I just found my entire thesis covered in 2 pages in some book. I mean this dude disposed of 2+ years of work and 60 pages that i have yet to write, in a much smarter way, in 2 pages!!!!
on the upside: my ideas are not totally crazy--they seem to be consistent with what he is saying. and he is a famous philosophy professor at haaaahvard who has been working on this issue for decades.
on the downside: he did it in 2 pages!!!!!!!!!!!
my life is useless.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Some Common Laws of Research
[written by: the internet]
1. When you don't know what you're doing, do it neatly.
2. First draw your curves, then plot your data.
4. A record of data is essential, it shows you were working.
6. To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start.
7. If you can't get the answer in the usual manner, start at the answer and derive the question.
9. If that doesn't work, start at both ends and try to find a common middle.
10. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
11. Do not believe in miracles---rely on them.
12. Team work is essential. It allows you to blame someone else.
RULE OF ACCURACY
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer
RULE OF FAILURE
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you have tried.
RULE OF REASON
If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
Wiener'S LAW OF LIBRARIES
There are no answers, only cross references
Murphy's LAW OF RESEARCH
Enough research will tend to support you theory.
Finally: No experiment is ever a complete failure. It can serve as a bad example.
1. When you don't know what you're doing, do it neatly.
2. First draw your curves, then plot your data.
4. A record of data is essential, it shows you were working.
6. To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start.
7. If you can't get the answer in the usual manner, start at the answer and derive the question.
9. If that doesn't work, start at both ends and try to find a common middle.
10. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
11. Do not believe in miracles---rely on them.
12. Team work is essential. It allows you to blame someone else.
RULE OF ACCURACY
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer
RULE OF FAILURE
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you have tried.
RULE OF REASON
If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
Wiener'S LAW OF LIBRARIES
There are no answers, only cross references
Murphy's LAW OF RESEARCH
Enough research will tend to support you theory.
Finally: No experiment is ever a complete failure. It can serve as a bad example.
Two Articles on the Tumultuous Act of Thinking Clearly
(1) On David Foster Wallace
Consider the Philosopher
NYTimes
Excerpt:
"But Wallace was also wary of ideas. He was perpetually on guard against the ways in which abstract thinking (especially thinking about your own thinking) can draw you away from something more genuine and real. To read his acutely self-conscious, dialectically fevered writing was often to witness the agony of cognition: how the twists and turns of thought can both hold out the promise of true understanding and become a danger to it. Wallace was especially concerned that certain theoretical paradigms — the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever trickery of postmodernism — too casually dispense with what he once called “the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community.” He called for a more forthright, engaged treatment of these basic truths. Yet he himself attended to them with his own fractured, often-esoteric methods. It was a defining tension: the very conceptual tools with which he pursued life’s most desperate questions threatened to keep him forever at a distance from the connections he struggled to make"
(2) On HLA Hart
A Philosopher's Humanity
By CARLIN ROMANO
The Chronicle Review
The desire to portray great thinkers as disembodied argument machines remains a powerful force in analytic philosophy. Think of it as a slice of amour-propre, part of the arrogant wish to be seen as timelessly, noncontingently right about everything. It can move acolytes to depict thinker-heroes as dynamos of pure intellect rather than peers, mere featherless bipeds whose thoughts bear clear markings from their beliefs, fears, and weaknesses.
This distinctive distaste for a philosopher's humanity applies in analytic philosophy with extra force to homosexuality. In the standard canon, the editing began with the predilections of ancient Greek philosophers and continues right up to modern times.
Decades ago, for instance, W.W. Bartley published his maverick biography of Wittgenstein, arguing that the great Austrian philosopher also led an actively gay life that appeared to include cruising for rough trade. Analytic Wittgenstein scholars, who specialized in presenting their man as a kind of shoebox of epistemological propositions they thought he hadn't put in the right order, screamed bloody murder.
The most egregious recent effort to deny a great philosopher's inconvenient humanity, to attack its link to his work, targeted Nicola Lacey's A Life of H.L.A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream (Oxford University Press, 2004), a brilliant mix of tightly reported intimate biography and expert intellectual assessment.
In it, Lacey, a professor of legal theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, accurately describes Hart (1907-92), holder of the Oxford Chair of Jurisprudence from 1952 to 1968, as "the preeminent English-speaking philosopher of law of the 20th century," the man who "more or less reinvented the philosophy of law, reviving the English positivist and utilitarian tradition."
Celebrated for The Concept of Law (1961), his classic articulation of his new jurisprudence, Hart drew on the ordinary-language philosophy of J.L. Austin and, to a lesser degree, on Wittgenstein's notion of "meaning as use."
Both influences led him to reject a conception of law as naturally or necessarily moral. Hart regarded a legal system as a social fact, identifiable by the internal relations of its rules, its habits of obedience, authority, and responsibility. More concretely, in Law, Liberty and Morality (1963), Hart wrote, in what many consider the 20th-century sequel text to John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, an essay against excessive criminalization of morality that influenced English law reform in the 60s and 70s.
Like many of his colleagues, Hart largely avoided anecdotes, biography, and detailed sociological evidence because it didn't fit with proper Oxford philosophical method. Clear, precise, and commonsensical, he kept his personal life out of his books.
Lacey's study consequently hit the jurisprudence community like a Kitty Kelley exposé implanted in a Festschrift. Invited to write the biography by Hart's widow, Jenifer -- an accomplished figure who taught history at St. Anne's in Oxford -- Lacey received apparently unlimited access to Hart's papers from his wife of more than 50 years and mother of his four children.
Lacey doesn't let that access go to waste. In one startling, early example, we read that, in 1937, while considering a career shift from London barrister to Oxford philosophy fellow, Hart wrote to friend Christopher Cox, "I am or have been a suppressed homosexual (I see you wince) and would become more so (I mean more homosexual and less suppressed) in Oxford." Hart's concerns about his sexuality prove a leitmotif throughout his subsequent diaries and letters.
Hart also castigates himself as a recurrent depressive, an insecure thinker, a sloppy researcher, and a careerist concerned about "keeping up appearances." Described by one friend as "spiritually anglicized," Hart seesawed between playing down his working-class Jewish origins and expressing sudden pride in them. At times a snob with an Oxford brand of "insider's arrogance," he could ask an Indian grad student whether there was "a single interesting idea" in Indian philosophy. Late in life, after a newspaper story falsely claimed that Jenifer had been a Russian spy in the 1930s, Hart suffered a nervous breakdown that required shock treatment.
Lacey's book, however, is not pathography. She admires Hart, whom she knew, and interweaves the story of his career and thought with sharp set pieces about his work in MI5 intelligence during World War II, as a London barrister, and as a teacher at several Oxford colleges. Packed with exquisitely acerbic quotations and stark snapshots of the elbows thrown by academic figures like Isaiah Berlin, A Life of H.L.A. Hart reveals an internationally renowned yet troubled thinker who preferred to present himself as imperturbable.
But Lacey's achievement triggered an attack on her this year by New York University philosophy professor Thomas Nagel, author of -- unsurprisingly -- The View From Nowhere. Complained Nagel in the London Review of Books, "I felt that I was learning too much that was none of my business. Hart was a figure notable, and admirable, for his discretion, reserve, and unpretentious dignity. The turmoil that went on beneath that surface was his affair."
Nagel never tells the reader exactly what disturbs him. As Ben Rogers commented in a subsequent review of the book in the British magazine Prospect, "homosexuality doesn't carry the stigmas it once did -- Nagel's refusal even to mention it is odd."
More troubling, Nagel tries to delegitimize Lacey's intellectual project while praising her for a "superb job of assembling the data."
First he asserts that Lacey's "claim that the personal material is needed to write an intellectual biography is a pretense." But he offers no support for the charge. Were Hart's homosexual proclivities and left-wing politics irrelevant to his famous 1960s debate with conservative judge Patrick Devlin, which Lacey says provided "the nearest thing to a manifesto for the homosexual-law-reform movement"? Was Hart's uncomfortable involvement in the World War II execution of a man for treason irrelevant to his death-penalty views?
Nagel also maintains that despite Lacey's distinguished academic position, she is "not equipped ... to deal with the philosophical background. When she talks about the 'paradox of analysis' or about the differences between J.L. Austin and Wittgenstein, she is lost." Upping the insult quotient, Nagel maintains that Lacey "seems to have a weak grasp of what philosophy is," a claim he repeats several times.
False in every respect. Lacey, far more industriously than Nagel, backs her statements throughout. She even nails Hart's glosses in the margins of a Max Weber volume from which he denied drawing ideas. Indeed, she quotes Hart as acknowledging the very links Nagel denies. In his diary, Hart expressed his belief in "a connection between my deficiencies as a husband and the whole sexual and emotional immaturity on the one hand and this gross incapacity for the organization and care of detail: this lack of care, this obsession with frontal attacks on major positions."
Why the distortion? Lacey simply doesn't share Nagel's typical analyst view that ahistorical, nonsociological, fact-free reasoning is the end-all and be-all of philosophy. While expressing great respect and affection for Hart, she indicates early on that her feminist and Foucauldian appreciation of power's role in shaping institutions makes her more critical of Hart and his facts-lite analytic jurisprudence than she once was.
Indeed, Lacey utterly foresees Nagel's line of insult. She specifically anticipates his assertion that Wittgenstein thought understanding "has to be pursued primarily by reasoning rather than by empirical observation," noting "Wittgenstein's emphasis on the embeddedness of language games within social practices." In her view, Hart, like Nagel, never adopted an approach to reality as reportorial as Wittgenstein's because it "undermines the pretensions of philosophy as the 'master discipline' which illuminates our access to knowledge about the world."
And those are precisely the pretensions Nagel promotes. When his would-be demolition job sputters, Nagel simply starts hectoring Lacey with the P-word. He insists that Hart's greatness "was the result of a specifically philosophical talent applied to this material. It was philosophical reasoning and philosophical clarity that enabled him to formulate and test hypotheses ... and he could not have made his great contributions by any other method."
But is logical reasoning the exclusive gift of tenure-stamped philosophy professors? Just as dictatorial regimes dubbed "People's Republics" don't fool anyone, philosophers who insist on an imperial conception of their subject persuade no one but themselves.
Lacey, whose wealth of information and textual references suggest a far more broadly educated intellectual than Nagel, thanks psychologist Adam Phillips for helping her resist "the impulse to make a life story neater than life itself." The sad upshot of this latest sighting of the disembodied thinker is that a champion of "philosophy" thinks truth matters less than keeping up appearances.
Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer, is a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities, at New York University.
Consider the Philosopher
NYTimes
Excerpt:
"But Wallace was also wary of ideas. He was perpetually on guard against the ways in which abstract thinking (especially thinking about your own thinking) can draw you away from something more genuine and real. To read his acutely self-conscious, dialectically fevered writing was often to witness the agony of cognition: how the twists and turns of thought can both hold out the promise of true understanding and become a danger to it. Wallace was especially concerned that certain theoretical paradigms — the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever trickery of postmodernism — too casually dispense with what he once called “the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community.” He called for a more forthright, engaged treatment of these basic truths. Yet he himself attended to them with his own fractured, often-esoteric methods. It was a defining tension: the very conceptual tools with which he pursued life’s most desperate questions threatened to keep him forever at a distance from the connections he struggled to make"
(2) On HLA Hart
A Philosopher's Humanity
By CARLIN ROMANO
The Chronicle Review
The desire to portray great thinkers as disembodied argument machines remains a powerful force in analytic philosophy. Think of it as a slice of amour-propre, part of the arrogant wish to be seen as timelessly, noncontingently right about everything. It can move acolytes to depict thinker-heroes as dynamos of pure intellect rather than peers, mere featherless bipeds whose thoughts bear clear markings from their beliefs, fears, and weaknesses.
This distinctive distaste for a philosopher's humanity applies in analytic philosophy with extra force to homosexuality. In the standard canon, the editing began with the predilections of ancient Greek philosophers and continues right up to modern times.
Decades ago, for instance, W.W. Bartley published his maverick biography of Wittgenstein, arguing that the great Austrian philosopher also led an actively gay life that appeared to include cruising for rough trade. Analytic Wittgenstein scholars, who specialized in presenting their man as a kind of shoebox of epistemological propositions they thought he hadn't put in the right order, screamed bloody murder.
The most egregious recent effort to deny a great philosopher's inconvenient humanity, to attack its link to his work, targeted Nicola Lacey's A Life of H.L.A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream (Oxford University Press, 2004), a brilliant mix of tightly reported intimate biography and expert intellectual assessment.
In it, Lacey, a professor of legal theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, accurately describes Hart (1907-92), holder of the Oxford Chair of Jurisprudence from 1952 to 1968, as "the preeminent English-speaking philosopher of law of the 20th century," the man who "more or less reinvented the philosophy of law, reviving the English positivist and utilitarian tradition."
Celebrated for The Concept of Law (1961), his classic articulation of his new jurisprudence, Hart drew on the ordinary-language philosophy of J.L. Austin and, to a lesser degree, on Wittgenstein's notion of "meaning as use."
Both influences led him to reject a conception of law as naturally or necessarily moral. Hart regarded a legal system as a social fact, identifiable by the internal relations of its rules, its habits of obedience, authority, and responsibility. More concretely, in Law, Liberty and Morality (1963), Hart wrote, in what many consider the 20th-century sequel text to John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, an essay against excessive criminalization of morality that influenced English law reform in the 60s and 70s.
Like many of his colleagues, Hart largely avoided anecdotes, biography, and detailed sociological evidence because it didn't fit with proper Oxford philosophical method. Clear, precise, and commonsensical, he kept his personal life out of his books.
Lacey's study consequently hit the jurisprudence community like a Kitty Kelley exposé implanted in a Festschrift. Invited to write the biography by Hart's widow, Jenifer -- an accomplished figure who taught history at St. Anne's in Oxford -- Lacey received apparently unlimited access to Hart's papers from his wife of more than 50 years and mother of his four children.
Lacey doesn't let that access go to waste. In one startling, early example, we read that, in 1937, while considering a career shift from London barrister to Oxford philosophy fellow, Hart wrote to friend Christopher Cox, "I am or have been a suppressed homosexual (I see you wince) and would become more so (I mean more homosexual and less suppressed) in Oxford." Hart's concerns about his sexuality prove a leitmotif throughout his subsequent diaries and letters.
Hart also castigates himself as a recurrent depressive, an insecure thinker, a sloppy researcher, and a careerist concerned about "keeping up appearances." Described by one friend as "spiritually anglicized," Hart seesawed between playing down his working-class Jewish origins and expressing sudden pride in them. At times a snob with an Oxford brand of "insider's arrogance," he could ask an Indian grad student whether there was "a single interesting idea" in Indian philosophy. Late in life, after a newspaper story falsely claimed that Jenifer had been a Russian spy in the 1930s, Hart suffered a nervous breakdown that required shock treatment.
Lacey's book, however, is not pathography. She admires Hart, whom she knew, and interweaves the story of his career and thought with sharp set pieces about his work in MI5 intelligence during World War II, as a London barrister, and as a teacher at several Oxford colleges. Packed with exquisitely acerbic quotations and stark snapshots of the elbows thrown by academic figures like Isaiah Berlin, A Life of H.L.A. Hart reveals an internationally renowned yet troubled thinker who preferred to present himself as imperturbable.
But Lacey's achievement triggered an attack on her this year by New York University philosophy professor Thomas Nagel, author of -- unsurprisingly -- The View From Nowhere. Complained Nagel in the London Review of Books, "I felt that I was learning too much that was none of my business. Hart was a figure notable, and admirable, for his discretion, reserve, and unpretentious dignity. The turmoil that went on beneath that surface was his affair."
Nagel never tells the reader exactly what disturbs him. As Ben Rogers commented in a subsequent review of the book in the British magazine Prospect, "homosexuality doesn't carry the stigmas it once did -- Nagel's refusal even to mention it is odd."
More troubling, Nagel tries to delegitimize Lacey's intellectual project while praising her for a "superb job of assembling the data."
First he asserts that Lacey's "claim that the personal material is needed to write an intellectual biography is a pretense." But he offers no support for the charge. Were Hart's homosexual proclivities and left-wing politics irrelevant to his famous 1960s debate with conservative judge Patrick Devlin, which Lacey says provided "the nearest thing to a manifesto for the homosexual-law-reform movement"? Was Hart's uncomfortable involvement in the World War II execution of a man for treason irrelevant to his death-penalty views?
Nagel also maintains that despite Lacey's distinguished academic position, she is "not equipped ... to deal with the philosophical background. When she talks about the 'paradox of analysis' or about the differences between J.L. Austin and Wittgenstein, she is lost." Upping the insult quotient, Nagel maintains that Lacey "seems to have a weak grasp of what philosophy is," a claim he repeats several times.
False in every respect. Lacey, far more industriously than Nagel, backs her statements throughout. She even nails Hart's glosses in the margins of a Max Weber volume from which he denied drawing ideas. Indeed, she quotes Hart as acknowledging the very links Nagel denies. In his diary, Hart expressed his belief in "a connection between my deficiencies as a husband and the whole sexual and emotional immaturity on the one hand and this gross incapacity for the organization and care of detail: this lack of care, this obsession with frontal attacks on major positions."
Why the distortion? Lacey simply doesn't share Nagel's typical analyst view that ahistorical, nonsociological, fact-free reasoning is the end-all and be-all of philosophy. While expressing great respect and affection for Hart, she indicates early on that her feminist and Foucauldian appreciation of power's role in shaping institutions makes her more critical of Hart and his facts-lite analytic jurisprudence than she once was.
Indeed, Lacey utterly foresees Nagel's line of insult. She specifically anticipates his assertion that Wittgenstein thought understanding "has to be pursued primarily by reasoning rather than by empirical observation," noting "Wittgenstein's emphasis on the embeddedness of language games within social practices." In her view, Hart, like Nagel, never adopted an approach to reality as reportorial as Wittgenstein's because it "undermines the pretensions of philosophy as the 'master discipline' which illuminates our access to knowledge about the world."
And those are precisely the pretensions Nagel promotes. When his would-be demolition job sputters, Nagel simply starts hectoring Lacey with the P-word. He insists that Hart's greatness "was the result of a specifically philosophical talent applied to this material. It was philosophical reasoning and philosophical clarity that enabled him to formulate and test hypotheses ... and he could not have made his great contributions by any other method."
But is logical reasoning the exclusive gift of tenure-stamped philosophy professors? Just as dictatorial regimes dubbed "People's Republics" don't fool anyone, philosophers who insist on an imperial conception of their subject persuade no one but themselves.
Lacey, whose wealth of information and textual references suggest a far more broadly educated intellectual than Nagel, thanks psychologist Adam Phillips for helping her resist "the impulse to make a life story neater than life itself." The sad upshot of this latest sighting of the disembodied thinker is that a champion of "philosophy" thinks truth matters less than keeping up appearances.
Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer, is a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities, at New York University.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The Glory of its Squalor
"Then it came to me: what Paris had lost... was its pungency. Gone was the acrid Gitane-Gauloise pall of any self-respecting café. Gone was the garlic whiff of the early-morning Metro to the Place d’Italie. Gone were the mineral mid-morning Sauvignons Blancs downed bar-side by red-eyed men.
Gone were the horse butchers and the tripe restaurants in the 12th arrondissement. Gone (replaced by bad English) was the laconic snarl of Parisian greeting. Gone were the bad teeth, the yellowing moustaches, the hammering of artisans, the middle-aged prostitutes in doorways, the seat-less toilets on the stairs, and an entire group of people called the working class.
Gone, in short, was Paris in the glory of its squalor, in the time before anyone thought a Frenchman would accept a sandwich for lunch, or decreed that the great unwashed should inhabit the distant suburbs. The city has been sanitized."
Gone were the horse butchers and the tripe restaurants in the 12th arrondissement. Gone (replaced by bad English) was the laconic snarl of Parisian greeting. Gone were the bad teeth, the yellowing moustaches, the hammering of artisans, the middle-aged prostitutes in doorways, the seat-less toilets on the stairs, and an entire group of people called the working class.
Gone, in short, was Paris in the glory of its squalor, in the time before anyone thought a Frenchman would accept a sandwich for lunch, or decreed that the great unwashed should inhabit the distant suburbs. The city has been sanitized."
Sunday, November 16, 2008
OMG!!!
there exists a word for my experience with thesis, this particular school program, possibly all of medicine, and urban american life!!!!
Anomie, noun
-personal state of isolation and anxiety resulting from a lack of social control and regulation
-in contemporary English, means a condition of malaise in individuals, characterized by an absence or diminution of standards or values. When applied to a government or society, anomie implies a social unrest or chaos.
Viva la capitalism!
Anomie, noun
-personal state of isolation and anxiety resulting from a lack of social control and regulation
-in contemporary English, means a condition of malaise in individuals, characterized by an absence or diminution of standards or values. When applied to a government or society, anomie implies a social unrest or chaos.
Viva la capitalism!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
New York Times Op-Ed Columnists in order of Douchiness
Ranked from least to most:
(1) Gail Collins
(2) Frank RIch
(3) Roger Cohen (cloying, but sweet)
(4) Paul Krugman
(5) Nicholas Kristoff (not exactly douchey, but sometimes offensive in dumb oblivious way) (but so adorable!)
(6) Bob Herbert
(7) Maureen Dowd, David Brooks (tied)
(6) Thomas Friedman
(7) Billy Kristol
not ranked: Charles M. Blow (picture=too-cool-for-school)
(1) Gail Collins
(2) Frank RIch
(3) Roger Cohen (cloying, but sweet)
(4) Paul Krugman
(5) Nicholas Kristoff (not exactly douchey, but sometimes offensive in dumb oblivious way) (but so adorable!)
(6) Bob Herbert
(7) Maureen Dowd, David Brooks (tied)
(6) Thomas Friedman
(7) Billy Kristol
not ranked: Charles M. Blow (picture=too-cool-for-school)
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Nun's Litany
(by TMF)
I want to be a playboy's bunny
I'd do whatever they asked me to
I'd meet people with lots of money
and they would love me
like I loved you
I want to be a topless waitress
I want my mother to shed one tear
I'd throw away this old sedate dress
slip into something a tad more sheer
I want to be an artists' model
An odalisque, au naturel
I should be good at spin-the-bottle
while I've still got something
left to sell
I want to be a cobra dancer
with Little Willy between my thighs
I may not find a cure for cancer
but I'll meet plenty of single guys
I want to be a brothel worker
I've always been treated like one
If I could be a back-street lurker
I'd make more money
and have more fun
I want to be a dominatrix
which isn't like me, but I can dream
learn S, and M,
and all those gay tricks
and men will pay me to
make them scream
I want to be a porno starlet
(for that I'll wait till Mama's dead)
I'll see my name in lights of scarlet
and get to spend every day in bed
I want to be a tattooed lady
dedicated, as I am, to art
Characters bold, complex and shady
will write my memoirs
across my heart.
I want to be a playboy's bunny
I'd do whatever they asked me to
I'd meet people with lots of money
and they would love me
like I loved you
I want to be a topless waitress
I want my mother to shed one tear
I'd throw away this old sedate dress
slip into something a tad more sheer
I want to be an artists' model
An odalisque, au naturel
I should be good at spin-the-bottle
while I've still got something
left to sell
I want to be a cobra dancer
with Little Willy between my thighs
I may not find a cure for cancer
but I'll meet plenty of single guys
I want to be a brothel worker
I've always been treated like one
If I could be a back-street lurker
I'd make more money
and have more fun
I want to be a dominatrix
which isn't like me, but I can dream
learn S, and M,
and all those gay tricks
and men will pay me to
make them scream
I want to be a porno starlet
(for that I'll wait till Mama's dead)
I'll see my name in lights of scarlet
and get to spend every day in bed
I want to be a tattooed lady
dedicated, as I am, to art
Characters bold, complex and shady
will write my memoirs
across my heart.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Addendum
Dear Self from the Past:
Don't you think a medical student doing mediocre weekend philosophy for an unnecessary degree is a mean and stupid idea?
Sincerely, Self from Right Now
Don't you think a medical student doing mediocre weekend philosophy for an unnecessary degree is a mean and stupid idea?
Sincerely, Self from Right Now
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Why is Bad Posture Fasionable?
as are vacant gazes, frowns and wide-footed stances? People may mistake this for a cerebellar lesion. Or life threatening coma.
Intact motor functioning!
Monday, September 22, 2008
school
oh yeah. hypomania. crashing despair. self loathing. self flagellation.
self absorption.
i miss you, summertime.
self absorption.
i miss you, summertime.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
What the fuck is wrong with the republican party?!
I'd hate to be yet another ranting liberal, but i can't motherfucking believe this shit is still going on.
In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics
Why don't people like america?
did the tv do this?
In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics
Why don't people like america?
did the tv do this?
Friday, September 12, 2008
Populism:
Claiming it is a sham, the day you spend cursing
the brie cheese you've smudged on your iphone.
the brie cheese you've smudged on your iphone.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Cynicism: a free verse poem
Gosh darn it, nothing really seems subversive anymore.
You can't even make up a new perversion, before its already on amazon
for 29.99. (plus s&h)
The information age is lame.
You can't even make up a new perversion, before its already on amazon
for 29.99. (plus s&h)
The information age is lame.
Yesterday I learned
the word ALEXITHYMIA - lit., no words of feelings, or an inability to articulate feelings in language (=some ex-bfs?)
(jk!)
I also learned that the average physician-in-training acquires 20,000 new words into their vocabulary during medical school and residency. (There are about 275,000 words in common usage in the English language; 185,000 in French)
No studies have yet examined the impact of this on average physician scrabble scores.
(jk!)
I also learned that the average physician-in-training acquires 20,000 new words into their vocabulary during medical school and residency. (There are about 275,000 words in common usage in the English language; 185,000 in French)
No studies have yet examined the impact of this on average physician scrabble scores.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Politics is ruining my life
God, when this motherfucking presidential election ends and i stop compulsively reading the NYTimes (and The Economist; and Wall Street journal; and The Daily Show; and Colbert...), then spending 2 hours per hour of reading being incensed, another hour writing angry letters to the editor, and half hour wondering if said editors have alerted security--I can get some fucking work done.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
More on Women
"Stan, why do you go on so much about women?"
"Because I want to be one."
"What?!"
"From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta."
"But Stan, why do you want to be a woman?"
"I want to have babies."
"You can't have babies!"
"Don't you oppress me!"
[The Life of Brian]
I had wanted to raise holy hell about this article:
(1) Girl Power at School, but Not at the Office
"I used to think that perfection was the pathway to success. Not so, according to women I have interviewed who have reached the apex of their professions. Rather, it can lead to paralysis. Women, I have found, can let perfectionism stop them from speaking up or taking risks. For men, especially if they are thick-skinned, the thought of someone telling them “no” tends not to be viewed as earth-shattering."
What a smoldering steaming pile of bullshit. Ms. Seligson's sweeping and unsubstantiated cultural professions on behalf of all womankind, and then her trite reccomendations for cubicle decay ("girls do brag!") tempt me to rip out pages of Marx, crinkle them up, and meticulously stuff them into my eye socket. (and here i am, a market liberal, middle class meritocrat and everything)
but a thoughtful, more systematic (and substantiated? whatever, i have no journalistic integrity; i can revel in all the blog-ular steaming piles i want to) refutation of all the dumb presumptions in this article will have to wait.
Instead this may be the most fascinating article on the subject i've seen yet:
(2) Feminism and Freedom
"In 1991, the culture critic and dissident feminist Camille Paglia...described women's studies as 'a jumble of vulgarians, bunglers, whiners, French faddicts, apparatchiks, dough-faced party-liners, pie-in-the-sky utopians and bullying sanctimonious sermonizers. Reasonable, moderate feminists hang back and keep silent in the face of fascism.'"
"Women in the West did form a movement and did liberate themselves in ways of vital importance to the evolution of liberal society. Feminism in its classical phase was a critical chapter in the history of freedom. For most of the world's women, that history has just begun; for them, classical feminism offers a tried-and-true roadmap to equality and freedom. And even in the West, there are unresolved equity issues, and the work of feminism is not over. Who needs feminism? We do. The world does. Women everywhere need the liberty to be what they are--not, as contemporary feminism insists, liberation from what they are. This we can see if we look back at the history of women's liberation--not as it is taught in women's studies departments, but as it truly was."
Vindications of the Right of Women and the rifle wielding abolitionist Puritan--a fascinating ancestory to the Western Woman: bleeding heart do-gooder and the fierce independent, intellectual and family matriarch, sexual transgressions and mama bear of the den, Paine and Burke, and fifty other jumbled up polarities. How delightful to trace it to historical legends and archetypes: Wollenstein and More.
"Truth be told, there are also great numbers of contemporary American women who would today readily label themselves as feminists were they aware of a conservative alternative in which liberty, rather than "liberation," is the dominant idea. Today, more than 70 percent of American women reject the label "feminist," largely because the label has been appropriated by those who reject the very idea of a feminine sphere." --how fascinating!
I am intrigued by this alternative duality personified by Wollenstein and More: civil liberty and social responsibility, respectively. The educated, radical elite and the masses, respectively. That the first was to spend 100 years villified as a wanton tramp; and the latter is today trivialized as a do-gooding priss.
hmm. hmm. hmm. i agree with nothing yet; especially ingratiatingly sweeping generalization of "woman's nature" (as one should likewise be highly skeptical on statements of "human nature"; how else would philospher's be employed? bless the devil in the details). i ain't saying it ain't there, its just messy: some of it has a basis, and the rest is shit piled on top. In many cultures men are actually very interested in the domestic sphere. Why are some helping professions (of women) labeled "caring" and others (of men) labeled "heroic"? Why are men usually entirely left out of the discussion? i am provoked and enticed.
(fine, philosophers are not by and large employed; but how else then would cafes the world over stay afloat without them?)
"Because I want to be one."
"What?!"
"From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta."
"But Stan, why do you want to be a woman?"
"I want to have babies."
"You can't have babies!"
"Don't you oppress me!"
[The Life of Brian]
I had wanted to raise holy hell about this article:
(1) Girl Power at School, but Not at the Office
"I used to think that perfection was the pathway to success. Not so, according to women I have interviewed who have reached the apex of their professions. Rather, it can lead to paralysis. Women, I have found, can let perfectionism stop them from speaking up or taking risks. For men, especially if they are thick-skinned, the thought of someone telling them “no” tends not to be viewed as earth-shattering."
What a smoldering steaming pile of bullshit. Ms. Seligson's sweeping and unsubstantiated cultural professions on behalf of all womankind, and then her trite reccomendations for cubicle decay ("girls do brag!") tempt me to rip out pages of Marx, crinkle them up, and meticulously stuff them into my eye socket. (and here i am, a market liberal, middle class meritocrat and everything)
but a thoughtful, more systematic (and substantiated? whatever, i have no journalistic integrity; i can revel in all the blog-ular steaming piles i want to) refutation of all the dumb presumptions in this article will have to wait.
Instead this may be the most fascinating article on the subject i've seen yet:
(2) Feminism and Freedom
"In 1991, the culture critic and dissident feminist Camille Paglia...described women's studies as 'a jumble of vulgarians, bunglers, whiners, French faddicts, apparatchiks, dough-faced party-liners, pie-in-the-sky utopians and bullying sanctimonious sermonizers. Reasonable, moderate feminists hang back and keep silent in the face of fascism.'"
"Women in the West did form a movement and did liberate themselves in ways of vital importance to the evolution of liberal society. Feminism in its classical phase was a critical chapter in the history of freedom. For most of the world's women, that history has just begun; for them, classical feminism offers a tried-and-true roadmap to equality and freedom. And even in the West, there are unresolved equity issues, and the work of feminism is not over. Who needs feminism? We do. The world does. Women everywhere need the liberty to be what they are--not, as contemporary feminism insists, liberation from what they are. This we can see if we look back at the history of women's liberation--not as it is taught in women's studies departments, but as it truly was."
Vindications of the Right of Women and the rifle wielding abolitionist Puritan--a fascinating ancestory to the Western Woman: bleeding heart do-gooder and the fierce independent, intellectual and family matriarch, sexual transgressions and mama bear of the den, Paine and Burke, and fifty other jumbled up polarities. How delightful to trace it to historical legends and archetypes: Wollenstein and More.
"Truth be told, there are also great numbers of contemporary American women who would today readily label themselves as feminists were they aware of a conservative alternative in which liberty, rather than "liberation," is the dominant idea. Today, more than 70 percent of American women reject the label "feminist," largely because the label has been appropriated by those who reject the very idea of a feminine sphere." --how fascinating!
I am intrigued by this alternative duality personified by Wollenstein and More: civil liberty and social responsibility, respectively. The educated, radical elite and the masses, respectively. That the first was to spend 100 years villified as a wanton tramp; and the latter is today trivialized as a do-gooding priss.
hmm. hmm. hmm. i agree with nothing yet; especially ingratiatingly sweeping generalization of "woman's nature" (as one should likewise be highly skeptical on statements of "human nature"; how else would philospher's be employed? bless the devil in the details). i ain't saying it ain't there, its just messy: some of it has a basis, and the rest is shit piled on top. In many cultures men are actually very interested in the domestic sphere. Why are some helping professions (of women) labeled "caring" and others (of men) labeled "heroic"? Why are men usually entirely left out of the discussion? i am provoked and enticed.
(fine, philosophers are not by and large employed; but how else then would cafes the world over stay afloat without them?)
Monday, August 25, 2008
Orwell the blogger!
i am your fan.
NYTimes article
Like any good political blogger, Orwell devoured the news, making clippings and looking for shifts in public and government opinion, Professor Seaton said. “He’s partly obsessed by the newspapers because of the start of the world war,” she said. “The diary is written against this almost traumatized understanding that there is going to have to be a second world war.”
The Orwell Diaries
NYTimes article
Like any good political blogger, Orwell devoured the news, making clippings and looking for shifts in public and government opinion, Professor Seaton said. “He’s partly obsessed by the newspapers because of the start of the world war,” she said. “The diary is written against this almost traumatized understanding that there is going to have to be a second world war.”
The Orwell Diaries
How timely!
Family values, bitches!
This article is interesting. I think i agree. but i am not sure. Maybe because it is kind of very heteropresumtpive. And because there's a messy class story to consider (there's always a messy class story to consider). And because i have met many little girls who also like to be bad and/or ignite explosives. And finally because i have forgotten who it is I was originally tyrading against. I will mull all of this over some more
Real Men
In popular culture, rare is the man portrayed as wise, strong and noble. In film and music, men are variously portrayed as dolts, bullies, brutes, deadbeats, rapists, sexual predators and wife-beaters. Even otherwise easy-going family men in sitcoms are invariably cast as, at best, bumbling, dim-witted fools. One would assume from most depictions that the smart, decent man who cares about his family and pats the neighbour’s dog is the exception rather than the rule.
From this broad, experiential education in the ways of men and women, I reached a helpful conclusion that seems to have escaped notice by some of my fellow sisters: men are human beings, too.
Our cultural assumption that men only want sex has been as damaging to them as to the women they target. Here is how a recent graduate summed it up to me: “Hooking up is great, but at some point you get tired of everything meaning nothing."
This article is interesting. I think i agree. but i am not sure. Maybe because it is kind of very heteropresumtpive. And because there's a messy class story to consider (there's always a messy class story to consider). And because i have met many little girls who also like to be bad and/or ignite explosives. And finally because i have forgotten who it is I was originally tyrading against. I will mull all of this over some more
Real Men
In popular culture, rare is the man portrayed as wise, strong and noble. In film and music, men are variously portrayed as dolts, bullies, brutes, deadbeats, rapists, sexual predators and wife-beaters. Even otherwise easy-going family men in sitcoms are invariably cast as, at best, bumbling, dim-witted fools. One would assume from most depictions that the smart, decent man who cares about his family and pats the neighbour’s dog is the exception rather than the rule.
From this broad, experiential education in the ways of men and women, I reached a helpful conclusion that seems to have escaped notice by some of my fellow sisters: men are human beings, too.
Our cultural assumption that men only want sex has been as damaging to them as to the women they target. Here is how a recent graduate summed it up to me: “Hooking up is great, but at some point you get tired of everything meaning nothing."
Modern wellness
"Beets are the new spinach."
"What was the old spinach?"
"Kale."
"Well then what's Kale?!"
"Don't be stupid."
"What was the old spinach?"
"Kale."
"Well then what's Kale?!"
"Don't be stupid."
Gender Theory
pisses me the fuck off.
In that way that journalism often pisses me off--it may do good, is even necessary, but there is so much fuckin bullshit in its name.
Most ways of talking about Men, Women, Manliness, Womanliness, Transgenderness, Queerness, DykeFlamingFemmePansyButch, Whatmakesaleader, Representation-in-upper-echelons-of-Academia/Politics/Fortune 500, is bound to piss off somebody and quite reasonably, everybody.
Stepping aside even the issue of theory being required to be remotely logical, thoughtful, internally consistent or striving towards truth, lets leave that, and even then: I am so angry. And angrier that sometimes factions of feminists do the worst damage of all.
It seems coming from the left or the right, the upshot is this: "feminine"=bad.
empowerment = act like a man
acting like a man around this society frequently means to be materialistic, ambitious, self absorbed, excessively career oriented, aggressive, inconsiderate, amoral and over all a swaggering dick.
These things in small quantities may very well be fine traits and contribute to a robust and groing economy. but we're talking parts per million here. Usually, neither men nor women nor non-gender-binary-abiding trannies should behave like that, its very irritating.
Some day a treatise: in defense of softness, in defense of kindess, in defense of listening and good manners and thinking about others. And a motherfuckin defense of machismo in the way it once meant: a self sufficient man, a family man with a sense of dignity and courage. Of women who have grace and fortitude. Ladies, Gentleman, can we get some motherfuckin elegance, please.
In that way that journalism often pisses me off--it may do good, is even necessary, but there is so much fuckin bullshit in its name.
Most ways of talking about Men, Women, Manliness, Womanliness, Transgenderness, Queerness, DykeFlamingFemmePansyButch, Whatmakesaleader, Representation-in-upper-echelons-of-Academia/Politics/Fortune 500, is bound to piss off somebody and quite reasonably, everybody.
Stepping aside even the issue of theory being required to be remotely logical, thoughtful, internally consistent or striving towards truth, lets leave that, and even then: I am so angry. And angrier that sometimes factions of feminists do the worst damage of all.
It seems coming from the left or the right, the upshot is this: "feminine"=bad.
empowerment = act like a man
acting like a man around this society frequently means to be materialistic, ambitious, self absorbed, excessively career oriented, aggressive, inconsiderate, amoral and over all a swaggering dick.
These things in small quantities may very well be fine traits and contribute to a robust and groing economy. but we're talking parts per million here. Usually, neither men nor women nor non-gender-binary-abiding trannies should behave like that, its very irritating.
Some day a treatise: in defense of softness, in defense of kindess, in defense of listening and good manners and thinking about others. And a motherfuckin defense of machismo in the way it once meant: a self sufficient man, a family man with a sense of dignity and courage. Of women who have grace and fortitude. Ladies, Gentleman, can we get some motherfuckin elegance, please.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Love, in 21st Century San Francisco
Rousseau's grim assessment of modernity:
This condition can be summed up as individualism., not that virtue of rugged self-sufficiency as prized in American folklore, but a needy isolation in the midst of society. Rousseau foresaw the collapse of all the structures that tie men together. Common humanity is only an abstraction that has no effects on individuals and produces no felt common good. The new philosophy and the new natural science has reduced men to atoms without natural connectedness. Everyone needs everyone else, but no one really cares for anyone.
Hobbes said that all are naturally at war with each all, and in spite of some disagreement with that formula, Rousseau accepts that civil society is founded on that premise. Civil society and the relations among men in it are only extensions of that war by peaceful means, substituting various kinds of competition and exploitation--mainly economic--for mortal combat. The primary relationship is constituted by contract, that is, between two individuals who remain individuals entering into a contract valid only as long as it contributes to the individual good of each. The links between them are artificial and calculated and, above all, tentative. In this condition, man's defense system is always on alert.
The psychological effects of this unending alert are devastating. A being concerned only with himself has to spend his time worrying about the intentions of others and trying to hide his own from them, threatening, flattering, lying. In his selfishness, he forgets himself. His soul goes wandering out over the world of men and never returns, while he becomes hypocritical, envious, vain, slavish, measuring himself relative to the success or failure of others. This is the condition of alienation.
--adapted from Alan Bloom
This condition can be summed up as individualism., not that virtue of rugged self-sufficiency as prized in American folklore, but a needy isolation in the midst of society. Rousseau foresaw the collapse of all the structures that tie men together. Common humanity is only an abstraction that has no effects on individuals and produces no felt common good. The new philosophy and the new natural science has reduced men to atoms without natural connectedness. Everyone needs everyone else, but no one really cares for anyone.
Hobbes said that all are naturally at war with each all, and in spite of some disagreement with that formula, Rousseau accepts that civil society is founded on that premise. Civil society and the relations among men in it are only extensions of that war by peaceful means, substituting various kinds of competition and exploitation--mainly economic--for mortal combat. The primary relationship is constituted by contract, that is, between two individuals who remain individuals entering into a contract valid only as long as it contributes to the individual good of each. The links between them are artificial and calculated and, above all, tentative. In this condition, man's defense system is always on alert.
The psychological effects of this unending alert are devastating. A being concerned only with himself has to spend his time worrying about the intentions of others and trying to hide his own from them, threatening, flattering, lying. In his selfishness, he forgets himself. His soul goes wandering out over the world of men and never returns, while he becomes hypocritical, envious, vain, slavish, measuring himself relative to the success or failure of others. This is the condition of alienation.
--adapted from Alan Bloom
How to become estranged in bars
"Socrates can go naked where others go clothed; he is not afraid of ridicule. He can also contemplate sexual intercourse where others are stricken with terror; he is not afraid of moral indignation. In other words he treats the comic seriously and the tragic lightly."
Monday, August 18, 2008
Douglas Adams on Technology
1) everything that's already in the world when you're born is just normal;
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3) anything that gets invented after you're thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.
Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are.
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3) anything that gets invented after you're thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.
Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Who Reads What
An exquisite observation, delivered c/o W. Hu on her facebook post.
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheists who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Atlanta Journal & Constitution is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheists who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Atlanta Journal & Constitution is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Mighty Women, A series
As summer dwindles, momentum gathers for the coming storm: school.
Here is installation 1 and 2 on some of the Women in my Life.
(1)
A. is a Professor of Medicine and the Assistant Director of a small research focused program within A Prestigious University. She is Illustriously Trained, patrician and dignified. Perhaps in her forties or fifties, she has a husband and grown children. She is beautiful and charming. Perfect manners and neatly coifed hair, a Midwestern accent dotted with exclamations, soft sweaters and impeccable posture. Sometimes you are not sure how big she really is, because she is somewhat cute, somewhat petite, but she is somewhat of a Giant. Her gaze is exacting, her knowledge is sweeping, and her disapproval of poor thinking, gentle and piercing. She is a Physician, and carries the dignity of her profession as elegantly as a single, glinting, imperceptible gold chain. If you are held in rapture just enough, you may eventually see, just beneath the rectitude, the cultivated discipline, the neatly drawn lines, that furious drive, you can see A. at 23, a fierce young thing, a little bit neurotic, a little bit humorless, in that florescent hospital gaze, meticulously carving tracheotomies into the throats of the comatose, Bates and CMDT piled and dog eared by her side. Every Monday morning I can feel her Not Looking At Me, because my write-ups are 2 months overdue.
(2)
K. is a family doctor for souls lost amid Violent and Forgotten Urban Decay, and has been for decades. She is in her late fifties perhaps early sixties, stout, dykish, hoarse, asthmatic and commanding. She looks perpetually either startled, disgruntled, or outraged. As most of her patients have a line up of bullet wounds, insurance companies that hold out on their insulin, and the complicated pharmacology of titrating blood pressure medication with a cocaine addiction, such reactions are often unsurprising. She has the manner of an old general, who has seen the trenches of human misery For a Very Long Time. She eyes the idiotic green recruit (i.e. second year medical student) with a mixture of exhausted, patient irritation; stunned disbelief at the magnanimous extent of true and utter ignorance; and then that faintest, slyest wink, a genuine excitement for this the Next Generation, who eagerly, if clumsily, take up arms in her wake.
Here is installation 1 and 2 on some of the Women in my Life.
(1)
A. is a Professor of Medicine and the Assistant Director of a small research focused program within A Prestigious University. She is Illustriously Trained, patrician and dignified. Perhaps in her forties or fifties, she has a husband and grown children. She is beautiful and charming. Perfect manners and neatly coifed hair, a Midwestern accent dotted with exclamations, soft sweaters and impeccable posture. Sometimes you are not sure how big she really is, because she is somewhat cute, somewhat petite, but she is somewhat of a Giant. Her gaze is exacting, her knowledge is sweeping, and her disapproval of poor thinking, gentle and piercing. She is a Physician, and carries the dignity of her profession as elegantly as a single, glinting, imperceptible gold chain. If you are held in rapture just enough, you may eventually see, just beneath the rectitude, the cultivated discipline, the neatly drawn lines, that furious drive, you can see A. at 23, a fierce young thing, a little bit neurotic, a little bit humorless, in that florescent hospital gaze, meticulously carving tracheotomies into the throats of the comatose, Bates and CMDT piled and dog eared by her side. Every Monday morning I can feel her Not Looking At Me, because my write-ups are 2 months overdue.
(2)
K. is a family doctor for souls lost amid Violent and Forgotten Urban Decay, and has been for decades. She is in her late fifties perhaps early sixties, stout, dykish, hoarse, asthmatic and commanding. She looks perpetually either startled, disgruntled, or outraged. As most of her patients have a line up of bullet wounds, insurance companies that hold out on their insulin, and the complicated pharmacology of titrating blood pressure medication with a cocaine addiction, such reactions are often unsurprising. She has the manner of an old general, who has seen the trenches of human misery For a Very Long Time. She eyes the idiotic green recruit (i.e. second year medical student) with a mixture of exhausted, patient irritation; stunned disbelief at the magnanimous extent of true and utter ignorance; and then that faintest, slyest wink, a genuine excitement for this the Next Generation, who eagerly, if clumsily, take up arms in her wake.
I Love this Man
Raymond Tallis
Physician, Poet, philosopher and Playwright
If there were a statue of the Unknown Polymath it should look like Raymond Tallis: rangy, bearded, wide-eyed with disciplined wonder. For 30 years he has been rising at five in the morning to write for two hours before going off to work as a doctor. He has been a GP, a research scientist, and a professor of gerontology, one of Britain's leading experts, who has published more than 70 scientific papers and co-edited a 1,500-page standard textbook of gerontological medicine. But in the solitary hours of the early morning he has also been a distinguished literary critic, poet and philosopher who has written a radio play about the death of Wittgenstein.
The contrast between the social and biological aspects of medicine is very important to him. It goes to the heart of his complaints about modern consciousness theory. Medicine, he is sure, has made all its progress by treating human beings as complex machinery, or at most as animals to be analysed like any other part of biology. That is how we gain knowledge. But the purpose of this knowledge is to treat people, who cannot be reduced to biology: "The science, the art, the humanity of medicine is a supreme expression of the distance of humans from their biology." Medicine may progress by analysing the brain, but - he insists - what philosophers need to explain is the mind, which is a different thing altogether, however much it depends on a properly functioning brain.
Physician, Poet, philosopher and Playwright
If there were a statue of the Unknown Polymath it should look like Raymond Tallis: rangy, bearded, wide-eyed with disciplined wonder. For 30 years he has been rising at five in the morning to write for two hours before going off to work as a doctor. He has been a GP, a research scientist, and a professor of gerontology, one of Britain's leading experts, who has published more than 70 scientific papers and co-edited a 1,500-page standard textbook of gerontological medicine. But in the solitary hours of the early morning he has also been a distinguished literary critic, poet and philosopher who has written a radio play about the death of Wittgenstein.
The contrast between the social and biological aspects of medicine is very important to him. It goes to the heart of his complaints about modern consciousness theory. Medicine, he is sure, has made all its progress by treating human beings as complex machinery, or at most as animals to be analysed like any other part of biology. That is how we gain knowledge. But the purpose of this knowledge is to treat people, who cannot be reduced to biology: "The science, the art, the humanity of medicine is a supreme expression of the distance of humans from their biology." Medicine may progress by analysing the brain, but - he insists - what philosophers need to explain is the mind, which is a different thing altogether, however much it depends on a properly functioning brain.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Redemption
I've changed my mind.
I stumble into the cafe 3 hours later than i usually do. Across from me are two young men scientists. They are handsome, cool and breezy. One lounges on the couch by a neat 4 inch pile of papers hand scrawled with graphs. the other is hunched over a table, his legs drawn up like a suave prowling thing. Both are dresssed in the uniform of sassy hipsters. Both stare intently but self-assuredly into their laptops. The one on the couch has a small but hard earned paunch righteously obtained by shunning outdoor activity for the laboratory. They are both cool cats, our generations watson and crick.
shit yeah. i'd swim, eat, breathe data to be as hip as these motherfuckers.
Take away point: working sucks. looking cool always seems fun.
I stumble into the cafe 3 hours later than i usually do. Across from me are two young men scientists. They are handsome, cool and breezy. One lounges on the couch by a neat 4 inch pile of papers hand scrawled with graphs. the other is hunched over a table, his legs drawn up like a suave prowling thing. Both are dresssed in the uniform of sassy hipsters. Both stare intently but self-assuredly into their laptops. The one on the couch has a small but hard earned paunch righteously obtained by shunning outdoor activity for the laboratory. They are both cool cats, our generations watson and crick.
shit yeah. i'd swim, eat, breathe data to be as hip as these motherfuckers.
Take away point: working sucks. looking cool always seems fun.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Heroes.
Grumbling is assuaged by alternatives.
Jonathan Mann , MD, MPH
Jonathan Mann was a central advocate of combining the synergistic forces of public health, ethics and human rights. He theorized and actively promoted the idea that human health and human rights are integrally and inextricably connected, arguing that these fields overlap in their respective philosophies and objectives to improve health, well-being, and to prevent premature death.1
Mann proposed a three-pronged approach that has appropriately acted as a fundamental explanation of the relationship between health and human rights. First, health is a human rights issue. Secondly (and conversely), human rights are a health issue. Human rights violations result in adverse health effects.2 Thirdly, linkages exist between health and human rights (a hypothesis to be rigorously tested).3 Literature substantiates the effects of the first two points, but Mann and colleagues proceeded to call for the validation of the third point and challenged the world to practice it.4 His work led to the development of the Four-Step Impact Assessment, a multi-disciplinary approach of evaluating interdependent and overlapping elements of both disciplines of Human Rights and Public Health.
With this framework, Mann attempted to bridge a perceived gap of philosophies, correspondence and vocabulary, education and training, recruitment, and work methods between the disciplines of bioethics, jurisprudence, public health law and epidemiology. Furthermore, Mann knew that the history of "conflictual relationships" between officials of public health and civil liberties workers presented challenges to the pursuit of what he called a "powerful" confluence of health and human rights – a positive approach.4
While conflict between disciplines exists, Mann thought it important to first raise awareness of these challenges. In the spirit of negotiation and acting as mediator, Mann pointed out that such an intersection of fields can only benefit if a common ground in philosophies is uncovered and planted with a flag of cooperation.
Mann’s biography is itself a compelling narrative, perhaps a treatise of a man who was both visionary and practical in the pursuit of health and rights for all. He advocated non-discrimination, an ideal that reached beyond borders regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic status, and access to care. He was born in 1947, the year the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drafted, and died in a plane crash with his wife in 1998 while on the way from New York to Geneva for a United Nations (UN) AIDS vaccine conference. He was a gifted academic who spoke fluent French and rallied many to the cause. He served in several roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and in 1986 founded the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Global Program on AIDS. Mann had raised nearly $100 million in funding two years later. "The program was himself [Mann], a secretary and one typewriter," said colleague Daniel Tarantola.5 Later, in 1994, Mann directed the launch of the journal Health and Human Rights, published by the François Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, which he also helped to establish.6
Jonathan Mann , MD, MPH
Jonathan Mann was a central advocate of combining the synergistic forces of public health, ethics and human rights. He theorized and actively promoted the idea that human health and human rights are integrally and inextricably connected, arguing that these fields overlap in their respective philosophies and objectives to improve health, well-being, and to prevent premature death.1
Mann proposed a three-pronged approach that has appropriately acted as a fundamental explanation of the relationship between health and human rights. First, health is a human rights issue. Secondly (and conversely), human rights are a health issue. Human rights violations result in adverse health effects.2 Thirdly, linkages exist between health and human rights (a hypothesis to be rigorously tested).3 Literature substantiates the effects of the first two points, but Mann and colleagues proceeded to call for the validation of the third point and challenged the world to practice it.4 His work led to the development of the Four-Step Impact Assessment, a multi-disciplinary approach of evaluating interdependent and overlapping elements of both disciplines of Human Rights and Public Health.
With this framework, Mann attempted to bridge a perceived gap of philosophies, correspondence and vocabulary, education and training, recruitment, and work methods between the disciplines of bioethics, jurisprudence, public health law and epidemiology. Furthermore, Mann knew that the history of "conflictual relationships" between officials of public health and civil liberties workers presented challenges to the pursuit of what he called a "powerful" confluence of health and human rights – a positive approach.4
While conflict between disciplines exists, Mann thought it important to first raise awareness of these challenges. In the spirit of negotiation and acting as mediator, Mann pointed out that such an intersection of fields can only benefit if a common ground in philosophies is uncovered and planted with a flag of cooperation.
Mann’s biography is itself a compelling narrative, perhaps a treatise of a man who was both visionary and practical in the pursuit of health and rights for all. He advocated non-discrimination, an ideal that reached beyond borders regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic status, and access to care. He was born in 1947, the year the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drafted, and died in a plane crash with his wife in 1998 while on the way from New York to Geneva for a United Nations (UN) AIDS vaccine conference. He was a gifted academic who spoke fluent French and rallied many to the cause. He served in several roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and in 1986 founded the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Global Program on AIDS. Mann had raised nearly $100 million in funding two years later. "The program was himself [Mann], a secretary and one typewriter," said colleague Daniel Tarantola.5 Later, in 1994, Mann directed the launch of the journal Health and Human Rights, published by the François Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, which he also helped to establish.6
Outcry
You know what i hate? Data. Fuck Data.
My greatest fear for the last 10 years has been to become a mere dilettante.
But my greatest dream for the 5 previous that was to be a Renaissance woman.
What kind of nerdy ass 12 year old even knows what a Renaissance (wo)man is? In my defense, I wanted to be a Renaissance fire(wo)man who performed rock concerts on the weekend. To my detriment, I also aspired to be a Public Intellectual. The seeds of anti-utilitarianism were clearly pre-pubescent.
The point however is: fuck data. I appreciate it and acknowledge the toils of my comrades who reap the universe of it. In fact, i will shamelessly consume that data, the endless knowledge, and shamelessly exploit it for cocktail party one liners for the rest of my social life. (since all those one-liners will begin with "Well there were some studies that showed..." it will be a particular type of cocktail party).
I don't want to embrace dilettantery quite...but there must be something else. Something other than sucking the universe dry of endless statistics, and other than blogosphere schizophrenia of disparate ephemera. Some Aristotelian balance. If i was feeling grandiose, I'd call it understanding. Maybe if i was feeling really* wanky, i'd even go for wisdom.
In the meantime no one will listen to me because i am babbling nobody in a hierarchy of academia, and exude a particularly putrid smug bravado of youthful ambition and irreverance, thick like the jaundiced musk of liver failure. And because i have yet to contribute a damn useful thing to much of any human endeavor, and continue to leach several thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. My data isn't even data--it is meta-meta-meta-analysis. useless. It is probably for the best then.
For now.
Back again data monkey.
My greatest fear for the last 10 years has been to become a mere dilettante.
But my greatest dream for the 5 previous that was to be a Renaissance woman.
What kind of nerdy ass 12 year old even knows what a Renaissance (wo)man is? In my defense, I wanted to be a Renaissance fire(wo)man who performed rock concerts on the weekend. To my detriment, I also aspired to be a Public Intellectual. The seeds of anti-utilitarianism were clearly pre-pubescent.
The point however is: fuck data. I appreciate it and acknowledge the toils of my comrades who reap the universe of it. In fact, i will shamelessly consume that data, the endless knowledge, and shamelessly exploit it for cocktail party one liners for the rest of my social life. (since all those one-liners will begin with "Well there were some studies that showed..." it will be a particular type of cocktail party).
I don't want to embrace dilettantery quite...but there must be something else. Something other than sucking the universe dry of endless statistics, and other than blogosphere schizophrenia of disparate ephemera. Some Aristotelian balance. If i was feeling grandiose, I'd call it understanding. Maybe if i was feeling really* wanky, i'd even go for wisdom.
In the meantime no one will listen to me because i am babbling nobody in a hierarchy of academia, and exude a particularly putrid smug bravado of youthful ambition and irreverance, thick like the jaundiced musk of liver failure. And because i have yet to contribute a damn useful thing to much of any human endeavor, and continue to leach several thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. My data isn't even data--it is meta-meta-meta-analysis. useless. It is probably for the best then.
For now.
Back again data monkey.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
sign of assholeness=self involved blog?
Whatever. Its my blog and i'll be narcissistic if i want to be.
Am I becoming an Asshole?
So my summer is dwindling to its last 3 weeks, and i am sitting happily in the plush library with a view of rolling hills and the Golden Gate bridge and endless shelves of leather bound scientific journals.
An assortment of conversations (and a self audit of my summer shopping binges) lately have made me wonder what it is that matters to me. Little things, but somehow huge things. Like my ability to tolerate things. My desire for shining new (expensive) things. The yawning chasms between the highs and crashes of my self esteem. A decreased tolerance for inconvenience. My sudden new found ease at calling people dumb.
Is it age? Cynicism? is it a medical education? A dangerous sense of entitlement that i always swore would never...be...me?
Article: Elitism
"...As globalization sharpens economic insecurity, we are increasingly committing ourselves—as students, as parents, as a society—to a vast apparatus of educational advantage. With so many resources devoted to the business of elite academics and so many people scrambling for the limited space at the top of the ladder, it is worth asking what exactly it is you get in the end—what it is we all get, because the elite students of today, as their institutions never tire of reminding them, are the leaders of tomorrow."
Once I had a fierce pride in my populism, of working my way up by those infamous American bootstraps, which admittedly stemmed from a devastating insecurity of being able to hold my own, against the children of perceived superiors. Its a lot of motivation to work really hard when you think everyone else is intrinsically better than you; or when you envision yourself the scrappy outsider; or when you have something to prove; or have some weird complex of carrying the family honor on your shoulders (the Atlas myth, lets call all of this). Now on the other side of the divide--"wow... you're here, at our amazing school, in our amazing profession, we--and therefore you--are really pretty fucking awesome."
It's hard to resist! Ugh, stroke me some more.
The rise of analysis: "The existence of multiple forms of intelligence has become a commonplace, but however much elite universities like to sprinkle their incoming classes with a few actors or violinists, they select for and develop one form of intelligence: the analytic. While this is broadly true of all universities, elite schools, precisely because their students (and faculty, and administrators) possess this one form of intelligence to such a high degree, are more apt to ignore the value of others. One naturally prizes what one most possesses and what most makes for one’s advantages. But social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the educational elite. The “best” are the brightest only in one narrow sense."
I wonder to what extent medical education is not alienating because of the epistemology of science, or by abusive hierarchy, or the sleep deprivation of its interns, or by the banality of memorizing organic chemistry mechanisms in the face of the deepest questions of morality and suffering. I wonder if its fundamentally maybe just about the education process of our universities.
And the inevitable role, of self esteem by standardized test.
"The second disadvantage, implicit in what I’ve been saying, is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. Getting to an elite college, being at an elite college, and going on from an elite college—all involve numerical rankings: SAT, GPA, GRE. You learn to think of yourself in terms of those numbers. They come to signify not only your fate, but your identity; not only your identity, but your value. It’s been said that what those tests really measure is your ability to take tests, but even if they measure something real, it is only a small slice of the real. The problem begins when students are encouraged to forget this truth, when academic excellence becomes excellence in some absolute sense, when “better at X” becomes simply “better.”
I don't know if this is deep stuff. The author of the article is definitely a little douchey. But I am surprised by the vitriolic and knee wrenching provokation it wreaks in myself and my friends. It certainly says something interesting, and even things that are true, but most deliciously, it is so very very uncomfortable.
I have more to say, but most of it involves Proust (as most things usually do). Instead, back to work on saving the world and shit.
An assortment of conversations (and a self audit of my summer shopping binges) lately have made me wonder what it is that matters to me. Little things, but somehow huge things. Like my ability to tolerate things. My desire for shining new (expensive) things. The yawning chasms between the highs and crashes of my self esteem. A decreased tolerance for inconvenience. My sudden new found ease at calling people dumb.
Is it age? Cynicism? is it a medical education? A dangerous sense of entitlement that i always swore would never...be...me?
Article: Elitism
"...As globalization sharpens economic insecurity, we are increasingly committing ourselves—as students, as parents, as a society—to a vast apparatus of educational advantage. With so many resources devoted to the business of elite academics and so many people scrambling for the limited space at the top of the ladder, it is worth asking what exactly it is you get in the end—what it is we all get, because the elite students of today, as their institutions never tire of reminding them, are the leaders of tomorrow."
Once I had a fierce pride in my populism, of working my way up by those infamous American bootstraps, which admittedly stemmed from a devastating insecurity of being able to hold my own, against the children of perceived superiors. Its a lot of motivation to work really hard when you think everyone else is intrinsically better than you; or when you envision yourself the scrappy outsider; or when you have something to prove; or have some weird complex of carrying the family honor on your shoulders (the Atlas myth, lets call all of this). Now on the other side of the divide--"wow... you're here, at our amazing school, in our amazing profession, we--and therefore you--are really pretty fucking awesome."
It's hard to resist! Ugh, stroke me some more.
The rise of analysis: "The existence of multiple forms of intelligence has become a commonplace, but however much elite universities like to sprinkle their incoming classes with a few actors or violinists, they select for and develop one form of intelligence: the analytic. While this is broadly true of all universities, elite schools, precisely because their students (and faculty, and administrators) possess this one form of intelligence to such a high degree, are more apt to ignore the value of others. One naturally prizes what one most possesses and what most makes for one’s advantages. But social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the educational elite. The “best” are the brightest only in one narrow sense."
I wonder to what extent medical education is not alienating because of the epistemology of science, or by abusive hierarchy, or the sleep deprivation of its interns, or by the banality of memorizing organic chemistry mechanisms in the face of the deepest questions of morality and suffering. I wonder if its fundamentally maybe just about the education process of our universities.
And the inevitable role, of self esteem by standardized test.
"The second disadvantage, implicit in what I’ve been saying, is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. Getting to an elite college, being at an elite college, and going on from an elite college—all involve numerical rankings: SAT, GPA, GRE. You learn to think of yourself in terms of those numbers. They come to signify not only your fate, but your identity; not only your identity, but your value. It’s been said that what those tests really measure is your ability to take tests, but even if they measure something real, it is only a small slice of the real. The problem begins when students are encouraged to forget this truth, when academic excellence becomes excellence in some absolute sense, when “better at X” becomes simply “better.”
I don't know if this is deep stuff. The author of the article is definitely a little douchey. But I am surprised by the vitriolic and knee wrenching provokation it wreaks in myself and my friends. It certainly says something interesting, and even things that are true, but most deliciously, it is so very very uncomfortable.
I have more to say, but most of it involves Proust (as most things usually do). Instead, back to work on saving the world and shit.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sex Postive
Can you be cool and hip and sex positive and be kind of a vanilla heterosexual girl? Goddmanit. I think you should be able to.
ps. this um, has nothing to do with anything. nothing.
pps. you know, vanilla is actually a pretty exotic spice
"Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids in the genus Vanilla native to Mexico. Originally cultivated by the Totonac, Incas and Aztecs, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is credited with introducing both the spice and chocolate to Europe in the 1520s. Attempts to cultivate the vanilla plant outside Mexico and Central America proved futile because of the symbiotic relationship between the tlilxochitl vine that produced the vanilla orchid and the local species of Melipona bee...Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron due the extensive labor required to grow the seed pods used in its manufacture. Despite the expense, it is highly valued for its flavor which author Frederic Rosengarten, Jr. described in The Book of Spices as pure, spicy, and delicate and its complex floral aroma depicted as a peculiar bouquet...
"In old medicinal literature, vanilla is described as an aphrodisiac and a remedy for fevers. These purported uses have never been scientifically proven, but it has been shown that vanilla does increase levels of catecholamines (including epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline), and as such can also be considered mildly addictive. In an in-vitro test vanilla was able to block quorum sensing in bacteria. This is medically interesting because in many bacteria quorum sensing signals function as a switch for virulence. The microbes only become virulent when the signals indicate that they have the numbers to resist the host immune system response."
"The first to cultivate vanilla were the Totonac people, who inhabit the Mazantla Valley on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in the present-day state of Veracruz. According to Totonac mythology, the tropical orchid was born when Princess Xanat, forbidden by her father from marrying a mortal, fled to the forest with her lover. The lovers were captured and beheaded. Where their blood touched the ground, the vine of the tropical orchid grew."
ps. this um, has nothing to do with anything. nothing.
pps. you know, vanilla is actually a pretty exotic spice
"Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids in the genus Vanilla native to Mexico. Originally cultivated by the Totonac, Incas and Aztecs, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is credited with introducing both the spice and chocolate to Europe in the 1520s. Attempts to cultivate the vanilla plant outside Mexico and Central America proved futile because of the symbiotic relationship between the tlilxochitl vine that produced the vanilla orchid and the local species of Melipona bee...Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron due the extensive labor required to grow the seed pods used in its manufacture. Despite the expense, it is highly valued for its flavor which author Frederic Rosengarten, Jr. described in The Book of Spices as pure, spicy, and delicate and its complex floral aroma depicted as a peculiar bouquet...
"In old medicinal literature, vanilla is described as an aphrodisiac and a remedy for fevers. These purported uses have never been scientifically proven, but it has been shown that vanilla does increase levels of catecholamines (including epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline), and as such can also be considered mildly addictive. In an in-vitro test vanilla was able to block quorum sensing in bacteria. This is medically interesting because in many bacteria quorum sensing signals function as a switch for virulence. The microbes only become virulent when the signals indicate that they have the numbers to resist the host immune system response."
"The first to cultivate vanilla were the Totonac people, who inhabit the Mazantla Valley on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in the present-day state of Veracruz. According to Totonac mythology, the tropical orchid was born when Princess Xanat, forbidden by her father from marrying a mortal, fled to the forest with her lover. The lovers were captured and beheaded. Where their blood touched the ground, the vine of the tropical orchid grew."
Anger, Envy, Ambition and other Vices
Sometimes, when i am in a frenzy, I decide to refile everything. Amid the detritus of crumpled financial aid applications from 2001 and neatly enveloped letters from old lovers--i find other sorts of love letters. Like a paper on the foundations of mathematics by Carnap. Or my lovingly annotated Russell commentary on the devastating epistemology of Hume. In another world (twin earth), i would be intellectually stroking myself on the pristine puzzles of metaphysics and logic.
Today i am in the library with a 6 inch pile of papers by economists, ethicists, policy scholars, and disgruntled professors of medicine. The puzzles of international health governance, medicare payment systems, the politics of clean drinking water--are no less convoluted nor deliciously knotted than any logic proof or how we perceive reality. But these puzzles are effused with despair--for some such position is no mere intellectual wanking--it becomes a policy paper, that makes it way to the idealogues or corporate boardroom--it becomes enmeshed in the strands of power--and then a mass of people motherfucking die obscene deaths of want in a world of wealth. And then, rather than disagreeing with Bertrand Russell as a vigorous and exhilerating game of wits, to pit one's own intellect against the mightiest minds of human civilization...one is instead suffused with moral outrage. Yes, the same rigor is required, but the stakes are high, and rather than respect for your brilliant interlocuter, you hate some douche bag of a Princeton economist for their narrowness and foolishness. They are now but the very clever and powerful enemy. And rather than feeling schooled by worthy teachers, you only feel impotent and useless against the wrongs of the world.
But so moved by your righteousness, that maybe you plot in ways in which to amass power, to fight for the forces of good. But what is the danger of power? would you keep the rigor of Carnap and Kant? The pursuit of truth? Would you remember the kindness that moved you first, before the books?
Doctors have certainly squandered the pwoer of healer, but perhaps they never had much right to it.
Patients distrust doctors
"Others say the problem also stems from a grueling training system that removes doctors from the world patients live in. 'By the time you’re done with your training, you feel, in many ways, that you are as far as you could possibly be from the very people you’ve set out to help.'"
Racial schism of American Medicine
In 1910, when Abraham Flexner published his report on medical education, African-Americans made up 2.5 percent of the number of physicians in the United States. Today, they make up 2.2 percent.
Lawyers and Government?
Justice Department and political nepotism
Senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales broke Civil Service laws by using politics to guide their hiring decisions, picking less-qualified applicants for important nonpolitical positions, slowing the hiring process at critical times and damaging the department’s credibility, an internal report concluded on Monday.
RIghteousness is a dangerous vice. But then, so is the lack of moral clarity. So is the lack of balls to call bullshit: bullshit. Bringing a written list of questions for your doctor, my ass.
Sometimes the most sensible thing really is a revolution. And alas, that seems to require a tedium of papers, many many people, and a steady drum beat of truth and clarity for however long it takes.
Today i am in the library with a 6 inch pile of papers by economists, ethicists, policy scholars, and disgruntled professors of medicine. The puzzles of international health governance, medicare payment systems, the politics of clean drinking water--are no less convoluted nor deliciously knotted than any logic proof or how we perceive reality. But these puzzles are effused with despair--for some such position is no mere intellectual wanking--it becomes a policy paper, that makes it way to the idealogues or corporate boardroom--it becomes enmeshed in the strands of power--and then a mass of people motherfucking die obscene deaths of want in a world of wealth. And then, rather than disagreeing with Bertrand Russell as a vigorous and exhilerating game of wits, to pit one's own intellect against the mightiest minds of human civilization...one is instead suffused with moral outrage. Yes, the same rigor is required, but the stakes are high, and rather than respect for your brilliant interlocuter, you hate some douche bag of a Princeton economist for their narrowness and foolishness. They are now but the very clever and powerful enemy. And rather than feeling schooled by worthy teachers, you only feel impotent and useless against the wrongs of the world.
But so moved by your righteousness, that maybe you plot in ways in which to amass power, to fight for the forces of good. But what is the danger of power? would you keep the rigor of Carnap and Kant? The pursuit of truth? Would you remember the kindness that moved you first, before the books?
Doctors have certainly squandered the pwoer of healer, but perhaps they never had much right to it.
Patients distrust doctors
"Others say the problem also stems from a grueling training system that removes doctors from the world patients live in. 'By the time you’re done with your training, you feel, in many ways, that you are as far as you could possibly be from the very people you’ve set out to help.'"
Racial schism of American Medicine
In 1910, when Abraham Flexner published his report on medical education, African-Americans made up 2.5 percent of the number of physicians in the United States. Today, they make up 2.2 percent.
Lawyers and Government?
Justice Department and political nepotism
Senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales broke Civil Service laws by using politics to guide their hiring decisions, picking less-qualified applicants for important nonpolitical positions, slowing the hiring process at critical times and damaging the department’s credibility, an internal report concluded on Monday.
RIghteousness is a dangerous vice. But then, so is the lack of moral clarity. So is the lack of balls to call bullshit: bullshit. Bringing a written list of questions for your doctor, my ass.
Sometimes the most sensible thing really is a revolution. And alas, that seems to require a tedium of papers, many many people, and a steady drum beat of truth and clarity for however long it takes.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Best Student Evaluation
From the University of California, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Student Evaluation of Teaching Assistant for Course MCB 136/236: Advanced Physiology, Spring 2008. Best Comment Ever:
"I wish she would have brought us candy"
"I wish she would have brought us candy"
Friday, July 25, 2008
The Writing on the Wall
"Those who live, work, and think in rich material and intellectual environments understandably tend to take for granted their wealth, democracy, and civil society. They may have little direct knowledge or comprehension of how their societies have acquired, and continue to acquire--including through exploitation of distant others--the resources that enable them to lead comfortable lives. They are also remote from the 'world of victims' and from the difficulties faced by colleagues who are endeavoring to sustain universal professional ideals and accessible services in poor, nondemocratic, and oppressive countries, in which a myriad of overt and covert forces influence and obstruct them. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has highlighted some of these issues both in relation ot research in developing countries and in making new therapies available to those most in need. The impact of the SARS epidemic on Toronto was a wake-up call to the fact that privileged societies are not immune to the health, security, and economic threats posed by the emergence and spread of new infectious diseases."
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Sometimes, I hate San Francisco
Its heart is cold, its true, like any other city. And it will take the heat from yours. The friction of strangers only leaves burns. The rent will gut you. The ornate cornices and fluttering vermin will chase the loneliness, in the city of gold. The young women don't believe in love, the young men chase 51 ways to erotically throttle shadows in the alleyways. Madmen have stopped uttering prophesies, they are chided for the carbon footprint of their shopping carts, and the rich women carve identical tattoos to name themselves in the tribe of defiance. i scuttle to the four corners of my single bedroom, the light filtered through the barbed wire outside my window, the air through a hundred years of stale piss. i eat half a burrito everyday and wonder why my friends frown so much.
Monday, July 21, 2008
OMG
My adviser is only like, 35 years old. Well. I guess that's why she's so young and pretty and hip, and perhaps even why she seems more inclined to dash off to Bosnia or Rwanda every so often. But dude!, how did she get so much stuff done?!
How to do it right?
A rather exquisite question. The terrible thing about medicine is that it demands highly educated intellectuals to undertake extremely tedious practical work full of poop and blood and soul-crushing paperwork. This is also the awesome thing about it. The terrible thing about medicine is the single mindedness of it, the way it is such a difficult art, robs you of your personal life and mind's breath, demands and demands and demands, so that you can reflexively dose beta blockers and insert a catheter at 4 am in the morning without slicing a major artery. This is also the enticing, admirable thing about it.
However, a frustration with this article is that it does not question the premise that primary care need not be that fucked up: primary care is hard, but maybe it needs less bullshit (e.g. infuriating Medicare bureaucracy, uncompensated hours) and more support (e.g. more respect from the academic establishment). Or realization that those who "practice medicine at the exclusion of all else," or practice anything* at the exclusion of all else, are frequently sad, fucked up people (see: John Berger, "A Fortunate Man"). Or that cultural and economic trends have been steadily moving away from exactly that sort of lifestyle, and that medicine and law have been struggling to be enticing when pitted against companies like Google (read: time off and* free scooters). And as to the women doctors not working enough--well the fact women MDs tend to take more of those lower paying primary care positions that Jauhar bemoans, or that are cited to be overall more empathetic in all specialties, or that women patients desire women doctors, or that the steady influx of feminism in medicine since the 1970s have resulted in better care for maternal health, STDs, female diseases, less fucked up paternalism--and a myriad other tyrades--that will have to wait another day.
From All Walks of Life — Nontraditional Medical Students and the Future of Medicine
Sandeep Jauhar, M.D., Ph.D.
from NEJM
When I was growing up, my parents wanted me to become a doctor, but I had other ideas. I wanted to be a television journalist, or perhaps a trial lawyer or private investigator — something with panache. In college, intoxicated by the mysteries of the universe, I ended up studying condensed-matter physics, in which I eventually earned a Ph.D. But after a close friend contracted an incurable illness, I began to have doubts about my career path. Seeking a profession of tangible purpose — like many older students — I was drawn to medicine.
When I entered medical school at 26, I was considered to be a nontraditional student — but I was hardly alone. A middle-aged woman in my class had an advanced degree in cell biology. One classmate in his early 30s had been a physician assistant for 10 years; there were also a lawyer and an AmeriCorps organizer among us. We were the new face of medicine, or so we were told, and there was considerable interest in us from professors and administrators, if not from our classmates.
The mean age of first-year medical students today is about 24, though 10% are 27 or older. Medical schools now routinely admit students in their 30s or 40s who already have families or are well into another career before turning toward medicine. In general, these students have been welcomed into the profession. They bring maturity, diversity, broader perspectives, "life experience." But what do these physicists, musicians, actors, lawyers, writers, stockbrokers, and dancers add to the profession? Since primary care physicians are in short supply, doesn't medicine just need more conventional, nose-to-the-grindstone clinicians?
Of course, nowadays, when many medical school applicants boast myriad resumé-building experiences, it isn't always clear what "nontraditional" means. Quirky undergraduate concentrations such as music or film are popular among applicants, and so are dual degrees. Female sex ceased to be a distinguishing characteristic years ago. "`Nontraditional' these days is quite a bit different from what it was back when I was in medical school," notes Scott Barnett, associate dean for admissions and graduate medical education at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "At our school, 50% of medical students are nonscience majors. Out of 140 students, a quarter are from our [undergraduate] Humanities in Medicine program; 10% are M.D.–Ph.D.s; quite a few are career changers."
Such students "are at the forefront of our school," Barnett goes on. "They are older and have a broader view of the world. . . . We've realized that the conventional biology major may not be necessary to produce competent, morally and ethically upstanding citizen-doctors." In Barnett's experience, most people who adopt medicine as a second career "at some point in their lives thought they wanted to be doctors, but their interests led them elsewhere. Maybe the thought of taking a premedical curriculum was repugnant to them. They thought, `I'm going to take full advantage of the 4 years of college; I'll go back and do it later.' They went into teaching, law, finance, the family business, and then, years later, they realize they made a mistake. I think this particularly applies to the finance people — `I'm just making a lot of money, and what am I doing? I'm not helping people.' I think for most nontraditional students, medicine has been scratching at their brains for a long time."
Lawrence Smith, former dean of medical education at New York's Mount Sinai and new dean of the Hofstra University School of Medicine (scheduled to open on Long Island in 2010), says that nontraditional students are often a challenge to medical educators. "They're more self-confident," he says. "They're more conscious of what they want to do with their time. They're less willing to just suck it up and go through the rote aspects of medical training. They are the ones you see in the dean's office saying, `Don't inflict this horrible teacher on me.'
"At the same time, they bring an integrative, adult vision of the world to medicine," Smith adds. "They excel in the clinical setting. They ask smart questions. They challenge assumptions. They ask `why?' more than younger students. They're more comfortable dealing with people. I'm not sure they necessarily make better doctors, but I think the class is definitely enhanced by their presence."
Leslie Kahl, dean of student affairs at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says that the decision of such students to enter medicine is almost always "self-conscious." "My sense is that they're more focused, more goal-oriented, when they arrive," she says. Kahl agrees with Smith that nontraditional students bring diverse experiences that improve a class. "They help traditional students . . . better envision the opportunities in their future. They influence them to bring a different, maybe slightly more mature or empathetic, approach to their own patients."
By and large, admissions committees seem to agree. Although most medical schools do not keep track of how many nontraditional students they admit, the number has almost certainly increased over the past decade and will probably continue to rise in the face of concerns about a looming doctor shortage.
It is apparent in online discussions hosted by the Web site studentdoctor.net that many nontraditional medical students themselves believe they have advantages over their younger counterparts — greater sensitivity in interactions with patients, more certainty about their career choices, a greater ability to deal with emotional distress, and a clearer sense of what they want to do within medicine.
A 46-year-old intern at my hospital, whom I'll call David Burns, went to medical school in his mid-20s, but when he had a health crisis, he decided to forgo residency and become a teacher. He eventually became a top-level administrator in a large hospital system in Philadelphia, with a six-figure salary and six secretaries. Then, he says, "I hit the big 45 and asked myself, `What is this?' I had always wanted to do medicine." So he started doing daily rounds at 6 a.m. with an ICU team at one of the hospitals he was overseeing. "I loved being there," he recalls. "I wanted to be taking care of people.
"For most interns, this is the first job they've ever had," Burns points out. "They have no concept of being a professional. When you're an older student, you have a different perspective. You spend less time whining that the world is unfair." He plans to apply for a fellowship in critical care — though he realizes that he'll be 51 years old when he finishes his training.
Johnny Lops, a 29-year-old psychiatry resident at my hospital, is a different kind of nontraditional doctor. He was an actor before going to medical school, performing off-Broadway and in television commercials, and he continues to act part-time. "I get to do what I love — psychiatry and acting," he says. "I come to work happy, and because I am happy, I can be a better doctor. So many residents are frustrated. I tell them you need a creative outlet."
Moreover, Lops believes his acting background helps him in medicine. "I definitely know how to handle people and situations more easily," he says. "I'm good at improvisation, so I'm quick on my feet. I have a trained eye and ear, so I'm good with families and their politics."
But more generally, are the diverse backgrounds and interests of nontraditional medical students really what the profession needs? Today, most experts believe that medicine needs more doctors who are able and willing to do the difficult work of primary care, especially since shortages of front-line physicians are expected at the same time as the baby boomers begin reaching Medicare age. Diversity of the workforce is an admirable goal, but it brings challenges, too.
For example, the influx of women into medicine in recent decades has been associated with a change in work habits: today, both male and female doctors are less likely than their predecessors to practice medicine to the exclusion of everything else. A recent survey found that 24% of female physicians under 50 work part-time.1 This trend has put pressure on older doctors nearing retirement, many of whom bemoan the lack of suitable candidates to take over their practices. Is it responsible for medical schools to admit older students who may pursue disparate interests and will probably have shorter career spans? And given that Medicare funds much of graduate medical education in this country, shouldn't the government's investment take the population's needs into consideration?
The disadvantages of older age are often glossed over in discussions about nontraditional students. Medical training requires an intensity of commitment and energy that is almost unique among professions. Older students may not have the same kind of reserves to draw on as their younger, more narrowly focused counterparts. Their greater life experience may make it harder for them to conform to the hospital pecking order, among other adjustments.
When I began medical school, I discovered that the determination and focus of traditional medical students, which had seemed alien to me in college, were well adapted for a career in medicine. Such students could study longer and harder than others, unencumbered as they were by outside responsibilities — or a long hiatus between college and medical school. On the wards, they appeared single-minded and were often able to act quickly, almost reflexively. These strengths have undoubtedly proved advantageous to them as clinicians.
Barnett of Mount Sinai acknowledges that the age and inclination of older students must be factored into admissions decisions. "I think it is in people's minds when they interview students: Will admitting this person, who may be taking the spot of a younger student, produce benefit to society?" he says. "I don't know of a cutoff, but maybe around age 50 you start to wonder if this is just an intellectual exercise.
"We're willing for older applicants to make a case of what they want to do for society," he goes on. "If they can't make a compelling case, then the application is not going to fly. But the same applies to the 21-year-old applicant."
Hofstra's Smith says: "This is . . . obviously a societal question. Does individual freedom take precedence over group needs? In some cases, committees may not think admitting an older student is a good use of the limited number of spots. But you have to be afraid of too much social engineering. Look at women physicians: they tend to work less than men. Does that mean we shouldn't be admitting female students?"
For now, medical school admissions committees continue to accept older, nontraditional students. Perhaps they believe that medicine needs new voices — and given the myriad problems of health care, it is hard to disagree. Nevertheless, I think we need more data before we can call this a viable strategy for the future.
However, a frustration with this article is that it does not question the premise that primary care need not be that fucked up: primary care is hard, but maybe it needs less bullshit (e.g. infuriating Medicare bureaucracy, uncompensated hours) and more support (e.g. more respect from the academic establishment). Or realization that those who "practice medicine at the exclusion of all else," or practice anything* at the exclusion of all else, are frequently sad, fucked up people (see: John Berger, "A Fortunate Man"). Or that cultural and economic trends have been steadily moving away from exactly that sort of lifestyle, and that medicine and law have been struggling to be enticing when pitted against companies like Google (read: time off and* free scooters). And as to the women doctors not working enough--well the fact women MDs tend to take more of those lower paying primary care positions that Jauhar bemoans, or that are cited to be overall more empathetic in all specialties, or that women patients desire women doctors, or that the steady influx of feminism in medicine since the 1970s have resulted in better care for maternal health, STDs, female diseases, less fucked up paternalism--and a myriad other tyrades--that will have to wait another day.
From All Walks of Life — Nontraditional Medical Students and the Future of Medicine
Sandeep Jauhar, M.D., Ph.D.
from NEJM
When I was growing up, my parents wanted me to become a doctor, but I had other ideas. I wanted to be a television journalist, or perhaps a trial lawyer or private investigator — something with panache. In college, intoxicated by the mysteries of the universe, I ended up studying condensed-matter physics, in which I eventually earned a Ph.D. But after a close friend contracted an incurable illness, I began to have doubts about my career path. Seeking a profession of tangible purpose — like many older students — I was drawn to medicine.
When I entered medical school at 26, I was considered to be a nontraditional student — but I was hardly alone. A middle-aged woman in my class had an advanced degree in cell biology. One classmate in his early 30s had been a physician assistant for 10 years; there were also a lawyer and an AmeriCorps organizer among us. We were the new face of medicine, or so we were told, and there was considerable interest in us from professors and administrators, if not from our classmates.
The mean age of first-year medical students today is about 24, though 10% are 27 or older. Medical schools now routinely admit students in their 30s or 40s who already have families or are well into another career before turning toward medicine. In general, these students have been welcomed into the profession. They bring maturity, diversity, broader perspectives, "life experience." But what do these physicists, musicians, actors, lawyers, writers, stockbrokers, and dancers add to the profession? Since primary care physicians are in short supply, doesn't medicine just need more conventional, nose-to-the-grindstone clinicians?
Of course, nowadays, when many medical school applicants boast myriad resumé-building experiences, it isn't always clear what "nontraditional" means. Quirky undergraduate concentrations such as music or film are popular among applicants, and so are dual degrees. Female sex ceased to be a distinguishing characteristic years ago. "`Nontraditional' these days is quite a bit different from what it was back when I was in medical school," notes Scott Barnett, associate dean for admissions and graduate medical education at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "At our school, 50% of medical students are nonscience majors. Out of 140 students, a quarter are from our [undergraduate] Humanities in Medicine program; 10% are M.D.–Ph.D.s; quite a few are career changers."
Such students "are at the forefront of our school," Barnett goes on. "They are older and have a broader view of the world. . . . We've realized that the conventional biology major may not be necessary to produce competent, morally and ethically upstanding citizen-doctors." In Barnett's experience, most people who adopt medicine as a second career "at some point in their lives thought they wanted to be doctors, but their interests led them elsewhere. Maybe the thought of taking a premedical curriculum was repugnant to them. They thought, `I'm going to take full advantage of the 4 years of college; I'll go back and do it later.' They went into teaching, law, finance, the family business, and then, years later, they realize they made a mistake. I think this particularly applies to the finance people — `I'm just making a lot of money, and what am I doing? I'm not helping people.' I think for most nontraditional students, medicine has been scratching at their brains for a long time."
Lawrence Smith, former dean of medical education at New York's Mount Sinai and new dean of the Hofstra University School of Medicine (scheduled to open on Long Island in 2010), says that nontraditional students are often a challenge to medical educators. "They're more self-confident," he says. "They're more conscious of what they want to do with their time. They're less willing to just suck it up and go through the rote aspects of medical training. They are the ones you see in the dean's office saying, `Don't inflict this horrible teacher on me.'
"At the same time, they bring an integrative, adult vision of the world to medicine," Smith adds. "They excel in the clinical setting. They ask smart questions. They challenge assumptions. They ask `why?' more than younger students. They're more comfortable dealing with people. I'm not sure they necessarily make better doctors, but I think the class is definitely enhanced by their presence."
Leslie Kahl, dean of student affairs at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says that the decision of such students to enter medicine is almost always "self-conscious." "My sense is that they're more focused, more goal-oriented, when they arrive," she says. Kahl agrees with Smith that nontraditional students bring diverse experiences that improve a class. "They help traditional students . . . better envision the opportunities in their future. They influence them to bring a different, maybe slightly more mature or empathetic, approach to their own patients."
By and large, admissions committees seem to agree. Although most medical schools do not keep track of how many nontraditional students they admit, the number has almost certainly increased over the past decade and will probably continue to rise in the face of concerns about a looming doctor shortage.
It is apparent in online discussions hosted by the Web site studentdoctor.net that many nontraditional medical students themselves believe they have advantages over their younger counterparts — greater sensitivity in interactions with patients, more certainty about their career choices, a greater ability to deal with emotional distress, and a clearer sense of what they want to do within medicine.
A 46-year-old intern at my hospital, whom I'll call David Burns, went to medical school in his mid-20s, but when he had a health crisis, he decided to forgo residency and become a teacher. He eventually became a top-level administrator in a large hospital system in Philadelphia, with a six-figure salary and six secretaries. Then, he says, "I hit the big 45 and asked myself, `What is this?' I had always wanted to do medicine." So he started doing daily rounds at 6 a.m. with an ICU team at one of the hospitals he was overseeing. "I loved being there," he recalls. "I wanted to be taking care of people.
"For most interns, this is the first job they've ever had," Burns points out. "They have no concept of being a professional. When you're an older student, you have a different perspective. You spend less time whining that the world is unfair." He plans to apply for a fellowship in critical care — though he realizes that he'll be 51 years old when he finishes his training.
Johnny Lops, a 29-year-old psychiatry resident at my hospital, is a different kind of nontraditional doctor. He was an actor before going to medical school, performing off-Broadway and in television commercials, and he continues to act part-time. "I get to do what I love — psychiatry and acting," he says. "I come to work happy, and because I am happy, I can be a better doctor. So many residents are frustrated. I tell them you need a creative outlet."
Moreover, Lops believes his acting background helps him in medicine. "I definitely know how to handle people and situations more easily," he says. "I'm good at improvisation, so I'm quick on my feet. I have a trained eye and ear, so I'm good with families and their politics."
But more generally, are the diverse backgrounds and interests of nontraditional medical students really what the profession needs? Today, most experts believe that medicine needs more doctors who are able and willing to do the difficult work of primary care, especially since shortages of front-line physicians are expected at the same time as the baby boomers begin reaching Medicare age. Diversity of the workforce is an admirable goal, but it brings challenges, too.
For example, the influx of women into medicine in recent decades has been associated with a change in work habits: today, both male and female doctors are less likely than their predecessors to practice medicine to the exclusion of everything else. A recent survey found that 24% of female physicians under 50 work part-time.1 This trend has put pressure on older doctors nearing retirement, many of whom bemoan the lack of suitable candidates to take over their practices. Is it responsible for medical schools to admit older students who may pursue disparate interests and will probably have shorter career spans? And given that Medicare funds much of graduate medical education in this country, shouldn't the government's investment take the population's needs into consideration?
The disadvantages of older age are often glossed over in discussions about nontraditional students. Medical training requires an intensity of commitment and energy that is almost unique among professions. Older students may not have the same kind of reserves to draw on as their younger, more narrowly focused counterparts. Their greater life experience may make it harder for them to conform to the hospital pecking order, among other adjustments.
When I began medical school, I discovered that the determination and focus of traditional medical students, which had seemed alien to me in college, were well adapted for a career in medicine. Such students could study longer and harder than others, unencumbered as they were by outside responsibilities — or a long hiatus between college and medical school. On the wards, they appeared single-minded and were often able to act quickly, almost reflexively. These strengths have undoubtedly proved advantageous to them as clinicians.
Barnett of Mount Sinai acknowledges that the age and inclination of older students must be factored into admissions decisions. "I think it is in people's minds when they interview students: Will admitting this person, who may be taking the spot of a younger student, produce benefit to society?" he says. "I don't know of a cutoff, but maybe around age 50 you start to wonder if this is just an intellectual exercise.
"We're willing for older applicants to make a case of what they want to do for society," he goes on. "If they can't make a compelling case, then the application is not going to fly. But the same applies to the 21-year-old applicant."
Hofstra's Smith says: "This is . . . obviously a societal question. Does individual freedom take precedence over group needs? In some cases, committees may not think admitting an older student is a good use of the limited number of spots. But you have to be afraid of too much social engineering. Look at women physicians: they tend to work less than men. Does that mean we shouldn't be admitting female students?"
For now, medical school admissions committees continue to accept older, nontraditional students. Perhaps they believe that medicine needs new voices — and given the myriad problems of health care, it is hard to disagree. Nevertheless, I think we need more data before we can call this a viable strategy for the future.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Hobbies as of late
Reading about the devastating, far reaching, abominable suffering of world poverty characterized by families living on the purchasing power of a mere $2 a day--while drinking a cappuccino that costs $2.70, in order to fuel such readings.
Monday, July 14, 2008
huzzah! science, writing, competition
favorite things!:
Share your ideas on the current state of science
Seed is pleased to announce the Third Annual Seed Science Writing Contest.
For science to achieve its transformative potential across society, it is essential that we understand both what catalyzes science and what inhibits it. Last year we sought ideas to catalyze science literacy. This year, we ask:
What is the most significant force acting against science in society today? How can it be overcome?
Submission Deadline: August 1, 2008
Maximum Word Count: 1,200
First Prize:
$2,500 Prize
2nd Place:
$1,000 Prize
Please send your submissions as a Word document along with your full name and mailing address to writingcontest@seedmediagroup.com.
Please read the Official Rules » For more information, go to seedmagazine.com/writingcontest
Share your ideas on the current state of science
Seed is pleased to announce the Third Annual Seed Science Writing Contest.
For science to achieve its transformative potential across society, it is essential that we understand both what catalyzes science and what inhibits it. Last year we sought ideas to catalyze science literacy. This year, we ask:
What is the most significant force acting against science in society today? How can it be overcome?
Submission Deadline: August 1, 2008
Maximum Word Count: 1,200
First Prize:
$2,500 Prize
2nd Place:
$1,000 Prize
Please send your submissions as a Word document along with your full name and mailing address to writingcontest@seedmediagroup.com.
Please read the Official Rules » For more information, go to seedmagazine.com/writingcontest
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Eulogy
A familiar family: stalwart old guard revolutionaries. young tattood girls. beautiful gay men. Faces from before, but now with babies, doctorates, new tattoos, same smiles. Everyone seems timeless...Exactly how I last saw them, even if i hadn't met so many of them. We are in a secret courtyard behind the church, which i did not even know existed, a secret sanctuary. A massive oak hangs over. A crucifix of old branches rests peacefully behind climbing vines. Tables with orchids, lit by clinical lamps, strewn with potato chips and photos of the beloved. There is genial conversation, an epic soundtrack, and occasionally a sobbing embrace.
He ran away from North Carolina, away from his father, a commanding Methodist minister, he ran away to Berkeley, to spend 38 years in a radical free clinic--in the basement of a Methodist church.
We tell our tales. I tell mine. My speech. i agonized all day, for a few weeks, turning over and over...the profound role of my teachers at the free clinic. In the end it would always be deficient, so i stay dutifully within my five minute limit. I listen to the stories of others, deeply moved by the impact of one human on the lives of many. I am honored to be a part of something. JD, ever the wise motorcycle sage, speaks softly and eloquently of Scotto's impact on the myriad physicans, nurses, PAs hundreds of workers, who then go on to impact the souls of others. This then, the way things unfold.
my speech.
"The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega Y Gasset once cruelly noted, 'A revolution only lasts fifteen years, a period which coincides with the effectiveness of a generation.' But the legacy of that revolution, of its teachers and institutions can generate a force that lasts 30, 40, 50 years, that ripples deep into the psyche of the next generation and rumbles across continents and seas.
I arrived to the Berkeley Free Clinic entirely by accident, an earnest do gooding 19 year old, full of angst, restless, and fierce in my own bumbling 19 year old way. I wanted very badly to make many wrongs in the world right. And so I arrived, and so I met Scottosaurus.
Scottosaurus was crotchety, perpetually wary, incorrigible. He endured my endless questions: why was his name Scottosaurus? Why did he have a torchlight strapped to his hat? Where were the condoms? How do I shut off the alarm? The toilet has exploded, what now? He always answered thoughtfully, often with a note about history of the Digger’s movement, or the last time the clinic flooded in the late 1980s. We spent many slow shifts discussing the merits of an assortment of science fiction literature, Kantian metaphysics or the changing nature of information and its relation to power. It was Scotto who introduced me to Pete’s coffee, which he typically brewed to the strength of gasoline. He often lumbered about, supremely disgruntled, but his mind was bright, sparkling and nimble. He could mobilize a dense architecture of rapid fire bullet point arguments, exquisitely interwoven clauses, exceptions, and footnotes drawn from endless vaults of profound clinic history and obscure facts about vacuum tubes.
Scotto made me believe in the revolution. The one that may begin in riots, but bleeds deeply into the daily work of life. His life is inseparably and intimately interwoven with this clinic. The impact of the Berkeley free clinic, of its people and vision, cannot be overstated. The people of this place have been teachers, models, inspiration, and comrades in the search for thoughtful impact towards a better world, they illustrate what the steady and rather piecemeal work of Revolution actually entails—long meetings, unclogging toilets, reaching beyond ideology and inflated rhetoric to listen—to listen to clients, to one’s own self, and one’s fellow workers.
Scott himself was a thoughtful connector, a hub in the clinic’s erratic, dynamic and fluxing existence. He observed events, people, and exchanges with the astuteness and analysis of science, and artfully sought to relate, connect, and synthesize a collective wisdom. He was also completely unafraid to tell you were dead wrong and piss you off royally. But he was ceaselessly passionate for the work and for the vision. He cared deeply and indubitably.
My heart is heavy for this loss, heavy that I had not spoken sooner, that I could not express directly these things to Scotto. That in my brief 3 years in the IRC, I had been profoundly moved and transformed. It is true, that many of us, 5, 15, 30 years later, are still full of questions, of angst, of fierce restlessness to make the many wrongs of the world right.
But in that brief time, I gained immensely, what I have learned here has launched me with boldness and knowledge to undertake the good fight—in the clinics of San Francisco and Tanzania, in the marble halls of policy and advocacy, to join others in upholding dignity of each human, and the collective spirit of justice in all action.
Antoine du Saint Exupery, the famed pilot and author of the fearless 'Little Prince' advises 'If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.'
Scotto’s legacy is a pillar of this clinic, and the clinic in turn launched a thousand lives—curing pimples on penises, or empowering each other to learn their own bodies, or by letting people stumble into the courage to make the world “a little less ridiculous,” by knowing there are others who will stand and work with them. Chirp!"
He ran away from North Carolina, away from his father, a commanding Methodist minister, he ran away to Berkeley, to spend 38 years in a radical free clinic--in the basement of a Methodist church.
We tell our tales. I tell mine. My speech. i agonized all day, for a few weeks, turning over and over...the profound role of my teachers at the free clinic. In the end it would always be deficient, so i stay dutifully within my five minute limit. I listen to the stories of others, deeply moved by the impact of one human on the lives of many. I am honored to be a part of something. JD, ever the wise motorcycle sage, speaks softly and eloquently of Scotto's impact on the myriad physicans, nurses, PAs hundreds of workers, who then go on to impact the souls of others. This then, the way things unfold.
my speech.
"The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega Y Gasset once cruelly noted, 'A revolution only lasts fifteen years, a period which coincides with the effectiveness of a generation.' But the legacy of that revolution, of its teachers and institutions can generate a force that lasts 30, 40, 50 years, that ripples deep into the psyche of the next generation and rumbles across continents and seas.
I arrived to the Berkeley Free Clinic entirely by accident, an earnest do gooding 19 year old, full of angst, restless, and fierce in my own bumbling 19 year old way. I wanted very badly to make many wrongs in the world right. And so I arrived, and so I met Scottosaurus.
Scottosaurus was crotchety, perpetually wary, incorrigible. He endured my endless questions: why was his name Scottosaurus? Why did he have a torchlight strapped to his hat? Where were the condoms? How do I shut off the alarm? The toilet has exploded, what now? He always answered thoughtfully, often with a note about history of the Digger’s movement, or the last time the clinic flooded in the late 1980s. We spent many slow shifts discussing the merits of an assortment of science fiction literature, Kantian metaphysics or the changing nature of information and its relation to power. It was Scotto who introduced me to Pete’s coffee, which he typically brewed to the strength of gasoline. He often lumbered about, supremely disgruntled, but his mind was bright, sparkling and nimble. He could mobilize a dense architecture of rapid fire bullet point arguments, exquisitely interwoven clauses, exceptions, and footnotes drawn from endless vaults of profound clinic history and obscure facts about vacuum tubes.
Scotto made me believe in the revolution. The one that may begin in riots, but bleeds deeply into the daily work of life. His life is inseparably and intimately interwoven with this clinic. The impact of the Berkeley free clinic, of its people and vision, cannot be overstated. The people of this place have been teachers, models, inspiration, and comrades in the search for thoughtful impact towards a better world, they illustrate what the steady and rather piecemeal work of Revolution actually entails—long meetings, unclogging toilets, reaching beyond ideology and inflated rhetoric to listen—to listen to clients, to one’s own self, and one’s fellow workers.
Scott himself was a thoughtful connector, a hub in the clinic’s erratic, dynamic and fluxing existence. He observed events, people, and exchanges with the astuteness and analysis of science, and artfully sought to relate, connect, and synthesize a collective wisdom. He was also completely unafraid to tell you were dead wrong and piss you off royally. But he was ceaselessly passionate for the work and for the vision. He cared deeply and indubitably.
My heart is heavy for this loss, heavy that I had not spoken sooner, that I could not express directly these things to Scotto. That in my brief 3 years in the IRC, I had been profoundly moved and transformed. It is true, that many of us, 5, 15, 30 years later, are still full of questions, of angst, of fierce restlessness to make the many wrongs of the world right.
But in that brief time, I gained immensely, what I have learned here has launched me with boldness and knowledge to undertake the good fight—in the clinics of San Francisco and Tanzania, in the marble halls of policy and advocacy, to join others in upholding dignity of each human, and the collective spirit of justice in all action.
Antoine du Saint Exupery, the famed pilot and author of the fearless 'Little Prince' advises 'If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.'
Scotto’s legacy is a pillar of this clinic, and the clinic in turn launched a thousand lives—curing pimples on penises, or empowering each other to learn their own bodies, or by letting people stumble into the courage to make the world “a little less ridiculous,” by knowing there are others who will stand and work with them. Chirp!"
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Why I love the British
Perhaps in my deepest, I am fundamentally a tropical girl--given to sentimentality, fussiness, shameless hedonism, clingy neediness and unbridled passions. I cry and laugh with utter transparency and express my love with food.
And perhaps forever on, I will be on all functioning accounts an American girl--fiercely ambitious, equally earnest, gruesomely optimistic, stimulation junkie, self absorbed, individualistic and given to expressing all affection couched in the language of legal consent.
But somewhere in between, i would like to think that weaving the distance in continents and oceans, is the cheerful work of the british, who were always so exquisitely polite when endeavoring to wipe out your civilization and grow tea plantations on top of it.
Their infamous stiff upper lip, lined always with a comical handlebar mustache, smelling vaguely of tobacco, bacon and bureaucracy, these men and women provide models of grace and sly dowdiness, be they faced with armies of disgruntled heathens, the demise of their empire, tropical weather ruining their tweed suit, or that final Tea Cup in the Sky--mortality.
Someday i will question what the English language has made of my brain, and write it out, in this language that has colonized me--and I who have colonized it.
And perhaps forever on, I will be on all functioning accounts an American girl--fiercely ambitious, equally earnest, gruesomely optimistic, stimulation junkie, self absorbed, individualistic and given to expressing all affection couched in the language of legal consent.
But somewhere in between, i would like to think that weaving the distance in continents and oceans, is the cheerful work of the british, who were always so exquisitely polite when endeavoring to wipe out your civilization and grow tea plantations on top of it.
Their infamous stiff upper lip, lined always with a comical handlebar mustache, smelling vaguely of tobacco, bacon and bureaucracy, these men and women provide models of grace and sly dowdiness, be they faced with armies of disgruntled heathens, the demise of their empire, tropical weather ruining their tweed suit, or that final Tea Cup in the Sky--mortality.
Someday i will question what the English language has made of my brain, and write it out, in this language that has colonized me--and I who have colonized it.
Against perfectionism
“Don't worry, be crappy. Revolutionary means you ship and then test... Lots of things made the first Mac in 1984 a piece of crap - but it was a revolutionary piece of crap.”
Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Fortune Cookie says: "You will discover new frontiers"
I miss the taste of revolution in my mouth.
That old hooligan of a prophet Nietzsche warned: “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Phblt. what would it find but more abyss? And there's the crux of the matter: heaving, devouring darkness peering intently at each other. This is what ambition amounts to, and the alchemy lies in making light.
The heat has been hammering at me. Nothing can be done. All of civilization, with its whirring air conditions and defiant stretches of parking lot, is nothing for our blazing father star. The sun is merciless. Philosophy, chemistry, nothing. Economics the rise of the information age, useless. Gay pride parades and the Geneva Convention, these things have melted. In visceral exhaustion nothing means anything.
Nothing, anything to be done, but alas, to google image search puppies.
Until then, the case for moderation: “Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply; those who want to deny the world must have once embraced what they now set on fire.”
That old hooligan of a prophet Nietzsche warned: “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Phblt. what would it find but more abyss? And there's the crux of the matter: heaving, devouring darkness peering intently at each other. This is what ambition amounts to, and the alchemy lies in making light.
The heat has been hammering at me. Nothing can be done. All of civilization, with its whirring air conditions and defiant stretches of parking lot, is nothing for our blazing father star. The sun is merciless. Philosophy, chemistry, nothing. Economics the rise of the information age, useless. Gay pride parades and the Geneva Convention, these things have melted. In visceral exhaustion nothing means anything.
Nothing, anything to be done, but alas, to google image search puppies.
Until then, the case for moderation: “Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply; those who want to deny the world must have once embraced what they now set on fire.”
Sunday, July 6, 2008
%#&%@&* HOME!!!!
This is the five day forecast for Lancaster, CA from Weatherunderground.com. I will arrive Monday and leave Friday.
Monday
103° F | 70° F
39° C | 21° C
Clear
Tuesday
108° F | 70° F
42° C | 21° C
Clear
Wednesday
108° F | 72° F
42° C | 22° C
Chance of T-storms
20% chance of precipitation
Thursday
106° F | 72° F
41° C | 22° C
Chance of T-storms
20% chance of precipitation
Friday
103° F | 70° F
39° C | 21° C
Chance of T-storms
20% chance of precipitation
YEAH!
Monday
103° F | 70° F
39° C | 21° C
Clear
Tuesday
108° F | 70° F
42° C | 21° C
Clear
Wednesday
108° F | 72° F
42° C | 22° C
Chance of T-storms
20% chance of precipitation
Thursday
106° F | 72° F
41° C | 22° C
Chance of T-storms
20% chance of precipitation
Friday
103° F | 70° F
39° C | 21° C
Chance of T-storms
20% chance of precipitation
YEAH!
Saturday, July 5, 2008
i hate steam punk
just as much as i hate all the circus nonsense and Seed magazine. I hate it because i thought of it first, and i hate it even more because the last clause is entirely untrue and i only wish i had thought of it first. i may only have muttered it in repetition when someone else said it, but it was* before it showed up on the new york times trends page. Sure i read all of Blake, Lewis Carroll, Romantic mysticism and acquire much of my morality from South Asian culture that absorbed British 19th century prudery wholesale. But maybe i only talked alot about the Victorians more than actually converting my ipod into a brass steam engine. le sigh. When did stodgy ideas from dusty books become so much less sexy than design? Clearly, long ago, while i was not paying attention. i feel so disempowered.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Chronos and kairos
"There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist, fighting for peace by nonviolent methods, most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands. To commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful." (Thomas Merton)
Merton was himself what most would describe as an activist in the antiwar movement of the 1960s . Yet in this passage he identifies both the daily lives of many activists, and the personal habits of almost all modern physicians, as a way of participating in violence against human values, rather than ways of promoting peace and health.
For many students the most important distinction offered that between chronological or 'clock' time, on the one, and contemplative time on the other. Relying solely on the first and devaluing the second pushes otherwise laudable impulses—for example, to serve others—into the realm of violence. The reading which seems to make the lasting impression describes the difference between two Greek words for time. While chronos refers to what can be measured by the clock or calendar, kairos refers instead to time that cannot be measured, time that is separated instead into periods of meaning. In reflection one temporarily steps outside of chronological time to see things from a different level and with a more broadly purposeful perspective (Bloomquist, 1997). In many ways the distinction between chronos and kairos parallels Covey's distinction between the urgent and the important. Helping students learn to value kairos in their lives, and to resist being swallowed by chronos, is a critical goal of spirituality teaching.
We describe a variety of exercises as aids in regular reflection. These include transcendental and other forms of meditation, yoga, relaxation response, contemplation, and journaling. Each is a means toward an inward focus, a way to find space within oneself despite a culture so much at odds with it. The intensity and sensory over-stimulation of contemporary life almost deny the reality of anything quieter. Again, however, the course does not encourage spirituality as escape from the world. On the contrary: an inner life is part of, and nourishes a full and balanced life…
The medical curriculum emphasizes scientific and technical skills, and stresses that, without continuing education, physicians become unable to care for their patients. Practice is needed for technical skills—even the best physicians soon become rusty if they do not do a procedure for a while. The humane skills that constitute virtuous behavior—such things as imparting hope, and showing compassion through intensive listening—likewise require practice. The physician's ability to promote healing depends on both sets of skills. Covey (1989) has shrewdly observed that ability and character tend to go together; allowing one's abilities to atrophy through inadequate practice commonly reflects a character flaw. And, as Richard Gula notes, 'We must practice virtuous activity so that the virtues become habits, or second nature to us. We become trustworthy by doing acts of trustworthiness; we become altruistic by doing acts of altruism.'
Judith Andre, Jake Foglio, Howard Brody, "Moral Growth, Spirituality, and Activism: the Humanities in Medical Education"
Merton was himself what most would describe as an activist in the antiwar movement of the 1960s . Yet in this passage he identifies both the daily lives of many activists, and the personal habits of almost all modern physicians, as a way of participating in violence against human values, rather than ways of promoting peace and health.
For many students the most important distinction offered that between chronological or 'clock' time, on the one, and contemplative time on the other. Relying solely on the first and devaluing the second pushes otherwise laudable impulses—for example, to serve others—into the realm of violence. The reading which seems to make the lasting impression describes the difference between two Greek words for time. While chronos refers to what can be measured by the clock or calendar, kairos refers instead to time that cannot be measured, time that is separated instead into periods of meaning. In reflection one temporarily steps outside of chronological time to see things from a different level and with a more broadly purposeful perspective (Bloomquist, 1997). In many ways the distinction between chronos and kairos parallels Covey's distinction between the urgent and the important. Helping students learn to value kairos in their lives, and to resist being swallowed by chronos, is a critical goal of spirituality teaching.
We describe a variety of exercises as aids in regular reflection. These include transcendental and other forms of meditation, yoga, relaxation response, contemplation, and journaling. Each is a means toward an inward focus, a way to find space within oneself despite a culture so much at odds with it. The intensity and sensory over-stimulation of contemporary life almost deny the reality of anything quieter. Again, however, the course does not encourage spirituality as escape from the world. On the contrary: an inner life is part of, and nourishes a full and balanced life…
The medical curriculum emphasizes scientific and technical skills, and stresses that, without continuing education, physicians become unable to care for their patients. Practice is needed for technical skills—even the best physicians soon become rusty if they do not do a procedure for a while. The humane skills that constitute virtuous behavior—such things as imparting hope, and showing compassion through intensive listening—likewise require practice. The physician's ability to promote healing depends on both sets of skills. Covey (1989) has shrewdly observed that ability and character tend to go together; allowing one's abilities to atrophy through inadequate practice commonly reflects a character flaw. And, as Richard Gula notes, 'We must practice virtuous activity so that the virtues become habits, or second nature to us. We become trustworthy by doing acts of trustworthiness; we become altruistic by doing acts of altruism.'
Judith Andre, Jake Foglio, Howard Brody, "Moral Growth, Spirituality, and Activism: the Humanities in Medical Education"
Friday, June 27, 2008
Johnny Cash killed the California Condors
I am supposed to denounce the schizoid careening of my brain in its mad devouring of completely unrelated tales, like a glutton at the buffet. But its the information age.
the Information:
"Cash sometimes spoke of his erratic, drug-induced behavior with some degree of bemused detachment. In June 1965, his truck caught fire due to an overheated wheel bearing, triggering a forest fire that burnt several hundred acres in Los Padres National Forest in California. When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said, 'I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead, so you can't question it.' The fire destroyed 508 acres (2.06 km²), burning the foliage off three mountains and killing 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. Cash was unrepentant: 'I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards.' The federal government sued him and was awarded $125,127. Johnny eventually settled the case and paid $82,001. Cash said he was the only person ever sued by the government for starting a forest fire."
Something breaks my heart about this. Kind of like the rounding up of wild mustangs with Bureau of Land Management helicopters, who then adopt the horses out to insipid ranchers and their children, or simply have them shot.
The Killing Fields
"Long a symbol of freedom, America's wild horses may soon be no more."
Like a psyche that eats its root and sustenance. Even little immigrant girls feel the deep pangs of rock and roll and the American wilderness.
the Information:
"Cash sometimes spoke of his erratic, drug-induced behavior with some degree of bemused detachment. In June 1965, his truck caught fire due to an overheated wheel bearing, triggering a forest fire that burnt several hundred acres in Los Padres National Forest in California. When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said, 'I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead, so you can't question it.' The fire destroyed 508 acres (2.06 km²), burning the foliage off three mountains and killing 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. Cash was unrepentant: 'I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards.' The federal government sued him and was awarded $125,127. Johnny eventually settled the case and paid $82,001. Cash said he was the only person ever sued by the government for starting a forest fire."
Something breaks my heart about this. Kind of like the rounding up of wild mustangs with Bureau of Land Management helicopters, who then adopt the horses out to insipid ranchers and their children, or simply have them shot.
The Killing Fields
"Long a symbol of freedom, America's wild horses may soon be no more."
Like a psyche that eats its root and sustenance. Even little immigrant girls feel the deep pangs of rock and roll and the American wilderness.
The Economist discusses Hip Hop
citing John Mchorter, a famous black conservative scholar and hip hop fan:
"[Whorter] likes the group Outkast to Stravinsky. He admits that some hip-hop lyrics display an ungentlemanly attitude towards women, but he doubts that listening to violent lyrics causes people to behave more violently. if it did, there would be more opera fans stabbing their ex-lovers outside bullfights.
"Mr. Whorter also thinks people take hip-hop far too seriously. Those who disapprove of it vastly overestimate its capacity to corrupt. And those who expect it to foster a political revolution that will dramatically improve the lot of black Americans are going to be disappointed.
"The most popular rappers are brilliant entertainers. They also have done a lot to make people aware of the difficulties facing poor urban blacks. But their political views are neither politically acute nor central to their work. Consider the hot album of the moment: 'Tha Carter III" by Lil Wayne. Its central message is that if you are a rap star, you will get laid. The song 'Lollipop', for example, celebrates a young lady who treats Lil Wayne as she might a lollipop.
"On the last track Lil Wayne does get serious. He laments that 'one in every nine black Americans are locked up' and that 'the money that we spend on sending a motherfucker to jail...would be less to send his or her young ass to college.' Troy Nkrumah the chariman of the National Hip Hop Political Convention, thinks its wonderful that Lil Wayne is speaking truth to power. But if Lil Wayne is to be taken seriously, it needs to be pointed out that 'one in nine' figure is inaccurate--it is true only of black men age 20-34, not black Americans in general. And his analysis is simplistic: the government's spending priorities are not the sole determinant of whether you break rocks or read books."
Lil Wayne's analysis is simplistic? God bless the Economists: the earnest seekers of facts and counters of beans, for by the mighty force of numbers we shall see the truth and it shall set us free, and let not our personal biases distinguish among mortgage, Mugabe, and Lil Wayne on lollipops, let us engage them all on the same metric for we are equal, we are blind, and let us not be stopped by ignorance, by the turmoil of sentiment, and certainly not by absurdity.
"[Whorter] likes the group Outkast to Stravinsky. He admits that some hip-hop lyrics display an ungentlemanly attitude towards women, but he doubts that listening to violent lyrics causes people to behave more violently. if it did, there would be more opera fans stabbing their ex-lovers outside bullfights.
"Mr. Whorter also thinks people take hip-hop far too seriously. Those who disapprove of it vastly overestimate its capacity to corrupt. And those who expect it to foster a political revolution that will dramatically improve the lot of black Americans are going to be disappointed.
"The most popular rappers are brilliant entertainers. They also have done a lot to make people aware of the difficulties facing poor urban blacks. But their political views are neither politically acute nor central to their work. Consider the hot album of the moment: 'Tha Carter III" by Lil Wayne. Its central message is that if you are a rap star, you will get laid. The song 'Lollipop', for example, celebrates a young lady who treats Lil Wayne as she might a lollipop.
"On the last track Lil Wayne does get serious. He laments that 'one in every nine black Americans are locked up' and that 'the money that we spend on sending a motherfucker to jail...would be less to send his or her young ass to college.' Troy Nkrumah the chariman of the National Hip Hop Political Convention, thinks its wonderful that Lil Wayne is speaking truth to power. But if Lil Wayne is to be taken seriously, it needs to be pointed out that 'one in nine' figure is inaccurate--it is true only of black men age 20-34, not black Americans in general. And his analysis is simplistic: the government's spending priorities are not the sole determinant of whether you break rocks or read books."
Lil Wayne's analysis is simplistic? God bless the Economists: the earnest seekers of facts and counters of beans, for by the mighty force of numbers we shall see the truth and it shall set us free, and let not our personal biases distinguish among mortgage, Mugabe, and Lil Wayne on lollipops, let us engage them all on the same metric for we are equal, we are blind, and let us not be stopped by ignorance, by the turmoil of sentiment, and certainly not by absurdity.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Falling
"If San Francisco were your girlfriend, would you let her pick out your clothes? Could you go to a movie and cry together? Would you chase her, a femme fatale, into a hall of mirrors? Would you play detective, trailing her from the old de Young to Mission Dolores? Would you save her from a jump off the Golden Gate Bridge? Would you let her break your heart?"
It was just a glittering gem on the horizon. I'm not sure how i got here. Now here i am tangled in soft limbs and softer kisses: wind through the cyprus trees of the inner sunset, the endless dog parade of Dolores park, chocolatiers and Victorian hospitals. Its difficult to think of leaving...just yet...
It was just a glittering gem on the horizon. I'm not sure how i got here. Now here i am tangled in soft limbs and softer kisses: wind through the cyprus trees of the inner sunset, the endless dog parade of Dolores park, chocolatiers and Victorian hospitals. Its difficult to think of leaving...just yet...
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Careening Wildly Into New Waters
I swear, its all really relevant.
Wikipedia on the work of John Dewey:
Pragmatism and Instrumentalism
Dewey is one of the three central figures in American pragmatism, along with Charles Sanders Peirce, who coined the term, and William James, who popularized it—though Dewey did not identify himself as a pragmatist, per se, but instead referred to his philosophy as "instrumentalism." Dewey worked from strongly Hegelian and Neo-Hegelian influences, unlike James, whose lineage was primarily British, drawing particularly on empiricist and utilitarian thought. Dewey was also not nearly so pluralist or relativist as James. He held that value was a function not of whim nor purely of social construction, but a quality situated in events ("nature itself is wistful and pathetic, turbulent and passionate" (Experience and Nature)).
He also held that experimentation (social, cultural, technological, philosophical) could be used as a relatively hard-and-fast arbiter of truth. For example, James felt that for many people who lacked "over-belief" in religious concepts, human life was shallow and rather uninteresting, and that while no one religious belief could be demonstrated as the correct one, we are all responsible for taking the leap of faith and making a gamble on one or another theism, atheism, monism, etc. Dewey, in contrast, while honoring the important role that religious institutions and practices played in human life, rejected belief in any static ideal, such as a theistic God. Dewey felt that only scientific method could reliably further human good.
Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions."[4]
As with the reemergence of progressive philosophy of education, Dewey's contributions to philosophy as such (he was, after all, much more a professional philosopher than a thinker on education) have also reemerged with the reassessment of pragmatism, beginning in the late 1970s, by thinkers like Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein and Hans Joas.
Because of his process-oriented and sociologically conscious view of the world and knowledge, he is sometimes seen as a useful alternative to both modern and postmodern ways of thinking. Dewey's non-foundational approach pre-dates postmodernism by more than half a century. Recent exponents (like Rorty) have not always remained faithful to Dewey's original vision, though this itself is completely in keeping both with Dewey's own usage of other thinkers and with his own philosophy— for Dewey, past doctrines always require reconstruction in order to remain useful for the present time.
Dewey's philosophy has gone by many names other than "pragmatism". He has been called an instrumentalist, an experimentalist, an empiricist, a functionalist, and a naturalist. The term "transactional" may better describe his views, a term emphasized by Dewey in his later years to describe his theories of knowledge and experience.
Wikipedia on the work of John Dewey:
Pragmatism and Instrumentalism
Dewey is one of the three central figures in American pragmatism, along with Charles Sanders Peirce, who coined the term, and William James, who popularized it—though Dewey did not identify himself as a pragmatist, per se, but instead referred to his philosophy as "instrumentalism." Dewey worked from strongly Hegelian and Neo-Hegelian influences, unlike James, whose lineage was primarily British, drawing particularly on empiricist and utilitarian thought. Dewey was also not nearly so pluralist or relativist as James. He held that value was a function not of whim nor purely of social construction, but a quality situated in events ("nature itself is wistful and pathetic, turbulent and passionate" (Experience and Nature)).
He also held that experimentation (social, cultural, technological, philosophical) could be used as a relatively hard-and-fast arbiter of truth. For example, James felt that for many people who lacked "over-belief" in religious concepts, human life was shallow and rather uninteresting, and that while no one religious belief could be demonstrated as the correct one, we are all responsible for taking the leap of faith and making a gamble on one or another theism, atheism, monism, etc. Dewey, in contrast, while honoring the important role that religious institutions and practices played in human life, rejected belief in any static ideal, such as a theistic God. Dewey felt that only scientific method could reliably further human good.
Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions."[4]
As with the reemergence of progressive philosophy of education, Dewey's contributions to philosophy as such (he was, after all, much more a professional philosopher than a thinker on education) have also reemerged with the reassessment of pragmatism, beginning in the late 1970s, by thinkers like Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein and Hans Joas.
Because of his process-oriented and sociologically conscious view of the world and knowledge, he is sometimes seen as a useful alternative to both modern and postmodern ways of thinking. Dewey's non-foundational approach pre-dates postmodernism by more than half a century. Recent exponents (like Rorty) have not always remained faithful to Dewey's original vision, though this itself is completely in keeping both with Dewey's own usage of other thinkers and with his own philosophy— for Dewey, past doctrines always require reconstruction in order to remain useful for the present time.
Dewey's philosophy has gone by many names other than "pragmatism". He has been called an instrumentalist, an experimentalist, an empiricist, a functionalist, and a naturalist. The term "transactional" may better describe his views, a term emphasized by Dewey in his later years to describe his theories of knowledge and experience.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Change! migration from heart to head
Today for the first time i have become an ENTP instead of an ENFP.
aka: The Mad Scientist
The ENTP, like the ENTJ, is charismatic, outgoing, and intelligent. ENTPs are often quickwitted, clever, and genial; they typically display a highly organized, rational cognitive ability which makes them natural scientists and inventors.
ENTPs are creative, complex people who seek to improve their understanding of the natural world, usually by building armored fifty-story-tall robotic monsters with iron jaws and death-ray eyes, or by creating genetically mutated plagues that spread unstoppably across the land, turning all who are contaminated into mindless zombie drones. They are less likely to want to conquer the world than to destroy it utterly, reducing it to nothing but slag and rubble--though this is often merely a side-effect of their pursuit of knowledge.
RECREATION: ENTPs enjoy recreational activities which challenge them physically and intellectually, such as water skiing and porting Linux to their iPods. They are also fond of collecting gadgets like combination cellpone/PDAs and orbiting arsenals of brain lasers, which they may port Linux to as well.
COMPATIBILITY: ENTPs and ENTJs make natural companions, as the one's unspeakable hunger for power complements the other's unspeakable hunger for knowledge. They do not generally build successful relationships with ESFJs, as ENTPs they are prone to behaving in inconveniently erratic ways, which pisses ESFJs off to no end; and because ENTPs simply do not know how to dress appropriately for formal occasions.
Famous ENTPs include Spencer Silver (the inventor of Post-It Notes), Robert Oppenheimer, and Dr. Jeckyll.
Hurray for self absorped psychological typecasting!!
Not Your Typical Personality Test
other googled myers-briggs sources were also cited
aka: The Mad Scientist
The ENTP, like the ENTJ, is charismatic, outgoing, and intelligent. ENTPs are often quickwitted, clever, and genial; they typically display a highly organized, rational cognitive ability which makes them natural scientists and inventors.
ENTPs are creative, complex people who seek to improve their understanding of the natural world, usually by building armored fifty-story-tall robotic monsters with iron jaws and death-ray eyes, or by creating genetically mutated plagues that spread unstoppably across the land, turning all who are contaminated into mindless zombie drones. They are less likely to want to conquer the world than to destroy it utterly, reducing it to nothing but slag and rubble--though this is often merely a side-effect of their pursuit of knowledge.
RECREATION: ENTPs enjoy recreational activities which challenge them physically and intellectually, such as water skiing and porting Linux to their iPods. They are also fond of collecting gadgets like combination cellpone/PDAs and orbiting arsenals of brain lasers, which they may port Linux to as well.
COMPATIBILITY: ENTPs and ENTJs make natural companions, as the one's unspeakable hunger for power complements the other's unspeakable hunger for knowledge. They do not generally build successful relationships with ESFJs, as ENTPs they are prone to behaving in inconveniently erratic ways, which pisses ESFJs off to no end; and because ENTPs simply do not know how to dress appropriately for formal occasions.
Famous ENTPs include Spencer Silver (the inventor of Post-It Notes), Robert Oppenheimer, and Dr. Jeckyll.
Hurray for self absorped psychological typecasting!!
Not Your Typical Personality Test
other googled myers-briggs sources were also cited
Crush
Dr. -- is over 6 feet tall and broad shouldered, with a mass of curly golden brown hair and a very noble nose. He had for many years been working at Saint Saveus, free clinic for homeless veteran's, but now he works at the prison. He also sits on the national board for A Famous International Medical Humanitarian Group, on behalf of whom he dashes off to rural Cambodia and the like every year. There he stops Dengue Fever with one hand, and slices out a devastating life threatening brain tumor from a young child with the other, all while looking meaningfully into the horizon. Also on behalf of the organization he attends elegant balls and fundraisers among movie stars in the hills of Malibu, while reporters and pearl strewn ladies swoon about him. He carries an assortment of brand name degrees from some of the Best Schools in the Country, rapier wit, twinkling skepticism and boyish charm. This coupled with his capacity to weild machetes and scalpels alike, imbue him with the elegant bravado of a Gentleman of Yore, like a medal-strewn lieutenant for the the Third Republic of France, sword, sharp uniform, and transcendent grace. But his designer watch, well stocked ipod and expertise in acupuncture imparts a hip and modern sensibility.
Dr.-- is not married but is rumored to have had an affair with a 25 year old medical student whom he was supervising in his clinic. It is not clear how everyone knows this as any interrogation, however politely and slyly posed, yield a weighted and evasive silence. This ensured a delicious intrigue surrounding the man, and the even more alluring danger of possibility. She, a beautiful swaying thing with flowing hair and lean legs, eventually left for Brazil. Dr.-- continued to teach, eliciting longing sighs in his wake when breezing down the halls, and leaving even the heterosexual boys in nervous titters in their admiration.
I knew Dr.-- lived in my neighborhood, and even the approximate cross streets, had once seen him walking the dog early in the morning. However today, i had seen him emerge from the door of his actual abode. I was feeling particularly potent--freshly hopped up on my coffee, the sun was out, having the best hair day in months, and blasting Shakira on my portable music device. A heady mixture for brazen and potentially inappropriate behavior.
We had of course, once spent several weeks in a small space, I one of the students, he the dashing teacher. We spent arduous one on one meetings arguing the differential of chest pain. And while my classmates and I would giggle and wink after hours, he was of course, a Professional, an expert in diffusing emotion, redirecting innuendos and donning a firewall of cool demeanor. But he was also a very savvy fellow who clearly enjoyed the attention of women, and had cultivated expertise in glances that lasted a wee bit too long, the tease of dancing conversation, and a concerned touch at the elbow that was quite aware of the slobber it would induce.
It was this intoxicating concoction i wanted a hit of this morning, as i jubilantly made my way over to shout, "Well hello!!"
A very unusual thing however, I was hit with a very rare instance of pause-before-one-does-a-foolish-thing (i suspect that whatever neural correlate that causes people to think about their action before doing it, mine is shriveled, or on strike; but every so often it lumbers into action). First, does it make one uncomfortable to be greeted by someone unexpectedly at their front door? Especially, if by all looks of it, he was still wearing his night clothes, some sort of tshirt and sports pants, his hair not its usual elegant coif, his eye glasses in place and a giant box of recycling in his hand. Pausing, i was also shocked to realize--as handsome and gallant as he was, he looked terrible.
This perhaps is unfair. Legions of snarky stalker websites reveal that the world's most beautiful celebrities look ridiculous when taking out the recycling on an early Monday morning. But there he was. Perhaps it was that he was without his fashionable clothes? Or without the signs of his profession, the same one in which i aspire to his heights? Perhaps like my youthful barista, who turned out to be a bewildered and remarkably normal (if charming) boy. Dr--, in his frumpy house clothes, stripped of his swagger and grooming--was also a remarkably normal man. And incidentally, one that was clearly twenty years older than myself.
I meandered on, turned down the Shakira a notch. The best intoxications are indeed self induced. Another day, another delicious delirium.
Dr.-- is not married but is rumored to have had an affair with a 25 year old medical student whom he was supervising in his clinic. It is not clear how everyone knows this as any interrogation, however politely and slyly posed, yield a weighted and evasive silence. This ensured a delicious intrigue surrounding the man, and the even more alluring danger of possibility. She, a beautiful swaying thing with flowing hair and lean legs, eventually left for Brazil. Dr.-- continued to teach, eliciting longing sighs in his wake when breezing down the halls, and leaving even the heterosexual boys in nervous titters in their admiration.
I knew Dr.-- lived in my neighborhood, and even the approximate cross streets, had once seen him walking the dog early in the morning. However today, i had seen him emerge from the door of his actual abode. I was feeling particularly potent--freshly hopped up on my coffee, the sun was out, having the best hair day in months, and blasting Shakira on my portable music device. A heady mixture for brazen and potentially inappropriate behavior.
We had of course, once spent several weeks in a small space, I one of the students, he the dashing teacher. We spent arduous one on one meetings arguing the differential of chest pain. And while my classmates and I would giggle and wink after hours, he was of course, a Professional, an expert in diffusing emotion, redirecting innuendos and donning a firewall of cool demeanor. But he was also a very savvy fellow who clearly enjoyed the attention of women, and had cultivated expertise in glances that lasted a wee bit too long, the tease of dancing conversation, and a concerned touch at the elbow that was quite aware of the slobber it would induce.
It was this intoxicating concoction i wanted a hit of this morning, as i jubilantly made my way over to shout, "Well hello!!"
A very unusual thing however, I was hit with a very rare instance of pause-before-one-does-a-foolish-thing (i suspect that whatever neural correlate that causes people to think about their action before doing it, mine is shriveled, or on strike; but every so often it lumbers into action). First, does it make one uncomfortable to be greeted by someone unexpectedly at their front door? Especially, if by all looks of it, he was still wearing his night clothes, some sort of tshirt and sports pants, his hair not its usual elegant coif, his eye glasses in place and a giant box of recycling in his hand. Pausing, i was also shocked to realize--as handsome and gallant as he was, he looked terrible.
This perhaps is unfair. Legions of snarky stalker websites reveal that the world's most beautiful celebrities look ridiculous when taking out the recycling on an early Monday morning. But there he was. Perhaps it was that he was without his fashionable clothes? Or without the signs of his profession, the same one in which i aspire to his heights? Perhaps like my youthful barista, who turned out to be a bewildered and remarkably normal (if charming) boy. Dr--, in his frumpy house clothes, stripped of his swagger and grooming--was also a remarkably normal man. And incidentally, one that was clearly twenty years older than myself.
I meandered on, turned down the Shakira a notch. The best intoxications are indeed self induced. Another day, another delicious delirium.
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