about food, counting calories, eating only things on a particular list. That's all great if you need to worry about nutrition for some reason, but for just losing (or not gaining) weight, it's just not something that I want to deal with. One of the good things about the "toothpaste diet" is that you are responsible for your own weight loss. If you decide to eat even less, you'll lose more weight. But, if you just "break the cycle" of eating when you really wanted to stop, that will help you lose weight (or not gain weight). The other thing I like about it is that the only thing that is an explicit negative is spending more money on toothpaste. There isn't any counting points & feeling bad when going over. You can keep this up for a lifetime and it won't hurt you (I think, not sure about the effects of ingesting too much toothpaste).
[EDIT: If you want even more benefit, drink a glass of water after you brush your teeth. Most people don't drink enough water, so this will help you get more water. The water will also help make you feel more full.]
[Note that I have no direct financial relationship with any toothpaste manufacturer, and do not receive any kickbacks from stores that sell toothpaste. But I really should, you know?] | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| Today was not a good day for an introvert. I had been feeling like I needed to stay away from people, but tonight was a weekly pot luck/movie night and the movie looked pretty interesting. We went last week and I found the people & movie interesting (but, it still took energy just to be there). I decided that I would go, and made something I thought people would find interesting.
As we were walking up to the house, one of the people who lives there was outside & told us in no uncertain terms that we were not welcome, that we should not have been invited last week, and that we should just go home. At first we thought that he was joking, since we had received email yesterday with the details from the person who organizes the event. He said that was a mistake, and that since she doesn't live in the house and wasn't going to be attending that night, that he basically didn't care what she had said.
Mark & I were stunned. We turned around and left, feeling horrible.
When we got home, Mark emailed the organizer, and she responded that she didn't know why that guy would have done that, and that she would check into things when she was able (she is flying out early tomorrow morning, which is why she wasn't going to be at the movie night).
While I feel slightly better about humanity based on her response, I'm totally blown away by the actions of the one guy. He seemed to go out of his way to be hurtful towards us with his tone and words.
This was especially hard for me to deal with, as making the effort to go out to join a group really is an effort for me, and not something I do lightly.
I think that I'm going to crawl inside my shell & stay there for a few days. | | |
| I have a wonderful life, and every day I feel thankful for that.
Today I make an extra effort to think of all the things that I have to be thankful for. Looks like I'll be busy most of the day just doing that.
I hope that you all have many things to be thankful for. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | As I was walking the dog this morning, I saw a few houses with additions under construction. That got me thinking about how house size seems to go up and down. Houses in the US used to be pretty small. Then back in the early 1900's some people built really big houses By the 60's, many of them were split up into apartments because they were too big for a single family to afford. Lately, we've been having McMansions and people wanting a large house. How soon before we have another cycle where those big houses are converted into multiple family dwellings because they aren't affordable? | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
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rejected