beeshma

The need for control

2011-12-22T23:59:00.000-08:00

There is a Twilight Zone episode in which a man gets his fortune told. It seems to describe his situation very closely and so he returns each day to seek fresh guidance. But the "fortune teller" is merely an automated machine that, for the price of a dime, will spit out a piece of paper with some pre-printed words.

We all have a psychological need to believe that we are in control of our lives, and this need has begat many industries: ancient ones, such as fortune telling, and modern ones like time management.

But this need to believe we are in control exists on a larger scale, at the level of nations. At this level, partisans think their candidate will solve all the problems. Journalist assume the narrative they push is akin to reality. Young idealists know we must manage nature in order to save it. Businessmen and workers knows that through sensible policies we can encourage the economy to grow. And deep down, everyone believes that God favors their own country over all others.

Alternatives to Microsoft Word

2011-08-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

I used to have a strong interest in trying "alternative" word processors. I realized that my viewpoint was eccentric when, one day after complaining to a friend about Microsoft Word 6's approach to menu bars, she asked, "What does it matter?"

But I was like a religious believer who kept waiting for the messiah to come. Whenever a product like Nessus Writer or StarOffice was introduced, I was first in line to try. I couldn't wait to explore if the nuances of menus and appearance had an impact on my concentration and even creativity.

For the most part I came away un-impressed. These competing products all shared the same basic approach as Microsoft Word in the way they treated menus (File, Edit), menu bars (Formatting, Reviewing), and WYSIWYG views with rulers and tab markers. I also wanted to see more experimentation with cursors. If you think about it, the cursor is a very recent innovation of the past 40 years. A cursor is also a bit cosmic, it is a single point of focus for a writer, the place at which creation emerges from nothingness. I often wondered, couldn't the cursor be improved? However, at some point I gave up my search for alternative word processors and concluded that they are pretty much all the same.

This dormancy has thankfully been shaken up in recent years, by the introduction of the iPhone and iPad, the the new focus on UI minimalism that these products have ushered in. There are now several "ultra-minimalist" word processors to choose from. Think of them as single-gear bicycles, a return to purity. I purchased iA Writer yesterday and can't wait to try it out. It removes all menus, all menu bars, and all choices for font and styling. You are left with a blank sheet of paper and the only thing you can do it type.

Of course, this type of word processor is only suited for preparing a rough draft. I am going to have to copy the text to another program for styling and layout. But I'm okay with that!

How I Became A Wedding Officiant

2011-08-02T20:08:00.000-07:00

When Colleen and Rob skyped me from Alaska, and asked me to be the "officiant" at their wedding, I had to stop myself from asking the first question that popped into my head: what exactly is an officiant? It was an unfamiliar word, but I kind of knew that it meant doing what a priest does in performing a wedding ceremony. Later that summer, at the ceremony, the most common question that people asked me was, why did they ask you to do it? I had no idea. It never occurred to me to ask. Now that it's all over I do have some ideas about why they asked me, but I'll revisit that question at the end of this post.

Before I could begin my preparations, I needed to address a glaring problem, which was that I had never been able to give a speech at a wedding before. While I laugh at funny wedding speeches, grow teary-eyed at emotional ones, and feel deep emotions when a speaker waxes profound, I still find that whenever I sit down to draft some remarks my pen goes dry. I needed some way to prepare the ceremony that would sidestep this chronic writer's block and so the first thing I did was to order a textbook on rhetoric.

The book, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student 4th Edition, arrived a week later and I began reading about two approaches, an appeal to intellect, and an appeal to emotions. And so I entered my first ceremony planning meeting with Rob and Colleen, armed with some ideas.

Since they lived in Alaska, in a small town called Bethel, we met over Skype. This was one of the unusual aspects of our process, quite different from the way that a priest might meet with a couple a few days before their wedding to give them a lecture about what it means to be married. We wanted to set up a collaborative process and so, besides Skype, we put all of our thoughts into a Google Doc, which let us edit it simultaneously from Alaska and Seattle, while video chatting on Skype.

At this first meeting they laid out their vision, which was that the ceremony should be non-traditional and not follow the standard Christian template. I challenged them on this point, because I knew that the Catholic faith was very important to Colleen's family, and I wanted to make sure that the ceremony we designed would be accepted by not just Rob and Colleen, but also their families and friends. They also wanted humor and jokes to be a part of the ceremony.

I then laid out my initial thoughts. A wedding is a ritual, and the word ritual has the same root as the word iteration, which means repeating the same thing over and over again. And so a wedding ceremony gains its power from the fact that this ceremony has been performed for generations, across thousands of years. This meant that we did not need to completely re-invent the ceremony. If we deviated from the christian norms, the changes we made should not change the form and structure of the wedding ceremony. But the words we said in each section... now that is something we could alter.

Then I talked about how the ceremony should appeal to people's emotions, and also to their intellects. And we brainstormed about how to do this. Emotions are touched by personal stories, while intellect is stimulated by profound ideas. And so we made a list that included telling the story of how Rob and Colleen met, asking close friends to make testimonials, relating the genealogy of their families, and defining the things they value in their relationship. Colleen also wanted to include a message of inclusion for all faiths, and for all sexual orientations. We had added a lot to our Google Doc and so we stopped at that point.

Over the next few months we met periodically to mature the ceremony. I did some research to figure out how most weddings are structured, and I recognized some of these elements from my book on rhetoric. For example, a ceremony should begin with a statement of purpose. Once we had the basic structure, we began to move around our topics into the appropriate section. There is a tradition of reading sacred passages, or poems, during a ceremony, and so we also considered dozens before settling on a passage from Matthew and a poem by Kahlil Gibran. During this whole process we had kept a list of possible jokes and as the wedding date approached we chose which ones to include.

The basic tenor of these meetings was always the same. I kept asking Rob and Colleen the same questions. Why do you love each other? What are your ideals of marriage? Every time I asked they had different things to say, which I would write down and incorporate in the Google Doc. Then, at our next meeting, they would say how wonderful my writing was! I had expressed just what they felt! Repeatedly, I would explain to them that I had only wrote down what they had said at our last meeting. In this way we crafted all the original language in the ceremony, including the vows.

And before we knew it, the wedding was upon us.

The wedding was held in Clayton, New York, which is as far upstate as you can possibly go, on the Saint Lawrence river. The area is famous as the "thousand islands" area, and it reminded me very much of Puget Sound with so many boat-oriented families. During the days before the wedding, I got to know a lot of the guests, especially the one whom Rob had housed on their family's island. Although we were spread out at different guest houses, we still interacted a lot because the island was only a few miles in diameter.

I think that being the officiant made me an interesting person to meet. At least I felt like I met everybody and had conversations a bit longer than the usual "what's your name and how do you know the couple" variety. I think that every guest had a desire to talk about the profound nature of the moment, and these thoughts found expression when they spoke with me, the officiant.

A lot of people asked me if I was nervous. I replied that I was not. I was very focused on the ceremony. I wanted it to go perfectly, and yet there also had to be a looseness about things. All of us, Rob, Colleen, myself, and the guests, had to bring a long moment of concentration to the ceremony for it to work properly. And by work properly I mean for it to forge a permanent structure in the spiritual realm, analogous to Rob and Colleen's relationship here in the physical realm. Well, that's what I thought but I didn't say all of that when people asked if I was nervous.

As officiant, I played a role in all the key wedding events. At the rehearsal dinner I helped communicate the order in which everyone marched in and took their places. Before the ceremony, I spoke to the musicians and explained how I would give them the cues to begin playing. When Colleen was running late, and all the guests had taken their seats, when Rob actually displayed a bit of nervousness, rare for him, I stood with him. Finally we were ready to begin.

I took my place at the front, my back to the water, and nodded to the flute and violin players, who began the marching song. As the wedding party entered and took their positions, I stood ramrod still, made eye contact with each of them, and also kept time inside my head, a rhythm that would continue the music and become the cadence of the ceremony.

When Colleen joined us there began a long moment which I don't remember very well. I remember speaking with a steady pace. I remember making eye contact with Rob periodically, and Colleen, and looking out at the audience. I remember that the most tricky part of the ceremony was the beginning, when I made the appeal to intellect by saying "this marriage is justified by two principles."

The first principle is a universal right to marriage.

I looked up the meaning of marriage in Websters and it said to google it. (pause) I did and clicked a link and, as I read, the meaning of marriage changed before my eyes.

An example of this happened last week when the state of New York’s legislature voted to sanction marriages between same-sex couples. To quote from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”

This all seems to go well. The audience laughed at the joke about Websters, and then began responding even more when I spoke about the second principle that justifies marriage, the "traditions of their families," and named their grandparents and parents.

From that point on, it became easier. At the proper moment I called upon Tom and Amy to read the selected passages. I especially like these lines by Kahlil Gibran:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you

The audience laughed at more jokes, and then the vows went superbly. Rob and Colleen and I had worked on this section the hardest, and I thought that the ideas were very beautiful, and unique to their ideas of love. Afterwards, when the guests approached me to praise the ceremony, I knew that they were referring to these vows.

Rob and Colleen, do you promise to be each other’s best friends, to encourage opportunities to learn and grow, and to embrace each other in the ways you will change over the years?

We do.

Do you promise to honor your inner child, and to respect your own independence by never losing sight of your goals, dreams, and independent thought?

We do.

Do you vow to understand each other, to be flexible and creative in how you arrange your lives, so that your pursuit of personal goals shall always support your marriage?

We do.

Do you promise to communicate with each other about difficult issues?

We do.

Do you acknowledge that, for your marriage to succeed, you will depend also on the support and counsel of your family and friends?

We do.

Do you Colleen and Rob come here of your own free will to take each other in marriage, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do you part.

We do.

Then it was over and we marched off.

Afterwards I needed a drink pretty badly. The bar was only serving beer and wine. If I am ever asked to be an officiant again, I think I will bring a flask of the hard stuff with me. The reception lasted for many hours and culminated with wild revelry, swimming, and dancing.

As I sat at dinner, and mingled with the crowd, people kept asking me why Rob and Colleen had chose me as their officiant. I didn't have an answer prepared. To some I said, perhaps because I'm ten years older and they think I'm wise. To others I speculated, I've always been a bit philosophical and since they didn't have a priest I think they wanted that philosophical quality.

But in looking back on the whole affair, I think that they asked me because they knew I would take it seriously, and that I would be a good guide for them during the months that we designed the ceremony together. The funny thing is that my main function was to keep asking them, why do you love each other, and then write down their answers. Maybe that is exactly what every couple wants from their officiant?

The Domestication of Animals

2011-08-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

When I began college in 1988 I met my first vegan. She didn't proclaim her belief to me, but I learned inadvertently when, every week, she would question the dining hall workers about whether certain foods were vegan, or merely vegetarian. I asked her what it meant to be vegan and she explained that vegans refused to use any products which came through exploiting animals. This meant no only avoiding meat, but also butter, leather goods, and a lot of other consumer items.

I didn't really understand the rationale for being vegan. In contrast, it was pretty clear why vegetarians thought it was amoral to eat the flesh of other animals. But a couple of ideas have recently combined in my brain to help me understand the vegan's argument against exploiting animals.

First, I read a book last year called "Eating Animals" which made the case for vegetarianism by focusing on animal suffering in the context of factory farming. The author describes horrific conditions in which today's chickens, pigs, and cattle are raised, and he describes their entire existence as suffering. That makes a lot of sense to me. From that starting point I can understand why even animals kept on a traditional farm might be suffering. They have a certain nature, based on their evolutionary history, and it cannot be expressed properly on the farm. For example, chickens always scratch the dirt and then peck the ground. This behavior evolved in the rain forests of south east Asia, where the jungle's undergrowth was many feet thick of decomposing vegetable matter, easily disturbed by a chicken's claw to reveal grubs, insects and other food. Today's chickens practice this behavior incessantly but to no purpose. Another example is herd animals like sheep or goats. If you try to raise a single sheep or goat they will cry all day long and eventually die. This is because their psychology is such that their lives make no sense as individuals, but only in the context of a herd. And so I believe now that all our attempts to domesticate animals rob them of the potential to fulfill their purpose in life, and gives them a life of suffering instead.

Second, in my reading of human evolution and history, a couple of important innovations are always mentioned as being critical, and one of the earliest is the domestication of animals. These are explained as providing humans with greater security, in the case of dogs, and a stable food supply, in the case of herded animals. But you can look at this innovation differently and see that this is the first example of humans practicing enslavement of other beings. I think that there is a direct causal link between our exploitation of animals, around 10,000 BC, and the start of widespread exploitation of our fellow human beings, starting around 8,000 BC in eastern europe. During those intervening thousands of years, humans grew used to living with a slave class of dogs, sheep, goats, and cattle. Our culture evolved to justify this exploitation. Perhaps human beings were selected for, in evolutionary terms, if we had a greater capacity to enslave and exploit other beings. Deciding their choice of mates, feeding them or punishing by witholding food, forced confinement, physical abuse, exploitation of labor, and all the other social ills. This has lead us to our present culture with constant wars fought for nationalism, religious persecution, or simply greed, cruelty, and fear.

I have not yet decided to become a vegan. I would rather change our system of exploitation actively rather than passively. But I am still searching for a way forward on this matter.

A History of Computing

2011-07-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

My first computer was an Apple ][e, purchased in the early 80's when computers first became affordable for households. There wasn't much you could do with a computer back then, the business computer had only been introduced in 1981, and there was very little comprehension of the advantages of buying one, since they cost over $2500 and there was very little software available. During our childhood visits to other Indian families, I noticed that most families had purchased some sort of computer for the edification of their kids. Some had Commodore 64s, some had TRS-80's, and a few unfortunates had Timex Sinclair's (with only 4K of memory). But it was a common feature of childhood, already.

My brother and I used to stop in at the local computer store, which sold software games like Wizardry, Zork, or Ultima. Sometimes we would even buy a 5 and a 1/4 inch floppy disc and bring it home. But mainly we liked to write programs in BASIC, which was the programming language included on every computer purchase. We were endlessly fascinated by the "10 print, 20 go to" program. My brother was a little more interested than me; he wrote a simple word processing program once, and excitedly reported to me each day about how he had "added the ability to move back using an arrow key." Heady stuff for a precocious techno-geek.

In 1984, Steve Jobs introduced the Apple Macintosh and both my brother and I were completely hooked by the pitch of a graphical user interface. We schemed how to get one, and eventually did. The Mac was very pleasing to own, and yet it was hard to relate to in the same way as the Apple ][e. It did not have a command line interface where we could program in BASIC. But we took pleasure from using MacPaint and MacWrite. During high school, we could print out our papers on a dot matrix printer with daring fonts. Only a few of our classmates turned in their papers in this way, and to my eyes it was a badge of being culturally advanced.

In college I met my first PC aficionados. This was an accurate predictor of later financial success, by the way. I, however, stuck with Apple and purchased the Mac SE, a robust machine with a 20 MB hard drive, but still with the classic, grotesque, vertical shape. I only used it for writing and Microsoft Word was my tool of choice. Back in those days, Microsoft Word was the alternative word processor, kind of edgy, whereas Lotus 1-2-3 or WordPerfect were associated with rampant corporate brainwashing. The only innovative feature that I used during college was the ability to record sounds. We had a D&D group my senior year, and our dungeon master recorded various monster sounds which he would play when we listened at some door in a dungeon campaign. We would hear, "Rahr, rahr, rahr. Ra-ra-Ruh-RUH-RUH!" You may laugh, but consider that this was a very rich multimedia experience!

But what I wanted to write about was the first computer I bought after college. I was 25 and had decided to focus on a career in graphic design. I bought some books, read and obtained some opinions on typography and layout, and then I purchased a PowerMac. Instead of being excited when I brought it home and set it up, with a big 17" monitor, I was instead terrified. It took me a few days to get used to having such a large object in my personal space, and a few weeks to interact with the different graphic design programs which I had pirated. What a strange feeling! I think I felt that way because I wanted to enter a new area of experience and this computer was my key to the door. I had put my hopes on this machine, and so I was nervous because I was stepping into an unknown frontier.

Since then, computer purchases have become routine and a little boring. I switched to Windows in 1997 and bought an IBM ThinkPad, a great machine. In 2001 I replaced it with a ThinkPad X20, which was not so great. The last straw was the HP desktop tower I bought around 2004, which seemed like an abomination. The molded plastic look of PCs of that era, made by Compaq and HP, was a symptom of American stagnation, just like the molded plastic contours on Pontiacs and Chryslers.

I finally switched back to Apple, by purchasing a MacBook in 2006, and life has been great since then. I immediately appreciated the way that Apple had integrated commonly used tools like Email, photo sharing, and music listening, into its operating system. I still own that laptop today, and while it shows its age, it still performs well. I was starting to think that buying a computer would never be impactful again. Computers are so ubiquitous, and the process of getting a new one was so easy today compared to the past. All you have to do is copy over a bunch of files and install a bunch of your favorite programs and the process was finished. Or so I thought.

This past week I bought the iPad 2. I've owned it for almost a week now but I'm still terrified by it. Like the primitive ape-men in 2001 A Space Odyssey, I rush up to it for brief moments, just to touch it, and then retreat and stare at my hand. Why does this tablet computer make me feel like personal computing has entered into unknown territory?

Cyber Attack = War ?

2011-05-31T13:16:00.000-07:00

It really bothers me that cyber attacks are not traceable to a person or country. Imagine if an artillery barrage wasn't traceable. Yesterday we learned this:

Lockheed Martin network breached: Unknown hackers have broken into the security networks of Lockheed Martin Corp and several other US military contractors, a source with direct knowledge of the attacks told Reuters.

They breached security systems designed to keep out intruders by creating duplicates to "SecurID" electronic keys from EMC Corp's RSA security division, said the person who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

It was not immediately clear what kind of data, if any, was stolen by the hackers. But the networks of Lockheed and other military contractors contain sensitive data on future weapons systems as well as military technology currently used in battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How does this affect the often tenuous peace that exists between rival nations? Even nuclear weapons had an equilibrium point, with MADD, but if a cyber attack is not traceable then what is the incentive to restrain one's power?

It looks like the US Government is taking this attack very seriously, because today they called cyber attacks an "act of war" and asserted the right to respond using conventional weapons.

Better Ways for the Government to Gather Data

2011-05-31T13:06:00.000-07:00

An economist has proposed a change to the way we calculate the Consumer Price Index. Instead of using phone surveys to sample prices at brick-and-mortar stores, they would check internet prices.

The Billion Prices Project and the Value of Data : The New Yorker: The Billion Prices Project, which was designed by the M.I.T. economists Alberto Cavallo and Roberto Rigobon, gathers price data not via survey but, rather, by continuously scouring the Web for prices of online goods around the world. (In the U.S., it collects more than half a million prices daily—five times the number that the government looks at.) Using this information, Cavallo and Rigobon have succeeded in building what amounts to the first real-time inflation index.

The improvement that is within reach reminds me of the Washington Department of Information Services (DIS) plan to learn about available broadband speeds in Washington counties. In 2010 they used a voluntary survey form on their web site to obtain thousands of such speeds. In contrast, I spoke to the founder of Speedtest.net who offered to provide tens of thousands of actual values to the DIS ever day! This might have provided a more accurate survey of available broadband speeds.

Inside the Mind of Independent and Swing Voters

2011-05-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

I just read a great post over at Digby's blog, about the way voters connect (or fail to connect) political issues with the circumstances of their own lives. Basically, a swing voter is kind of like Kevin Costner.

Just kidding. The original article is worth reading in its entirety. Here is an excerpt:

Swingers: The majority of undecided voters I spoke to couldn't name a single issue that was important to them. This was shocking to me. Think about it: The "issue" is the basic unit of political analysis for campaigns, candidates, journalists, and other members of the chattering classes. It's what makes up the subheadings on a candidate's website, it's what sober, serious people wish election outcomes hinged on, it's what every candidate pledges to run his campaign on, and it's what we always complain we don't see enough coverage of.

...

To cite one example: I had a conversation with an undecided truck driver who was despondent because he had just hit a woman's car after having worked a week straight. He didn't think the accident was his fault and he was angry about being sued. "There's too many lawsuits these days," he told me. I was set to have to rebut a "tort reform" argument, but it never came. Even though there was a ready-made connection between what was happening in his life and a campaign issue, he never made the leap. I asked him about the company he worked for and whether it would cover his legal expenses; he said he didn't think so. I asked him if he was unionized and he said no. "The last job was unionized," he said. "They would have covered my expenses." I tried to steer him towards a political discussion about how Kerry would stand up for workers' rights and protect unions, but it never got anywhere. He didn't seem to think there was any connection between politics and whether his company would cover his legal costs. Had he made a connection between his predicament and the issue of tort reform, it might have benefited Bush; had he made a connection between his predicament and the issue of labor rights, it might have benefited Kerry. He made neither, and remained undecided.

The dissonance in the truck driver's mind is striking. It reminds me of the experience that a friend had. This friend became disabled and had to retire at age 50. He applied for Social Security disability and qualified. This benefit typically pays a lesser amount than would be paid to someone who retired at age 65. Some years later, my friend was discussing politics with his mother, who favored the budget proposal made by Sen. Ryan that cuts both Social Security and Medicare benefits. My friend pointed out to her that Ryan's plan would cut his only source of income. His mother had not connected the dots to understand how her views on this issue would impact her own son.

Göbekli Geographic

2011-05-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Or to put it another way, what came first, cities, governments, or religions?

The standard theory is that the earliest cities (such as Sumer around 5,000 BC) came first, which drove the need for the organizing entities of government and religion. And there arose kings who ruled by divine right, as well as a priestly class who conducted temple rituals. But an article in the June 2011 National Geographic challenges this assumption:

National Geographic (June 2011): Most of the world's great religious centers, past and present, have been destinations for pilgrimages—think of the Vatican, Mecca, Jerusalem, Bodh Gaya (where Buddha was enlightened), or Cahokia (the enormous Native American complex near St. Louis). They are monuments for spiritual travelers, who often came great distances, to gawk at and be stirred by. Göbekli Tepe may be the first of all of them, the beginning of a pattern. What it suggests, at least to the archaeologists working there, is that the human sense of the sacred—and the human love of a good spectacle—may have given rise to civilization itself.

The archaeologists believe that a shared, organized religion may have preceded both cities and governments. This religion was based around monumental worship sites that united vast networks of hunter-gatherer tribes. The labor needed to build and maintain such sites, along with regular pilgrimages to worship together, were the first examples of mass cooperation. The NG article details the excavation of a site in Turkey that dates to 11,000 BC.

The College Bubble and the Public Defunding of Colleges

2011-05-21T02:15:00.000-07:00

I found this article to be chilling in its implications, and it rings true to my ears.

It's painful to think that the U.S. has reached the point where our phenomenal college and University system has been devalued.

The College Bubble and the Public Defunding of Colleges: "There’s been a lot of discussion regarding a “bubble” in higher education....Where will the higher education bubble pop most destructively? For-profit online education with no brick-and-mortar anchor. The degrees are not valued much by employers, but more importantly, their business model rests on charging high prices for extremely cheap services, fueled by the availability of credit to desperate students.....

Trading on the cachet of a University degree, these for-profit colleges seem to be ruining the good worth and value of a higher education. Young students should enroll in a community college and skip the overpriced for-profit schools. Or, as Peter Thiel recently suggested, they should enter the work force and acquire skills in that way.

Hedonistic fruit bombs: The battle over wine alcohol levels rumbles on.

2011-05-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

I must confess that I enjoy a nice red with 14.5% alcohol content, but only if the wine has good structure.

Hedonistic fruit bombs: The battle over wine alcohol levels rumbles on.: "One of the hottest issues in wine circles these days is heat—as in, too much alcohol. Obviously, wine wouldn't be wine without the alcohol, and the buzz it delivers is part of the pleasure. But alcohol levels have been climbing, much to the chagrin of some oenophiles, who find higher-octane wines overbearing and exhausting to drink. I sympathize: I am not a fan of syrupy cabernets and syrahs that leave me wishing I'd brought a pillow to the dinner table....

Omer Asik T-Shirt

2011-04-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

I am a Chicago Bulls fan. Every sports team has a player who serves as a mascot, often a young player whom the veterans take under their wings. Omer Asik serves this role on the Bulls. You can buy a t-shirt celebrating his dunking style here.

The Tree of Liberty

2011-03-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

During the 2009 health care debate, William Kostic protested outside a forum hosted by Barack Obama in New Hampshire. Kostic wore a gun and carried a sign that read, "It is time to water the Tree of Liberty."

These words paraphrase a famous Thomas Jefferson quote, in which he described his attitude towards Shays Rebellion, an armed uprising in which Revolutionary War veterans protested their poor treatment. Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Kostic (and the Tea Party) have appropriated this message to signal the level of their anger and distrust with the federal government, specifically the health care law. But what did Jefferson mean?

In a private letter, written some years after Shays Rebellion, Jefferson wrote, "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion." I think it's pretty clear that he was not talking about a rebellion in which the constitution is nullified and the country split apart. He was talking merely of a protest movement composed of people with strong opinions.

However, Jefferson lived in a country that was dramatically different from our own. The frontier lands provided an outlet to citizen's discontent, since they could simply flee the oppression of government. Politics differed also, because political parties did not yet exist. Back then, federal politics was a matter of aligning different groups of states into voting blocks on each issue. And over the next century as America was colonized, the admission of new territories into statehood was a great mechanism for fine tuning the balance of power. Today we lack this mechanism entirely. How can we possibly restore it?

I'm beginning to understand Jefferson's view of rebellions in a modern sense by applying it to political parties. It seems to me that the "rebellion" that can influence our national trajectory has been stifled by the reign of the two-party system. Both Democrats and Republicans collude to avoid facing our most pressing problems such as:

Influence of the military-industrial complex
Overseas wars
Influence of corporate lobbyists
Trade policy that hurts American workers
Deficit spending
Stagnation caused by unions who resist innovation
Concentration of wealth

Any serious attempt to address these problems must come from the creation of new political parties. That is one reason why I like the tea party, for their desire to end deficit spending. That is also why I liked the Green Party back in the 70's, for their desire to regulate pollution and preserve wilderness habitats, species. Some of the current issues which could serve as the basis of new political parties:

Reform of patent laws. The current laws stifle innovation and mainly serve to protect monopolies.
Reduce the prison population. Jim Webb, the senator from Virginia, proposed such legislation but it went nowhere in 2009-10. Changing our drug policy would be an important plank for this political party.
Election reforms. Some of the key goals would be to eliminate gerrymandering and allow third-party candidates to take part in televised Presidential debates.

To summarize, we can "water the tree of liberty" in the way envisioned by Jefferson by forming new political parties defined by clear purposes.

Some Thoughts on Job Interview Questions

2011-02-27T10:21:00.000-08:00

What are the best questions to ask at a job interview? Here are some of the memorable questions I have been asked:

Where do you place yourself on a continuum between "hard worker" and "super smart"?
This is a great way to phrase a question because both options are a positive way of describing oneself. The candidate has to really think about what quality in themselves they value the most. I answered "super smart."
What web sites or other sources of information do you regularly read to stay current about new technologies?
I love this question because it is non-technical, and yet it reveals a candidate's enthusiasm for technology, their initiative for self-learning, and also specific interests. I answered Mashable, Techflash, and Engadget. This question is also relevant outside of technology fields, as when Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin which news publications she regularly followed.
What is the difference between a consultant, a contractor, and an FTE?
This question was posed when I interviewed with a technology consulting firm in Seattle, so obviously this was a chance to explain why I wanted to be a consultant. I answered that consultants are given a specific goal to achieve within a specific schedule, and they are empowered by the employer to achieve that goal. Contractors are hired to do a specific job but are not expected to build relationships or show leadership. And FTEs are expected to build extensive knowledge of the company's products and product roadmap. Not a very good answer, methinks.
What is the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning?
This question really threw me, but the correct answer is that inductive reasoning proceeds by using examples and analogies to move from a specific problem to a general solution. Whereas deduction means to start with general principles and move towards a specific solution.
What is the difference between an issue and a risk?
I found this question very difficult to answer also. The correct answer is that an issue is a potential risk. Issues must be researched and evaluated before they are treated as risks. Once you have confirmed there is a risk you need to create a mitigation plan.

I have also grown very tired of certain job interview questions, which seem to reveal very little about a candidate. When interviewers focus on this stuff, it's a sign that they are interviewing from a script, and not trying very hard to get to know a candidate. Some examples:

Tell us about a time when a co-worker was difficult to work with?
The correct answer is that you try to communicate with them, listen to their complaints, try to resolve the difference, and then escalate if you must. But I don't think this question tells the interviewer anything about a job candidate because it places the burden on the candidate, when actually the problem is that the co-worker is difficult to work with. The true answer would be that the company should fire that other person who is causing the problems!
Tell us about your weaknesses?
Nobody goes into a job interview to talk about their weaknesses. And so the proper way to prepare for this question is to think of a strength and portray it as causing problems in some situations. My answer is that I bring so much creativity to problem solving that I have a tendency to expand project scope. At a recent interview someone challenged this answer saying it wasn't a true weakness. Well, what did they expect me to say? That I suffer from depression, alcoholism, a porn addiction, bi-polar disorder, insecurity, and homicidal thoughts?

Jared Loughner

2011-01-21T21:17:00.000-08:00

The early attempts to understand Jared Loughner's shooting rampage focused on the fact that he had targeted a political event, in which Rep. Gifford was meeting her constituents in a Safeway parking lot. And so people speculated that our heated political rhetoric had radicalized this young man and contributed to his violence. The first photo released, from Jared's high school yearbook, seemed consistent with this motive, as he has an alienated look about him.

Just kidding. However, when the boy's police incarceration photo was released, most pundits recognized out that he had a crazy expression. Despite this recognition, few pundits were willing to attribute the shootings to his mental health. Why? I think that the real story here might be the fact that few people, and none of Jared's friends, teachers, or family, could recognize that he had gone crazy. It may seem incredible that a boy who lived in his parents house could go crazy without anyone noticing, but I have sympathy for their failure because I have had two personal experiences with friends who have had to be committed to Psych wards. In both cases I failed to recognize the nature of the problem.

I was a very close to both of these friends when their problems began. First, in the late 90's, I was living in the same house with a person I had known for four years. A few years later it happened again, with a different friend, whom I saw or spoke to every day. Even after the painful experience of visiting the first friend in Providence Hospital's Psych Ward, I was unable, a few years later, to recognize the nature of the incipient problem in the second friend. In both situations, their parents had to intervene to legally commit them.

When a person's behavior changes we tend to understand the change through a certain lens. If it is a friend we think, "they have changed and I no longer enjoy spending time with them," or "I'm angry with them because they don't seem to be listening to me lately when we talk." If it is a son or daughter we think, "they are being willful and disobedient." I suspect that Jared's high school friends let the relationship dissolve when they no longer enjoyed spending time with him. And that Jared's parents were guided by their protective instinct to become disciplinarians with the hope of curbing his unruly behavior. Of course, since he was crazy, not disobedient, their tactics failed to cure his behavioral problems.

From comparing my personal experiences with the articles I have read about Loughner's descent over the previous year, I recognize some of the same symptoms as I saw in my friends. There was a breakdown in grammar, in utterances which made no sense but resulted in monologues which sounded evocative, like poetry, or something beautiful and significant. Both of my friends followed this beauty to the bitter end, and I believe Jared did the same.

Following President Obama's eulogy, delivered in Tucson, pundits are no longer blaming radical political rhetoric as the cause of the shootings, but that's not enough. If this is a teachable moment, then the lesson to be learned is that most Americans can't recognize mental illness in their neighbors, friends, and family. If they can't recognize it, then they can't intervene to commit these people to proper care at the earliest possible moment.

Our society has tackled issues like this before. To combat racism and sexism, we have created a culture where sensitivity training is offered both at schools and in the workplace. I suggest that schools, religious communities, corporations, and non-profits should begin a national campaign to raise awareness of this problem, and proscribe simple actions that people can take.

Here's the truth: I think that people do care, and are willing to get involved. It's just that getting involved means taking control of another person's life! It's not something that our upbringing has prepared us to do. It is very hard to intervene in someone's life if it means taking control. When I was faced with this situation in 1997 and 2002, I could not bring myself to take strong action, because both of these people were just friends. I think it is easier, both emotionally and legally, for a family member to take control over a person and have them committed. And yet, though easier, it is a very difficult thing to admit that your son has gone mad. That is why we should take away a lesson from Tucson. We must get information to families to help them recognize madness in their loved ones, and overcome reluctance about taking legal control over another person. With this information, families will be better able to intervene before the next tragedy occurs.

The Unabomber is Trending Up

2011-01-21T10:37:00.000-08:00

In recent months I've seen a few pundits and essayists discussing Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, in a serious manner that rejects his image as a terrorist.

For example, the physicist Freeman Dyson, who writes books about the future of our society, quote from the Unabomber's "Manifesto" in his book A Many-Colored Glass:

As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage, the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

Years after his arrest and incarceration, the Unabomber's message is finally seeping out. Why did he commit his acts of terrorism?

He was essentially against using mechanization, computers, and mathematical models with the aim of controlling our lives. And he wasn't complaining about cell phones or Email, which were not widely used at the time of his arrest in 1996. He was complaining about automobiles, manufacturing, telephones, television and such. He was a sort of combination of Karl Marx and Marshall McLuhan.

I used Google Trends to confirm that more people are talking about "Ted Kaczynski", and discovered that this topic is definitely trending up.

One interesting point about this trend is that, while "Unabomber" is also trending up, it has not made as strong of a move. Perhaps this is a sign that people are beginning to distinguish between Ted Kaczynski's actions, which were reprehensible, and his ideas, which are insightful. As the discussion turns to his ideas, people have begun to refer to the Unabomber by his name, humanizing him, in order to make his ideas more palatable.

Families

2011-01-05T14:39:00.000-08:00

I'd like to draw an analogy between your development and society's.

In biology, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. This means that we, like bacteria, begin life as a single cell, but then mutate, at first in a simulation of the ocean called the womb, into different forms that resemble fish and reptiles, before we complete the transformation to become babies, adolescents, and finally adult human beings.

Societies are kind of the same. The original social organization was the family and extended family, not the city, nation state or global economy. But the global economy has had to pass through all of those stages to get here.

To follow the analogy through, a bacteria's main concerns are eating, evacuating waste, surviving, and reproducing. Concerns which are very important to each of us today as individuals. On the other hand, the family's main concerns are living together, finding success and happiness, nurture, encouragement, transmitting behavior, and sharing both joys and sorrows. All of these family activities are critical to the health of cities, nations, and global organizations.

What governmental policies will support families? One way to approach this problem is to ask who writes the policy. Trade agreements are written by corporations who favor profits over job creation. Tax policies are written by the wealthy who seek exemptions and write-offs. But if trade policy was written to benefit families it would incentivize job creation. Similarly, a family friendly tax policy would be extremely progressive, to relieve the economic stresses that destroy confidence, happiness, and families.

Things I like #3: Cashew Nuts + Coca Cola

2011-01-05T11:26:00.000-08:00

My brother and I both share a love for cashew nuts and coca-cola. Individually both are great, but together they become transcendent. I love the first sip of coke, chilled and bubbling.

Roasted, salted cashew nuts are the ideal snack.

Things I like #2: Warpaint

2011-01-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

Warpaint is an all-girl band from Los Angeles.

I like them because when I listen to their new album, The Fool, they sound completely original. I can't place them in a genre, or sub-genre. They don't remind me of other bands at all.

Things I like #1: Dan Carlin

2010-12-20T16:01:00.000-08:00

Dan Carlin was a minor radio talk show host in the 90's. Today, he puts out two podcasts and I would recommend both. The first, Dan Carlin's Common Sense, is a review of current events in American politics from a centrist, cynical, and revolutionary perspective.

The second podcast is called Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, and features multi-part episodes that will leave you very knowledgeable about Roman History, WWII, and other topics.

Marsais Jordan Parhad

2010-08-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

Another year, another friend has a baby. Jordan and Elisa paid a visit from LA last week and showed off Marsais, a child that they claimed was the fruit of their loins.

I immediately saw through the deception because Marsais didn't resemble them in the slightest. However, being polite I softened the sting, of remarks such as "he doesn't look like either one of you", by saying afterwards that "ears do indeed look like his grandfather's."

After all, true friends should only vaguely question a baby's lineage.

Chinook Salmon at Fish Ladder

2010-08-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Every week this summer I have visited the fish ladder at the Ballard Locks. For those of you who have never been, the salmon arrive in Puget Sound and then swim up an 18-stage fish ladder before entering a large tank where they can be viewed.

The viewing room is set up like an aquarium, dark, with the large illuminated tank forming an entire wall. The salmon enter from the left, spend an hour or two adjusting to the shock of fresh water, and then determinedly make their exit to the right by swimming into the fast flowing current.

The salmon are returning from the oceans to the place where they were born, usually a creek. Each species "runs" at a different time of year so that Coho can be seen in June while Sockeyes peak in July. The sight of them always calls forth emotions because their noble struggle is unfolding right before our eyes.

In August, the Chinook salmon finally make their run. They are the largest species and last week I saw many individuals who were 3 to 4 feet long.

Index Federal Tax Brackets to the Poverty Level

2010-08-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

Every election cycle brings a debate about taxes and fairness.

I wonder if there is a way to reach a consensus on tax brackets by basing them on the federal poverty level? After all, the poverty level is the amount of money someone (or some family) needs to buy the necessities of life, and so it's not fair to tax them!

As an example, in 2008 the poverty level for a family of four was $22,500. Define the first tax bracket as all income up to the poverty level, and let it be tax free.

To determine other tax brackets, use a multiplier of the poverty level. The second bracket would extend from $22,501 to $45,000, and it would be taxed at 10%. The third bracket would extend from $45,001 to $90,000 and be taxed at 20%. Etc.

(I use 10% and 20% as examples.The exact tax rates would need to be determined initially in a way that does not worsen the deficit. )

I propose this change based on the notion of fairness. Poor families need all their income to pay for the necessities of life like food, shelter, and clothing. Once a person, or family, begins to exceed the subsistence level it is fair to expect them to contribute back to the society which made their success possible.

Talk to God via FB

2010-08-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

Like nearly all of my high school, college, and life friends, not to mention relatives and business contacts, I am on Facebook. Several times a day I check in to read my "wall" and leave a comment if I feel so inclined.

FB posts fall into a number of categories. Some people write about the extravagant meals they cook, listing each ingredient (paprika, fennel) along with a sketch of the preparation (cut half-inch slits in the roast and push in a clove a garlic) to make my mouth water. Others tell about their children, work, or daily errands. I know a few people who seem to surf the web all day long, and they link to videos that are either funny or artistic. But it is usually confessional wall posts that get the most comments.

I know one girl who writes about her post-partum depression, and her loneliness during the months when her husband, a commercial fisherman, is away. Another writes about her struggles to get a seat in a Nursing program at a regional college. Yet another complains about that day's political scandal, the retreat from ideals, and the insanity of gridlock. Many of my FB friends also leave religious homilies on the wall, whether Christian, Buddhist, or New Age. And it is these confessional posts which inspire others to react with the most comments.

If the subject is politics, then the comments vent anger and cynicism. Spiritual thoughts unleash optimism and wisdom whereas, if the writer is sad, then they get encouragement and helpful advice. This process of confession followed by release reminds me a lot of prayer.

When we pray, when we articulate our thoughts and feelings and reflect on our identity and life's situation, we are trying to bridge that final separation between ourselves and the world around us. We direct our prayers to a divinity and it often seems like our prayers are listened to and we hear an answering voice. In our modern world sometimes we skip the prayer and write an FB post instead, and the world listens and gives answers. For an instant we are free from the separation from all we love, our mortal condition.

Random encounters with your future self

2010-05-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

I walked into the Belltown restaurant Tavolata a few weeks ago and immediately noticed an elderly man seated at the end of the bar. He was about 60 years old and wore a nice clean shirt, and he sported a trim gray beard. He seemed very content. I wanted to immediately approach him and talk but I was on a date so we sat some distance away, also at the bar.

The man was talking with a friend, of about the same age and description. They held their glasses in their hands before them, talking and sipping. They seemed to be old friends. I felt such a strong desire to join them, but I was on a date and could not in good conscience hijack the evening to satisfy my curiosity.

As the hour grew late, all of the restaurant employees began to gather around the man, the hostess, the cooks, and the bartender. And then I realized that this man must own the restaurant Tavolata. He was a successful businessman, with lifelong friends, and appreciation of good food and wine, and also a man who could be at the center of a web of people of all ages, his employees.

The next day I realized why I felt such a strong connection with him... it was because he is the sort of person I will be when I am older.

This may seem like a personal and unverifiable story, but I have two more anecdotes to relate which support it. When I used to wander Capitol Hill in the 1990's with my friend Aleko, he would occasionally spy an old man and insist that we stop to talk with him. The men were black or white, immigrants or native born, and they an air of loneliness enveloped them. But they carried themselves proudly, dressed well in clothes that might have been fashionable twenty years earlier, and they made their rounds about the neighborhood and knew the shopkeepers. I got the sense that although they may have given into despair in the past, they had found a balance in their old age that allowed them to live with discipline enough to follow a strict routine.

I often wondered why Aleko could see these men, when to me they were invisible, but with the hindsight of twenty years gone by I now see that Aleko knew he would one day become one of these men, and he wanted to pay his respects at these encounters, and he wanted to learn about who he would become, and he also wanted to experience the joy of talking to a kindred spirit. Because all of these men recognized Aleko too, as a younger version of themselves, and they ignored me and didn't direct any words in my direction.

More recently I would walk around neighborhoods in North Seattle with Heather Brett, around Fremont, and Maple Leaf, and Ballard. Sometimes in the distance I would see a middle-aged woman pacing outside a house, seeming both worried and comfortable. Heather's face would light up as we approached and she would always start a conversation with them.

The ladies had a common story: They had lived in their houses for many decades, and the hedges needed trimming, or the bulbs needed digging, or the weeds needed pulling. Heather would draw them out and drink in their stories, while I stood and nodded, realizing that I should not interrupt the exchange. Now I can look back and see that Heather will one day be a slightly eccentric woman, who has lived in the same house for many decades and who has felt the changes in the neighborhood and tended her garden.

Isn't it beautiful, that we can travel through time in this way and meet our future selves, and recognize ourselves, and exchange the vital communications that are necessary to assure ourselves that our lives lead to an endpoint which we desire?

Charity for young lovers

2010-05-08T01:45:00.000-07:00

Service employees at times seem to be apparitions with whom we only share a limited interaction, and yet they can have an incredible effect on our emotions. I'd like to share a couple of stories which illustrate this fact, and I'm sure that you all have comparable experiences drawn from your own lives.

I was dating a polish immigrant named Beatrice in 1999 and our relationship was proceeding, well, slowly. But I thought I would jump start things by booking a weekend at the Empress Hotel in Victoria.

I really hated my car at the time...

...and so we drove Beatrice's car, which was a foreign compact stuffed full with papers and crap all over the floor. But I had grandiose visions of being a romantic boyfriend and so when we pulled up to the valet I tried to tip him five bucks but he declined to accept it. We went into the hotel and I checked in the with the guy at the desk. I took the opportunity to carefully ask about tipping practices at the hotel and the man assured me in a very neutral way that there was no need to tip any of the employees. And then we were shown to our room. I had asked for a smoking room but as soon as we walked in the door I could detect the lingering smell of cigars, which began to smother my romantic feelings, and the alley view did nothing to revive them.

Beatrice, I could tell, was also unimpressed, and so I told her I would go down to the lobby and see about changing rooms. I explained my predicament to the man behind the desk: I was here with the pretense of romance, and I would like to change rooms to something more appealing to a woman. I could pay more, I ventured to say, for the right room. He was very professional, and I noticed a slight smile as he set to work on his computer terminal. He soothed me with his voice and then he told me that the honeymoon suite was available. It normally cost $980 per night but since it was not booked he could give it to me for $50 extra. Just leave your bags in your original room, he said, and we'll move them to your new suite.

I returned to the dismal room with the alley view and told Beatrice we could move, but I didn't let on that the new room was so nice. Instead I said that I hoped the room would be okay. She was nervous as we walked through the hallway and caught the elevator to the top floor. When we opened the door we were both stunned into silence. It was a room like you see in the movies, with a four poster bed, couches, chairs, tables, and a double-width bay window that looked out over the harbor. I leave the rest of the weekend to your imagination.

Another time I vacationed in Santa Fe with a female friend. We flew separately and met at the airport and then headed to the rental car office to get a car.

My reservation had been for the cheapest car possible, a subcompact, but on the desk they showed photos of all available models and at the time the PT Cruiser was a new and somewhat daring car. My female friend swooned when she saw that photo and she gripped my arm and asked plaintively, "Oh please can we get the PT Cruiser?" I was firm in my response, in the way that people on a budget can be firm, and I told her we couldn't really afford it and so let's be happy with the car we have. My fiscally sound tone of voice brought her back to sanity and she agreed and didn't make a fuss about it any further. But I noticed a peculiar smile on the face of the service employee, a middle aged man who handed me my keys and said enjoy your visit.

When we walked to the parking lot to retrieve our car it turns out that he had given us a complimentary upgrade to the PT Cruiser.

He must have thought we were a poor, romantic couple, and he wanted to give us a nice surprise. To all the service employees out there, I want to say that these acts of kindness have great meaning, and they are never forgotten.

There are more than three races of people

2010-04-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

We are fed so many lies that we accept as truth and which limit the way we see the world. If an idea is repeated often enough, and by the majority of people, then it actually seems to be true. An example is the number of distinct races of people in the world.

First we have the three races we are taught about in American schools. Caucasoids (which includes East Indians).

Negroids, blacks, whatever term you prefer. It means West Africans.

Mongoloids, which includes all the East Asian races as well as Polynesians.

But now we have some additional races. The Aborigines of Australia, who may resemble the original modern human ancestor common to all of us.

Pygmies, a race of 4 foot tall people who live in equatorial rain forests in Africa.

The San people of Southern Africa including two sub-races, the Kho people and the San people. The Kho are normal sized...

While the San people (known as Bushmen) are the same size as Pygmies...

This list of of seven races is adapted from Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel, which is based on studies of mitochondrial families. But it raises a further question about whether further races exist, for example the people of the Caucasus mountains, the descendants of the Celts, Polynesians, South Indians, and Native Americans.

Lake Chelan, Part 2

2010-04-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

To pass the time we learned about local flora and fauna. The ripening of the local apple crops are plotted on a Microsoft Project Gantt diagram.

Hired thugs in red shirts are brought in to press the apples to create cider.

White tailed deer roam the hills and seek opportunities to eat the apples.

Lake Chelan

2010-04-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

My friend Abby celebrated her 40th birthday recently by renting a cabin near Lake Chelan.

We grumbled and complained but at the appointed hour we all posed for this photo.

Abby had brought along two friends, Kai and Joan...

And also another man for company who identified himself as "Stew."

Once we left the cabin for a hike, things became really tense.

The vast expanse of wilderness suggested to us that all lawful society was far away.

I was watching for a sign that violence would break out and suddenly it did.

But I was able to diffuse the violence by sharing some local pornography.

And Abby and Stew renewed their vows by rolling sushi.

Bjorn Varma

2010-04-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

I dressed as a 1970's tennis player last Halloween. People didn't seem to understand the abstraction so at some point I started saying I was Bjorn Borg. But then I ran into a dude who criticized my costume, saying I didn't really look like Bjorn Borg! How rude.

Seventy Five Cents for Every Dollar

2010-03-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama signed the Lilly Leadbetter Fair Pay Act last year, which granted new rights to workers when suing their employers for fair compensation.

For the case in question, a woman learned many years afterward that her male peers were paid more but when she sued the courts eventually determined that she had waited too long to state her grievance. Of course, in practical terms that is nonsense because it is so difficult to get information about pay discrepencies. Companies have no incentive to make this information pubilc, and there is a very pervasive behavior (I've noticed) in which workers themselves don't talk specifics about how much they are paid.

It's commonly known that women earn 75 cents for every dollar that a man earns in the United States.

That number has risen since the 1970's when it was only 70 cents. It has long been a goal of the women's movement to raise women's salaries so that for doing the same type of job they will be paid a wage equivalent to what men earn. The legislative effort has a long history and began back in 1963 when the Equal Pay Act guaranteed this equality for women.

The Lilly Leadbetter act was actually a strengthening of this original law, because it allowed more latitude when women seek to prove the discrimination.

But all of this is just background for my point. We have all assumed that women's wages will rise until they attain equality. With the current recession, it has been noted that companies are more likely to lay off or fire men precisely because they make more for doing the same amount of work. And so I think that this points to a future in which men's wages decline, and not to a future where women's wages increase.

Viewed in a broader context, this sort of future is just another offshoot of globalization of the economy. With globalization, the low wages in newly industrial countries like China can lead to a lowering of the wages of US industrial workers. And so now, with the US economy again adjusting to new economic principles, companies will seek to lower costs by laying off US men and hiring more US women.

Political Comparisons

2010-03-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

I sometimes follow politics too closely and so I hear one side's arguments taken to an extreme which most Americans probably don't agree with. For example, recently I heard Glenn Beck compare Democrat Progressives with Nazis, Stalinists, and Socialists. I can't really give a fair explanation of this comparison, but I think he meant that Democrats are like Nazis because they both have charismatic leaders. Democrats are like Stalinists because they eradicate any opposition parties. And Democrats are like Socialists because they believe that the federal government should replace private businesses in America.

In the spirit of ridiculous comparisons I would like to compare the modern Republican party with Communism. Here are some points:

Communists and Republicans practice infiltration as a primary tactic. The Soviets between 1944 and 1948 gained control of six countries in Eastern Europe. The Republicans identify local government positions to infiltrate in order to start their revolution. A recent example is the Texas board of education's decision to refer to America as a 'constitutional republic' instead of a 'democracy'. Republicans are trained to think in terms of infiltration while in college, as the young republican organizations encourage members not to join the campus newspapers, but how to infiltrate and take control of the editorial message.
Communists and Republicans both use propaganda as a tool to sway public opinion, and insiste that their lies be taken seriously in all compromises. And so the Korean People's Army and the People's Liberation Army of China were horrified to learn that half the POWs captured by the US during the Korean war wanted to defect. They negotiated for a process to limit the propaganda damage by drawing out defector's decisions over a year after the truce was signed. More recently, Republicans in the recent health care debate claimed that the bill implemented death panels that would 'kill granny'. Republicans also faked video footage of a meeting with ACORN representatives in order to portray that group as knowingly violating election laws.

And so how would America react if they learned that one of our premier political parties bears a strong resemblance to the old 1930's Communist party?

Vancouver Olympics 2010, part 2

2010-03-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

After an interminable walk, we finally came to the red light district. As we passed the middle aged hookers they would try to catch our eye and then they would look away with a goofy embarrassed smile. I recalled that in this neighborhood, Gas Town, I had once witnessed open air drug use right outside a police station. Because it is legal to use these drugs in Canada, the addicts who have entered this seedy world find that it is safer to inject on police property. Very sad.

We were running late but caught a bus. All public transit was free, BTW, during the Olympics. So we hopped on and made it to the Pacific Coliseum in plenty of time. At this point I cracked the goofy smile of someone who is about to attend the Olympics for the first time! Perhaps oh reader you recognize it?

Once inside we quickly got hot chocolates, and bought a little radio on which you could listen to technical commentary during the event. A very helpful device which costs $20, but which can be used for the entire Olympics. Inside the arena I was interested of course in the Zamboni operations.

Perhaps the most hypnotic pastime of all is to watch a Zamboni smooth the ice. At the Olympics they did this ritual in first class all the way. There was a string of young folks with buckets and ladles who skated ahead and filled the deep cracks and gouges with water. And then twin Zambonis went over the ice not once but twice!

As for the competition, it was amazing!!! The crowd was so charged, and everybody around us wanted to talk and share information. A lady on my right, a cancer survivor I think, told us that the Canadian skater's mother had died the night before of a heart attack. And so the night had the mixture of professional competition combined with human drama which is so extraordinary to be a part of.

The Canadians had the best score of the night! They later went on to win the gold medal. And as the crowd left the stadium we heard chatter to the effect that the US had defeated the Canadian hockey team in the qualifying round.

The crowd booed, and one American near us in the streaming crowd tried to start a chant for U.S.A! But it was not really in the spirit of things and nobody took up the chant. We were hear to witness athletic excellence, the fruits of many years of training and sacrifice, and although nationalism played a role in our engagement, it was only a minor role. I was happy to realize that everybody in the crowd felt this way.

Vancouver Olympics 2010

2010-03-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

I went to my first Olympics this month. I'd like to take you on a tour of our day. We drove up from Bellingham and there was no line at the customs border. We parked along the SkyTrain route within a block of the station and road the train in. Here is Heather at the SkyTrain station.

Our first stop was the Olympic Village, which we naively assumed one could walk through and interact with the athletes. However I guess that's not allowed anymore after Munich. We did get to observe what looked like condominium towers (albeit with foreign flags flying from all the balconies) from a bridge.

Continuing our walk thru Vancouver we crossed the bridge to Granville Island, sort of a Pike Place Market, which can be seen from this quick snap.

After a few hours of eating (chicken pot pie!) and browsing stores like Eagle Spirit, a native american art gallery with very awesome works, we zipped back to the city on the water taxi. We're on a boat, if you can't tell!

Finally we headed into the heart of downtown, ostensibly on a mission to buy cool foreign shoes for me. But as the crowd density increased we were content to soak in the wonderful Canadian patriotic vibe. There were crowds dressed in red.

The city had set up a tourist attraction, a zip line which crossed overhead.

My pants began to fall down and being in a foreign country I had no idea how to solve the problem. I tried asking the natives for help, but they didn't seem to understand. They just said, pants falling down eh? So finally we decided to walk to our event, Ice Dancing!

The Brett Lair: Choose Your Own Adventure #54

2010-03-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Brett Lair, in far-off Bellingham. You left civilization almost two hours ago, heading north on a quaint road, the Chuckanutt Drive, which quickly becomes dangerous. Several boulders rain down on you! Your swerve and narrowly avoid disaster. Finally you turn off onto a narrow road that plunges down to Puget Sound. You slow the vehicle and navigate the dangerous curves, but finally your progress is halted by a forbidding gate....

What will you do?
If you park your car and pass through the gate, continue reading.
If you turn back then enter a different URL in the browser.

You park your car, assemble your survival kit and weapons, and approach the gate. You pause to admire a polished stone which says, simply, Brett. And then you walk through the pedestrian pass-thru to find yourself on a terrifying railroad track! A train could come any minute!

What will you do?
If you pause to listen for trains, then turn your computer off, you are dead.
If you step off the tracks then continue reading.

You walk down to the Sound. As you walk you are enveloped by the beautiful northwestern vegetation including ferns and many brooding trees. The path is very steep and windy and you are slowly lulled into a somnambulant state of mind. Suddenly you hear a loud and persistent hammering sound coming from above! Your eyes quickly scan the tree canopy overhead but you don't see anything.

What will you do?
If you already miss the warm comforts of civilization and want to turn back, then make yourself a hot cocoa and go to bed immediately.
If you decide that the sound is nothing more than a harmless woodpecker, then continue reading.

After a staggering descent down the path, you finally reach the Brett lair, and Heather Brett comes forward to greet you. She shows you into a room with a stunning panoramic view and you begin to plan for your trip to Vancouver the next day for the winter olympics.

My Safe Place

2010-02-18T20:24:00.000-08:00

I have a personal fantasy into which I retreat a couple of times per week. The fantasy is my medication to relieve the symptoms of our American political situation. My fantasy is...

There is an island in the Pacific Ocean whose inhabitants have ethical views just like my own. But they also have special abilities which relieve them of the burden to create weaponry.

Their ethical views can be summarized as the renunciation of the use of power to oppress other people:

You have the power to ignore facts. Don't use it.
You have the power to be selfish. Don't use it.

You have the power to oppress others. Don't use it.

You have the power to destroy the environment. Dont' use it.

You have the power to destroy the earth. Don't use it.

And so their ethics can be summed up with various phrases which resonate today, such as non-intervention, small footprint, personal restraint and sacrifice.

The Islanders also have special abilities which seem necessary in my imagination to enable this fantasy to seem possible. These abilities can be summarized as follows:

The ability to generate power (electricity, et. al) without causing damage.
The ability to move and shape objects with thought.

The ability to die, in pursuit of ethical perfection, without regrets.

And so in my personal fantasy, this island nation dominates the great powers in the world, and pushes our policies in a more humane direction.

Now, my fantasy also disturbs me. It resembles very strongly the idea of a Utopia, and yet I am not planning to actual follow through on my dream to create such a community. And so I worry that this fantasy is merely a coping mechanism that has developed to help me accept the problems I see in the world.

Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, Part Two

2010-01-25T15:03:00.001-08:00

Looking ahead at these future dialectic confrontations, I notice several differences compared with the United State's struggle against communisms. First regarding the West vs. Radical Islam:

The US is co-opting one of the strongest appeals of 'radical islam'. That is to say, the US is allowing its culture and society to be lead by fanatical religious leaders who praise war, seek to limit the freedoms enjoyed by women, and blur religious and government authority.

It does not appear that radical islamic countries, including all the dictatorships in the middle east, and north african countries, are co-opting America's strengths. However msulim asian nations like Indonesia seem more open to capitalism, and our cultural values.

Second, comparing the West with China:

Many americans compare our partly socialist government with the authoritarian government of China, equate the two, and reject our socialist policies because they represent 'government control'. In other words, Americans are not co-opting Chinese government policies. If anything we are trying to eradicate any authoritarian tendencies on our own leadership structure. The Tea Party movement is an expression of this tendency.

Chinese citizens have not mounted any serious effort to win western-style rights, despite Obama's outreach about "Universal rights." Chinese people seem comfortable with their authoritarian government. Similarly, they do not care about religion or recognize its validity.

While the US attempts to define a conflict along these lines, the Chinese seem to easily resist such a dialectic. The unusual part about this dynamic is that the US appears to be asking China to immitate, or synthesize, these American qualities.

But it is indisputable that Chinese people are co-opting, i.e. synthesizing the capitalist economic system with their existing culture. By doing this, they strengthen both their country, and their people's loyalty to the leadership.

What do I conclude from all this discussion? Two things:

Our conflict with Radical Islam is making Americans more like Radical Islamists! It was a path to victory in our conflict of ideas with the Communists, because we adopted the best qualities that their ideology had to offer. But with radical Islam...I don't feel very confident that we are adopting the best qualities of our enemies!
On the other hand, our conflict with China is making Chinese people more like Americans. They are grafting capitalism onto their corrupt, atheistic, anti-individual society. While we have not yet found any qualities in China that we feel the need to emulate or co-opt. One significant minority of Americans, however, wishes to co-opt some Chinese policies. For example, less taxes, no healthcare, no social security, no environmental regulation, less government regulation overall.

It makes me wonder, if Hegel's model of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis is correct, whether history will favor this trend in American society which seeks to co-opt the "best" ideas that China has to offer. Stay tuned.

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis, Part One

2010-01-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

There is a theory of history, first proposed by Hegel, and then adopted by Marx and Engels, which posits that two dominant ideas clash for a period of time, until the conflict is resolved. Hegel dubbed the two ideas as "thesis" and "antithesis."

And the eventual idea that emerges is called "synthesis."

During most of the last century, Communism was the acknowledged enemy to the Capitalism practiced by the United States. but a funny thing happened...with each passing decade the US remade itself to be more like the Soviet Union. In the 30's we had the new deal with its jobs programs and farm subsidies. The 40's gave us the GI Bill and acceptance of labor unions. The 50's brought government funded research and scientific organizations. Civil rights laws were passed in the 60's, and women's rights was the mantra of the 70's.

By the time the 1980's had arrived, the Soviet Union had become diminished, and so the historical process of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis no longer functioned. The United States no longer had to "synthesize" any traits from Communism. We remained a partially communist country, in terms of our partial implementation of a social safety net, increased voice of labor, government run sectors of our ecnomy, and our greater commitment to racial and gender equality.

One interesting aspect of the last century's battle is that only the United States and Western Europe really tried to synthesize their enemy's best qualities. As the West became more socialist, it seems that the Soviet Union, and other communist countries, did little to adopt capitalist behaviors. And so the victors of this battle were the countries who were flexible and humble enough to change by borrowing from their rivals.

In this new century, it is not yet clear whether two dominant ideologies exist in opposition. Some say that "militant Islam" is the opposing ideology, while others point to China's combination of atheism, fervent nationalism, combined with no commitment to 'universal rights'.

Toilet Paper Fan Club

2010-01-24T19:22:00.000-08:00

If modern civilization were to end, then what would we poor surviving humans miss the most about the Golden Age?

Cars, yes, but what kind of car? We all would love to drive a Lexus or BMW, but usually a Ford will do just as well. Lovely, warm, rain-proof homes? Sure, but a starter home, or even an apartment, can satisfy 90% of our needs...there's no need to drop a million on a palatial mansion. Clothes, absolutely the availability of "ready made" clothes makes simple the need to dress ourselves, but a sarong addresses most of the need.

But there is one humble commodity which we would dearly miss, toilet paper. Imagine the horrible drudgery that would ensue, if civilization falls, when we had to find soft leaves in the forest to tend to our most basic needs. The funny thing about toilet paper is that the price difference between no frills and luxury is only a few pennies. You may curse, as I do, when in an airport stall I find that they have decided to save money by providing a coarse, single-ply roll of TP.

For all the money we spend to buy the plane tickets, one would expect something softer. But that's someone else's decision. In your own homes it's your choice as consumers whether you will spend $9 for a roll of Charmin, or $5 for the No Name brand.

I'm an advocate of finding incremental gains towards the luxury lifestyle. And the way that is accessible to almost everyone in America is to spend a few dollars extra to buy premium toilet paper. The greatest miracle of our modern society is that we have created very soft toilet paper and produced it on a mass scale. Once civilization falls, as it must, it is the loss of soft, high quality toilet paper which we will regret the most. The best TP today is 2-ply, but recently I learned that there is a TP which goes much farther towards the Platonic ideal.

And when I visited Alaska for the holidays, Rob and Colleen surprised me with a package of expensive, European toilet paper which was three-ply! I stashed it in my closet....

When it was time, I began using the new brand.

And I realized to my shock that 3-ply toilet paper does not guarantee happiness! Sometimes, after a hard day of work, I sat down and was disappointed with the "action". It just didn't grant me the satisfaction, control, and comfort which I needed to feel better after a hard days work. Other times when I wanted to use the TP for general purpose cleaning, I felt a hesitancy because it was 3-ply, and my mind began to multiply everything by three, and I thought I must be killing fish when I use this stuff!

In general, I don't think I'm worthy of 3-ply toilet paper, but I wish it well. I'm sure there are many refined people who can appreciate its merits. Like the princess who could still feel the "pea" under all those mattresses, there must be someone out there who desires 3-ply TP!!!

People Should Stop Complaining About the "2200 Page" Health Care Bill

2010-01-22T18:52:00.000-08:00

Why do people get upset when they hear that the health reform bill is 2200 pages long?

For me, this is the weakest possible argument to oppose health care reform, because it's a silly argument. If you oppose the bill then argue about what it's supposed to do. If you see it's 2200 pages and through up your hands then you're not really taking part in the debate. You're just stopping at the first convenient simplification.

I work for a telecom company right now, and when I write a document to describe some simple software function, the document is usually 30+ pages. And that's just my contribution. Hundreds of pages are written just to describe some fairly simple software feature. I think that for many people who don't have exposure to "technical" writing, whether it be in technology, or law, or health care, this sounds like a lot, but it's a structured form of writing, where you have to use many many paragraphs to describe something very specifically. I have worked before in both the legal and health care industries and they have tens of thousands of pages of documentation that describe what they do, and how they do it, as well as how they conform to state and federal regulations.

But many people have a problem with the bill's length because they suggest that most people wouldn't be able to read 2200 pages or understand it.

I have a couple of reactions to that argument. First, I think that some of our laws are written in a clear, concise of manner, like spoken english. This group of laws includes the big ones, like the constitution and amendments. The reason they are written this way is because they are trying to capture an essence, but in a way that leaves room for interpretation. That's why we still debate freedom of speech, for example, in terms of court cases. As each court case is settled, using difficult-to-understand but precise, legal language, the ambiguous laws become clearer through application.

For example, when we consider the 1st Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You might think that it is very concise, only 45 words. But to consider the true length of this law, consider all the many thousands of court decisions which have clarified this law's meaning, by applying it to actual situations we face as citizens. You would end up with hundreds of thousands of pages to explain these rights.

Brevity is not an appropriate solution in health care reform, unless you want to write a law that says that "Health being vital the well-being of all people, the United States shall provide health care to its citizens." Alternatively, you could pass a law that says, "Health care being outside the realm of government involvement, the government shall make no laws to provide health care to people."

No, the health care bills is a different animal, written from the start to be precise. There are many examples of this kind of law, for example, when federal standards are written about how much mercury can be allowed in drinking water. In a case like this, the easy to read language would not be helpful because the audience for these laws are a bunch of experts, scientists, corporations, regulatory agencies....but that kind of writing tends to be hundreds or thousands of pages in length.

So if the health care bill were were written like normal spoken English, then it would probably be too vague to enforce, and need a series of court decisions to explain the details of what was meant.

Conclusion, stop buying into the argument that a 2200 page bill is grounds for dismissal.

Winter Trails in Alaska

2009-12-31T21:27:00.000-08:00

I grew up in Illinois, in a flat terrain marked by a grid of roads. But apart from the roads there were ponds and creeks, which formed another overlay on the land. Alaska is like that. Wherever you look there are trails for snow machines that split off from roads and head into a neverending wilderness of moss and frozen water.

Sometimes, the trail ends at a frozen lake which you must traverse...

... and then search for the fragments of a trail on the other side.

But then later, when you think you are far from civilization, a glimmering ice path shows you that you can go father.

No matter how far you go, you can never escape the big sky, which shows you through its cloud formations and the vast organization of water vapor and energy, just how small you are.

Downtown Bethel

2009-12-31T21:17:00.000-08:00

The oldest part of town is filled with equipment stores to support the ships that bring supplies.

We saw the rotting carcass of a snow machine, so like an animal.

There are over fifty churches in Bethel. In the most inhospitable terrain, people must depend on community.

Surfing in Alaska

2009-12-31T21:09:00.000-08:00

The frozen river looks almost like any beach along the warm California coast.

Except all of that foamy surf is frozen "overflow" water. There is little danger (apparently) of falling through in the middle of the frozen river, but along the edges (it seems) that the freeze-melt cycle can weaken the ice.

Brunch in Alaska

2009-12-31T21:05:00.000-08:00

Some things are the same everywhere you go in the world. When we arrived at Nick and Jess's house for brunch, the boys and girls mingled together.

But after a while the girls sat on the couches discussing hair coloration, and the men congregated around the table, discussing the merits of concrete vs screw-in pylon foundations.

Nick and Jess, the hosts of the brunch, have the acknowledged best dog in Bethel. It's Kaya, a sled dog, who looks a bit wolf-ish.

Midnight Mass in Alaska

2009-12-31T21:00:00.000-08:00

The Catholic church is by the river, in the old part of town. We walked past a row of candles to enter the church.

Inside, Father "Chuck" lead a nice service that clocked in over an hour. Colleen went for the sacrament.

They played traditional songs, but the music was arranged as the blues, played in a pick-strum approach, simple like Burl Ives.

The program was kind of boring, just a random collection of information not especially relevant to the Christmas holiday.

Along the walls there are stylized carvings, like metopes, of Jesus's procession to Calvary hill. (Thanks Mano for the spelling correction!)

And there was also a manger scene right at the front of the church.

Fire Hydrants in Alaska

2009-12-31T20:52:00.000-08:00

It seemed odd and somehow significant that the fire hydrants in Bethel are all raised above ground by a good six feet. This is to prevent the water lines from freezing during the cold northern winter.

In the photo we're walking over to Nick and Jessica's house (Dog= Kaya) to have a weekend brunch.

Joke

2009-12-29T23:02:00.000-08:00

Knock knock.

Who's there?

It's Ben Bernanke. I've been hard at work trying to understand why the global banking system failed last year and... oh, by the way, I've brought the urine sample you asked for.

Okay, give me your analysis.

Day 5 - The Call of the Wild

2009-12-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

I spent quite a bit of time talking to Jim, who has for the past three months been working on a dog sled team. He is the animal expert in this group of folks. Here are some of the questions I asked him, and the answers I got:

Q: Does every musher read The Call of the Wild by Jack London?
A: No, but most have read Winterdance by Gary Paulsen.

Q: How is the lead dog chosen?
A: They mostly choose themselves by preferring to make decisions, instead of just following orders.

Q: Do you use the carrot or the stick more, when training dogs?
A: I favor the carrot, but most mushers prefer the stick. When they hit a dog, they usually hit it with their cap.

Q: How are the races run?
A: The trail is marked. There are mandatory stops along the way when the dogs have to be rested for about four hours. A volunteer goes ahead to have a bonfire ready.

Q: How much does it cost to buy a good dog?

A: The best dogs cost about $7000, based on their breeding.

Q: At what age do dogs start pulling the sled in races?

A: Just like with horses, dogs begin to race at age two. Until then, the puppies often tag along behind a sled during training, but not during actual races.

Day 5 - Colleen @ the Bethel Clinic

2009-12-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

I got my H1N1 flut shot today, for free! The nurse was a little bit scary...

But then she smiled and I wasn't scared anymore.

Day 5 - In Bethel No One Can Hear You Scream

2009-12-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

There is a scary monster that lives in the backyard. It blends into the shadows, but you can still see it's fiendish glowing eyes.

Oh, never mind. It turned out to be Ella the sled dog, who was playing fetch with Rob.

2009-12-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

Day 5 - Bethel Library
There is a cute little room at the cultural center which houses a library. Their selection of books is quite targeted on subjects of local interest. In the history section, for example, I saw quite a few books on modern China and other Asian nations.

The religion section ran the gamut from indian religions, to "paganism", to Christian fundamentalist Dr. James Dobson.

2009-12-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

Day 4 - Yuut Elitnaurviat
I took a stroll across the tundra this afternoon to pay a visit to Nick, who works at Yuut Elitnaurviat. (That name reminds me of a Michael Moorcock novel, about Elric of Melnibone)

It's a vocational school that offers the usual construction related skills such as building, metal shop, electrical wiring, etc. They also host the only state internship to become a dental assistant, and GED prep courses.

In Seattle I once paid $450 to take a statistics class at a community college. So I asked Nick about the tuition rates here in Alaska. He confirmed that the vocational classes are essentially free, but they charge a nominal $150 per quarter fee that entitles you to take as many classes as you want. The $150 is to ensure that students have "some skin in the game" and do not drop out.

The facilities were paid for with state funds and are very modern in design. Like all buildings in Bethel, the foundation consists of columns pushed deep into the frozen ground.

2009-12-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

Day 4 - Step into my Dungeon
Some part of me, which I had trouble expressing before, has now surfaced, like an ancient mastodon bone pushed up from the tundra.

2009-12-22T12:59:00.000-08:00

Day 3 - Tom and Jerry
Colleen's family is mad about this cocktail, so we made it for our guests. The recipe is as follows:

2 eggs
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 oz white rum
1 oz brandy
nutmeg
hot water

Separate the yolks from the egg whites. Beat egg whites until stiff and then mix in 1/2 cup of powedered sugar. Do the same with the egg yolks. Then fold them into each other. In a mug put add the rum and brandy, spoon in 3 tsp of the egg mixture,fill to the top with hot water, and then sprinkle some nutmeg on top.

2009-12-22T11:57:00.000-08:00

Day 3 - Bumming Around with Rob
The town of Bethel is located in an isolated corner of Alaska.

The terrain is utterly flat, and the vegetation is a mixture of mosses and grasses typical of the tundra.

Rob and I set out on a walk to get lunch, accompanied by Ella the sled dog. A lot of neighbors don't bother to leash their dogs and so immediately we were surrounded by a small pack of Ella's friends.

Bethel looks a lot like La Push, in my opinion. Every house's front yard has a meat smoker, and three abandoned cars. The main difference is that Bethel clearly has a lot more government money available to create public buildings, like this teen center.

Because of the permafrost, it's both expensive and impractical to bury sewer and utility lines so they are run above ground through metal tubes. At first I mistook them for oil pipelines!

There is a small cemetery in town, which we passed on the way to a restaurant. I read once that in New England farms there is a problem with granite boulders being pushed to the surface each year as the ground freezes and thaws. And so I wondered if the graves would one day emerge again.

Day 2 Alaska: Frozen River Highway

2009-12-21T20:00:00.000-08:00

There are no roads that can survive the annual freeze-and-thaw cycle of the tundra, at least not without frequent repairs. And so there are no roads to connect Bethel with the handful of villages nearby.

That's why the river is so important. During the summer months, boat traffic connects the villages. But during the winter the frozen river actually serves as a highway, for both snow machines and trucks. Tree branches have been stuck into the ice to mark a route. And crossed sticks mark holes where the Yupiks are ice fishing.

It was on this road that Colleen and I sped along at 40 mph on her snowmachine.

We passed many Yupiks driving, or else gathered in two and threes to monitor their ice fishing nets. There is plenty of traffic and it's mostly safe, except around the sandbars where the ice turns perilously thin. Here is Colleen posing with a group of Yupiks recovering a snow machine from water.

The entire expanse behind them is the frozen river. Our destination was the nearby village of Napaskiak. Here is Colleen in front of the school and basketball court.

There is also little diversity, everyone we encounter is Yupik. The village is much smaller, and much poorer than Bethel. There is only one store, a few cars, and the health clinic building is little more than a one-room shack.

We chat with Jackie, the person in charge of the clinic. I ask her why all the houses are built from the same design and she explains that they were all built at the same time. They are rented to the villagers for $100/month, and after 30 years the villager will own the house outright.

2009-12-21T12:38:00.001-08:00

Day 1 - DIY Christmas Tree
It's kind of ironic that in the polar north there are no evergreen trees to be found, because none will grow in the tundra. To my surprise, only dwarf deciduous trees survive in wind-sheltered gulleys. Despite theses material shortages, Rob and Colleen managed to set up a Christmas tree!

Though it doesn't really look like a tree.... To my eyes it looks like a hostage whose life is valued so little by his captors that they put a cloth over him and drape him with lights and order him to remain perfectly quiet and still.

Happy holidays!

2009-12-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

Day 1 Alaska - Holiday Party
Colleen took me to her work holiday party which was held at the Lion's club. It was themed a murder mystery party! Only one person got the answer right. It was Rosemary who killed Santa Claus with an herbal poison in his drink.

For dinner we had pot roast and turkey with baked potatoes, green beans, and a salad. For drinks there was a nice punch and a bottle of vodka in case anyone wanted to spike their drink (which most of us did).

2009-12-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

My Friends are Silly
Blogging from Alaska this week, but first I thought I'd clear out some recent photos.

I love it when friends pass through town on business. Last month Murph dropped by. He's always good for a drink that turns into a raucous night, in this circumstance at the Black Bottle in Seattle.

In October, I went to see an amateur Chicago circus show on the last night of their road trip. Koto made a strange hand sign at me. I think he was trying to represent a twirling aerialist.

On my first night in Alaska, Colleen and I attended a dinner party murder mystery work party. We had to figure out who killed Santa Claus! To get in character, we both to wear costumes. She donned a black "flapper" style wig, and I pulled on a rubberized "fake bald" scalp.

Abe just got married in October, but on his wedding night he still sought comfort from any willing partner.

Why would this man jump into a freezing lake in October? He comes from a good family, and he's successful at business. It just doesn't make sense!

I was at Heather's annual Gluwhein party last month when fortune put all the tiny house enthusiasts in one room. I snapped a photo to capture the extreme pleasure of this cult-like movement.

2009-10-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

Health Care Reform
President Obama recently identified the most important goals of health care reform. At the top of his list was the need to slow the growth of costs. Currently, health care inflation runs at a much higher rate than the economy's overall inflation rate. For example, in July 2009 Regence Blue Shield raised rates for individual insurance policies in Washington State by 19%.

The most effective means of controlling costs is the "free market" of capitalism in which supply and demand both influence prices. A free market is simply a means of efficient pricing for a commodity.

If you think about free market theories, you'll always begin with a simple chart showing supply vs. demand. For example, gold mines supply gold and consumers demand it. Supply is mostly determined by the productivity of gold mines, but if prices for gold rise high enough then there is an increasing effect by "gold reclaimers" who melt down and resell old jewelry. Demand is determined by various global constants and seasonal factors, such as India's wedding season.

But free markets bare little influence on the pricing mechanism for health care in the United States. What would it take for health care to be priced efficiently by a free market?

First, most routine health care should be paid for out-of-pocket. This would establish a direct relationship between doctors and patients. If you study vanity health care, such as teeth whitening, or lasik surgery, you'll find that prices have declined dramatically over the past decade. This is because prices are determined by the doctor-patient relationship, by supply vs. demand.

The problem with the current pricing mechanism of health care in the US is that the it has no way of efficiently setting efficient prices. Do you ever have the nagging sense that the free market is not working in the health care sector? Why does a procedure cost that amount? Why does the price vary across states and hospitals so much? Why is there a list price, which is immediately discounted for "in-network" doctors and patients, and discounted further based on medicare payback rates being set at 80% of private insurance prices?

Why on earth do we rely on insurance to pay for routine annual checkups? The pricing mechanism at work here is based on profit goals for insurance companies. They claim to have created "provider networks" who charge lower fees in order to service the patients who are covered under a specific insurance plan. But in fact what has happened is that the insurance companies simply extract all of the cost difference in the form of profits, which they pay to their Executives and shareholders.

The most insidious evil is the notion of a "tax write-off" for insurance payments, whether as a health saving account for the individual, or for the company that pays for employee benefits. All of these alleged savings are simply consumed by the insurance companies, who are able to raise their premium rates to levels which most americans can afford, at the expense of government revenues. And so in this way, private insurance companies erode the ability of the government to provide health services to the poor, funded by general tax revenue, in the form of medicaid.

The proper role of health insurance is truly analogous to the role of auto insurance providers. Provide catastrophic coverage with a high deductible, and serious consequences for anyone who makes repeated claims on their insurance. For health insurance this would mean that Insurance companies would quite rightly want to underwrite their policies based on a long-term payment plan. Can they handle it? I don't know, but a single payer government plan could handle it, for sure.

2009-10-08T00:46:00.000-07:00

How to Deal with Madmen
Most rulers, whether elected or not seem to be rational people. For example, when a US plane crash landed in China, and George W. Bush said the plane was a territorial part of the United Sates, Chinese premier Hu famously asked, "Well then how did it land in China?" Very rational indeed.

It is tempting to view all national leaders, when their policies have been portrayed as opposed to US interests, as insane, as budding Hitlers. Usually this is pure bunk. However, when dealing with North Korea, Libya, and Venezuela, there is an element of truth to these claims.

But Kim Jong Il, Moammar Gadhafi, and Hugo Chavez are not in any way a form of modern Hitlers. They are simply insane egomaniacs.

Gadhafi, whose style of dress clearly signals he is either a repressed drag queen, or insane, has claimed that Libya is an "Athenian style democracy." When a US Senator pointed out, but you're not a democracy, Gadhafi had to agree, but a moment later seemed to forget the discussion entirely.

Chavez crafted legislation that forced all TV networks in Venezuela to carry an hourlong program every day in which he would be allowed to speak about whatever topic he wanted to the entire country.

Kim Jong Il? Well, his brand of madness is quite specific. He enacts a purely military fantasy of control while his people starve to death.

And so how does a US President deal with such characters? I suggest that the only way to deal with insane people is to turn their insane fantasies against them. Direct talks are essential, because they allow the US President to enter the insane world of these dictators. Once inside, it is important to encourage their pursuit of megalo-maniacal goals which will weaken their eventual military power, and popular control.

For example, encourage Chavez to give an even greater percentage of oil profit to helping the poor, at the expense of a sustainable oil revenue. Encourage Ghadafi to practice an "Athenian Style" democracy by implementing direct election of generals, and embarking on a building program of national monuments. Encourage Kim Jong Il by asking Hollywood to subsidize a movie which dramatizes his life struggle, and distracts him from enforcing his border artillery.

Crazy people need to be handled properly.

2009-10-07T23:51:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin Fantasy, Part 1
At a pivotal speech, in which Sarah Palin will announce her Presidential run, a liberal group decides to play rough and disrupt the event.

As her speech begins, Palin tries to apply the structure of her 2008 stump speeches to the regional issues of Alaska, and the results are disastrous. Especially when she refers to the "founders" of Alaska and motions to an elderly group of bearded men wearing the same blue blazer over ragged jeans. The comparison between America's founders, like Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, et. al., and the local miners is unfortunate. The impression is that the miners are a bunch of half-crazed people, who tried to make a living in the arctic hell but, by all measurable standards, failed, went crazy, and were forced into celibacy. Furthermore, it is clear that today only they were paid a few bucks and loaned a blue blazer so they could appear in civilized society.

At this precarious moment, the devious plan of the Liberal Group comes into play. They secretly paid ten male Pacific-Americans, Samoans, Hawaiians, etc, to be siting in the front row. At a pre-arranged signal, all twelve men remove their shirts and reveal the painted letters on their bare rippled chests which spell P-A-L-I-N-2-0-1-2. During her speech, Palin can't help but glance at these young hot men as they ripple their pectorals casually in response to the intonations of her speech. She is secretly turned on.

Because Palin's speech has been released beforehand to the press, everyone knows that she will conclude by praising the Alaska's economy as the "Arctic Miracle." But as she distracted by the rippling brown bodies in front of her, Sarah misses her cues. Her final, rousing statement, was to be: "They say that the OPEC nations have a false economy based on one product, oil. And that when this product runs out that many people will suffer."

But instead she says: "They say Arabs will return to being desert beggars when the oil runs out. Anyone who knows the Arabs carnally like me would disagree. In the same way, they say that Alaska will revert to an Arctic hell hole when the oil money runs out. And that the old geezers I pointed out earlier will return to power. But I want to promise to all Americans that as long as I am President I will open my doors to hot young brown people, and I won't waste time listening to old geezers, whether they be white or brown."

2009-09-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

Why Do We Swear?
I enjoy meeting foreigners who don't speak English. It's fun to speak haltingly to express simple thoughts. Every time I've had the good fortune to be in this situation I've learned a few new swear words.

All languages have swear words, and if etymologists were to make a study they would probably be able to recreate an entire language tree. For example, Putka, Poota, and Pussy have the same meaning, in Bulgarian, Tagalog, and English respectively. But it would probably kill an etymologist's career were they to publish an erudite study of swear words.

Why do we swear? My own pet theory is that we swear when we are confronted by evidence that events are outside of our control, and are wrapped up into a larger concept of fate. Sometimes it even seems like fate is working against us.

For example, you're driving and you get a flat tire. Fuck. You are loosening the lug nuts and you slip and cut your hand. Shit. A truck drives by and hits a puddle, splashing water all over you as you toil by the side of the road. Damn. Of course, it's not only bad news which induces us to swear. Someone proposes marriage. Oh God. You learn that you're having a baby. Jesus Christ.

There are two distinct classes of swear words. The first kind includes all of the words that describe base physical reality. The second kind invoke a Deity. You can tell a lot about a culture by the swear words they use.

In many Islamic countries, religion predominates and so the people have been trained to utter God's name whenever they are confronted by evidence that they are not in control of their fates. Masked men arrive in a jeep and take your son away. Insha'Allah.

In Europe, where religious fervor has waned, the people prefer to invoke base physical reality. You walk past the breakfast shop without stopping because you're late for your train. Fuck.

The United States embraces both kinds of swear words. One curious notion that Americans believe is that the Bible prohibits any invocation of God when people swear. The commandment states in part, "You shall not take God's name in vain." But I would argue that it is hardly "in vain" to use God's name when you get a flat tire, because it is an acknowledgment that we are powerless before fate.

But christian Americans don't see it this way. They restrict people from using God's name when they swear, and in this way they encourage people to mutter all the base and vile swear words which seem to bring us down to a state of incomprehension, like a dumb animal who is not capable of perceiving fate.

2009-09-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

Recurring Fantasy, Part 1

Our hero, an earthling, has got on some adventure with a friend. They hitch a ride on a freighter and reach a space port on the tentacle planet. Once the two earth guys reach the planet, they get entangled in further adventures in the space port and finally end up at an alien discotheque. As soon as they enter the club the friend goes off to find someone. Our hero looks around. The club is huge! There are multiple levels of dance floors, arranged in mezzanine about the central hexagon. Aliens are dancing everywhere. They are humanoid, but have long tentacles growing out the top of their heads, which sway like like hair.

Our hero stumbles around the club and glimpses a silent language. The women brazenly flirt with the men, all by moving their hair. He notices one woman in particular, standing close, and watches her tentacles ripple as if a momentary breeze has touched a field of tall grass. Each alien moves their tentacles in a distinct way. But there is also a rhythm to the way the crowd moves. They dance together in clumps which tighten into balls, or distend and grow. Some groups are jumping on the beat, while others are keyed to the off beat. He continues to explore the club until he comes to a tentacled giant, surrounded by a crowd. The alien jumps like a piston up and down, his hair shaking like kelp, and glowing phosphorescent.

The other earthling returns and shouts over the music, "They want you to dance!"

After surveying the crowd, our hero leans into his friend and asks, "You see the problem?"

The friend nods. "You don't have tentacles." He leans in and gives a pep talk, "Respect the head! You gotta rely on earth moves!"

He doesn't wait. He stops, plants his feet, and moves his head in a circle, like the warm-up drill for a mat class. He's wearing a faded tank top and gold chain, the latest Nikes, and his baggy shorts have glow strips that reflect the tentacled creature's light. He tightens the head circle, speeding it up a bit, and then he lets the circular vortex drop down over his body like a cloak. His shoulders and hips revolve, catching the head's energy and hurling it back like three melodies chasing each other. He syncs them together to preserve momentum and then his feet really grip the floor.

The music has kept the same beat so far, but our hero knows about music from the earth clubs. This beat is about to change and he must make a smooth transition! He steals a glance at the alien crowd. Are they hostile? They all stare at him, their tentacles revealing each individual's feeling. He focuses on one alien, the female he noticed earlier. He stares at her black eyes, the calm centerpoint, around which her alien hair draws squiggly, phosphoric lines. He knows he has captured her attention, and then the beat changes...

2009-09-24T21:15:00.000-07:00

Astrology for Animals
I thought of a new way to understand animals... through astrology. You see, most animals only mate with each other at specific times of the year, and give birth to their young around the same date each year so it naturally follows that within a species of animal all the individuals will belong to the same astrological sun sign!

For example, Moose are born between the middle of May and early June, which makes them either Taurus or Gemini. I've always thought that Taurus folks are quick to anger. One moment they are placid and the next they are enraged. That pretty much describes the behavior of the bull moose who is known for his unpredictability, charging or making false-charges if you get too close.

If animals have astrological signs, then fish and reptiles pose certain dilemmas of interpretation because one of the first principles of astrology is that the moment of our birth determines our astrological chart.

The moment of separation from our mother is the critical moment of our lives because it is the first time when the planets, the sun and stars can influence us directly. For a fish should we count the day the egg is fertilized? For a reptile should we count the moment the egg is laid?

2009-09-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

Trendspotting: The 18th Century is Cool
A few months ago I read an interview novelist Sophie Gee who set her new book, The Scandal of the Season, in the 18th century because it was a time when culture was more unified, and tolerated all kinds of different people, including businessmen, aristocrats, eccentrics, priests, foreigners, officers, homosexuals, artists, and scientists.

Then just a few weeks ago a friend confessed to me her love of the 18th century. She described it as a time before Victorian, bourgeoisie-derived morality, when both the upper- and lower- classes had more freedom and variety in their lifestyles.

Is this identification with the 18th century a new trend that is just getting started? It could be a trend primarily for women, in the same way that many women seem to love to imagine ancient Egyptian culture.

Perhaps the movie Marie Antoinette contributed to this trend for it grafted the story of a princess into the milieu of educated libertines.

Or this trend could be arising from contemporary artists, who are inspired by the idea that art can exist at the heart of culture, entwined with other strands such as business and politics, instead of being pushed to the fringes.

That got me to thinking about a word which I had always hated hearing in college, the Bourgeoisie. Teachers were always talking about how "Bourgeoisie values" were very stodgy, puritan, and materialistic. I had gotten so used to thinking of the Bourgeoisie as being equivalent to the American Middle Class, and yet they aren't similar at all. Because the Bourgeoisie has to be understood as the class that replaced the 18th century aristocracy with the power to establish morals and standards of behavior. The Bourgeoisie are the class which made it acceptable to be materialistic when choosing friends, and puritanical when judging sexual mores.

These twin behaviors still dominate us in 2009. But there is an attempt to revert to the prior trend, to adore the 18th century, elevate its ideals, and recapture the ethos of that prior era.

2009-09-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

My Opinion of Various Right Wing Commentators
Rush Limbaugh is the most famous, and also the most pathetic white middle-aged man that can be imagined. A man whose aggressive personality is just an elaborate attempt to hide his own fears and insecurities.

Ann Coulter is a comedian, and a lot of people don't seem to realize that. Imagine if you listened to Chris Rock, expecting to hear an enlightened speech about race relations but instead you heard his stand-up routine? For Ann Coulter, just adjust your expectations to that of comedian, and maybe then you'll realize that she's very funny.

Michelle Malkin is a self-centered, very aggressive Asian woman. She can be very cute and charming, and so she was allowed to "win" arguments as a little girl despite shoddy reasoning and a lack of facts. As an adult she continues in this vein since right wing TV indulges her. But it is safe to say that she doesn't play well with others, probably doesn't have any friends, hates her family and her family hates her too.

Sean Hannity is hard to figure out. It is possible that he is someone who would have benefited enormously by getting his ass kicked at a younger age. In fact, repeated ass kickings between 5th and 9th grade could have changed his life for the better. But instead he was indulged by parents and teachers who never told him 'no'. It is also possible that he grew up in a really uniform community, and simply can't understand the nature of a multi-cultural democracy. But there is a third possibility that his entire TV persona is invented, that he is not angry at all but just a really saavy and unscrupulous businessman who is happy to collect millions of dollars in salary to undermine our democracy and public discourse.

Jon Voigt is a truly frightening man. Think of it this way... he's not getting paid to make crazy right wing inflammatory remarks. He says those things because he truly believes them. Since he is an award winning actor, he is able to radiate an anger that is more visceral and real compared with any other right wing TV host.

2009-09-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Golden Man
It was an event which, for the most part, went unnoticed. An artist had conceived of a sculpture, worked diligently to create it from paper mache and paint, and snuck into Gasworks park in the middle of the night to create the installation named "Anew," but which came to popularly be known as "The Golden Man."

A friend had read about it in the local paper and invited me to walk to the park one sunny afternoon where we observed it from afar.... From the top of the hill at Gasworks park, the installation looked very much like a group of folks sitting on the grass by the shore of Lake Union.

And we observed it from up close.... There were six men inside cocoons, two men emerging from cocoons, and one golden man who had freed himself. He stood looking out over the water.

The artist had left a wooden plaque with a statement of her intent: "Anew is gifted to the citizens of Seattle in the spirit of awakening."

A mini drama played out over the next week. The city parks department announced they would remove the sculptures on a Thursday, but many people called to ask that they remain. Also, the artist released a statement expressing a wish that the city would allow the installation to remain until "the rains begin following Labor Day" at which point she invited anyone to take the sculptures who wanted them. And so the city decided to leave them in the park.

Immediately, someone stole the golden man statue, and moved it to a city park in Laurelhurst. Then the other statues were taken, perhaps because it did rain for a few days.

By the next week there was no trace of the installation at Gasworks park. Unless you had read about it in the paper, or stumbled upon it during a walk, you wouldn't know that anything unusual had happened.

2009-09-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

The "Chores" List
It's impossible to keep track of all the little things I have to do, so I make a "to do" list in the morning.

Besides the household chores, phone calls, job search activities, and all the usual items, there are two special categories which are worth mentioning.

First, I don't bother to write down things which I am certain to do. This category changes over time. In June I didn't bother to write down "buy meat, potatoes, and a bottle of wine" for dinner, since I cooked this meal every single night. Nowadays I don't bother to write down "exercise" since it's 100% certain that I will at the very least go for a three mile walk.

Second, I often write down certain things which I have no intention of doing! My old standby item is "buy picture frame and frame picture." I have literally wrote this task down hundreds of times and never followed through. It feels good to write it down, though, so I keep doing it becuase I enjoy pretending that by day's end I will have framed a picture and hung it on my wall!

But in both cases, these are tasks which a "to do" list cannot help me to achieve.

2009-09-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Media Coverage: Elections vs. Governance
There is a great difference in the ability of the media to cover a Presidential campaign, vs. the normal process of governance once a new President takes office.

I'm sure that you all remember the recent election campaign. It stretched on for about two years. At the start, there were about a dozen candidates from each party who competed against each other to secure their parties nomination. Many dropped out after the first contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. But even after the field was winnowed, the media still had to give voice to diverse viewpoints.

For example, Ron Paul's libertarian policies for taxes and foreign relations, or Dennis Kucinich, the vegan who wants to withdraw from NAFTA and pass laws to eliminate handguns in the US. As the election contest wound on, John McCain and Barack Obama spent several months defining their positions, defending them, and attacking the other's. Finally, voters got to choose which candidate (and policies) they liked.

Compare the clarity, and the illusion of participation, which characterizes a campaign with the hopeless muddle that the media makes of the legislative process.

The health care reform debate began in March, but began to dominate the headlines in July when legislative committees began to pass bills. Between March and July, half the articles I read claimed that the reform effort was about to be killed. Then in August the town hall protests occurred. Again, the media proclaimed that the reform effort was about to die. They reported on "death panels," rationing, and funding of abortions. Now, in late September, the media has stopped covering health care reform, while Congress moves ever closer to passing it into law.

What do I conclude? I have been amazed at how little substantive discussion takes place in the media about the reform bill's details. I have seen plenty of people with strong opinions, based on their ideology, but few people who attempt to criticize or defend specific portions of the bill based on facts. These pundits don't cite dollar amounts except to mislead.

I think that the solution is that the media has to acknowledge to themselves just how terrible they are at reporting on governance. And they need to develop a new strategy with the goal of keeping the American Public informed as to the actual goings on in Washington.

It would be a very helpful act of mercy if someone would call them out for this lack of ability, because the media doesn't seem to realize how ignorant they are.

2009-03-25T21:42:00.000-07:00

Inner Monologue
My friend Heather wanted to know how much of my inner monologue I share with her. She was responding, I think, to the way that I tend to go off on long tangents, laughing the whole time. When I'm with friends I don't necessarily speak whatever is on my mind. Maybe only 1% is shared. But when I'm dating someone that increases drastically to perhaps 25%.

Why is it so important? Most people would agree that communication is at the heart of every good relationship but... for communication to work there needs to be something more primal already in place.

Here's an analogy: The Big Bang created both space and time, and within these constraints all manner of activities take place. For example, dust clouds congeal into stars and planets, and the stars attract each other to form huge galaxies.

Dating is like that too. We voice our inner monologues in a way that creates a romantic version of space and time, and in this environment it is possible for ideas and emotions to congeal into actions and dialog. You can tell how close you are to someone by noticing how much of your inner monologues you both share, and how fertile a backdrop this makes for communication.

2009-01-21T08:41:00.001-08:00

Priya and Kavita
My friends Ruchi and Francis have adorable children. Priya is 3 years old while Kavita ("Kavi") is only 18 months.

I've been working on my ability to play with children. During one two hour stretch I taught Priya how to build a fort from blankets, pretended that children's books were records and that I had a record player in the other room, and amazed the kids by pushing a harmonica into one ear, through my brains, and out the other ear. I think I may be getting the hang of this parenting thing.

But in these photos you can see Shonali forming a rock band with both the girls. Shonali was banging a rhythmn on her leg, and singing Old McDonald Had a Farm. Priya was standing on one leg, waving to the crowd with one hand, and playing the harmonica with the other. I'm not sure exactly what Kavi was doing. I suppose she was one of the dancers.

2009-01-20T15:29:00.000-08:00

Immersion in the Crowd
Being in a crowd of this size is like treading water in the ocean when your cruise ship capsizes. A sea of people.

Looking backwards towards the Washington Monolith, I mean Monument.

Although I don't know any of these people, I wish I did because they are totally cool, and quite photogenic.

These people are pretty cool too, but not as cool as the other people.

2009-01-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

Obama Inauguration, Tuesday
Before I describe the day's events, let me begin with a photo taken during the actual ceremony.

We set off in a car at 7am, and were able to make it to Ruchi's Senate office building with only minimal slowdowns due to the crowd. Then we hung out until 9am, chatted, and said hello to some of the staffers whom Ruchi knew. Michael J. Fox walked by with his slightly off rhythmn Parkinson's limp.

At 9am we left for our various gates. My 'purple' ticket had to enter through the 'purple' gate on the East side of the Capitol Building, whereas the Bhowmik family had 'orange' tickets which entered through a gate to the West.

One challenge of the day was navigation. If only it was possible to get a view from a height of 100 feet, it would help immeasurably. This is one of the few shots I took from a high place.

The Mall is quite flat, and the security layout created walls and enclosures, so that you might suddenly end up in a cul-de-sac, without the appropriate ticket to get through a gate.

After passing through the gate I passed this road which presumably would be used by Obama to drive to the Capitol Building.

This was essentially my view. The 'purple' section had no seats, so we stood.

Here's the same view through my 3x zoom. The speaker's stage is between the two sections of flags.

After all the invocations, speeches, and oath-taking, the jumbotrons showed when the Obamas and Bidens walked down the steps.

And a moment later we saw Marine One flying towards the White House.

When the event was all over, I ran into Tom Hanks who told me quite eloquently about what it meant. Thank you Tom for renewing my faith in America.

2009-01-20T14:46:00.000-08:00

Obama Inauguration, Monday
This was a casual day of relaxation. In the morning I accompanied Shonali to a local park where we played with Priya and Kavitha. Incidentally, you might want to check out Shonali's web site. She's a musician, and her band is called Tigers & Monkeys. She also belongs to a performance art troupe in NYC. Together they make hilarious videos...I recommend the Italian Doctor.

Here is Kavi poised at the top of the slide:

Around 2pm I took the Metro to Dupont Circle and then walked 8 blocks to an afternoon party. I met my college friend Andrea there. She works on a House Committee for energy policy, but since she works for the Minority party it can be tough to round up votes. We talked, drank, and I met her boyfriend and a number of DC visitors like myself.

I was back to Ruchi's house by 10pm which was good because we all needed a good night's sleep before the Inauguration.

2009-01-20T14:38:00.001-08:00

The Golden Ticket
I had been preparing myself for Tuesday, for what I called "The Great Exertion", which involved insane sleep, water, and toilet deprivation, combined with exposure to the elements, and immersion into a crowd of 1,000,000+ people. But when I arrived in DC some friends arranged for me to get a ticket.

There has been a lot of discussion in Seattle about these tickets, and they are spoken of with reverence by those who long to obtain one, and also with skepticism by those who think the task of obtaining one is futile. I had a 'purple' ticket, which got me into a standing room only section in the back of the reserved area (but still in front of the entire Mall with its millions of spectators).

Here is the front:

And here is the back:

2009-01-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

Obama Inauguration, Sunday
I took the train from NYC to Washington, reaching Union Station at 5:45pm on Sunday. At the time I lacked any certainties. As an example, I had no dinner reservations, no museum tickets, no plans to attend a ball, and little knowledge of the Inauguration day schedule or parade route. I was nervous because I lacked a solid plan, and the new reports had hyped the scale of the event.

Furthermore, my host was on the transition team (she had worked for Obama's Senate staff) and it had been impossible for us to actually speak on the phone in the past month. So I began to imagine that she would be working during my visit, and that the Metro and even taxicabs would be overcrowded and difficult to use.

But things have been wonderful from the moment I arrived. There is a very polite, communal feeling spirit in the crowds. And the same idea is on everyone's minds so I can talk to anybody around me. The old proverb says that "When you're in love with a person, you see them everywhere you look." I came to this Inauguration because I think Obama is an ideal political leader, and because I think his administration will lead to a renewal of American politics. When I look at the crowds I see the same feelings in them.

On the first night I joined Ruchi, Shonali, and one of their friends, Alex, at one of the Inaugural balls.

Then some Grammy award winning balad singer performed some of his sappy love songs.

A spoken word duo performed next. They basically sounded like the Beastie Boys, without any music. A black guy and a white guy, both talking like black guys. I wondered if they would be as effective if they both talked like white guys? Probably not...they would sound like TV news anchors.

Jamie Foxx did a little rap and speech. I think that Reggie Watts (a Seattle artist) is more talented, but Jamie Foxx carries himself like a world-class star, and therein lies the difference between them.

Jessica Alba introduced some of the performers. But we didn't see her backstage in the VIP lounge, which was a little disappointing because I knew exactly what I wanted to say to her.

These two guys were hard to classify. Their act seems to trade on the rarity of seeing black violin players, as well as brothers who both play violin. At some point I realized that they had a backup band, which included many violin players. Then I noticed that the dominant violin melody didn't match what the twin brothers were playing. So essentially these guys are the Milli Vanilli of violin players.

The headliners were a band called Maroon Five, who appealed primarily to teenage girls. During their six song set, I repeatedly thought of the movie 'Twilight'.

One of the stars from the TV show 'Heroes' joined Jessica Alba onstage. She actually fell and broke her ankle a few seconds before this photo was taken. But she quickly healed herself before I could pull my camera out.

2009-01-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

NYC
I had the chance to visit NYC this week. In fact my ticket to DC was Thursday to Thursday, but that seemed like too much time to be imposing on Ruchi, so I hopped on Amtrak and spent the weekend with Matt and Abe. It was my first time meeting Abe's girlfriend Rebekah...she's a writer who has published a 'realist' novel. We all went to dinner in the East Village.

Abe is living in a pretty groovy loft space in Brooklyn. The building is under the Manhattan bridge, and has fabulous views.

Matt and Sara's apartment is very different. They've taken a boarder who lives in the kitchen. I had heard that rooms in NYC are very small, but I had no idea how bad things have got.

It was great to see Matt and Sara, but their boarder is difficult to live with sometimes. He is very messy, with his food, and he spits a lot. There seemed to be excessive familiarity between Sara and the boarder, but Matt was oblivious to this potential "wolf in the henhouse."

2009-01-17T08:49:00.000-08:00

NYC MOMA
I spent one day at MOMA, which is in a gorgeous new building near the Rockefeller Center in midtown. They currently have a video installation in the central atrium. Giant slow motion videos show you moving through underwater, or through blades of grass, while deep, slow rhythmns help you find your calm center.

Can I just say that I love Joseph Beuys? Sometimes real estate agents will claim that a house is "within walking distance" to Starbucks, and this is a big selling point. I would like to live in a city whose art museum has an entire room devoted to Joseph Beuys.

I stood and appreciated this display, with a stuffed hare on an easel. These props were used in a show decades ago in which Beuys narrated his art theories to the stuffed hare while the crowd watched.

MOMA has very beefy security guards, and trains them to frown at people. Seriously, this is my favorite Jackson Pollack painting. It looks like so many things. Over fifteen minutes I started at it, seeing molecules, galaxies, mythical spaces, time-movement diagrams, illustrations of love stories, and of course I also saw Jackson Pollack, dipping his farm tools into paint and then flinging it on the canvas.

I never really understood or liked Cezanne before, but today was different. He has a strange way of interpreting a scene before him. He doesn't see colors or lines, in my opinion, but a series of problems that need to be solved. How does this orange fit next to this shadow? Cezanne's answer to the question is always innovative, and never rote.

2009-01-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

Chinese-Indian Cooking
I have an aunt named Rama who lives in Hyderabad. She is a widower, with a son who is attending school to become a physical therapist. I had been really curious to taste Rama's cooking, because she is reputed to be one of the best cooks in our family.

But I was really lucky because it turns out that Rama teaches cooking classes. On the first day of Ramadan, I got the chance to attend her class for "Chinese-Indian" cooking.

She gave us a handout with 10 recipes, and then proceeded to make them all over the next 2 hours. I was amazed to see someone who can cook and speak intelligently at the same time. When I cook I tend to become so focused on the task that I enter another realm entirely, and can only bark instructions to people around me, such as "get out of my way." Here is a simple vegetarian noodle dish.

I took many notes. She made 4 different chicken dishes, but they all used the same basic chicken which had been prepped in the same way: by cutting the chicken into small pieces, coating them with corn flour, and then frying in oil. The coating ensures that the chicken pieces remain tender.

My favorite part of the class was having a mystery cleared up about Chinese cooking. I've always wondered how that basic sweet & sour soup gets its color and texture. The answers are: corn starch and food coloring.

2009-01-15T07:56:00.000-08:00

Organic Farming near Secunderabad, India
My uncle Pradeep retired from his medical practice in London and bought a farm just 45 minutes drive from Secunderabad. He began to grow fruits and vegetables using organic techniques for fertilization, crop rotation, and water management.

Some of the most interesting stories he told involved winning respect from the local village, including his farmer neighbors, the 'headman', who is an elected official, and the various trademan or laborers whom he has to deal with. Here is a photo of his guard dog, whom he asked us not to pet.

One neighbor immediately chopped down a tree on Pradeep's land, claiming that the tree belong to him. The village Headman was noncommittal during the dispute, so my uncle had to assert his personality through veiled threats until the man backed down. Later on, a tradesman who had been hired to make some infrastructure improvements took his initial fee and then did no work for several months. When Pradeep brought in a contractor from outside, the tradesman showed up the next morning with a muscular friend and they threatened to demolish the structure that was being built. Again, Pradeep had to assert himself by hinting at the consequences that would befall them unless they left immediately.

Water management is a critical part of the farm's management. The land has a slight grade to it. Pradeep has dug some trenches along the gradient lines. These trenches slow the passage of rainwater, to limit erosion. He also dumps any organic waste into the trenches and 'harvests' compost occassionally.

Here is a structure that Pradeep built to hold the two water pumps.

One pump draws water from the earth. The second pushes the water along a network of pipes to the various fields.

At the end of our visit, the week's harvest was gathered up. Pradeep doesn't sell his produce but distributes it for free among family & friends. He is in the back of the photo, while the elderly man and woman in the foreground are the farmers whom he has hired to manage the farm's daily business.

2008-12-13T12:59:00.001-08:00

Dinner Party
I had a dinner party the other day. The occassion was to celebrate my having a slightly larger dining table, which can seat 8 people. Here we are gathered at the table: Heather, Paul, Erik, Rob, and Colleen:

Heather was nice enough to co-host and help with the cooking. We served poached salmon, baked root vegetables, a garden salad, and an entree-type of salad consisting of giant croutons with eggplant and a sauce made from heirloom tomatoes and fresh Italian herbs. No pictures but here's the recipe for the eggplant salad:

Eggplant Crouton Salad with Heirloom Tomato Dressing & Baby Spinach

Ingredients (serves 8)

1 Large Loaf of Peasant or Sourdough Bread
Olive Oil
Red Pepper flakes
2 cloves Garlic
1 cup basil leaves
other fresh herbs, Mediterranean
3 heirloom tomatoes (or 1 large can of whole peeled tomatoes)
2 eggplant
Baby spinach leaves

Directions

Peel and cut eggplant into 1' cubes. Salt liberally and let sit for 20 minutes.
Remove skin from heirloom tomatoes by placing them in boiling water for 60 seconds. Then use a knife to make a shallow incision in the skin and peel. (Skip this step if using canned tomatoes)
Heat olive oil in a pot at medium-low heat. Add minced garlic and red pepper. When garlic is starting to turn golden, add tomatoes. Turn heat up to medium and cook for 30 minutes. Add chopped basil, other chopped herbs, and season.
Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Cut bread into 1/2 inch cubes, drizzle with olive oil, toss well, and then place in a single layer on an oven pan. Bake in oven until croutons are nicely toasted. You'll have to remove to stir them around so all sides of the bread are exposed to the heat. Remove and set aside.
Rinse eggplant cubes in colander to remove salt, and then dry with paper towels or a salad spinner. Place eggplant cubes in a pot with olive oil and cook over medium-low temperature for about 30 minutes. The eggplant should be completely cooked, but still retain some of its cube-like shape! Transfer to a large mixing bowl.
Combine eggplant cubes, croutons, tomato sauce, and baby spinach leaves in a large mixing bowl. Mix delicately to preserve the shape of the eggplant. Serve.

2008-12-13T12:39:00.000-08:00

Varma Family Photos
Here is Keisha, Micaela, Sailaja, and Ameeth. We are just outside my brother's house, about to embark on a walk to Lake Harriet.

I asked the Varmas to pose on the steps leading down to the lake. Next time I'll ask them to get bowl haircuts and wear pinstripe suits, so we can re-create a Beatles album cover.

Sashank showed an uncharacteristic fearlessness on Thanksgiving and decided to make an apple pie with a homemade crust. It turned out to be dee-lish-us!

Micaela made place cards for the table, and each had a unique drawing with a Thanksgiving theme. Here is the one she made for her elder sister, Sailaja:

And here is a collage of all of the unique drawings from each place card:

2008-12-13T12:31:00.000-08:00

My Brother and Me
Here are a couple of photos of me with my brother, Sashank. The first was taken at a Vietnamese restaurant off Lake Street where we had stopped for lunch. We had that tired feeling that comes on the holidays from spending all of one's time eating, drinking, and shopping.

The second photo reminds me of a spy movie. But in fact we are just taking a walk around Lake Harriet at twilight. But when I look at this photo I have an irresistable urge to draw some speech bubbles:

"Have you brought the money?"
"There is a change of plans."
"What kind of stunt are you trying to pull?"
"I have powerful friends, do not try to cross me!"
Etc.

2008-12-13T12:09:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving 2008: Brothers & Cousins
I visited Minneapolis for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with my brother's family. Our cousin, Ameeth also visited. We spent one day driving around town. First, we stopped at a natural waterfall that feeds into the Mississippi. It was very icy and dangerous, but we ignored the signs.

My brother almost slipped, or maybe he was experiencing some kind of religious conversion, I'm not sure.

Afterwards we drove along Lake Street, passing through a Mexican/Middle Eastern neighborhood, and eventually stopping to walk around in an Asian/White gentrified neighborhood. As we cruised the street, looking for a good restaurant, the Chinese owner of Rainbow identified my cousin Ameeth as good marriage material for one of her grandchildren. She talked with us inside the restaurant, followed us outside, and posed for a picture.

I am slightly horrified by the East Asian attitudes towards meat and fish. It seems to me that they like to keep animals alive as long as possible, which is a form of cruelty since the animal must know its time is nearly up.

That evening we attended a basketball game. The Timberwolves were hosting the Denver Nuggets, and since Ameeth is from Denver we were more than a little interested in the outcome.

I have to say that Mike Miller, the #4 draft pick in the 2001 draft, is pretty ugly, especially his mouth. To celebrate Mike Miller Night, the jumbotron played snippets of interviews with him. We learned that like most jocks, he has absolutely no interests outside of sports, and his favorite food is from Subway!

The Timberwolves mascot is kind of lame. His face is totally non-expressive, and so he has to compensate by wearing funny T-shirts.

2008-10-30T07:47:00.001-07:00

Slavery

In America, we understand slavery in a very specific way. It is an "institution" meaning that it is a traditional practice, defined in the Constitution, and enforced by the power of the state. It is also race-based, meaning that the role of slave is assigned wholly based on one's race.

However one would have a different view of slavery if one looked beyond America, to the broader world, and looked beyond the past 300 years to the full sweep of human history stretching back past to 3000 BC with the Sumerian culture, and onward to pre-history stretching back past 30,000 BC.

It is very probable that slavery has not always been an institution. To satisfy even the most limited definition of slaver as an institution, one would have to show that it was a traditional practice. But for a tradition to be established there would need to be a steady availability of slaves. In the world of 30,000 BC, when large human communities did not exist, where would the slaves come from?

And what about race? As an example, a Roman living in 100 BC would not have understood the idea that an entire race of people were slaves. Slavery was initiated by some event, be it war, poverty, or piracy. But, you might say, all races were welcome to the role of slavery.

Another assumption that we Americans have is that Slavery is one of the worst evils that can be perpetrated upon another. But I would suggest that there is an evil much greater. Today it is called genocide, but perhaps a more viscerally honest word for it is extermination.

Again, this is a behavior which has historical roots throughout human history and pre-history. Based on studies of primates, it is likely that these behaviors even precede the evolution of homo sapien.

The essential difference between slavery and extermination is that (obviously) as a slave you get to keep your life, and your are provided with a role in society. Is it a good role? Absolutely not! But the role of a slave in society is strikingly similar to many other roles, which we do not call "slavery". I'd like to compare a few of these roles with that of the slave, in the context of American life:

On the subject of political rights, slaves in America could not vote, but neither could women or, in many cases, men who did not own land. Even today, prisoners cannot vote, and this political right is denied them even after they have served their terms out and been released.

On the subject of freedom, I would compare a slave with the indentured laborer, from early American history. These agreed to work for a "master" for 17 years. The people who chose this course of action often wanted to immigrate from Europe but needed to pay for the cost of their voyage. In short, they were entering into a new society and they needed a place and a role. At that time America could offer them the role of indentured laborer.

Today there are several roles in American society which offer about the same amount of freedom as a slave. There are migrant workers, very similar to the indentured laborer except they work on a schedule arranged around the agricultural growing season. There are also the "working poor" or "wage slaves" who work multiple jobs, without paid vacation or healthcare, and who get their food from the food bank. How can they in any meaningful way enjoy their freedom? And if they can't practice freedom then I don't think there is meaningful difference between their condition and that of slavery.

2008-10-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Smart
I don't normally follow news stories that deal with personal tragedy. I don't worry about the little boy who falls down a well, or the little beauty queen who is kidnapped. The exception was when Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped.

I think that what separated this story from all the others was that it was a mystery. In most stories of this nature there is a suspect or a motive. But the way in which Elizabeth was taken from her 2nd floor bedroom seemed truly baffling.

Of course I don't really know anything about the case except my own prejudices, and what was reported in the newspapers. And so when the police department began to investigate the family, it may have seemed like a reasonable course of action to the millions of anxious Americans who had followed the JonBenet Ramsey story. The parents in these stories are often divorced, and have strange motives to hurt each other, their children, themselves....

Though the word 'prejudice' usually has a negative connotation, the real meaning is value neutral. Prejudices are like a training of the mind, which predispose us to understand an experience in a way that is not based on reason. My prejudices were such that I knew that a Mormon family could never be involved in the disappearance of their own child. And so the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart seemed like a mystery whose explanation could not be explained.

That all changed when she was found, a year later. She had been brainwashed to a degree, so when the policeman asked if she was Elizabeth Smart, the girl first denied it. But the policeman persisted and the girl was reunited with her family.

As for the mystery of her disappearance, I think it has little to do with the couple who kidnapped her. He was a useless sort of fellow who dabbled in theology. Picture him as a homeless man who can quote the Book of Mormon, and who liked to mentally dominate women. Elizabeth's family had very kindly employed him to do some odd jobs a few weeks before she was kidnapped. He noticed her then. He knew where they kept a ladder and when he returned he used it to scale up to her 2nd floor bedroom and kidnap her.

When the man was taken into custody, that may have ended the mystery for the police, and for many Americans who had followed the story, and prayed for a happy resolution. But again, all I know about the case I know from my prejudices, and from what I read in the newspaper. And I still had a question remaining which had not been answered, and which nobody seemed to be discussing. Did the Mormon religion contribute to Elizabeth's capture?

First, did the Mormon religion make it easier for the man to capture her from her bedroom? There were other family members in the house but the man was able to make her obey and follow him. Second, did the Mormon religion make it more difficult for Elizabeth to call for help that night, while the man kept her in a tent in the woods just a half mile from her house. A rescue party was passing nearby in the night, and Elizabeth could hear them shouting her name, but she remained silent. Third, did the Mormon religion make it easier for her to accept their peculiar traveling lifestyle during the next year? The newspapers said that the man took her across the country to Florida, and then back to Utah, all the while working odd jobs. He even took her to social gatherings, in disguise, but forbade her to talk to anyone.

Fourth, and most important, has the Mormon religion trained all of Mormon society, and women in particular, in such a way that following her rescue it is impossible to even consider how their religion contributed to Elizabeth Smart's ordeal? This is the kind of prejudice which is particularly insidious and persistent. It is insidious because it is so widespread that we can't even see it. It is persistent because even if we could identify the problem then there is nobody else with whom we can discuss it.

2008-10-24T15:14:00.001-07:00

A Weight-Loss Metaphor

I'm trying to lose some weight right now. My strategy for eating is to start with a good breakfast but then slow down for the rest of the day. Dinner is usually very light...a piece of toast, an apple, or a bowl of soup.

I'm feeling quite hungry by the time evening rolls around. It's like when you're on a road trip, starving, but the signs say that the next food stop is 50 miles ahead. In my case, the next food stop is tomorrow morning!

By 8 pm I start to imagine that my body has completely run out of food. Facing starvation, my body is jolted by a survival instinct. To survive I have to change my metabolic strategy from burning food to burning fat. I have a vivid imagination and so I try to imagine what is taking place in my body. Often, I think of the Toyota Prius.

Have you ever drove in a hybrid car like the Prius? They have a display which graphically shows how the car's gasoline engine and battery are providing energy to the tires. For example, the display may show that the gasoline engine is providing all of the energy, which is like when a person eats a healthy meal and goes about their daily activities. In this situation, your body just burns the energy from food:

At other times, the Prius might need even more energy than normal, such as when you're driving up a steep hill, forcing the Prius to draw energy from both the gasoline engine and the battery. I imagine that this is what happens when I'm working out or jogging.

But by 8pm in the evening, I start to feel hungry. It's been ten hours or more since I ate a substantial meal. My body's metabolism is forced to switch things up, and I begin to draw upon my battery reserve power.

If you're trying to lose weight, then this is the best scenario. Draw down your stored energy reserves...

2008-10-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

First Day of School
While I was staying at Erwin and Maggie's house this past summer, in a suburb called La Grange, we all walked together to drop the kids off on the first day of school.

Mia is starting 7th grade and Ethan is a 5th grader. As we approached the school I ran ahead to snap a few photos.

La Grange is a pretty cool suburb. It used to be a small town before being enveloped by the Chicago sprawl. They have a cute downtown, and a commuter train goes through the heart of it.

2008-10-12T18:25:00.000-07:00

Cubs or Sox?
Chicago can boast of having two baseball teams, and so every Chicagoan has to choose which team to follow: The North side Cubs, or the South side White Sox. I've been a Cubs fan since the summer when I was 12 years old, when I watched practically every Cubs game on WGN. Bump Wills, a journeyman 2nd baseman, hit a home run on the first pitch of the season, and Harry Caray called it: Ho-ly Cow!

But most of my friends were Sox fans, by virtue of us living in the South suburbs. When I visited Chicago this summer we tried to get Cubs tickets but they were ridiculously expensive (for example $75 for a bleacher seat in a Craigslist ad). So instead we went to go see the Sox because they had plenty of tickets available. Here I am with my old HS friends, Jim, Marc, and Erwin.

2008-10-12T18:15:00.000-07:00

Varmas Unleashed!
My brother moved to Minneapolis this Fall to start a job at the University of Minnesota. They had all kinds of problems in trying to close on a house, which forced them to live out of a hotel for two weeks! Here is the house:

We spent the days driving around, visiting the Mall of the Americas, and walking in many of the parks around town. At one point, Micaela made a boat out of leaves and then carried it to a lake.

But the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, towards the shore, so someone had to wade out into the water to launch the boat.

And later on we went for a hike. That's when I realized that the Varmas, me included, fit right in with the other Midwestern folks.

2008-09-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

Rome
Is the current military and financial success of the United States, running parallel with the rise (and fall) of Rome?

I take note of a trend in presidential politics, that both candidates pay homage to the military. I've just listened to Biden addressing the National Guard campaign event, and he said that military service was the one true service above all others, and he promised higher payments to the veterans.

It sounds eerily like the compressed events over four decades in Rome, when the rule of the Senate transitioned to the TriConsul arrangement, and then to emperor/dictatorship. In Rome, the fall of representative government was preceded by vastly increased spending by aristocratic families to obtain government office in order to dispense wealth. Also, the intelligence of the people seemed to degenerate rapidly and as they gained influence they were known as The Mob. And finally, the success of military officers who retained loyalty from their legions, also threatened representative government.

When I listen to US politics today, it sounds like the politicians on both sides are trying to curry favor among the military industrial complex. Which means that the nascent organization that Eisenhower warned against in 1959 a speech has now grown to be one of the most powerful special interests in America.

Imagine that a decade has passed. Now the military is even more powerful.

2008-09-22T17:45:00.001-07:00

Where is the UN in all of this? Where is the G7?
Amid all the recent bad economic news, and the presidential race, I've not heard any statements by the United Nations, or the G7.

Why didn't the UN make a statement when the Russians stationed troops in S. Ossetia, which had been a UN administered territory? Why didn't the G7 work this past weekend towards a coordinated solution to the economic crisis?

2008-08-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama Chain Email
August 25, 2008

5705 Phinney Ave N. #303
Seattle WA 98103

TO: FRIENDS
FROM: SANJAY VARMA

SUBJECT: BARACK OBAMA CHAIN EMAIL

Okay, here's the deal: I plan to go to Washington D.C. in January 2009 to witness Barack Obama's inaugural speech on the Washington Mall. I am sending this Email to you my friends because I think you might like to meet me there. If you think you might go then forward this Email to friends who you think would like to meet us there.

2008-08-23T13:30:00.001-07:00

Obama's Poetry
They found some early poems which Obama published at the age of 19.

2008-07-12T16:04:00.001-07:00

A Good Cause
Who should I save, the animals or the gays? Out shopping today on "the Ave" over by the University of Washington, I was given a choice when usually there is none.

I was buying a shirt at a new vintage store on the corner of 43rd and noticed two donation boxes on the checkout counter. The girl asked if I needed a bag. I said no. Then she gave me a slip of paper worth 5 cents and said I could drop it into either donation box.

I hesitated for a moment, weighing my options, trying listen to what my gut was telling me, the animals or the gays?

It was disconcerting to have to make such a choice. Couldn't I help both? But if I have to choose one, then it should be the human beings, right? In the end I dropped my 5 cent donation into one of the boxes and exited the store.

2008-07-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

CD Club
My friend Sheila had an idea to start a CD club. The idea is that each person mixes a CD and hosts a dinner to distribute the disc. Since she is so busy, it fell to me to make the first one.

If you have iTunes you can buy most of the songs from here. The complete song list is as follows:

Soap Star Joe - Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville
Wendell Gee - R.E.M. - Fables Of The Reconstruction
Thirteen - Big Star - #1 Record/Radio City
Waitress In The Sky - The Replacements - Tim
Song For My Sugar Spun Sister - The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses [US]
Wasting Away - The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Strung Out In Heaven
Already Dead - Beck - Sea Change
White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Young Pilgrims - The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Tiny Vessels - Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
The Legend - Taken By Trees - Open Field
The Tourist - Radiohead - OK Computer
I Was Meant for the Stage - The Decemberists - Her Majesty

I took several weeks to complete the playlist. I began by choosing the songs I've been listening to the most. They didn't go so well together so I culled some songs, and added others, to select towards a coherent sound. For example, I removed Broadcast's "Ominous Clouds" and Sinead O'Connor's "Dagger Through The Heart".

I also removed some songs which seemed likely to be well known by my audience, like Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" and Nirvana's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?".

The remaining songs were somewhat consistent in their genre and theme. At first I thought the genre straddled rock and country, and that the theme was about male vs. female perspectives on love. Later, I removed the country songs and then, more haltingly, I deleted most songs sung by women. The genre was now limited to acoustic rock, and the theme was to contrast optimism vs. cynicism in a variety of life situations. Finally, I no longer heard the genre or theme, and I realized that my goal was to choose songs that fit together as smoothly as smooth river stones.

There followed a never-ending process of refinement in which I moved stones around to find their best position. In some places the water flowed too easily so I added a new stone. The final step was extremely difficult. I admitted to myself that a couple of beautiful stones had dominated the others too much and disrupted the overall flow. At this point I removed Sonic Youth's "Shoot" and The Verve's "The Drugs Don't Work."

Over the weeks I spent creating this playlist it occurred to me many times that the process was similar to how I write and edit prose: In the way a draft is created by throwing many ideas onto paper, culling or adding material to shape a consistent narrative, discovering the hidden themes, guarding against cliches, re-ordering sections, and finally removing characters, scenes, and sub-plots which feel extraneous.

Postscript:
The friend who started the CD Club, Sheila, is a versatile girl who likes golf, dentistry, real estate, and horror movies. She has recently gone public with her desire to learn Kung Fu skills:

2008-06-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

Photos of People While They Read
I like to snap a photo when a friend is deeply concentrating on reading a book.

Okay, that was actually a menu, but the same principle holds true... that people appear totally natural when they're reading. All the pretense of one's public persona disappears when we slip into a book and we become very photogenic.

Sometimes I visit people's houses and I search for their book collection and don't find one because there they don't own any. It's shocking how many people read magazines, newspapers, the Internet, but never pick up a book. They will never know how strange it is to emerge from deep concentration with a slightly bewildered look on one's face.

Reading is like meditation. It's like traveling. Steena had to restrict her travel during her pregnancy, but I'll bet that her daughter Violette got an experience like traveling whenever Steena picked up a book.

2008-06-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

The Garment District
I spent a day with Jordan and Elisa in the Garment District. They are Seattle friends who moved to Los Feliz about a year ago, and they seem to be loving it. The Garment District looks like a (generic) foreign country, especially if you're wearing a jacket that says "Italia" on it:

We actually had a mission that day, to buy fabric to reupholster their sofa. Jordan cast his vote for this material:

Later on, Elisa also saw something she could not live without:

2008-05-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

Maria Teresita Lina
I spent 10 days in SoCal, alternating between high school, college, and Seattle friends, as well as relatives on both my Dad and Mom's sides of the family. It was so much better than a 3 day weekend.

On my last night I had dinner at Tess Lina's apartment in Venice. She and her husband, Tim, are dedicated wine collectors and this was the sight on the dining table when I arrived with my suitcase. The wine was purchased on a single trip to the store:

Tess was my brother's first girlfriend and Prom date in high school! Now she's an actress who works mainly in films, tv shows and commercials. Her agent won't look for stage parts because the pay is so low, so she has to look for those parts herself. For dinner, Tess couldn't decide if we needed nine or twelve carrots.

The party was splendid. We had lamb chops and opened four bottles of good wine.

At the end of the night our dwindling crew chatted outside for a bit before bidding adieu.