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.
Friday, June 27, 2008
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.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The Case for Brain Vacuum
"Don't Close the Golden Door: Our Noisy Debate on Immigration and Its Deathly Silence on Development"
Michael Clemens, Sami Bazzi
Center for Global Development
"People working abroad interact extensively with their countries of origin. They send enormous amounts of money home; they help build trade and investment ties between the United States and the rest of the world; they serve as conduits for spreading American technology and ideas to the world; and they make it easier for other people from their countries to find work here.
People working in the United States sent $45 billion in unrequited transfers to Latin America in 2006.4 This vastly exceeds all U.S. development assistance in the same year, not just to Latin America but to the whole world ($23 billion).5 Remittances are roughly one-fifth of gross domestic product in Albania, El Salvador, and Haiti. Sums this massive have a large positive effect on welfare in the countries of origin. But cash gifts are just the beginning of the story. Other, perhaps far more important, interactions occur between diasporas and home countries. Indian and Taiwanese immigrants to the United States, for example, have been crucial to the formation of manufacturing and informational technology hubs in those countries, by serving as intermediaries, commercial ambassadors, investors, and conduits for technology transfer. Chinese entrepreneurs in California were the first to commission the manufacture of IBM-compatible computers from Taiwanese firms like Acer, Mitac, and Compeq in the 1980s. This blossoming of high-tech industry helped induce tens of thousands of Taiwanese engineers to return to Taiwan from the United States in the 1990s. In other words, earlier migration was part of the process of developing home industries and
retaining skilled workers. Migration did not affect Taiwan’s development; it has been part of Taiwan’s development. Likewise, Indian engineers working at U.S. firms were the first to outsource software services to their home country, which encouraged others to do the same and sparked rapid economic growth in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and elsewhere.6 Investment capital also flows through migrant networks: small firms in Mexico that are attached to migrant networks face a lower cost of capital, and thus reap greater profits, than those that are not.7 One of Africa’s most important cellular telephone networks was built and financed by Mohamed Ibrahim, a naturalized British citizen who left his native Sudan at age 26.
There is a common theme here. We know from our own history that analogous patterns have been part and parcel of our own process of slowly developing into a very rich country over centuries. The development of the whole nation, not just its urban areas, has been driven by people born in rural areas who moved to urban areas to make their mark and never went back: John D. Rockefeller, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, and countless others. These people built networks of trade and investment, shaped ideas, and brought new technologies to every corner of the country—and the whole nation benefited, not just the cities they spent their careers in. Such linkages did not “affect” our development process; they have been an intrinsic part of it. We should expect nothing
fundamentally different at the global level, where the United States is a hub for world commerce, ideas, and capital, just as New York City has been a hub for commerce, ideas, and capital to all fifty states."
Michael Clemens, Sami Bazzi
Center for Global Development
"People working abroad interact extensively with their countries of origin. They send enormous amounts of money home; they help build trade and investment ties between the United States and the rest of the world; they serve as conduits for spreading American technology and ideas to the world; and they make it easier for other people from their countries to find work here.
People working in the United States sent $45 billion in unrequited transfers to Latin America in 2006.4 This vastly exceeds all U.S. development assistance in the same year, not just to Latin America but to the whole world ($23 billion).5 Remittances are roughly one-fifth of gross domestic product in Albania, El Salvador, and Haiti. Sums this massive have a large positive effect on welfare in the countries of origin. But cash gifts are just the beginning of the story. Other, perhaps far more important, interactions occur between diasporas and home countries. Indian and Taiwanese immigrants to the United States, for example, have been crucial to the formation of manufacturing and informational technology hubs in those countries, by serving as intermediaries, commercial ambassadors, investors, and conduits for technology transfer. Chinese entrepreneurs in California were the first to commission the manufacture of IBM-compatible computers from Taiwanese firms like Acer, Mitac, and Compeq in the 1980s. This blossoming of high-tech industry helped induce tens of thousands of Taiwanese engineers to return to Taiwan from the United States in the 1990s. In other words, earlier migration was part of the process of developing home industries and
retaining skilled workers. Migration did not affect Taiwan’s development; it has been part of Taiwan’s development. Likewise, Indian engineers working at U.S. firms were the first to outsource software services to their home country, which encouraged others to do the same and sparked rapid economic growth in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and elsewhere.6 Investment capital also flows through migrant networks: small firms in Mexico that are attached to migrant networks face a lower cost of capital, and thus reap greater profits, than those that are not.7 One of Africa’s most important cellular telephone networks was built and financed by Mohamed Ibrahim, a naturalized British citizen who left his native Sudan at age 26.
There is a common theme here. We know from our own history that analogous patterns have been part and parcel of our own process of slowly developing into a very rich country over centuries. The development of the whole nation, not just its urban areas, has been driven by people born in rural areas who moved to urban areas to make their mark and never went back: John D. Rockefeller, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, and countless others. These people built networks of trade and investment, shaped ideas, and brought new technologies to every corner of the country—and the whole nation benefited, not just the cities they spent their careers in. Such linkages did not “affect” our development process; they have been an intrinsic part of it. We should expect nothing
fundamentally different at the global level, where the United States is a hub for world commerce, ideas, and capital, just as New York City has been a hub for commerce, ideas, and capital to all fifty states."
Monday, June 9, 2008
Circus
Something is so enticing yet so aggravating about this.
circus
I know some part is just jealousy. Why can't i wear amateur stage make up and contort myself in brightly striped socks? Well, I can. I just can't...I mean I don't. No one's really asked me to. I don't want to anyway. It looks stupid.
There's just such a smugness to it!
And why shouldn't there be. Its so romantic and self absorbed, like most things that young people do.
And why shouldn't I be annoyed. I'm in the library on a summer day reading articles on the right way to count migration data. Really. Whole articles written by people with a long string of degrees in economics and public health and sociology, bickering whether the label "Africa" includes the entire continent or not. Whether origin is birth or by citizenship. Pages and pages of bar graphs.
They are* very nice bar graphs. And enough coffee will do great service is furnishing the imagination, as to the romanticism of what one might be pursuing. But the whole task is much easier if, rather than a tedious public health master's thesis that no one will read, if one was a machete juggler.
circus
I know some part is just jealousy. Why can't i wear amateur stage make up and contort myself in brightly striped socks? Well, I can. I just can't...I mean I don't. No one's really asked me to. I don't want to anyway. It looks stupid.
There's just such a smugness to it!
And why shouldn't there be. Its so romantic and self absorbed, like most things that young people do.
And why shouldn't I be annoyed. I'm in the library on a summer day reading articles on the right way to count migration data. Really. Whole articles written by people with a long string of degrees in economics and public health and sociology, bickering whether the label "Africa" includes the entire continent or not. Whether origin is birth or by citizenship. Pages and pages of bar graphs.
They are* very nice bar graphs. And enough coffee will do great service is furnishing the imagination, as to the romanticism of what one might be pursuing. But the whole task is much easier if, rather than a tedious public health master's thesis that no one will read, if one was a machete juggler.
Reflections: SUBMIT WITH EVERY WRITE UP
A drug addled woman names her baby “Prescious.” A 21 year old woman named Prescious. Prescious is spelled wrong. She has a skin infection and gallstones. Her girlfriend cheats on her. Prescious drinks soda all day everday and the only fruit or vegetable she eats is corn.
Mrs. G is a school librarian. She is plump and in her sixties. She wears a delightfully forthright magenta shirt and eye shadow to match. She asks the doctor how that flu had gone. I am left in the room to take a history. So I ask the school librarian: where does it hurt? Does the pain radiate? Does she live alone? I still cannot ask this school library about her sexual history. To avoid it, I ask about drug use. She tells me she had been addicted to crank through out her youth. Later the doctor shows me her kidneys.
Vitals. Age: 24. Height 165 cm. weight 130 lb. temperature 97.8. bp 112/70 arterial blood gases normal. Socioeconomic status: upwardly mobile Heart rate: leisurely and longing. Age of lost virginity 17 years. Times fallen in love: 3. Times heart broken: 3. Family history: heart disease, diabetes, a woman of healing, a music teacher, and 14 skeletons in the closet.
Mrs. G is a school librarian. She is plump and in her sixties. She wears a delightfully forthright magenta shirt and eye shadow to match. She asks the doctor how that flu had gone. I am left in the room to take a history. So I ask the school librarian: where does it hurt? Does the pain radiate? Does she live alone? I still cannot ask this school library about her sexual history. To avoid it, I ask about drug use. She tells me she had been addicted to crank through out her youth. Later the doctor shows me her kidneys.
Vitals. Age: 24. Height 165 cm. weight 130 lb. temperature 97.8. bp 112/70 arterial blood gases normal. Socioeconomic status: upwardly mobile Heart rate: leisurely and longing. Age of lost virginity 17 years. Times fallen in love: 3. Times heart broken: 3. Family history: heart disease, diabetes, a woman of healing, a music teacher, and 14 skeletons in the closet.
The librarian changed my life today
I received this in an email:
Remember the days of overflowing file cabinets filled with reprints and photocopied articles? Today many computers are now crammed with article PDFs. There are a number of software solutions for managing PDFs on your computer, or creating stable links to online articles. Since it is not possible to describe every program or approach, this message gives you a few ideas help you solve this problem.
Desktop PDF Management Applications
iPapers - http://ipapers.sourceforge.net/iPapers.html (MAC only) iPapers lets you download PDFs from PubMed, and captures the author, journal, abstract and other citation information at the same time. It also lets you add non-PubMed and supplemental items. You can drag and drop existing PDFs into iPapers. Free.
Papers - http://mekentosj.com/papers/ (MAC only) “Papers” allows you to import, download, organize, and read your PDFs on your computer. PDFs already on your computer may be dragged and dropped into Papers. PubMed and other article search engines can be searched from within Papers, and PDFs can be easily downloaded. Metadata for articles (authors, journal name, etc.) can be obtained from PubMed, Google Scholar, and other sources, and matched with imported PDFs. PDFs can also be organized by subjects (called collections) and additional notes added. Desktop license costs $42.00.
Yep - http://www.yepthat.com/yep/index.html (MAC only) Think “iTunes for PDFs.” Yep scans your hard drive for PDFs, tagging the ones it finds, or allowing you to create your own tags. Desktop license costs $34.00. (Tip: You can also use iTunes to manage small to medium PDF collections.)
QUOSA - http://quosa.com/ (MAC/PC) You can search PubMed and Google Scholar from within QUOSA and then download the PDFs you want and save them on your computer. You can also export article metadata and links to PDFs to EndNote and other bibliographic management software. Further information on Quosa is available at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BIOS/quosa.html#starting; the download page is at http://www.quosa.com/downloads.php. The Library licenses Quosa for UCB students, faculty & staff.
EndNote - http://www.endnote.com (MAC/PC) Users of the desktop version of EndNote can link to PDFs on their computer, or embed PDFs within the EndNote library. Then you can use EndNote to search for the references you want, and open the associated PDFs. The Scholar's Workstation price for Endnote XI is $69.99. If you are considering the purchase of EndNote, I recommend waiting until the end of August, when a new version is usually released.
Free Web Tools That Link to Online Content
RefWorks – http://www.refworks.com/refworks RefWorks is a web-based tool that is similar to EndNote. Refworks allows you to store documents including PDFs, up to 100 MB per account. It is linked from CSA databases (e.g., PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts). The Library licenses RefWorks for UCB students, faculty & staff.
CiteULike - http://www.citeulike.org/ CiteULike helps you organize and share the scholarly papers you are reading. When you see a paper on the web that interests you, you can automatically add the reference to your personal library, with the link to the online article retained. You can also upload the PDF, if you have it. It all works from within your web browser and your references and PDFs are stored on the CiteULike server, so there is no need to install any software. CiteULike references also include the orange UCeLinks icons that allow you to link to the online article if UCB subscribes, check to see if the article is in one of the UCB libraries, or request it on interlibrary loan.
Connotea - http://www.connotea.org/ Connotea allows you to save links to any page on the web. On certain sites, including PubMed and many journals, Connotea recognizes the citation details and saves them for you. Even if Connotea does not automatically import bibliographic information for all the websites you use, you can still save and share links to those pages. You can also assign tags to your entries, see what others have added to Connotea, search part or all of Connotea, and see related articles. References include UCeLinks links.
Zotero - http://www.zotero.org/ Zotero is a Firefox extension that helps you gather, store, and organize citations, PDFs, web pages, images, etc. It automatically stores author, title, and publication information and lets you export that information as formatted references. It also allows you to easily save PDFs to your computer. Zotero runs on your personal computer and works with Microsoft Word. It can be used offline as well (e.g., on a plane, in an archive without WiFi). In 2008, Zotero users will be able to share their collections through an exchange server, and receive recommendations and feeds of new resources that might be of interest to them. People considering purchasing EndNote or RefWorks might want to consider Zotero, a robust tool with many features. It has limited output styles.
Remember the days of overflowing file cabinets filled with reprints and photocopied articles? Today many computers are now crammed with article PDFs. There are a number of software solutions for managing PDFs on your computer, or creating stable links to online articles. Since it is not possible to describe every program or approach, this message gives you a few ideas help you solve this problem.
Desktop PDF Management Applications
iPapers - http://ipapers.sourceforge.net/iPapers.html (MAC only) iPapers lets you download PDFs from PubMed, and captures the author, journal, abstract and other citation information at the same time. It also lets you add non-PubMed and supplemental items. You can drag and drop existing PDFs into iPapers. Free.
Papers - http://mekentosj.com/papers/ (MAC only) “Papers” allows you to import, download, organize, and read your PDFs on your computer. PDFs already on your computer may be dragged and dropped into Papers. PubMed and other article search engines can be searched from within Papers, and PDFs can be easily downloaded. Metadata for articles (authors, journal name, etc.) can be obtained from PubMed, Google Scholar, and other sources, and matched with imported PDFs. PDFs can also be organized by subjects (called collections) and additional notes added. Desktop license costs $42.00.
Yep - http://www.yepthat.com/yep/index.html (MAC only) Think “iTunes for PDFs.” Yep scans your hard drive for PDFs, tagging the ones it finds, or allowing you to create your own tags. Desktop license costs $34.00. (Tip: You can also use iTunes to manage small to medium PDF collections.)
QUOSA - http://quosa.com/ (MAC/PC) You can search PubMed and Google Scholar from within QUOSA and then download the PDFs you want and save them on your computer. You can also export article metadata and links to PDFs to EndNote and other bibliographic management software. Further information on Quosa is available at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BIOS/quosa.html#starting; the download page is at http://www.quosa.com/downloads.php. The Library licenses Quosa for UCB students, faculty & staff.
EndNote - http://www.endnote.com (MAC/PC) Users of the desktop version of EndNote can link to PDFs on their computer, or embed PDFs within the EndNote library. Then you can use EndNote to search for the references you want, and open the associated PDFs. The Scholar's Workstation price for Endnote XI is $69.99. If you are considering the purchase of EndNote, I recommend waiting until the end of August, when a new version is usually released.
Free Web Tools That Link to Online Content
RefWorks – http://www.refworks.com/refworks RefWorks is a web-based tool that is similar to EndNote. Refworks allows you to store documents including PDFs, up to 100 MB per account. It is linked from CSA databases (e.g., PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts). The Library licenses RefWorks for UCB students, faculty & staff.
CiteULike - http://www.citeulike.org/ CiteULike helps you organize and share the scholarly papers you are reading. When you see a paper on the web that interests you, you can automatically add the reference to your personal library, with the link to the online article retained. You can also upload the PDF, if you have it. It all works from within your web browser and your references and PDFs are stored on the CiteULike server, so there is no need to install any software. CiteULike references also include the orange UCeLinks icons that allow you to link to the online article if UCB subscribes, check to see if the article is in one of the UCB libraries, or request it on interlibrary loan.
Connotea - http://www.connotea.org/ Connotea allows you to save links to any page on the web. On certain sites, including PubMed and many journals, Connotea recognizes the citation details and saves them for you. Even if Connotea does not automatically import bibliographic information for all the websites you use, you can still save and share links to those pages. You can also assign tags to your entries, see what others have added to Connotea, search part or all of Connotea, and see related articles. References include UCeLinks links.
Zotero - http://www.zotero.org/ Zotero is a Firefox extension that helps you gather, store, and organize citations, PDFs, web pages, images, etc. It automatically stores author, title, and publication information and lets you export that information as formatted references. It also allows you to easily save PDFs to your computer. Zotero runs on your personal computer and works with Microsoft Word. It can be used offline as well (e.g., on a plane, in an archive without WiFi). In 2008, Zotero users will be able to share their collections through an exchange server, and receive recommendations and feeds of new resources that might be of interest to them. People considering purchasing EndNote or RefWorks might want to consider Zotero, a robust tool with many features. It has limited output styles.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Fame, Fortune and the Facebook News Feed
I'm not sure he remembers my name, but i swear, i shared a bathroom and passing bagels with this guy, in a pleasant concrete student commune in berkeley.
How to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.
- By Patrick House - Slate Magazine
Today I can finally update my résumé to include "Writer, The New Yorker." Yes, I won The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, and I'm going to tell you how I did it. These observations have been culled from months of research and are guaranteed to help you
He also offers the most insightful account of why these cartoons make no fucking sense.
How to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.
- By Patrick House - Slate Magazine
Today I can finally update my résumé to include "Writer, The New Yorker." Yes, I won The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, and I'm going to tell you how I did it. These observations have been culled from months of research and are guaranteed to help you
He also offers the most insightful account of why these cartoons make no fucking sense.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
more on democracy
there is much to say.
But something on my mind--Senator HRC, I swear, throughout this long battle which would shrivel a normal mortal's soul, throughout it all, she has just been getting better looking.
Some preliminaries: many of her staunch boomer generation feminist supporters i find absolutely horrific. Geraldine Ferraro is a crazy bitch. I should be required to substantiate that statement with careful reasoning and thoughtful grounds, which i believe exist. But in deference to the careless and low expectations of one's personal soapbox blog, i won't. Maybe later.
But far more horrific are the earlier responses to HRC's running and being a woman (the "iron my shirt"s and particularly limbaugh's remarks on watching a woman grow old). You aren't supposed to take those remarks seriously, their speakers are gross and yucky and idiots and out to get a rise. But it still hurts and infuriates and pollutes the public sphere. (although ferraro's remarks on race may hurt even more, because (1) she has more authority by her shear status, no matter how crazy the things she says are and (2) what she says probably resonates with a lot of people, and that is what hurts and frightens, this acknowledgment of how much misunderstanding and distrust there is around these issues)
All that aside--politicians are still performers. Obama is a smart man, a talented man, a savvy man. But damn, he is a fiiiiine man. That had its role to play.
As a fellow once said, after traveling with his lady throughout the deep south and noting the exponential increase in affection and free things to which he was privy in her company, "[the girlfriend] is always telling me how much privilege I have by being born white. I don't think she's thought much about how much privilege she has by being born beautiful."
And Hillary--and definitely, women in power (especially in media or politics) have a very strange line to navigate between being attractive but not too attractive, a navigation that is different from a man's--she's been looking pretty fucking good. This is a woman who's 60, you know. She's lost weight, her skin is glowing, her hair is getting blonder. Standing by her twenty something daughter, they look very glamorous and all-american indeed.
i am quite annoyed and estranged by the Clintons, and the election has been tiring. But a lot of the deference to Sen. HRC--i get that its a lot of graciousness, and don't-piss-off-her-angry-bluecollar/feminist/racist/whatever-supporters. but there is something fierce about her. Like I really believe she thrives* off the fight. And all politicians are whores for the masses and ambition is their life blood (Obama happens to be more talented at working with that/covering it up)--but i think she sincerely believes in herself as some sort of MotherJonesLadyLiberty Sword-by-her-side flapping-pantsuits-in-the-battlefield figure. Every time i want to hate her, roll my eyes and say go away Hillary, I just can't. (not that i have any such impact in doing such, but lets pretend my citizen voice amounted to something).
Bitch has got bite, and it looks good on her.
But something on my mind--Senator HRC, I swear, throughout this long battle which would shrivel a normal mortal's soul, throughout it all, she has just been getting better looking.
Some preliminaries: many of her staunch boomer generation feminist supporters i find absolutely horrific. Geraldine Ferraro is a crazy bitch. I should be required to substantiate that statement with careful reasoning and thoughtful grounds, which i believe exist. But in deference to the careless and low expectations of one's personal soapbox blog, i won't. Maybe later.
But far more horrific are the earlier responses to HRC's running and being a woman (the "iron my shirt"s and particularly limbaugh's remarks on watching a woman grow old). You aren't supposed to take those remarks seriously, their speakers are gross and yucky and idiots and out to get a rise. But it still hurts and infuriates and pollutes the public sphere. (although ferraro's remarks on race may hurt even more, because (1) she has more authority by her shear status, no matter how crazy the things she says are and (2) what she says probably resonates with a lot of people, and that is what hurts and frightens, this acknowledgment of how much misunderstanding and distrust there is around these issues)
All that aside--politicians are still performers. Obama is a smart man, a talented man, a savvy man. But damn, he is a fiiiiine man. That had its role to play.
As a fellow once said, after traveling with his lady throughout the deep south and noting the exponential increase in affection and free things to which he was privy in her company, "[the girlfriend] is always telling me how much privilege I have by being born white. I don't think she's thought much about how much privilege she has by being born beautiful."
And Hillary--and definitely, women in power (especially in media or politics) have a very strange line to navigate between being attractive but not too attractive, a navigation that is different from a man's--she's been looking pretty fucking good. This is a woman who's 60, you know. She's lost weight, her skin is glowing, her hair is getting blonder. Standing by her twenty something daughter, they look very glamorous and all-american indeed.
i am quite annoyed and estranged by the Clintons, and the election has been tiring. But a lot of the deference to Sen. HRC--i get that its a lot of graciousness, and don't-piss-off-her-angry-bluecollar/feminist/racist/whatever-supporters. but there is something fierce about her. Like I really believe she thrives* off the fight. And all politicians are whores for the masses and ambition is their life blood (Obama happens to be more talented at working with that/covering it up)--but i think she sincerely believes in herself as some sort of MotherJonesLadyLiberty Sword-by-her-side flapping-pantsuits-in-the-battlefield figure. Every time i want to hate her, roll my eyes and say go away Hillary, I just can't. (not that i have any such impact in doing such, but lets pretend my citizen voice amounted to something).
Bitch has got bite, and it looks good on her.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Methodology
I'm bubbling and ecstatic. i'm playing with a new structure for my philosophical/policy/publichealth/whateverthefuck it is paper:
Narrative!
This is delicious. And challenging. It is another complexity to add to the brew, but it may be the mechanical trick that is the perfect central cog, the saving grace, the engineering coup.
I am substantiated by this professional philosopher in his own book:
"My argument belongs to no specific philosophic tradition, although it has affinities with all the major traditions...Mainly, however, my argument proceeds not from a general theory to particulars but rather from an interpretation of our actual social, ethical, and legal practices to a philosophical conception that explains, justifies, an criticizes those practices. Thus I will frequently make claims about what people say, feel, or do in specific circumstances. Sometimes I will substantiate my claims by drawing upon fiction and memoir. The epistemological authority of writers may be no greater than that of professional philosophers; but, as Bernard Williams has remarked, the result of substituting the philosopher's imagined examples for those drawn from literature 'will not be life, but bad literature.' It is true that the attempt to draw argumentative support from literature comes up hard against the resistance of imaginative writing to the extraction of a single thesis or interpretation. But the very refractory nature of literature makes it well suited to ethical study. For the problem of extracting interpretation from literature is similar to the problem of assigning moral or legal responsibility in life. Both seek to reduce particularity to a procrustean set of categories of meaning and motive."
The audaciousness is that i am both the the literarian and the philosopher, the policy brief and the legal scholar. On a topic that has no precedence in philosophy (theories of action in loosely coordinated collectives), public health (a novel infrastructure loss of human labor and the scale of migration), economics (the rampant global marketplace for brains and skills), politics (the degradation of the nation state), and pretty much any other way you slice it. Oh this brave new world, and the ambitions of a piddly master's thesis.
Come to think of it, now i am discouraged again.
Narrative!
This is delicious. And challenging. It is another complexity to add to the brew, but it may be the mechanical trick that is the perfect central cog, the saving grace, the engineering coup.
I am substantiated by this professional philosopher in his own book:
"My argument belongs to no specific philosophic tradition, although it has affinities with all the major traditions...Mainly, however, my argument proceeds not from a general theory to particulars but rather from an interpretation of our actual social, ethical, and legal practices to a philosophical conception that explains, justifies, an criticizes those practices. Thus I will frequently make claims about what people say, feel, or do in specific circumstances. Sometimes I will substantiate my claims by drawing upon fiction and memoir. The epistemological authority of writers may be no greater than that of professional philosophers; but, as Bernard Williams has remarked, the result of substituting the philosopher's imagined examples for those drawn from literature 'will not be life, but bad literature.' It is true that the attempt to draw argumentative support from literature comes up hard against the resistance of imaginative writing to the extraction of a single thesis or interpretation. But the very refractory nature of literature makes it well suited to ethical study. For the problem of extracting interpretation from literature is similar to the problem of assigning moral or legal responsibility in life. Both seek to reduce particularity to a procrustean set of categories of meaning and motive."
The audaciousness is that i am both the the literarian and the philosopher, the policy brief and the legal scholar. On a topic that has no precedence in philosophy (theories of action in loosely coordinated collectives), public health (a novel infrastructure loss of human labor and the scale of migration), economics (the rampant global marketplace for brains and skills), politics (the degradation of the nation state), and pretty much any other way you slice it. Oh this brave new world, and the ambitions of a piddly master's thesis.
Come to think of it, now i am discouraged again.
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