While I was out of town, my roommate was sweet enough to watch Thomasina for me!
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I don’t think I’ll ask her again…
June 15, 2010
Home Again, Home Again
Well, I have just arrived home from a two-week vacation to lovely Tennessee, where I:
- camped for five straight days and nights;
- biked 11 miles around the newly repaved Cades Cove loop;
- hiked a five-mile trail on a gorgeous day;
- saw 5 bears (2 were tiny, adorable bear cubs), 1 coyote, a couple of turkeys, and a racoon;
- played with 3 shockingly enormous dogs;
- witnessed several nights of synchronous fireflies mating, in the thickest, loveliest display I’ve seen in years;
- visited with my lovely parents, my fascinating extended family/family friends, and my oldest (as in longest-known) friend;
- attended Bonnaroo 2010, where I saw The National, Tori Amos, Brandi Carlile, Regina Spektor, They Might Be Giants and others;
- got about a thousand mozzie bites and (despite multiple 90+-degree days) only one minor sunburn;
- swam in a lovely saline pool;
- suffered through the usual crazy amounts of real-estate envy/life questioning that all vacationing NYers must experience;
- ate at a Manchester, TN restaurant called ‘The Tater Box’ while a bluegrass band sang about snake handling;
- consumed enough grilled meats of varying types to feed an army;
- drank enough alcohol of varying types to drown a navy;
- survived two flights of two legs each and checked a bag, and, for the first time in memory, had no delays, cancellations or lost baggage;
- read two novels and saw one movie; and
- took zero (0) photos.
I had fun, but I’m very glad to be home. Thomasina didn’t remember me at first, which made me very sad, but she figured it out (and she is EVEN CUTER THAN I REMEMBERED!!). I have my first night of karate tonight after two weeks of inactivity, and I’m a little frightened.
April 14, 2010
Cookies
On Monday, I was very excited to see these two food trucks parked right by my office! They don’t usually park here.
July 26, 2009
Two Weekends Ago
Two weekends ago, my friend and I were on our way into the city, when we saw lights in the distance from Bedfort Avenue (where we’d been eating Thai food). We walked down to the lights, and found a fairly large fair! I’d stumbled on this fair the year before, as well, but hadn’t known what it was. Apparently, it is the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and San Paolino, a 12-day festival that happens every July. That would explain all the Italians.
Entering the fair...
Crowds at the fair.
A pretty big fair, too - it spread off in all directions.
There was everything you look for in a fair…rides:
This ride spins everyone around very quickly.
…guys grilling meat…
Meat!
…women frying zeppole…
This lady was upset at me for taking her photo.
…patriotic frozen drinks…
Red, white and blotto!
…souvenirs…
Not sure what any of these are.
…tasteful novelty Ts for i bambini….
Pity the poor child.
…games, where you can win a half-dead goldfish in a Ziplock baggie…
Chuck's Live Fish
…firefighters, lest things get out of hand…
In addition to these firefighters, there were many groups of funny cops standing around, but they told me that if I took their picture, they would confiscate my camera.
…and garbage, without great piles of which no street fair in July in NYC would be complete…
Smells better than the zeppole!
…and finally, bizarre religious iconography!!
Giant, garish, totem-pole-like thing.
Man in a boat. (Don't be immature.)
Now, according to this video that my roommate found on Gothamist, these two religious icons are stars in a ceremony, in which they are lifted by gangs of fellows and danced toward each other, to the tunes of the Rocky soundtrack. Please watch the video – it is something else. Unfortunately, we did not witness this spectacle.
After exploring the street fair, we went out a-drinking in the East Village, after which we thought it would be good to get Pommes Frites. Apparently, everyone else thought so, too.
Mmmm...Belgian fries up ahead.
We couldn’t find a handy stoop to eat them on, but luckily the nearby Max Brenner’s was closed, and someone had left some of the tables out! We spread out our fare and felt very clever.
Sidewalk dining at 3:00a.m.! No wait.
The next night, I went to see Jigsaw Soul, a local band that always provides a giant, multi-media performance experience.
Jigsaw Soul
The audience.
The Jigsaw Soul dancers.
Shadow visuals.
Choreographed keg cup stacking.
One of several giant papier-mache bird heads.
More visuals.
After the show, we were famished. Time for shawarma and falafel!
Mmmm, gyro-loaf!
After that, it began pouring, so we went over to Washington Square Park to watch the band and friends play dodgeball in the fountain.
Rainy Washington Square Park.
Hipster swimming pool.
It's all fun and games till someone loses a contact.
The next day, I was pretty tired. I went for a long, lazy Sunday walk, over the nearly deserted Williamsburg bridge.
Bike and pedestrian lane.
After that, I ate a massive cup of ice cream, but I did not choose to document that with photographic evidence. A pretty good weekend, overall.
July 19, 2009
Pigeons
Today in the park, I saw a pigeon spot a Ritz cracker lying in the middle of the path. This was a big, fat glossy pigeon, and he began pecking at the cracker. Presently, a smaller, darker pigeon ran up and tried to get a peck in. Pigeon A attacked Pigeon B with a flurry of feathers and they went beak-to-beak. Pigeon A won, and went back to pecking at the cracker. Another small black pigeon ran up, and there was another fight, with Pigeon A winning. After that, Pigeons B and C lurked around the cracker waiting for an opening while Pigeon A strutted in tight, little circles around the cracker’s perimeter, puffing out his chest and making proclamations. Eventually, he went back to pecking at the cracker, and before long, his beak speared it. He shook his head from side to side to dislodge the cracker, and it flew off some distance. The pigeon looked for it anxiously, as did Pigeons B and C.
At this point, a baby ran down the sidewalk, scattering the pigeons. The baby found some object wrapped in foil and put it in his mouth. I looked around for someone to intervene, and saw the baby’s mother running over. She chased the baby off down the sidewalk, yelling something in Polish that was probably, ‘Spit it out right now!’ Meanwhile, the fat pigeon found the cracker again, and was fighting over it with the two smaller pigeons. He sunk his beak into one of the smaller pigeon’s wingpit, and the bitten pigeon squawked and shimmied sideways, flapping its wing wildly against the fat pigeon’s head. Right that this moment, a tiny brown sparrow swooped between the fighting pigeons and the third pigeon who was hunkering to make another break at the cracker, snatched up the cracker in its beak and attempted to fly off. You could just tell how smart it thought it was by the set of its tailfeathers in flight. Unfortunately, the cracker was too big for it to fly with in a balanced way, and it was forced to land several times to rearrange its grip – the three outraged pigeons giving full, waddling chase. Finally, the sparrow managed to get the cracker to the grass, where it nestled down and became camouflaged. The pigeons went all over the place looking for it, and it worked at the cracker as quickly as it could.
I wish that was the end of it, but at some point when I wasn’t looking, the fat pigeon got the cracker back. The sparrow flew off like a shot, and there was the fat pigeon, puffing and proclaiming and strutting in tight little circles in the grass, while all manner of other pigeons made runs at the cracker. The pigeon kept battering everyone who got near, then took hasty pecks at the cracker, leaving off in time to attack each new intruder – he would even take on three adversaries at once.
I hate that Pigeon A won in the end. He was one fat, shiny, self-congratulatory, greedy, entitled jerkface, and as I sat watching him guard his meal, I wished harm upon him.
May 31, 2009
On Animal Rights
My current position on this is, I eat meat and probably always will, and I don’t feel much compunction about it, but I don’t approve of needless cruelty and suffering for animals raised for consumption. While I don’t make much effort to curtail my consumption of animal products, neither would I go to bat for it – if meat were unavailable, I wouldn’t eat it. Those of us lucky folk in the developed world have an abundance of food these days, and all questions of the historical food chain aside, we don’t need to eat animals to survive anymore. Food is not that important and I don’t see meat-eating as somehow essential to my character or inheritance. So, if humane conditions on farms, and in dairies and slaughterhouses and so forth, led to less available and pricier meat, I would think it a worthwhile sacrifice. I would love to know that any animal-derived product I bought had never been the cause of pain and misery to any living creature at any stage of its growth, manufacture and transport – and hell, let’s extend that wish to all clothing, electronics, home furnishings and so forth – and if that guarantee meant that instead of piles of affordable goods to choose from, I had a smaller selection of pricier items, I’d happily make the trade-off and quit inadvertently subsidizing and profiting from exploitation and suffering. I just don’t want to have to work at it.
The more we learn about the evolution of our species, the more difficult it becomes to draw a firm and absolute line between humans and other animals. Apparently, the latest word is we’re closer to dogs than chimps, which may go some little way toward explaining why we treat dogs like they’re people:
The marketing folks of the pet industry, in fact, use the term “humanization” to explain their good fortune. The pet owners driving the growth, many of them baby-boom empty-nesters, aren’t satisfied with shopping for their pets as animals. They’ve promoted them to junior humans, entitled to the same concern for health and happiness and company. Nearly half of pet owners in one survey say their animal sleeps in their bedroom (which probably explains the boom in the grooming business) and the most popular names for pets—Max, Chloe, Bella—sound a lot more like babies than the Spots and Fidos of yesteryear.
While the pet industry may be recession proof, we do not apparently ascribe the same importance to zoos, which have in fact declined in society’s estimation, at the same time as house pets have risen:
A lot of people wonder how much the current economic downtown resembles that of the Great Depression. One big difference comes in the support of zoos. In the ’30s, the institutions received significant support from Roosevelt’s Works Projects Administration. Artists created advertisements encouraging the public to visit zoos, and new buildings and exhibits sprung up in zoos across the country. St. Paul’s Como Park Zoo, for example, came out of the Depression with a bear grotto, monkey island, barn, and main building, thanks to the WPA.
Now, however, any allocation of funds to struggling zoos is immediately decried as wasteful spending. (I’m not saying I disagree.) And apparently, we haven’t been doing such a hot job of tracking and protecting endangered species, either.
Some feminists have long drawn parallels between mankind’s entitled disregard for animal welfare, and man’s viewing of women as an obligated sex class – both cases involve one group defining itself by its ownership of and right to use another group. Typically, these arguments are attempts by animal rights activists to persuade women of the importance of respecting all life as autonomous; PETA, on the other hand, offensively uses images of degraded women to market their animal rights agenda to men. (To me, the first is a stretch; the latter, an outrage.) Here’s Twisty on this:
The parallels between the myth of the happy hooker and the myth of the self-sacrificing meat animal are legion. . . . Both represent the privileged class’s celebration of itself and its contempt for anything it happens to debase in the course of its daily pillages. And the myths about oppressed individuals choosing to serve the vulgar interests of their oppressors have been created to allow the dominant culture’s beneficiaries to sleep at night.
Actually, these comparisons predate feminism:
A distinguished philosopher, Thomas Taylor, reacted to Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 call for “the rights of woman” by writing a mocking call for “the rights of brutes.” To him, it seemed as absurd that women should have rights as that animals should have rights.
(from the Kristof article discussed below)
Really, though, we all use animals to serve our purposes, even if that only involves misinterpreting canine affection as familial love, which, while not likely to cause any duress to the animal in question, might be nauseating to other humans.
But despite the many persuasive arguments for prioritizing the ethical treatment of animals, I can’t seem to work up much steam over animal rights. I know that worthy causes need not compete with each other, and that the way we treat animals is part and parcel of our overall attitude toward (and stewardship of) life on this planet, and so animal welfare is an integrated part of everything else in our long march toward a more advanced society. But at the same time, I care more about starving babies and enslaved women than tortured pigs and cows. (And by “care about”, I of course mean “think, read and blog about.” Not “donate to” or “campaign on behalf of.”)
Luckily, while my capacity for caring may be limited, no wee chicken is beyond the reach of the sheltering arms of my favorite journalist, Humanitarian Hero-at-large, Nicholas Kristof, who recently took a break from his usual coverage of the abuse, poverty and disease of unfortunate humans to pen a column on animal welfare:
One of the historical election landmarks last year had nothing to do with race or the presidency. Rather, it had to do with pigs and chickens — and with overarching ideas about the limits of human dominion over other species. I’m referring to the stunning passage in California, by nearly a 2-to-1 majority, of an animal rights ballot initiative that will ban factory farms from keeping calves, pregnant hogs or egg-laying hens in tiny pens or cages in which they can’t stretch out or turn around. It was an element of a broad push in Europe and America alike to grant increasing legal protections to animals.
Let’s hope there’s more of this, and that “guilt-free” food will come to mean something more significant than “low-calorie”.
October 10, 2008
In Which I Attempt a Date
Well, dear readers, it was bound to happen eventually: I actually went on a date last week. And you’ll be happy to hear that it was on every level an absolutely insane and embarrassing failure…not because you’re rooting for my continued loneliness (though you may be, I don’t know), but because it makes for a really entertaining story.
I met this fellow (let’s call him “Patrick”) while waiting for the G-train late one night. I was too tired to read anything and didn’t have my headphones with me. He made eye contact and I cut him dead with a glare, as is my habit. But he came over and started talking to me anyway, and well, he was really, really good-looking. So I gave him my card.
After the usual three-to-four day waiting period, Patrick called, and we agreed to meet up in the Village for dinner. He explained that he had to pick something up at 7:15p.m. around Washington Square Park?
I said that was fine, and then he said (and I thought this was really odd at the time), ‘Hey, wear pants, alright? Not, like, a skirt or anything.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Are we going bowling or something?’
‘Uh, did you want to?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I thought we’d just grab a bite and maybe-’
‘Oh, yeah,’ I said. ‘No, I just thought, because you said to wear pants that-’
‘That we were going bowling! That’s hilarious – do you always bowl when you wear pants?’ he laughed (a lot). ‘You’re so funny!’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Why did you-’
‘So, I’ll see you then, then, in your bowling pants!’ he said, and rung off.
So, okay, whatever. People are strange.
Anyway, the big date night arrived, and I went down to the park (wearing my usual jeans), and soon Patrick arrived. He was still really good-looking. And he was carrying a small cage with a guinea pig in it.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘What’s with the guinea pig?’
‘Well, this is what I had to pick up,’ he explained. ‘I did some work for this friend of mine, I, uh, I built this really piece of furniture for him, you know, and so then – get this – I get done, and he’s like, oh, I don’t have any money to pay you. But he just got this guinea pig? And I don’t know, I was just like, well, I’ll take the guinea pig. Because I’ve been wanting a pet, but I don’t have a lot of space. I’ll have to get a bigger cage for him, though. I sort of wonder…do you think they kill mice?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He’s cute. What are you going to name him?’
‘I’m thinking Palin,’ he said.
‘Topical,’ I said. I then told Patrick about how I knew this guy in Tennessee who raised guinea pigs and had cage after cage of them in his garage, and took them to guinea pig shows and so forth. And that there’s a guinea pig transport system, where if you live in South Carolina and you buy a purebred guinea pig from Seattle, there are people signed up in every state that will drive the guinea pig along to you, like a sort of pony express for guinea pigs.
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Patrick.
‘It’s true,’ I said.
‘I think you’re making up stories, and honestly, if you are, you should just stop it, because I’m about just being real.’
This was sort of funny, because I really do make up stories sometimes when I’m talking to strangers I don’t think I’ll see again (say, at a party…although sometimes I do end up seeing them again, often, and then it’s awkward because the lie has to be kept up forever), but this was actually true – I do know a bit about guinea pigs. I sort of apologized and changed the subject, and then we went back and forth on where to eat, and Patrick suggested Red Bamboo, which is this vegetarian place that I’d been to before and was agreeable to. When we got there, we had some issues with the guinea pig at the door. The hostess wasn’t sure we could bring Palin in, since Palin is basically a rodent, but after Patrick promised to keep the cage discreetly under his chair with his jacket over it, she said it was probably fine.
‘So,’ I said, as we looked at the menus. ‘Are you a vegetarian?’
‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘But I tend to…what I do is, I’ll like pick a color? And then for a week, I have to only eat things that are that color. So, this week, I’m only eating black things. So, I’m thinking I’ll get this black bean ginger stir-fry, but I have to check and make sure it really looks mostly black.’
Now, a lot of you may be thinking, ‘Freak!’ But I actually have really weird eating habits myself (Clif bars, anyone?), so I’m sort of understanding about this type of compulsive behavior. And additionally, I had once flipped through this book at Barnes & Noble about challenging your brain every day a little bit to keep sharp and stave off Alzheimer’s, and it basically said that you had to always be looking for ways to break your routine in non-routine ways so your brain doesn’t just go into habitual autopilot, and one of the specific suggestions it gave for doing this was to make a new eating rule every week, like maybe just pick a certain color and only eat things that were that color for a week. So, I figured Patrick had read this book.
‘Did you get that idea from a book about keeping your brain entertained?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘Um, eating all things of one color,’ I said. ‘Did you read to do that in a book about how to keep surprising your brain, so that-’
‘-It’s got nothing to do with my brain,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s about my body. I figure you should only ask your body to break down a certain kind of compound at one time, you know?’
This was a really bad sign, as I have no patience whatsoever when people start spouting this kind of bullshit, so I quickly changed the subject, and the conversation was more or less okay until the server came to take our order.
‘Is the black bean stir fry black?’ asked Patrick.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘It’s black beans, yes.’
‘But is it black-colored? Like, if I looked at the plate, does everything look black?’
‘Um,’ she said. ‘It’s in a black-bean glaze, but it’s all vegetables, but it’s…’
‘Is it mostly dark?’
‘I guess.’
He sighed heavily. ‘But is it- you know what, forget it, I’ll just get a double order of the black rice, and black beans, and a chocolate milkshake.’
Seriously.
So, fine, you know what? I got a gigantic dessert for my meal. Because I am always wanting to get dessert for dinner, but I always figure people will give me shit about it. But at this point, Patrick sure couldn’t say anything about it, so I got a slice of peanut butter tandy heaven cake with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
‘That’s disgusting,’ said Patrick.
‘I’m only eating desserts this week,’ I replied, and stared him down.
At this point, I’ll admit, I was actually kind of thinking Patrick and I might be perfect for each other. I began to think it might be quite freeing to be with someone so much more eccentric than I am that I could just give total free reign to my own eccentricities. I imagined how being weird in a pair in public would be far more comfortable than being weird alone, and you know, actually, I could probably kick it up a notch and be even weirder if I had a partner who could act as a buffer. It might be really fun. And the conversation was going along just fine, the food came, all was well. And then…
We got to talking about our favorite authors, and I mentioned how upset I had been that David Foster Wallace just died.
‘Oh, me too!’ agreed Patrick.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In fact, I have to say, I kind of cried when I read that-’
‘Me too!‘ screamed Patrick, and he burst into tears. I shit you not. Right there at the table, out of nowhere – and we’re talking giant, chest-heaving, gape-mouthed, wrenching sobs. I mean, he was screaming. Everybody in the entire restaurant went dead silent and turned and stared at us. I was mortified. I didn’t know what to do. It seemed like that moment went on and on for hours, for days. Patrick just bawled his head off – he didn’t even put his hands over his face, he just stared straight ahead with his mouth wide open and howled – and everybody stared at us, and I was so humiliated I wanted to drop through the floor…and then I started to laugh. I kept picturing the scene from the outside, as if it were in a story, the way it looks now as I’m blogging it, and it was just so damn hilarious that I went into a sort of hysterical, giggling anxiety fit and couldn’t stop. Patrick sobbed, and I brayed with laughter, and we sat there over our insane dinners with the guinea pig scrabbling around under Patrick’s chair, and I feared we’d be frozen there in that demented tableau for all eternity.
What eventually happened was the manger came over to ask if we were okay, and we both said that we were fine, and he suggested that we might be happier the hell out of his restaurant, so we paid (well, I paid – Patrick apparently had forgotten to go by an ATM), and got out of there as quickly as possible.
‘Do you want to come with me to shop for guinea pig stuff?’ asked Patrick, who had more or less gotten himself together, but had not apologized for his mad behavior.
‘I should probably head home,’ I said. ‘I have to be up early tomorrow.’
And then, even though I knew I should leave it alone, I just had to ask: ‘Patrick,’ I said. ‘Why did you tell me to wear pants?’
‘What?’ he said.
‘On the phone, you said I should wear pants. Why?’
‘Look,’ he said, looking pissed off. ‘I move slowly, okay? I’m a slow-moving guy. And I’m honest about myself. And I don’t make any apologies. So, just, you know, I take my time! And I won’t apologize for that.’
I didn’t want to press him further. I went home, and I haven’t heard from him since, about which I’m extremely relieved.
I rarely take a chance on going out with a complete stranger, and sure enough, every time I actually throw caution to the wind, the guy invariably turns out to be a complete psychopath. My intuition is either hopelessly broken or missing entirely, so perhaps I’m wise to be standoffish.
September 20, 2008
Kaley Cuoco Is the Most Depressing Person Alive
So, I recently joined the YMCA in my neighborhood. As it’s been over two years since I belonged to a gym and had regular access to weights, I’ve entirely forgotten my old regimen. So, I bought a few women’s exercise-type magazines to find a couple of routines. I usually steer clear of women’s magazines because they tend to make me both angry and depressed, and these were no exception.
I seem to recall reading Shape several years ago, and it was 95% about actual exercise, and the models were all ripped. Not anymore. Now, it’s 95% hideously overpriced clothes, and interviews with lying celebrities (“I mostly care about being happy and healthy, and my kids!”), and advice on how not to eat, or do anything much but spend insane amounts on worthless crap. And only 40 pages in (or 3 pages in, if you don’t count advertisements), there is an interview with Kaley Cuoco. Apparently, she is an actor on a sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. I’d never heard of her or the show. She’s 22-years-old, and this is what she has to say:
I go to [spinning] class three times a week, without fail. I always get there early so I can sit in the front of the studio, and I’m ready to go as soon as the instructor comes in.*
And:
…right now I can’t get enough of the 6-inch vegetarian whole-wheat sandwich from Subway. I pick one up after my Spin class . . . It’s my default meal; I know exactly how many calories are in it – 260 – and I never have to think about what to order.*
And worst of all:
Diet cola is my absolute favorite drink in the world; I used to drink four cans a day. But to help me cut down, I’ve turned it into a treat. Now, instead of having dessert, I’ll have a can of diet soda. Putting a limit on how often I can drink it has helped me appreciate it more.*
Oh my God, Kaley! I want to kill myself! You are the saddest girl in the whole world!
Seriously, I myself am far more ascetic in most respects than your average person could bear to be, and I often find my own self depressing in some ways. But even I want to kidnap this girl and make her go on some insane sky-diving, Fleet-Week-cruising, cocaine-snorting adventure in irresponsible hedonism. What’s the point of being rich and famous if your best idea of an awesome time is go to spin class and then eat a Subway sandwich and drink a can of Diet Coke?
Jeez.
–
These quotes taken from Shape’s October 2008 issue (Vol. 28, No. 2); I don’t really know what the procedure is for footnoting in a blog post. Please don’t sue me, Shape. Oh, and also – your magazine blows.
September 16, 2008
At Home With the Woolfs, Part One
He was still there, snuffling around outside the door.
‘Virginia,’ he whined. ‘Virginyaaa.’
‘What, what, what?’ she said in a whispery staccato, pushing herself from the floor onto the couch. ‘What?’
‘Virginia! Virginyaa….’
‘What? Oh, what?’
She wondered if she had a different name, would he incant it thus? Would he go as wild for Wanda? Or Elizabeth? Or Vanessa?
‘I’ve a cheese sandwich all made. And some teeeeaaaa. Virginia.’
‘Go away from the door. Go down the hall.’
But she let him in. She slunk from the couch, unbolted the door, and he tipped in backwards – he’d been leaning against it.
‘Oh, oh, oh, oh, what?’ she asked him, pushing her face back into the couch’s upholstery. He hated it when she had fabric imprints across her cheeks.
‘I’ve brought tea. I’ve had Nancy fix tea, and I brought it up to you on a little cart. I thought…’ he looked at her upside down, over his poofy hairline, from his position on the floor.
‘You thought what? You look ridiculous.’
‘What? I can’t hear you. Take your face from the cushions.’
‘You thought what? What?!’ she asked.
‘I thought we might,’ Leonard raised himself up and sniffed mightily. ‘Drink it. You see.’
‘Oh, damn,’ said Virginia. ‘And now we have to.’
‘Oh, good, oh, good,’ cried Leonard, leaping to his feet, and skipping in the air like a Disney Frenchman, he spun the tea tray in between them and busied himself with the cups.
‘You’ll love this,’ he cried, clapping his hands, and he handed her a saucer. ‘Will you eat the sandwich, or shall I? It’s cheese.’
‘Why is there only one?’
‘Well, because I didn’t really think you’d want one, you see,’ explained Leonard, through a mouthful of sandwich.
‘I want so many things,’ she sighed, and poured out the tea. Leonard held his cup with both hands.
‘Haven’t we any frankfurters?’ she asked, and Leonard shook his head no, his cheeks bulging from his face.
September 11, 2008
Whither the Single-Serve Portions?
I have mentioned on this blog before that I am a compulsive eater. One easy way I have found to manage my weight is never to buy and bring home more than I plan to eat at any one sitting. While this is a more expensive way to eat, it didn’t used to be that unreasonable. You could generally eat for $5, and there were any number of $.99 snack food items in any drugstore or minimart you happened to pass.
Now, I understand that everything is more expensive now. I don’t like it, but I am beginning to accept it. What I don’t understand, however, is why there don’t seem to be single-serve portions of anything anymore anywhere. I regularly find myself with five minutes to spare before work running into every damn drugstore all up and down the snack aisles, and there are just giant bags of chips, huge cans of nuts, jumbo pouches of trail mix. What is this? I don’t want seven servings of a snack. If I take seven servings of a snack into the office, I will be eating seven servings of a snack.
The only single-serve portions available anywhere now, however, are those 100-calorie pack things, which are just totally worthless. One hundred calories on an empty stomach just prods it enough to make it furious – you’re better off not eating. I operate from a continuous base of low-level hunger, and when that hunger kicks from low- into high-level, I want to have just enough food in my purse to knock it back a little. If I have more than that, I’m going to eat until I’m actually really full, and then I’m going to eat whatever small amount is left after that, because there’s not that much left and I may as well finish it. And then I’m also still going to eat dinner three hours later anyway, even though I’m totally full, because I was so looking forward to dinner that I can’t bear the disappointment of just going straight from the office to whatever I’m working on that evening without my dinner break. And there you have it – the Duane Read has just ruined my whole day just because it’s no longer stocking single-serving bags of nuts.
I have this dream that there would be a wonderful grocery store that caters to people like me. This grocery store would have nothing but inexpensive, single-serving portions of all different kinds of food, and for an added bonus, maybe it could even be healthy food. And a wide variety.
Well, actually, there is such a place. It’s called Trader Joe’s, and there’s only one, and if you want to go there, you have to fight your way through a crowd of thousands and wait online for upwards of 45 minutes. Wouldn’t you think, every other retailer in Manhattan, that, given the immense popularity of TJ’s, there might just be a market there that could stand to be capitalized on???
Single-servings of portable, precooked food items for $5-$6.50 a pop!! And single-serve snacks for under $2!!! Available at a great number of convenient locations throughout the five boroughs!!!!
Somebody cater to my specific need, damn it!
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Oh, and also, if you don’t already read Fafblog, this Sarah Palin post is a great time to start:
As a Jesus-fearing moose-hunting hockey-mom mother of five who hunts moose for Jesus, Sarah Palin is kin to the wild outdoors and appreciates its bountiful splendor as she is gunning it down from her airplane. Sarah Palin understands that America is dangerously addicted to oil, and that the only cure is more oil. . . . Sarah Palin may not know if global warming is man-made. She may not know if global warming is real. She may not know what global warming is. But if global warming is caused by abortions, Sarah Palin will fight it – by banning abortion, just in case the first couple times didn’t take.
Go, read all of it, and then read the entire rest of Fafblog, because it never fails to kick ass.
August 22, 2008
I’ve Been Reading: Then We Came To the End and Remainder
Regular readers of this blog will know that I am no fan of superstars. I resent the hell out of anything beloved by all. But sometimes somebody will deserve every last lick of praise they get, and Joshua Ferris is one of those people. I can’t even hate. TWCTTE is a fantastic novel – hilarious, relevant, charitable to everybody, and well-written. Go read it now, because no matter who you are, you’ll enjoy it. Damn it.
Remainder, on the other hand, is a whole bunch of nothing. I can’t believe I finished it. I got about thirty pages in, and thought, ‘Ah, this is very interesting. I think it’s going to go in one of several directions, and can’t wait to see which.’ Twenty pages further in, I thought, ‘Huh. It hasn’t gone anywhere yet.’ Twenty pages further in, ‘Still in the same place.’ And when I finally finished it, ‘Well. That really was just about that. All the way through.’
Wow, those are some slight reviews. So, here are some cool things this week:
Scientists got blood from stem cells:
Scientists have used embryonic stem cells to generate blood — a feat that could eventually lead to endless supplies of type O-negative blood, a rare blood type prized by doctors for its versatility.
Computer scientists thought of a good way to make use of those text boxes you have to fill out online all the time:
You may be deciphering a word from a decaying old book, helping to transform a historic text into a new digital file.
This entertainer found a way to use cicada shells to adorn herself (via CP). If you’ve never experienced the weird joy that is picking cicada shells off a tree, you should probably do that at some point. When I was a little kid visiting my grandparents in Mississippi, my Granddaddy and I used to pick grocery sackfuls of cicada shells off the trees in the front yard. We had no real object in this harvesting – I don’t know exactly what happened to the sacks full of bug shells, but it’s far more likely my Grandmother threw them out than that she wove them into her hair.
Also, this NY Times article proclaiming that coffee is nothing but good in every possible way, and even overconsumption of coffee works nothing but good effects on your body is the best news possible, and makes me feel utterly vindicated. I’m sure it’s unreliable and probably the studies behind it were funded by giant, evil coffee cartels, but I don’t care. I choose to believe it, because it is what I want to hear. Now all I need is an article saying that a cake-based diet prevents cancer.
July 25, 2008
I’ve Been Reading: The Accidental and The Double
Ali Smith’s The Accidental has a freaking form poem flight thing in the middle of it. No book ever has the right to priss about being cute with the layout of text on page – I hate that. If there were a gimmicky little concrete poem in the middle of the greatest book ever written, I’d detest it. Short sentences, run-ons, overlapping dialogue – fine. I love me some DFW footnotes. But any actual text effects belong on motivational posters or in powerpoint presentations, not in the middle of a novel I am trying to read. I can’t stand gimmicks.
I took a poetry class in college wherein the professor went on and on about the way poems looked on the page, the shape of the thing. What were we, calligraphers? If you have something to say and you’re a painter, show it to me visually. But if you’re a writer, freaking write it! Don’t put a precious little fucking flipbook in the middle of your novel, don’t put one word on each page for a time, don’t make the paragraph look like a cat when you turn the book to the side. How trite and cute can you be? I can’t believe real critics have any patience for this kind of nonsense, but sickeningly, it seems to be increasing every year. What’s next? Music boxes that play when you flip the pages? A small hologram? A scavenger hunt? A free toy in a hollowed-out space in the middle? A plush bunny on the cover with a squeak in its tail? Come the fuck on! If you can’t blow my mind with your prose, you won’t make up for it in doodles. And the hell with you for wasting my time.
And yes, I liked House of Leaves (although I don’t consider it revelatory or anything), but it is the exception that proves the rule. And I realize graphic novels are growing in importance and popularity, and eventually there might be bleedover and to enforce a stern boundary between novel-novels and graphic-novels will be pointlessly rigid and fusty. But I’ll adjust my ideas about that when I see it. Meanwhile, I don’t want to read the free verse horridness painters from a decade back were fond of scrawling across their canvasses in metallic gold paint pens, and likewise, I don’t want a toy or a bauble in text form from a writer.
And lest I be misunderstood, my issue with all this is not its novelty, but its meaninglessness.
Ahem. Even beyond the alienating concrete poem bit of stuff in the middle of The Accidental, I didn’t particularly care for the book. I just felt it tread over a lot of really familiar territory without adding anything much. I didn’t take away any truth or insight into the human condition. But apparently, people loved this book. It was short-listed for the Booker and had mostly good reviews.
I did really enjoy the passages in Astrid’s point of view, the family’s 12-year-old girl. The family is staying in a rental house, and at the beginning of the novel, Astrid spends a lot of time trying not to touch any of the surfaces of the house, or anything in it, because she’s disgusted by the idea of all the people who have used the house before them. She arranges a sheet over the bed before lounging on it, she tears bread from the middle of a loaf rather than use a knife and so forth. I can attest to the accuracy of this portrayal; I spent a ton of time in childhood trying not to touch anything. And actually, I never really grew out of it. Even as I backpacked across Asia, I had my rituals.
I was talking to a friend about this the other day. My friend was saying something about hygienic restaurant conditions, or something to do with food. And I said that I have no squeamishness about food and don’t really stress about the conditions in which it was prepared, because, even though I know that people not washing their hands and then handling food transfers diarrhea around (hence traveler’s tummy), and even though that’s disgusting if you actually think about it…well, really, all that happens is you maybe get a little sick for a day.
I said that I really have more worries in the tactile realm – that I don’t like to touch surfaces.
And then I suddenly realized how freaking crazy that is. I mean, I always knew that my obsession over not touching anything wasn’t rooted in any actual germaphobia, and had no real base at all – that it was rather just a general feeling of squirmy discomfort. It’s just that some things you have to touch are gross, the way you find some foods gross – it’s not that you think they’re dangerous; it’s just that you don’t like them. But I never thought about how nuts it is to put any old thing inside my body, but obsess about things touching the outside of my skin. Not to put too fine a point on it, but apparently, I would rather eat feces than sit in them.
Not that the realization did away with my baseless phobia, but I thought it was worth remarking on.
Jose Saramago’s The Double did not annoy me with any gimmicks, and I did walk away from it with, I felt, greater insight into the human condition. It’s commonly advised that, if you’re not “into” a novel by 100 pages in, you should put it down and start another. I have read quite a few books, however, where I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not until I finished the very last page. Perhaps these are books that don’t so much reflect how I see the world, as explain in a complete and compelling way how the world appears to someone else (the author). So, while I don’t hook into them immediately, by the time I come to the end, I feel satisfied. The Double is one of those books for me. And the same books that I can’t figure out if I like them or not until I finish the last words are generally those about which I cannot articulate what I liked, so I have nothing else to say about this.
July 14, 2008
All Alone In Public Spaces
I am excited beyond belief to share with all of you, dear readers, a grand realization I had this past weekend. This was the sort of ‘aha!’ lightbulb moment after which the world is never the same again, but is a little wider, a little shinier, a little more bearable.
I realized that the best way not to be surrounded by obnoxious, loud people in public spaces in New York is to sit near a bunch of quiet people to begin with, rather than go sit off by yourself somewhere.
Here’s how I came to that realization: I bought a sandwich and went to consume it in a pretty, park-like area, and, as usual, went straight for a bench in the most deserted stretch of park. I was halfway through my sandwich when a couple of giggling teenagers came and sat right on top of me, despite the general emptiness of the area, and began to converse, in loud and squealing terms, about their burgeoning sex lives.
My entire life I have whined about how strangers seem to seek me out. I find the close proximity of other people repellent on a visceral level that most people do not feel for their fellow humans, which I realize is a personal shortcoming, but which I cannot help, because it is a kneejerk, gut-level reaction, cultivated in early childhood and continually reinforced by the fact that other people really do consistently suck out loud in every conceivable fashion. And yet, despite my extreme misanthropy, people gravitate towards me like metal filings. I need only install myself in a totally deserted area to make that area the most coveted spot in town. No matter where I am standing – even if it’s next to the only Port-a-Pot in a malarial swamp – five seconds after I have begun standing there, at least ten people will urgently need to stand right where I’m standing, usually with their dogs and babies and cameras and stereos and B.O. and inappropriately loud domestic fights and all.
I’d always assumed that this was a sort of karmic punishment for my disliking other humans’ close proximity so much – a sort of ‘who the hell do you think you are’ rebuke from the universe. Except that I don’t really believe in any sort of large-scale cosmic justice, so I kept looking for other reasons.
Anyway, back to this weekend, these teenagers were yapping on about their various forays into the wide world of sex, both homo- and hetero-style, and how they sometimes did so with hesitancy and sometimes with great enthusiasm, depending upon the other person involved, the amount of various intoxicants in their systems, and the suitability and romance of the atmosphere. And they were doing that thing where they were actually looking right at me and projecting in my direction while they ostensibly talked to each other. I provided an audience for them, which made the whole thing more interesting to them, I suppose. At some point, something so very ridiculous was lobbed so obviously in my direction that I audibly sighed, rolled my eyes, got up and packed up my sandwich and moved on.
I began looking for another deserted stretch of park, when suddenly, I had the inspiration to sit instead right smack between two older couples who were each murmuring quietly to each other while glaring at everyone passing by.
It was the best decision I ever made! I enjoyed my sandwich in peace and solitude, buffered on both sides by a cranky, old couple that didn’t want to look at me, or for me to overhear word one of their conversations. And it was at this point that I realized why people had always been coming to sit by me: they had been doing it on purpose precisely because I was quietly reading a book! They knew that they would be able to dominate the space, and that my presence would ensure against any louder people coming to sit next to them.
In New York, you never sit in an empty area, because no area is empty for very long. Rather, you pick the least offensive strangers, and then you scooch in right on top of them. That way, you have some control over your fate. I put this new theory into practice over the rest of the weekend, and I have to say, my quality of life has improved by leaps and bounds. I feel less angry, less hassled, happier and more well-inclined towards my fellow man. And I’m beginning to think that perhaps New York is somewhat livable after all, if you just learn how to work with it.
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Speaking of despicable haters, I have really taken note of the passing of Jesse Helms. I think that the worst possible thing that you can do with your life is live it in such a way that, five seconds after you’re in the ground, people everywhere burst forth with celebrations of your death and denunciations of everything you were. Scores of private assholes are despised posthumously by everyone who knew them, but it seems like, if you are going to be an asshole, at least do yourself the courtesy of limiting your own exposure. Because to be a hated asshole on such a very grand scale as the late Senator Helms seems to me to be far, far worse than spending your entire life in your room doing nothing and seeing no one. I really hope that, whatever I do or don’t do in life, I don’t do such a grandly awful job of it as to be remembered as the world now remembers Jesse Helms.
Of course, if I can’t be confident of the purity of my heart saving me from such a fate, at least I can rely on my lethargy and ineffectiveness.
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Related, what does make people so social? Mirror neurons:
Mirror neurons are the only brain cells we know of that seem specialized to code the actions of other people and also our own actions. They are obviously essential brain cells for social interactions. Without them, we would likely be blind to the actions, intentions and emotions of other people. The way mirror neurons likely let us understand others is by providing some kind of inner imitation of the actions of other people, which in turn leads us to “simulate” the intentions and emotions associated with those actions. When I see you smiling, my mirror neurons for smiling fire up, too, initiating a cascade of neural activity that evokes the feeling we typically associate with a smile. I don’t need to make any inference on what you are feeling, I experience immediately and effortlessly (in a milder form, of course) what you are experiencing.
(via 3QD)
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Here in America, even in our public parks, everybody thinks it’s their own, personal bench. Blame it on the Renaissance:
This focus on the individual, and its false equation with democracy, began back in the Renaissance. The Renaissance brought us wonderful innovations, such as perspective painting, scientific observation, and the printing press. But each of these innovations defined and celebrated individuality. Perspective painting celebrates the perspective of an individual on a scene. Scientific method showed how the real observations of an individual promote rational thought. The printing press gave individuals the opportunity to read, alone, and cogitate. Individuals formed perspectives, made observations, and formed opinions.
The individual we think of today was actually born in the Renaissance. The Vesuvian Man, Da Vinci’s great drawing of a man in a perfect square and circle-independent and self-sufficient. This is the Renaissance ideal.
It was the birth of this thinking, individuated person that led to the ethos underlying the Enlightenment. Once we understood ourselves as individuals, we understood ourselves as having rights. The Rights of Man. A right to property. The right to personal freedom.
(via 3QD)
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Kids make their parents miserable.
Noooooooo!!!!! 99% of my diet is soy!!! It was the one thing that was never bad! That’s it, screw it, I’m going back to living on microwave burritos and beer.
This is good stuff to know.
July 8, 2008
Things You Might Hear At Your Weight Watchers Meeting…
…now that Weight Watchers has launched its new “Diets Are Mean” campaign:
“Are you trying to be in movies? No? Then what do you want to be thin for?”
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“I think you have a lovely, womanly figure!”
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“Hell, how long’s it been since you last had sex? Give yourself a damn piece of cake!”
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“No one who’s had the day you’ve had could get by on 1500 calories.”
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“It’s just harder for you to lose weight than other people – you have a different kind of body.”
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“You went to the gym today – go ahead and have seconds!”
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“Oh, so you ate the whole pint. At least you’re not a heroin addict.”
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“If you’re being good and eating a boring salad for lunch, you should at least get to jazz it up with fried chicken strips and ranch dressing.”
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“You know, you’re a good, kind person, and you’re intelligent. If you’re also fifty pounds overweight, well, that’s just more of you to love!”
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“Skinny people look like anorexics with cancer.”
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“If you just concentrate on making yourself happy, the weight will go away on its own.”
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“Everything in moderation – even moderation!”
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“Calories don’t count on your birthday/at Christmas/on your friend’s birthday/at a wedding/on vacation/when it’s this beautiful out/on the weekends/when you’re celebrating/on Flag Day/when they’re free/when someone surprises you with a treat!!!!”
July 4, 2008
How Many Movies and Hot Dogs Can You Consume Today?
I’m already bored of Wall-E. I haven’t seen it. I haven’t really heard all that much about it. I’ve seen, I think, one preview. I’ve listened to everybody I’ve talked to in the last couple of weeks assert that it’s really very good, and that I ought to see it right away. And I’ve seen headlines of articles and blog posts about it on every site I visit – I haven’t even read the articles; I’ve just seen the headlines.
And I’m already sick of it. This is what happens to me all the time with whatever culture thing everybody goes nuts for. It’s not that I don’t want to see it, or that I wouldn’t like it on its merits. I’m sure it’s great, and I’m sure I’d love it. But I probably won’t see it, just like I never ended up seeing Juno or, well, really any movie, honestly. I think in the last year, I saw The Orphanage and Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day (both with other people, after all the movies on offer went through the rigorous screening process that is everybody else’s tastes and what they’ve already seen, so you end up left with something random, but by and large unobjectionable like The Orphanage or Miss Pettigrew), and that’s it.
It’s just that, within five minutes of a film being released, it’s freaking everywhere, and I feel like I’ve seen it, not just once, but over and over and over again.
And furthermore, I guess that some people are glad for the next cool thing, but personally (and I know I’m not the only one), I’m always drowning under a cultural backlog of things that I must absolutely see, read, experience, be up on, and whenever someone tells me that I simply must drop everything and see this thing RIGHT NOW, it feels downright rude. I have enough culture to be wading through! I don’t need somebody barging into my little culture-absorber’s library carrel and screaming, “Drop everything! We’re all seeing a movie about a robot RIGHT THIS MINUTE!” What the crap? I’m still working on seeing Juno! Are we done with that already? I still haven’t seen The Godfather. Or Say Anything. Or the first Batman – the one with Christian Bale, not the twelve Batmans before that. And I never saw Brokeback Mountain, either. Not to mention there are oodles of You-Tube videos people simply won’t speak to me until I watch now right now. So, you know what, Wall-E might not get watched right this damn minute, and he’ll just have to wait his turn, won’t he?
I’m feeling stressed just thinking about it. I realize that some people think that films and books and web bits and stand-up comics are things to be enjoyed recreationally, as they come, and need not be amassed like plunder in the various stockpiles of one’s brain. I realize that for some people, word of a new cultural sensation they’d not heard of before is a treat, not a sign of personal failure. But I think these people are of a different species from me entirely.
These are the type of people who say things like, “I’m looking for a good book to read.” A statement which I cannot believe anyone could ever utter in all sincerity. Who are these people?
Here, odd, disinterested space-people: here is my 58-page single-spaced insane book list I’ve been adding to since I was twelve years old, with titles scribbled all up and down the margins and extra Post-It notes covered in chicken scratch stuck on all over. Close your eyes and point to one. You’re welcome.
Meanwhile, I’m off to see Wall-E. I mean, The Dark Knight. I mean, STOP MAKING MUST-SEE MOVIES FOR A LITTLE WHILE, WON’T YOU?
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Speaking of glut, the 4th of July is the day for one of America’s greatest annual events: Nathan’s Famous 4th of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest, the competitive eating event of the year. I’ve mentioned my obsession with competitive eating several times on this blog, and all the heavies will be at Nathan’s this year: Kobayashi, Joey Chestnut, and my personal favorite, Sonya ‘The Black Widow’ Thomas. Thomas is a 100-lb., 5’5″ Korean woman who has consistently demonstrated an astounding ability to put away large amounts of food:
She swallowed the egg. Then she swallowed 64 more in six minutes and 40 seconds. She could have eaten more but the organizers ran out of eggs. . . . “Eggs are easy to eat,” Thomas explains. “I could eat 80 or 90.”
(My obsession with all this, however, is not so unreasonable that I would actually go down to Coney Island this morning and experience first-hand the crush of humanity crowding around the Nathan’s Famous stand there.)
Speaking of impressive athletes, click here to marvel at the mind-blowing physique of Dara Torres, 41-year-old swimmer who’s attempting to qualify for the 50-meter freestyle in the Olympics this year. If I were to pick a role-model between the two, I think eating 64 eggs in 6 minutes is a slightly more reachable goal for me than looking like Ms. Torres when I’m 40.
It’s probably a good thing all of my goals are in culture consumption.
June 19, 2008
Today Is My Birthday!
I am 27. Having a June birthday, I’ve very rarely celebrated it, because when I was a kid and cared about birthdays, either I was at camp all June long, or everyone else was. Summer birthdays are sort of non-events.
But not this year! This year I’m throwing a party, along with my two roommates and my friend Sara (whose actual birthday is Saturday). It’s this Saturday at my apartment, and if you live in the NYC area and know me, but this is the first you’re hearing about the party, you should contact me for directions. We haven’t really done any prep work yet, so I don’t know exactly what you’ll be in for if you come; however, I did wake up this morning to discover that a large piece of sound equipment was rolled into the living room sometime after I went to bed last night, so, you know.
Today being my actual birthday, I went to Rice to Riches on my way home last night (which, if you are not aware, is a place on Spring Street that sells nothing but flavors of rice pudding), and purchased a small tureen of pecan pie rice pudding, which I’ve just consumed as my birthday breakfast. So, the day is off to a rip-roaring start! (Actually, to be honest, it was way too much pudding, and I feel more than a little nauseous, but I’m sure that will subside.)
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On to feminism!!
You’ve probably already heard about this, but according to Fox News, all black women are angry black women:
Cal Thomas: I want to pick up on something that Jane said about the angry black woman. Look at the image of angry black women on television. Politically you have Maxine Waters of California, liberal Democrat. She’s always angry every time she gets on television. Cynthia McKinney, another angry black woman. And who are the black women you see on the local news at night in cities all over the country. They’re usually angry about something. They’ve had a son who has been shot in a drive-by shooting. They are angry at Bush. So you don’t really have a profile of non-angry black women.
(via Feministing)
Speaking of Fox News pissing everyone off, Salon explains why this was so bad (for those who actually need an explanation of why this is offensive):
“Stop Picking on Obama’s Baby Mama!” Those were the words running on the bottom of Fox News’ screen Wednesday, during a discussion about right-wing attacks against Michelle Obama’s patriotism between anchor Megyn Kelly and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. . . . Though of course it does rhyme, and there’s the innocuous Tina Fey allusion, Fox News’ attempted subliminal ghettoization of Michelle Obama is still quite clear.
Undoubtedly, you’ve also heard a lot about all these angry, alienated white women who will now be voting for McCain out of sheer spite. I don’t personally know any women who fit this profile, but the media assures me that they’re everywhere. I like Bitch Ph.D.’s post on the topic:
. . . yes, I think that the women saying “I’m staying home” are overreacting. But I also think that the men saying “you selfish feminists, how dare you” are *also* overreacting–to the expression of female anger, disappointment, autonomy. . .And yes, the reality of party politics means that in this election, women who care about women’s rights . . . should *of course* vote for Obama, because McCain is opposed to to all these things. And maybe some of the feminist outrage is indeed an expression of white entitlement and/or class entitlement–since, after all, representation at the top is more of an immediate issue for professional women than it is for working-class women. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a legitimate expression of anger against sexism as well.
. . . John McCain canceled a Texas fundraiser to be given by Clayton Williams after it was revealed that Williams, during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas, compared rape to the weather: “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” After canceling the fundraiser, McCain’s campaign said that they would be keeping the money raised by Williams – more than $300,000.
Related, FP’s list of the worst places in the world to be a woman. (via Economic Woman)
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Here’s a fascinating article on moral psychology, and how it does and does not differ across different cultures. Included in the article are the “Trolley Problems,” which I heard a year ago (on an episode of Radio Lab as replayed on an episode of This American Life), and used as a conversation starter all summer long:
. . . Hauser and his lab have collected judgments about Trolley Problems from thousands of people in more than a hundred countries, representing a broad range of ages and religious and educational backgrounds. The results reveal an impressive consensus. . . . even in this enormous sample and even for complicated borderline cases, participants’ responses could not be predicted by their age, sex, religion, or educational background. Women’s choices in the scenarios overall were indistinguishable from men’s, Jews’ from Muslims’ or Catholics’, teenagers’ from their parents’ or grandparents’. . . . Also interestingly, Hauser, Mikhail, and their colleagues found that while the “moral instinct” was apparently universal, people’s subsequent justifications were not; instead, they were highly variable and often confused.
(via A&LD)
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Finally, following up on the Obama campaign’s rumor-dispelling site I linked to yesterday, see also this:
Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.
June 18, 2008
If You Make It To The End Of This Post, There’s Something Fun To Look At
Obama has launched a site aimed entirely at putting to rest [four of] the eight billion rumors widely spread about him and his family:
Faced with a new crop of deceptive online smears, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ratcheted up his online counteroffensive Thursday with a new site aimed at debunking the latest web and e-mail rumors about him and his wife. The site, called Fight the Smears, launched listing four claims against Obama. It counters each with a rundown of the facts, in some cases accompanied by supporting video footage.
That’s great and all, but in my opinion, these types of rumors are only believed by people who are already convinced against a candidate, and really, these people would be against the candidate regardless of all this nonsense. I don’t really feel that this type of stuff does as much harm as everyone’s convinced it does – when voters are asked why they dislike Obama, and they say, for example, ‘he’s a Muslim,’ they may or may not really believe that, but even if they knew it wasn’t true, they still wouldn’t be for him.
Or maybe I’m underestimating the power of such talk – at any rate, it’s very annoying to hear people parroting baseless claims, and I’m glad Obama is committed to dispelling rumors about himself, unlike some past candidates.
Meanwhile, Josh Marshall has this to say about the McCain campaign’s accusations of Obama’s fp naivety:
. . . on the topic of using Jim Woolsey as your presidential surrogate to call your competitor “delusional” and “naive”, I’d almost forgotten Woolsey’s freelance James Bond mission to England back in 2001 to prove the crackpot theory of Laurie Mylroie who came up with the idea that Saddam wasn’t just behind the 9/11 attacks but was actually behind the original attack on the Twin Towers back in 1993.
Related, here is a very long and detailed post on the various theories for why the South went Republican in the ’60s:
We thus know that a significant number of white voters in the South would desert the national Democratic Party—even for a Republican, as they did in 1964—if it wavered in its commitment to white supremacy. . . . But wait, now. Along come some political scientists to tell us this Republican racism is a bit of a side show, that the real story of the GOP’s new southern eminence has to do with the emergence, at long last, of a New South, ushered (ironically) into being by Democratic programs of New Deal and wartime mobilization.
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More on why Amtrak sucks so much, (and why it’s still around):
The American passenger rail-once a model around the globe-is now something of an oddball novelty, a political boondoggle to some, a colossal transit failure to others. The author James Howard Kunstler likes to say that American trains “would be the laughing stock of Bulgaria.” . . . Since its ill-fated formation as a quasi-public, for-profit corporation in 1971, Amtrak has seen only meager growth and loses billions of dollars annually.
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Ten reasons the CA DoH should leave genetic testing companies alone:
When some overprotective Luddites from the California Department of Health Services sent cease-and-desist letters to thirteen genetic testing companies, they proved that someone in their office must have single nucleotide polymorphism that causes poor judgment. Interfering with the nascent industry is not a good idea for a plethora of reasons.
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I really think Japan might be paradise on Earth. White noise machines in public restroom stalls to cover any noises you might be making; government-mandated thinness tests; sushi; seppuku; Hello Kitty…and now, you can actually SWIM IN POOLS OF COFFEE (OR WINE)???? Check out these photos, and tell me you’re not dying to go.
