In the dead of a New England winter, sometimes you have to run indoors. That's not always a bad thing. Sometimes the girls' track team ends up training alongside you. Of course, sometimes, so does the men's lacrosse team. As I recall, it was usually the latter that left a wafting trail of cologne whenever they passed you (or you passed them). Few things will undermine my respect for you as an athlete quite like putting on cologne before your workout. Until today.
Apparently, Calvin Klein's "Obsession for Men" attracts large jungle cats (I wonder if anyone has bothered to do a study ascertaining whether or not it attracts human females of any size... probably not an important question).
Few things will amplify my respect for you as an athlete quite like putting on cologne before your workout so that you can achieve your maximum heart rate fleeing a jaguar.
[If I were actually as geeky as I make myself out to be, I would have titled this post: "Beware of the Leopard." Let's pretend I did that.]
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Churchill's worst form of government
It sometimes scares me how much I rely on Jon Stewart to tell me what I think about the world. Then I remember that, left to my own devices, I would devolve into a rabid partisan cyborg principally interested in advancing the cause of the Blue Team, and I resume my indolent consumption of Daily Show analysis. That being said, I found the "Meet Me at Camera 3" bit from the June 8 episode troubling. In a nutshell, Stewart took the Administration to task for failing to act decisively on, really, anything (the oil hemorrhage, financial regulation, health care, closing Guantanamo) and rather hiding behind the excuse that "it's complicated." The bit was funny, which I'm sure was the point*, but it's a good excuse for me to resume talking about something that's been bothering me. These problems are complicated. The oil is hemorrhaging a mile underwater. We either have the technology to do something about that or we don't, and I'm pretty sure the only member of the administration with a Nobel Prize in a physical science (Energy Secretary Steven Chu) is, in fact, on the case. Why are we angry at a man (Obama) we elected to craft and execute our laws for not also being an engineering genius on par with the late great never Montgomery Scott?
[*Hi, for those of you who haven't met me, my irony detector is broken, so this all may sound rather silly.]
I can't remember exactly when or why, but a few years ago, I heard a piece on NPR about history of the idea of a "dictator." The expert being interviewed claimed that, in the early 20th century (I believe in the aftermath of the Great Depression), people (or at least newspaper editorial boards) were crying out for someone to step in and be a dictator. The blatantly obvious failings of society appeared to be symptoms of bureaucratic gridlock and nothing breaks gridlock better than, I'm going to say it, a capital-D Decider (man, that felt good). I sometimes get the feeling that liberals (where I'm using that term to encompass everyone who voted against John McCain) want that now. They don't understand why merely electing Barack Obama did not solve all of the institutionalized problems that have been gradually overwhelming our government and culture for the past 20 (30, 40....) years. Yes, the situation with the oil is awful. It's not going to stop being awful anytime soon, nor will it stop when BP finds the technological silver bullet to stop this particular instance of oil gushing all over the place. As this Slate piece argues, as long as there are people buying oil, there will be people and critters dying from it somewhere (much in the same way that we will never win the War on Drugs as long as there are people willing to buy cocaine). We will never have meaningful universal health care as long as we are not willing to universally pay for it (you know, through taxes). Financial reform won't happen until we as a society realize that the absurd prosperity of the housing bubble was absurd, unstable, and to be avoided at all costs. Guantanamo won't close (though it does seem unconscionable that the Commander and Chief can't or won't just order this one) until Americans stop treating terrorism like it's the number one killer of people between ages 1 and 1,000,000 (a good friend once pointed out to me that Americans think they can live precisely this long given the proper application of national security and medical technology).
I guess what I'm saying is, "we are the generation who bought more shoes and we get what we deserve."**
As near as I can tell, we'd all better find the right dictator or become teachers.
[**No, I hadn't heard the song before writing this post, but I've seen the quotation as the signature line to enough emails and, out of context, it seemed appropriate.]
[*Hi, for those of you who haven't met me, my irony detector is broken, so this all may sound rather silly.]
I can't remember exactly when or why, but a few years ago, I heard a piece on NPR about history of the idea of a "dictator." The expert being interviewed claimed that, in the early 20th century (I believe in the aftermath of the Great Depression), people (or at least newspaper editorial boards) were crying out for someone to step in and be a dictator. The blatantly obvious failings of society appeared to be symptoms of bureaucratic gridlock and nothing breaks gridlock better than, I'm going to say it, a capital-D Decider (man, that felt good). I sometimes get the feeling that liberals (where I'm using that term to encompass everyone who voted against John McCain) want that now. They don't understand why merely electing Barack Obama did not solve all of the institutionalized problems that have been gradually overwhelming our government and culture for the past 20 (30, 40....) years. Yes, the situation with the oil is awful. It's not going to stop being awful anytime soon, nor will it stop when BP finds the technological silver bullet to stop this particular instance of oil gushing all over the place. As this Slate piece argues, as long as there are people buying oil, there will be people and critters dying from it somewhere (much in the same way that we will never win the War on Drugs as long as there are people willing to buy cocaine). We will never have meaningful universal health care as long as we are not willing to universally pay for it (you know, through taxes). Financial reform won't happen until we as a society realize that the absurd prosperity of the housing bubble was absurd, unstable, and to be avoided at all costs. Guantanamo won't close (though it does seem unconscionable that the Commander and Chief can't or won't just order this one) until Americans stop treating terrorism like it's the number one killer of people between ages 1 and 1,000,000 (a good friend once pointed out to me that Americans think they can live precisely this long given the proper application of national security and medical technology).
I guess what I'm saying is, "we are the generation who bought more shoes and we get what we deserve."**
As near as I can tell, we'd all better find the right dictator or become teachers.
[**No, I hadn't heard the song before writing this post, but I've seen the quotation as the signature line to enough emails and, out of context, it seemed appropriate.]
Be prepared
Last Friday, the Institute threw a farewell party for me and some of the visiting postdocs. We won't start leaving until next week, but everyone else already has. The Berkeley faculty are starting to trickle out and, I think, by next week even some of the Korean faculty will be vacating for slightly cooler climes, at least for a month or so (when I took this job, my grandfather, who'd been stationed here during the war, promised two things: "It'll be colder than hell in the winter and hotter than hell in the summer;" he wasn't wrong). Like all good parties, this one featured cake. Like all great parties, it actually featured two (pie doesn't seem to be a phenomenon here, so I've had to renormalize the scale). The first cake arrived as a solitary piece delivered to my office. This is what I was given to eat it.
"Big deal," you say, "it's a spoon." Oh, non, mon ami. Look again....
That's right: it's a spoon with a detachable plastic toothpick built into the handle.
The second cake was shared by all in the atrium. This one appeared as a whole cake with three candles (one for each of the imminently departing postdocs). The cake was laid out. The candles were firmly placed. How are we going to light them? Bam! Using the matches hidden in the secret compartment in the handle of the disposable plastic cake server.
Sir Baden Powell just had an orgasm.
For those of you confused by the pink elephant in this post: yes, I am leaving Korea. Yes, it is for good. My official return date is July 15. The reasons shouldn't be surprising to anyone. I'm not really designed for living in a place that I don't consider home. I've flown back to Seattle twice already in the last month: once for my ex-girlfriend's birthday. Once for a good dear friend's wedding. One more time and Al Gore is going to hunt me down with a baseball bat.
If I had principles, I would change the title of this blog, but I really like the title of this blog.
For those of you confused by the other pink elephant in this post: it is what it sounds like.
"Big deal," you say, "it's a spoon." Oh, non, mon ami. Look again....
That's right: it's a spoon with a detachable plastic toothpick built into the handle.
The second cake was shared by all in the atrium. This one appeared as a whole cake with three candles (one for each of the imminently departing postdocs). The cake was laid out. The candles were firmly placed. How are we going to light them? Bam! Using the matches hidden in the secret compartment in the handle of the disposable plastic cake server.
Sir Baden Powell just had an orgasm.
For those of you confused by the pink elephant in this post: yes, I am leaving Korea. Yes, it is for good. My official return date is July 15. The reasons shouldn't be surprising to anyone. I'm not really designed for living in a place that I don't consider home. I've flown back to Seattle twice already in the last month: once for my ex-girlfriend's birthday. Once for a good dear friend's wedding. One more time and Al Gore is going to hunt me down with a baseball bat.
If I had principles, I would change the title of this blog, but I really like the title of this blog.
For those of you confused by the other pink elephant in this post: it is what it sounds like.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
I'm just saying
From nytimes.com:
"The new laws range from an Arizona ban on coverage of abortion in the state employees’ health plan to a ban in Nebraska on all abortions after 20 weeks, on the grounds that the fetus at that stage can feel pain."
You know what else can feel pain?
Cows.
(It may be problematic that my first reaction wasn't actually to answer that question "pregnant women.")
"The new laws range from an Arizona ban on coverage of abortion in the state employees’ health plan to a ban in Nebraska on all abortions after 20 weeks, on the grounds that the fetus at that stage can feel pain."
You know what else can feel pain?
Cows.
(It may be problematic that my first reaction wasn't actually to answer that question "pregnant women.")
Sunday, May 16, 2010
57 Fe
You know that thing scientists always say when hippies jump up and down about Chernobyl and how nuclear power is going to kill us all? It goes something like, "10* different things went horribly wrong in the Chernobyl accident; only the Soviets could possibly be stupid enough to let them all happen at once." I feel like we're going to be saying the same thing about the American oil regulato-industrial complex in about twenty years.
*I made that number up, but the truth is not an insignificant integer
*I made that number up, but the truth is not an insignificant integer
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Fe
Okay readers, your challenge is to come up with an irony greater than the idea that the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico could make it more difficult to pass climate legislation (thanks to President Obama's crazy notion that bribing Republicans was ever a good idea; sorry, I refuse to accept that anyone I voted for actually in his/her heart of hearts thinks that offshore oil drilling is ever an acceptable alternative to anything).
Saturday, May 8, 2010
"yes, John; of course, John; whatever you say, John"
[that's John Sheridan; not anyone who may be reading this blog; it's a reference to the Babylon 5 episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place"]
I recently flew home for a quick break before the madness ensues. The next two weeks will be a constant stream of workshops (yay!) and visitors (yay! [this time without the sarcasm]) before I fly home again on my way to Houston for the wedding of a dear good friend (yay! [add the cowbell]). Riding shotgun as my Mom took me back to SeaTac for the return to Seoul, I noticed that the car in front of us had two bumper stickers. One featured "goarmy.com" printed on a camouflage background; the other said "Give war a chance." I'm going to go out on a limb and say that neither was an attempt at irony.
The CIA has recently added a United States citizen to its list of people it is going to try to kill. I'm still trying to sort out my reaction to this news. Let's meander through some of the salient points.
1) Initially, I was very upset that the CIA can kill people. That's what the military is for. This thought is, of course, even more troubling than the news that spawned it. To borrow a thought from Joss Whedon, "a government [or military] is just a group of people, most notably ungoverned." Hopefully I'm alone (but I doubt it) in the visceral notion that the military somehow has the right to decide who should live and who should die. Regardless, the idea is hogwash. If we trust the military, it is because we believe they will never buck the authority of our elected representatives. Remember how we felt when we thought health care reform meant that our elected representatives would be deciding whether or not to pull the plug on grandma? (I actually don't, since I never thought that, but I can imagine I would've been pretty upset if I had.)
2) I invested a lot (hopes; dreams; time; and, yes, money) in this administration. I want to believe that Barack Obama is a good man and a great President. That idea involves believing that Awlaki has it coming. If the official story is to be believed, he's not really a nice guy (any more). He seems to be doing a pretty good job of encouraging people to kill other people. Of course, what is missing from the official story is the notion that Awlaki has actually pulled the trigger on anyone himself. I reconcile my intellectual rejection of the death penalty* with my emotional desire to pee on Osama bin Laden's bloated corpse with the reassurance that "they intentionally target civilians; the American military does not." Now we're targeting a guy (and I guess this description also applies to bin Laden, which, I'll admit, is more than a little troubling) whose participation in the War on Terror seems to be at the level of military recruiter or maybe Department of Defense official, but definitely not soldier. Living in a country where bluntly criticizing the military is considered impolite (there's even a law forbidding colleges who don't allow full access to military recruiters from collecting federal funds), I'm not sure this is a line we want to cross.
3) [in which I go completely off my rocker] We are occupying the world. There is no habitable continent on which we do not have military bases. Our budgetary outlook is so red it has almost left the visible spectrum, but, while we are allowed to say whatever we want about eliminating programs to fight poverty, discussions of reining in military spending require careful maneuvering and political subterfuge and are generally criticized as being radical hippie goofishness. Now we want to start killing our own citizens without due process, and a former major party nominee for the Presidency thinks that Mirandizing Americans is optional.
None of this denies the notion that the people we think our military is fighting (the Taliban, Al Quaeda) are awful human beings. Among other things, I hope that I believe that the idea that "women are people, too" deserves defending**. I fear though, that when the history books are written, they will not say that "the world went bat sh#t f$%#king loco while the United States of America remained perfectly sane and reasonable in its response." More likely, they will say something about how we, from our position as "the winners," could afford to go crazy while the other side, from their position as "the losers," had no other choice. I feel like we should be shooting for something a bit more complimentary.
*death penalty supporters are urged to click on that link
** Dear Conservatism, I will trade you one War on Terror for one "you never get to bring up or restrict abortion ever again." Think about it.
***And now I am hesitating to actually publish this post because it is implicitly critical of the military on all levels (that may have been the point) and I am currently living in a country that is forever on the brink of existential war with its nearest neighbor, whose citizens all share family trees with its own. Springsteen said, "all men want to be rich; rich men want to be kings; and a king ain't satisfied until he rules everything." What, I wonder, do they think they're going to do with it once they rule it?
I recently flew home for a quick break before the madness ensues. The next two weeks will be a constant stream of workshops (yay!) and visitors (yay! [this time without the sarcasm]) before I fly home again on my way to Houston for the wedding of a dear good friend (yay! [add the cowbell]). Riding shotgun as my Mom took me back to SeaTac for the return to Seoul, I noticed that the car in front of us had two bumper stickers. One featured "goarmy.com" printed on a camouflage background; the other said "Give war a chance." I'm going to go out on a limb and say that neither was an attempt at irony.
The CIA has recently added a United States citizen to its list of people it is going to try to kill. I'm still trying to sort out my reaction to this news. Let's meander through some of the salient points.
1) Initially, I was very upset that the CIA can kill people. That's what the military is for. This thought is, of course, even more troubling than the news that spawned it. To borrow a thought from Joss Whedon, "a government [or military] is just a group of people, most notably ungoverned." Hopefully I'm alone (but I doubt it) in the visceral notion that the military somehow has the right to decide who should live and who should die. Regardless, the idea is hogwash. If we trust the military, it is because we believe they will never buck the authority of our elected representatives. Remember how we felt when we thought health care reform meant that our elected representatives would be deciding whether or not to pull the plug on grandma? (I actually don't, since I never thought that, but I can imagine I would've been pretty upset if I had.)
2) I invested a lot (hopes; dreams; time; and, yes, money) in this administration. I want to believe that Barack Obama is a good man and a great President. That idea involves believing that Awlaki has it coming. If the official story is to be believed, he's not really a nice guy (any more). He seems to be doing a pretty good job of encouraging people to kill other people. Of course, what is missing from the official story is the notion that Awlaki has actually pulled the trigger on anyone himself. I reconcile my intellectual rejection of the death penalty* with my emotional desire to pee on Osama bin Laden's bloated corpse with the reassurance that "they intentionally target civilians; the American military does not." Now we're targeting a guy (and I guess this description also applies to bin Laden, which, I'll admit, is more than a little troubling) whose participation in the War on Terror seems to be at the level of military recruiter or maybe Department of Defense official, but definitely not soldier. Living in a country where bluntly criticizing the military is considered impolite (there's even a law forbidding colleges who don't allow full access to military recruiters from collecting federal funds), I'm not sure this is a line we want to cross.
3) [in which I go completely off my rocker] We are occupying the world. There is no habitable continent on which we do not have military bases. Our budgetary outlook is so red it has almost left the visible spectrum, but, while we are allowed to say whatever we want about eliminating programs to fight poverty, discussions of reining in military spending require careful maneuvering and political subterfuge and are generally criticized as being radical hippie goofishness. Now we want to start killing our own citizens without due process, and a former major party nominee for the Presidency thinks that Mirandizing Americans is optional.
None of this denies the notion that the people we think our military is fighting (the Taliban, Al Quaeda) are awful human beings. Among other things, I hope that I believe that the idea that "women are people, too" deserves defending**. I fear though, that when the history books are written, they will not say that "the world went bat sh#t f$%#king loco while the United States of America remained perfectly sane and reasonable in its response." More likely, they will say something about how we, from our position as "the winners," could afford to go crazy while the other side, from their position as "the losers," had no other choice. I feel like we should be shooting for something a bit more complimentary.
*death penalty supporters are urged to click on that link
** Dear Conservatism, I will trade you one War on Terror for one "you never get to bring up or restrict abortion ever again." Think about it.
***And now I am hesitating to actually publish this post because it is implicitly critical of the military on all levels (that may have been the point) and I am currently living in a country that is forever on the brink of existential war with its nearest neighbor, whose citizens all share family trees with its own. Springsteen said, "all men want to be rich; rich men want to be kings; and a king ain't satisfied until he rules everything." What, I wonder, do they think they're going to do with it once they rule it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)