lots of thought gurus suggest it is better to more interested than interesting
Of course there is something to be said for both!
05/29/2012
05/28/2012
Memorial Day - who remembers?
“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
Faces of the Fallen - The Washington Post
05/24/2012
05/19/2012
Who is whom?
This photo is from a Wired Science article on happiness in China and money*. I saw it an immediately thought about the 1st and the 3rd world contrast and how in the cases of China and India there is the beginning of a shift in status from one to the other. The house in the foreground could easily be in southern Louisiana (because of the water). Without the water it could probably be found in any state of the United States.
Think this is not happening? Read about outsourcing or manufacturing or check out the source for all the THINGS laying around your house. And then I read this
Canon shifts to robots for camera production, by Xeni Jardin at 5:18 pm Monday, May 14 Boing Boing
"The move toward machine-only production will likely be completed in the next few years, perhaps as soon as 2015," according to a company official quoted in the AP.
But do not fear being made obsolete, earthlings.
"Human beings are needed to come up with innovations on how to use robots," another Canon spokesperson told AP. "Going to a no-man operation at that level is still the world of science fiction."
Ever hear of the bell curve. Half of all people are statistically on the left side, the lower side of the distribution. This is not Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average. Below average people do not "come up with innovations" as a rule. I worry that our brave new world is obsoleteing many of us.
* Money and Happiness: China Surveys Suggest a Limited Link by Brandon Keim, May 14, 2012, 5:05 pm
05/04/2012
Your Reaction?
A meaningful sentence depicts a possible state of affairs in the world; a meaningful and true
sentence depicts an actual state of affairs in the world; anything in language that does not
depict a possible state of affairs - that is, anything that does not depict possible fact -
is, strictly speaking, meaningless.
Wittgenstein draws from the picture theory of meaning some arresting philosophical
conclusions. The Tractatus regards as nonsensical, as literally meaningless, any claim that
cannot be reduced to discrete facts about things in the world - for instance, any statements
about ethics or aesthetics ("goodness" and "beauty" don't refer to actual things or
properties).
Philosophical Sweep: To understand the fiction of David Foster Wallace, it helps to have a
little Wittgenstein
By James Ryerson Posted Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010, at 10:42 AM ET Slate
VALUES?
"An economy depends fundamentally on public morality; some shared standards about what sorts of activities are impermissible because they so fundamentally violate trust that they threaten to undermine the social fabric. Without trust it has to depend upon such complex contracts and such weighty enforcement systems that it would crumble under its own weight. What we’ve seen over the last two decades in the United States is a steady decline in the willingness of people in leading positions in the private sector - on Wall Street and in large corporations especially - to maintain those minimum standards. The new rule has become making the highest profits possible regardless of the social consequences."
FiveBooks Interviews
Robert Reich on Saving Capitalism and Democracy
My reaction
04/25/2012
the search for immortality is an abdication of our real duties in life
Above words from FiveBooks Interviews: Stephen Cave on Immortality
There is a bar at the end of the world in the legend of Gilgamesh and the hero stumbles into it in very sad shape. His adventures are meaningless. His best friend has died. He is mortal.
An Egyptian Pottery Seller Near Giza by Elisabet Jerichau-Baumann 1876
The barmaid, Siduri, tells him:
"Gilgamesh, where are you wandering?
The life that you are seeking all around you will not find.
When the gods created mankind
they fixed Death for mankind,
and held back Life in their own hands.
Now you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full!
Be happy day and night,
of each day make a party,
dance in circles day and night!
let your clothes be sparkling clean,
let your head be clean, wash yourself with water!
Attend to the little one who holds onto your hand,
let a wife delight in your embrace.
This is the true task of mankind."
from the Babylonian version
Translations taken from "The Epic of Gilgamesh" by Maureen Gallery Kovacs, Stanford University Press
Easy for her to say. I do not dread or fear death. I do not relish life.
04/15/2012
04/14/2012
Under Seige
In the early 1800s in the United States, women could not vote or hold office in any state, they had no access to higher education, and they were excluded from professional occupations. American law accepted the principle that a wife had no legal identity apart from her husband. She could not be sued, nor could she bring a legal suit; she could not make a contract, nor could she own property. She was not permitted to control her own wages or gain custody of her children in case of separation or divorce.
Can we expect the Taliban to take over after the next election?
How Are Women Faring In 2012? A Women's Rights Report Card
EDUCATION & INCOME
✓ Progress: Women and men are graduating from college now at essentially the same rates. Women outnumber men in terms of college enrollment. In 2012, they're expected to earn 63% of master's degrees and 54% of doctoral and professional degrees. Women are also increasingly moving into traditionally male-dominated fields, like science and engineering. Married Men Getting Richer, Thanks To Women
✓ Setback: The gender wage gap persists. For the same job performed, men make—on average—$6 an hour more than women.
CAREER & LEADERSHIP
✓ Progress: About 70% of women work outside the home, and women are more likely to hold leadership positions on the job. In 2009, 40% of managers in the workforce were women. At the start of 2012, there were 18 female CEOs running Fortune 500 companies, a record number.
✓ Setback: We've still got a long way to go. In 2011, there were only 98 female CEOs at 3,049 publicly traded companies. Though the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows for up to 12 weeks of maternity and paternity leave, it's up to states and employers whether or not this leave is paid. Many new parents can't afford to take that much time off.
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
✓ Progress: As of 2011, health insurance companies must cover birth control as preventive care with no co-pays. Church-affiliated employers protested, saying the new law violates their freedom of religion. In January, President Obama upheld the ruling. Birth control is healthcare, no ifs, ands, or Bibles about it.
✓ Setback: In 2005, a Medicaid reform bill called the Deficit Reduction Act prevented colleges and healthcare providers from participating in drug discount programs and raised the cost of birth control. States continue to pass - or try to pass - emotionally manipulative, downright offensive laws to prevent women from getting an abortion. In Texas, for example, women are urged to view sonograms and listen to descriptions of embryo development before terminating their pregnancies. More recently Virginia tried to pass rule requiring vaginally introduced wand to take sonogram before a women could procedd to an abortion.
POLITICAL REPRESENTATION
✓ Progress: In the 2008 presidential election, 66% of women made it to the polls, compared to 62% of men. Campaigns like The 2012 Project provide support to female candidates and educate future political leaders.
✓ Setback: Alas, only 52% of women ages 18-24 voted in the 2008 election. The United States, the most powerful country in the world, is ranked #70 in terms of women's political representation. In 2010, the number of women in state legislatures declined by nearly 80 seats, and women currently hold only 90 (17%) of the 535 seats in the 112th U.S. Congress. The bottom line: Women aren't involved enough in the law-making process - and some of these laws affect our bodies alone.
MARRIAGE & FAMILY
✓ Progress: Fewer Americans are married now than at any point in in the last 50 years, and 45% of these singletons are women. But don't be disheartened. Lower marriage rates mean lower divorce rates. In many cases, women are waiting until they've completed college and started a career before settling down. Since 2007, the average age of first marriage for women has been 26. Women are also waiting longer to have babies - in 2008, more than one-third of first-time moms were over 30.
✓ Setback: There appears to be an earnings boost associated with parenthood. Unfortunately, it only benefits dads, who tend to earn 2% more than men without children. Working moms tend to earn 2.5% less than women without children, because they're more likely to work part-time and to pass on higher-paying positions with more responsibilities. That's probably because women are still doing the bulk of childcare, cooking, and cleaning at home.
How Are Women Faring In 2012? A Women's Rights Report Card
By Amanda Green posted Mar 6th 2012 2:00PM
Be ever vigilant - participate in social discourse - vote!
These are times that cause little girls to have nightmares.
"And although nine out of 10 employer-based insurance plans in the U.S. covered the cost of contraception by 2004 (Sonfield et al., 2004), there were 17.4 million U.S. women in 2008 who were still in need of publicly funded family planning services. That number included an increase of six percent or one million women since 2000." (Gutmacher, 2010d).
"Inability to pay is not the only block to access for women seeking modern methods of contraception. Forty-six states now have refusal statutes written into their state legislation. The majority refer only to abortion. However, 14 of these states have statutes that pertain to both abortion and contraception. Nine of the 14 explicitly allow health care providers to refuse to provide birth control, contraception, and/or family planning services. There are five states with existing laws or regulations which explicitly permit pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraception - five additional states have broadly written refusal clauses that may also pertain to pharmacists." (Guttmacher Institute, 2010b).
Scary news from 2012
Why women’s rights are under siege: By pandering to the religious, Democrats and women's groups have lost ground to the theocrats
By Sarah Posner
04/05/2012
"Clothes invade the body and brain"
The title is a quote from an interesting study reported in New York Times. It seems to indicate that wearing a white coat, which you are told is a doctor's coat, will improve you ability to pay attention. This maybe one of the reasons for spiffy school uniforms - to make you perform like a good student. "The effect occurs only if you actually wear the coat and know its symbolic meaning — that physicians tend to be careful, rigorous and good at paying attention."
The article also mentions the well-known fact that others judge us by our appearance and clothes play a big part in that. I can't remember feeling pretty or more sexy because of what I was wearing but I also can't remember trying to dress to look pretty or sexy. This seems to be one of the genetic predispositions I did not receive. My mother had to buy my clothes until I left home for college because I really never cared what I was wearing. I was thin, gawky with glasses and maybe the seeming impossibility of transforming into a swan caused me to reject all attempts. Now it is a life-long habit.
Someone along the way told me to rely on my brains and not my looks. Your looks are temporary. They peak and then decline. In a similar manner, it is a meaningless compliment to say you have beautiful blue eyes. The person did nothing to make their eyes blue. To me it seems superficial to complement someone on their appearance although I suppose in extreme situations it could be a manifestation of their self-worth. I am rambling. Here is a beautiful hand-colored photograph. I think wearing this dress might make me feel elegant (with a bag over my head).
Ann May Wong, 1925
This is a little bit more potent than a white doctor's coat. For more on that read up on 'embodied cognition'. The article referenced above is "Mind Games: Sometimes a White Coat Isn’t Just a White Coat" by Sandra Blakslee. If you have access see the original article in the web edition of The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
04/01/2012
do citizens “owe” their country anything beyond taxes and a vote?
"In January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment among 16- to 19-year-olds was a staggering 23.2 percent."
"In a recent New York Times op-ed, conservative columnist David Brooks commented on a new book, Coming Apart, by libertarian Charles Murray. Brooks heaped praise on Murray and his study of an increasingly polarized America but concluded — with a single sentence — in kicking a hornet’s nest: “I doubt Murray would agree, but we need a National Service Program” to reunify the nation."
Can Compulsory Service Reunite the Nation? by Jeff Shear
As far as national participation in Federal elections - it does not seem we think that is a civic service we should provide.
Is compulsion necessary? Aren't we all adults? Can't we ignore our selfish short-term benefits and focus on our communal long-term gains? Who are you kidding? Not me. Libertarians drink magic kool-aid. Evey (99.9%) American I have ever met must be compelled to pay taxes, to vote, to serve the country.
drawing by Harry Clark - could be name compulsion I really don't know the title
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