It's raining in San Diego. We've spent the day inside, reading and listening to music. We have listened to nothing but records. I'm up every 20 minutes or so to turn the record over or change it. I like this experience. It makes music-listening intentional. I select the record, look at the cover, take it out of its jacket, put it on the turntable, and listen to 20 minutes of music by the same artist or artists.
What a way to start the decade--with a very, very, very tall building. Not in China. Not in Malaysia. In Dubai.
"Shoppers continued to file into the store as emergency workers tried to save the man, the newspaper said."
--Chris Dolmetsch at Bloomberg.com
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
--Carl Sagan
I love this quote, because it highlights a fallacy under which so many of us live. Sorry I can't remember the name of the fallacy. I know it has a name, but we're going to have to use a pseudonym. Let's call it Fred.
I've told the story before of the radio producer I used to work with. He had a sign over his desk which said "A Clean Desk is the Sign of a Sick Mind." Clever, yes. Contains an element of truth, yes.
But because he prided himself on archeological layers of paper and debris on his desk, I often assumed that his interpretation of the sign was the implied reverse. That is, he saw himself as the picture of perfect mental health.
Which, I'm here to tell you, was not the case.
I was so pleased to learn a few weeks ago that my shaving cream had oatmeal in it. Really. Now I can combine shaving and breakfast.
Quote of the day:
“In Pennsylvania, Obama did everything conceivable to win over Clinton’s working-class voters. The effort was a failure. The great uniter failed to unite. In this election, persuasion isn’t important. Social identity is everything. Demography is king.”
--David Brooks, in today’s New York Times
David Brooks’ column today points out a gradual yet profound demographic and cultural shift that’s happened in the U.S. since the 1950s. It’s worth spending a couple minutes reading it, if you haven’t already.
He suggests that the social hierarchy that was present for many generations has given way to an education hierarchy.
Due to the fact that there is now such a large percentage of college graduates, they are forming a sort of tribal cohort and making life decisions accordingly. So are those with no college degree.
While there is little conflict between these groups, there is a certain common worldview that is prevalent among the well-educated, and another among the less-educated, Brooks says.
These two groups supersede anything regional, though they tend to live in separate parts of cities and counties. They are, in effect, distinct tribes.
In the Presidential campaign we endlessly hear about “black and white,” “working class and elites,” “rich and poor,” “urban and rural,” “women and men,” “young and old” and so forth.
It’s very interesting to consider that the real determinant may be “college degree or no college degree.”
Quote of the day:
“During the Nineties, and again in the wake of September 11, 2001, I was struck more than once by a perverse contemporary insistence on not understanding the context of our present dilemmas, at home and abroad; on not listening with greater care to some of the wiser heads of earlier decades; on seeking actively to forget rather than remember, to deny continuity and proclaim novelty on every possible occasion. We have become stridently insistent that the past has little of interest to teach us. Ours, we assert, is a new world; its risks and opportunities are without precedent.”
--Tony Judt, in the May 1 New York Review
In the 1960s, just about all of America gathered around the TV on Sunday nights to watch The Ed Sullivan Show.
In 2008, just about all of America gathers around the TV on Tuesday nights to watch American Idol.
AI is an extraordinary phenomenon. In a fragmented TV universe, it is a mass-audience program, drawing tens of millions of viewers a week and dominating the TV ratings.
In some significant ways, it is very much like the variety programs of TV’s first three decades. It features live and unscripted performances, a host and some regular “guests”--the panel of judges.
The interactions among these people and the contestants is a vital element of the show, as is the ever-present theme of the making of a pop star. Added to this is the weekly drama of who will be voted off the competition. The show is widely talked about among friends and coworkers.
It’s fascinating that it has become America’s weekly gathering place, much as Ed Sullivan was some 40 years ago, and Jack Benny was on radio some 30 years before that.
Quote of the day:
“When Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, he may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor. Writing in the British philosophy journal Time and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.”
--MSNBC
Today we celebrate the orange.
A neighbor is regularly giving us oranges from his tree. They don’t look as sparkly as the ones you see in the grocery store.
But put a quarter in your mouth, and man is it good! Juicy juicy, soft, no seeds.
Maybe because the oranges are very local, we are helping the planet. I suppose that would need a full evaluation.
The important thing is that they’re a joy to see, smell and taste in the morning.
And it’s also somewhat important to have the opportunity to behave like an eight year old and jam the orange quarter in your mouth and look at your spouse.
Quote of the day:
“We know that she is capable of both uniting and leading. We saw her going town by town through New York in 2000, including places where Clinton-bashing was a popular sport. She won over skeptical voters and then delivered on her promises and handily won re-election in 2006.”
--New York Times, January 24, Endorsing Hillary Clinton
Aren’t We Pleased moment of the day:
Karl Rove has joined Fox News as a contributor during the election season.
Most of the country will have voted by the time February 5th is over. It looks like we’ll see higher voter participation than we have in many years.
There is passion and excitement and emotional involvement in the process to the extent I’ve never seen. It’s so great to see.
When February 5th is over, there will be several weeks more of primaries, six months to the national conventions and nine months to the general election.
On the one hand, this might be a considerable test of the staying power of newly-stirred voter passion. On the other hand, this might be time enough for excitement and involvement to grow and spread.
I’ve realized over the last year that I have become actively uninterested in much of what happens in government on the national level. I’ve become palpably weary, and a bit cynical.
Who is elected president really has a minimal effect on my life--especially when compared with the San Diego official our neighborhood is dealing with to have a new sewer line installed.
Still, there is great symbolic effect. A new president brings with her (or him) the chance to be inspired and, I hope, actually see things get a little better.
Whatever happens, right now there is a rebirth of hope.
Quote of the day:
“Many people feel guilty about things they shouldn’t feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.”
--Sydney J. Harris
Who will be the ultimate news source?
Newspapers have filled this role since the beginning of the news business. While TV networks, NPR and news websites foster an image as “sources,” ultimately they rely primarily on newspapers for their ideas.
Newspapers remain the primary news gatherers, and mostly they do the job well and responsibly. Now, this news gathering is threatened as newspapers continually shrink.
The editor of the Los Angeles Times just resigned over a disagreement about cuts in the newsroom.
Rupert Murdoch is in the process of remaking the Wall Street Journal into a more “zippy” newspaper, with fewer in-depth stories.
We’ve heard dozens of examples of these kinds of changes over the last ten years. There are two specific problems with this. And they are not just internal, industry problems. They are problems with far-reaching impact on our culture.
One problem is the reduction of longer-term investigative coverage, and any other reporting that takes time, care and extra resources. How are we going to put what is happening in our world into perspective without some extended attention to events and trends?
If newspapers reduce in-depth reporting, does anyone take up the slack? I haven’t noticed any other media stepping up, and I’m not sure they could. Responsible long-term reporting takes resources, experience and top-notch writing and editing as well as gathering. These things don’t just appear. They are cultivated over time.
The other problem is the virtual elimination of certain kinds of coverage. An example is the closing of news bureaus around the world. There are dozens of population centers around the world--especially in China, India and Africa--which have no English-language news presence.
And many of the major centers--Paris, London, Beijing among them--don’t have nearly the variety of coverage they had several years ago. In a time of growing interdependence, this all seems illogical.
Yes, newspapers are a business. I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. I’m not really interested in blaming them.
What I am concerned about is who is going to step in and fill this need? Or have we decided that this isn’t a need at all--that all we want are endlessly-repeating sensational headlines from Washington, Hollywood, the real estate industry and the small town where the latest personal tragedy has happened?
Quote of the day:
"There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard that there was such a thing."
--Francois VI, duke de la Rouchefoucauld (1655)
Happy New Year!
The new year is a good time to get straight on some deeply-embedded misunderstandings.
We believe many things about health and medicine that are questionable at best, and sometimes downright wrong. The “British Medical Journal” recently published a list of seven things we believe that just ain’t so. It was compiled by Rachel C. Vreeman of the Indiana University School of Medicine an Aaron E. Carroll of the Regenstrief Institute.
1. “You should drink at least eight glasses of water a day.” This advice has been around since 1945, but there’s no scientific evidence to support it. In fact, excessive water drinking can be fatal.
2. “We use only 10 percent of our brains.” Modern medical imaging shows that there’s no region of the brain that is completely inactive.
3. “Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.” They don’t, but dehydration of the body and retracting skin can make it appear so.
4. “Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight.” It can strain the eyes and reduce blinking (which may cause uncomfortable dryness), but the effects are temporary. There’s no permanent effect on eye function or structure.
5. “Shaving causes hair to grow back faster or coarser.” Numerous studies have shown this to be false. Shaving does remove the finer, tapered ends of hair, which can make the remaining stubble seem coarser. And new hair emerging from the skin can appear darker because it has not been lightened by sun or chemical exposure. But shaving itself doesn’t affect the hair at all.
6. “Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals.” There’s little real evidence to support the idea that cell phones can interfere with critical medical equipment. All of the evidence cited is anecdotal and pretty dubious.
7. “Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy.” Tryptophan, an amino acid, is involved in sleep and a form of it is marketed as a sleep aid. Turkey contains tryptophan, but so too does chicken and beef. Pork and cheese contain more tryptophan than turkey. Sleepiness after a big turkey meal is more likely due to diverted blood and oxygen flow from the brain to the digesting stomach.
The complete article can be read here.
Quote of the day:
“When wealth and the wealthy are valued in the city, virtue and good men are less valued. What is valued is practiced, what is not valued is not practiced.”
--Plato
We don’t understand sharing. We think the word belongs either in kindergarten or as a label for a computer process.
Some people loathe the word. Indeed, some hate it so much that if the word is spoken in their presence, they will run you over with their Hummer.
Speaking of kindergarten, Robert Fulghum, in his well-known book, called sharing one of the things about life that we learned in kindergarten.
But, of course, we didn’t learn it. Not really.
The core of the problem is, as I said before, that we have trouble doing it because we don’t understand it. We don’t understand sharing because there are so few opportunities to learn about it in our daily lives.
Sharing is not supported in our culture, except at miscellaneous times of crisis, when the news is overrun with stories of what we see as sharing. I say it that way because so often people mean well and view themselves as generous, but they are just giving away things they don’t want.
Sharing involves sharing things that you value--your stuff and your time. More than this, sharing involves giving yourself, and allowing those with whom you are sharing to also share with you.
It’s a two-way street. It’s integral to the value of sharing.
Question: can we open ourselves to another to allow them to share with us, as well as us sharing with them?
This is, after all, how life gets better.
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