love affair with Barbara Ehrenreich's new book (part 1)

the following excerpt is from her new book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America:

   The great promise of quantum physics, to New Age thinkers and the philosophically opportunistic generally, is that it seems to release humans from the dull tethers of determinism.  Anything, they imagine, can happen at the level of subatomic particles, where the familiar laws of Newtonian physics do not prevail, so why not in our own lives?  Insofar as I can follow the reasoning, two features of quantum physics seem to offer us limitless freedom.  One is the wave/particle duality of matter, which means that waves, like light, are also particles (photons) and that subatomic particles, like electrons, can also be understood as waves—that is, described by a wave equation.  In the loony extrapolation favored by positive thinkers, whole humans are also waves or vibrations.  "This is what we be," NSA speaker Sue Morter announced, wriggling her fingers to suggest a vibration, "a flickering," and as vibrations we presumably have a lot more freedom of motion than we do as gravity-bound, 150-or-so-pound creatures made of carbon, oxygen, and so forth.

   Another, even more commonly abused notion from quantum physics is the uncertainty principle, which simply asserts that we cannot know both the momentum and position of a subatomic particle.  In the more familiar formulation, we usually say that the act of measuring something at the quantum level affects what is being measured, since to measure the coordinates of a particle like an electron is to pin it down into a particular quantum state—putting it through a process known as "quantum collapse."  In the fanciful interpretation of a New Agey physicist cited by Rhonda Byrne, "the mind is actually shaping the very thing that is being perceived."  From there it is apparently a short leap to the idea that we are at all times creating the entire universe with our minds.  As one life coach has written: "We are Creators of the Universe.... With quantum physics, science is leaving behind the notion that human beings are powerless victims and moving toward an understanding that we are fully empowered creators of our lives and our world."

   In the words of Nobel physicist Murray Gell-Mann, this is so much "quantum flapdoodle."  For one thing, quantum effects come into play at a level vastly smaller than our bodies, our nerve cells, and even the molecules involved in the conduction of neuronal impulses.  Responding to What the Bleep Do We Know?, which heavily invokes quantum physics to explain the law of attraction, the estimable Michael Shermer notes that "for a system to be described quantum-mechanically, its typical mass (m), speed (v) and distance (d) must be on the order of Planck's constant (h) [6.626x10^-34 joule-seconds]," which is far beyond tiny.  He cites a physicist's calculations "that the mass of neural transmitter molecules and their speed across the distance of the synapse are about two orders of magnitude too large for quantum effects to be influential."  In other words, even our thought processes seem to be stuck in the deterministic prison of classical Newtonian physics.

   As for the mind's supposed power to shape the universe: if anything, quantum physics contains a humbling reminder of the limits of the human mind and imagination.  The fact that very small things like electrons and photons can act like both waves and particles does not mean that they are free to do anything or, of course, that we can morph into waves ourselves.  Sadly, what it means is that we cannot envision these tiny things, at least not with images derived from the everyday, nonquantum world.  Nor does the uncertainty principle mean that "the mind is shaping the very thing that is being perceived," only that there are limits to what we can ever find out about, say, a quantum-level particle.  Where is it "really" and how fast is it going?  We cannot know.  When contacted by Newsweek, even the mystically oriented physicists enlisted by Byrne in The Secret backed off from the notion of any physical force through which the mind can fulfill its desires.

   But no such qualms dampened the celebration of quantum physics, or perhaps I should say "quantum physics," at the gathering of the NSA conference in San Diego.  Sue Morter fairly bounded around the stage as she asserted that "your reality is simply determined by whatever frequency [of energy] you choose to dive into."  Unfortunately, she added, "we've been raised in Newtonian thought," so it can be hard to grasp quantum physics.  How much Morter, a chiropractor by profession, grasped was unclear; quite apart from the notion that we are vibrations choosing our own frequency, she made small annoying errors such as describing "the cloud of electrons around an atom."  (Electrons are part of the atom, orbiting around its nucleus.)  But the good news is that "science has shown without a shadow of a doubt" that we can create our own reality.  Somehow, the fact that particles can act like waves and vice versa means that "whatever you decide is true, is true"—an exceedingly hard proposition to debate.

   After Morter's presentation, I went to a workshop entitled "The Final Frontier: Your Unlimited Mind!," led my Rebecca Nagy, a "wedding preacher" from Charlotte, North Carolina, who described herself as a member of the "quantum spiritual world."  We started by repeating after her, "I am a co-creator," with the prefix "co" as an apparent nod to some other, more traditional form of creator.  Slide after slide went by, showing what appeared to be planets with moons—or electrons?—in orbit around them or announcing that "human beings are both receivers and transmitters of quantum (LIGHT ENERGY) signals."  At one point Nagy called for two volunteers to come to the front of the room to help illustrate the unlimited powers of the mind.  One of them was given two dousing rods to hold and told to think of someone she loves.  But no matter how much Nagy fiddled with the position of the rods, nothing happened, leading her to say, "No judgment here!  Can we agree on that?  No judgment here!"  Finally, after several more minutes of repositioning, she mumbled, "It ain't working," and suggested that this could be "because we're in a hotel."

   I began to make it my business to see what other conference goers thought of the inescapable pseudoscientific flapdoodle.  They were an outgoing lot, easy to strike up conversation with, and it seemed to me that my doubts about the invocation of quantum physics might get us past the level of "How are you enjoying the conference?" to either some common ground or a grave intellectual rupture.  Several modestly admitted that it went right over their heads, but no one displayed the slightest skepticism.  In one workshop, I found myself sitting next to a woman who introduced herself as a business professor.  When I told her that I worried about all the references to quantum physics, she said, "You're supposed to be shaken up here."  No, I said, I was worried about what it had to do with actual physics.  "It's what I'm here for," she countered blandly.  When I could come up with nothing more than a "Huh?" she explained that quantum physics is "What's going to affect the global economy."

   I did find one cynic—a workshop leader who had introduced himself as a "leadership coach" and "quantum physicist," though actually he claimed only a master's degree in nuclear physics.  When I cornered him after the workshop, he allowed as how "there is some crap" but insisted that quantum physics and New Age thinking "overlap a lot."  When I pushed harder, he told me that it wouldn't do any good to challenge the ongoing abuse of quantum physics, because "thousands of people believe it."  But the most startling response I got to my quibbling came from an expensively dressed life coach from Southern California.  After i summarized my discomfort with all the fake quantum physics in a couple of sentences, she gave me a kindly therapeutic look and asked, "You mean it doesn't work for you?"

  I felt at that moment, and for the first time in this friendly crowd, absolutely alone.  If science is something you can accept or reject on the basis of personal tastes, then what kind of reality did she and I share?  If it "worked for me" to say that the run rises in the west, would she be willing to go along with that, accepting it as my particular take on things?  Maybe I should have been impressed that these positive thinkers bothered to appeal to science at all, whether to "vibrations" or quantum physics, and in however degraded a form.  To base a belief or worldview on science or what passes for science is to reach out to the nonbelievers and the uninitiated, to say that they too can come to the same conclusions if they make the same systematic observations and inferences.  The alternative is to base one's worldview on revelation or mystical insight, and these are things that cannot be reliably shared with others.  In other words, there's something deeply sociable about science; it rests entirely on observations that can be shared with, and repeated by, others.  But in a world where everything you decide is true is true, what kind of connection between people can there be?

   Science, as well as most ordinary human interactions, depends on the assumption that there are conscious beings other than ourselves and that we share the same physical world, with all its surprises, sharp edges and dangers.  But it is not clear that there are other people in the universe as imagined by the positive thinkers or, if there are, that they matter.  What if they want the same things that we do, such as that necklace?  Or what if they hope for entirely different outcomes to, say, an election, or a football game?  In The Secret, Byrne tells the story of Colin, a ten-year-old boy who was initially dismayed by the long waits for rides at Disneyworld.  He had seen Byrne's movie, however, and knew it was enough to think the thought, "tomorrow I'd love to go on all the big rides and never have to wait in line."  Presto!  The next morning his family was chosen to be Disney's "First Family" for the day, putting them first in line and leaving hundreds of families behind them.  What about all those other children, condemned to wait, because Colin was empowered by The Secret?

packaging at amazon.com

 amazon.com, as you may or may not have noticed or read about yet, is making an effort to reduce packaging & also to send products not packed in those evil clam-shell packages that helped coin the phrase "package rage".  they posed the question "At what point when opening a package do you call it 'Frustrating?'", and after about 18 other comments, added my two cents.  all the posters above me said the normal stuff you'd expect, about how it's easy to damage the product or your flesh while opening, or how they get impatient after a certain level of absurdity in the many levels of packaging.  so i didn't bother repeating that. stuff.  here was my contribution:

you know, sometimes opening a package that takes a minute or two to open is kinda nice, like the delayed gratification of opening a present. but the packages which are difficult to open with scissors (and are likely dulling your scissors while you're at it), this irritates me. one reason is, of course, the dangers others have described above. the other, and most irritating reason, to me: if the package can't be re-sealed, you usually aren't allowed to return such items. aside from being irritating, it's also infuriating to me how much packaging is used on everything. i wish everyone would stick to cardboard, and pad the products with newsprint and the cornstarch packing peanuts. if you want the customer to see the product, you can print an image on the outside of the packaging, or the store can set out a display (even if it's obnoxiously tethered, or behind glass).

retail stores could use specialized vending machines for small items like SD cards: use your credit card at the machine, or pay at the register w/ cash & swipe your receipt to dispense product. that would reduce costs by eliminating both the expense of packaging and the theft. as far as amazon is concerned, i am really ticked when i receive small items like a lens cap or SD card inside of a box. the product could have been mailed in a small, 4"x4" padded mailer for less than a dollar. or, maybe just an envelope, for less than 50 cents. netflix mails its discs without any protection, and if you get a scratched or damaged disc, they send you another. if amazon took a similar approach, expecting some small percentage of items to suffer damage in transit, and made the exchange process both free and easy (a la zappos.com), i would applaud.

John Zayac says "Nice Job O-Bush-a"

followed by "I guess you were too busy not changing anything to attend a Save the Children concert."

and provides us with this link: www.examiner.com

these are bits & pieces of the discussion that ensued (my name in orange):

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Thomas Cawson: Think he's going to blow the $10m on J.Crew gift vouchers for Michelle?

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John Zayac: Perhaps he could use the $10million prize to help defray the costs of shipping 30k more troops to the mountains of Afghanistan.

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Jamie Ramirez: geez, john, why such a hater? i followed that link, and it's a sloppy piece of writing by some guy that's not even a journalist. he's not allowed to say "norwegians are not happy" without citing any specific comments or at least a the results of a valid poll. he also provides no background information about the lunch decline. no reason why? obama just *felt* like upsetting them? i seriously doubt it. he knows what's bad for his public image as much as the next politician, and wouldn't have done it without at least some sort of justification. give the guy a break. he has to clean up all kinds of mess. why he's ignoring us queers, i am not entirely sure. that's inexcusable, to be sure. but that's a different issue.

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Thomas Cawson: news.bbc.co.uk
Some slightly more credible journalism pointing out how rude and arrogant Norwegians (and surely most people with any sense of courtesy), think it is to snub a lunch with the King of the host country presenting Barack Obama one of the highest International honours attainable - an honour which was entirely undeserved in the first place. I really don't think pointing out such highlighting such tactlessness makes anyone a 'hater', or whatever that means.

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Moe Darbandi: Where Are you guys getting 10mil? It's 1.4 mil and he already stated he's donating all of it to charity.

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Jamie Ramirez: just to clarify: john's last two posts were calling obama "obummer" and "o-bush-a", so i think two name callings constitutes hatin' -- of course i use the word in the spirit of the second definition of "hater" found in the urban dictionary:

2. hater:
Overused word that people like to use just because someone else expresses a dislike for a certain individual.
PERSON 1: I don't like Beyonce's new song.
PERSON 2: You're a hater!!!

in fact, i can't even use the word without picturing adorable, misguided riley from boondocks. regina king did such a stellar job with their voices during its two-season run as an animated series on adult swim.

i think i have a very common post-...-post-modern casual adoption of phrases from popular culture, where you're halfway embracing the undeniable utility of all the built-in connotation and half making fun of it for being cheesy. i'm as disappointed as the next person about the demise of meaningful and unambiguous use of language (you know, using a shared grammar and spelling so people can understand one another). but if we want to get really academic about it, it's easily construed as racist (&/or classist, being that the two are so intertwined) to shun the vernacular of a particular subset of the black community, which is where (correct me if i'm wrong) most people see the current use of "hater" to be most popular, and perhaps to have originated.

i respect that you disagree with the selection of obama for the nobel peace prize, but after listening to the larry mantle segment on NPR about it, where he interviewed knowledgeable parties such as past recipients and past or present members of the deciding committee, i was convinced it wasn't an unprecedented choice, to give someone the prize as "encouragement" and to use the prize as a message to the world that this is someone to believe in. it helps to legitimate obama in a way, and although i believe the effort may have backfired, if it could play a role in getting him re-elected so that we wouldn't get another greedy, war-hungry, human-rights-disrespecting president so soon after we got a glimpse of * hope * (hehe, couldn't resist), the prize would, in fact, promote peace. if you were on the committee, and you had to choose between (a) actually promoting greater peace in this world while possibly stretching the rules or compromising the reputation of the award and (b) giving a more traditional award to someone who doesn't have the capacity to create such a change in the state of world peace, it might be a more difficult decision than you think, so readily calling it "entirely undeserved".

but thanks for the bcc link. it was a lot more specific, which i appreciate, even if the poll they cite comes from a tabloid.

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John Zayac: The 10 million is in Swedish kronor. I krona = 0.14 usd. Using that conversion the prize is 1.4 million USD. Sorry Moe, I stand corrected... On a brighter note, how the he'll are you, old friend?

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Amy Nelson (my wife): i think an important point that no one has mentioned is that obama would have had to spend three days in norway to attend all of the events. that's a hell of a long time for the president to spend accepting an award w/ all the shit going on right now. he's a busy dude.

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John Zayac: Hey everyone. Please don't take this personally. This is indeed meant to be inflammatory. I am tired of people not paying attention to what is happening, thinking that because Bush is out of office that things have changed. Nothing has changed... Regarding the Norwegians: it's not missing all the events they are upset about. It was the blowing off of the king's lunch and denying a press conference with the Norwegian press. There is a much longer explanation for why I don't like President Obama, and when i'm done writing these finals, I'll bust out a treatise on why I think Obama is actually Obummer.

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John Zayac: Oh and Amy, has Obama had a vacation this year? Just sayin'...

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Amy Nelson: vacation? huh? he's leaving to attend the global summit on climate change in copenhagen. and regardless of whether you think obama is really obummer, if you're seriously equating him to dubya, then to quote mj, "you're just being ignorant."

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John Zayac: Funny you bring up Copenhagen. Here's a quick recap of delegates' reactions to Obama going to Copenhagen: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/europe-casts-a-skeptical-eye-on-obamas-trip-to-copenhagen/

I called him Obusha to be inflammatory. He is not delivering change. As has been the case since the beginning of his campaign, there are promises of change and no actions to support it. Just a few examples:

Elevated troop numbers in Afghanistan with a set date for troop withdrawal that turned elastic the next day, according to Defense Secretary Gates.

Major financial/corporate bailout that came with no stipulation for change in the way that our monetary system is structured, as was a goal set out when the recovery act was originally passed.

Renewed promise to repeal "don't ask don't tell" that has no set deadlines or plan of action, just a plea to "cross our fingers" with him that us gays don't get angrier. He did sign into law a federal hate-crimes statute that was attached to a defense spending authorization bill. No irony there.

Also, there has been no genuine effort to overturn DOMA; just more promises (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Briefing-by-White-House-Press-Secretary-Robert-Gibbs-6/17/09) . In fact, remember when the Dept. of Justice argued a case IN FAVOR of DOMA comparing same-sex unions to incestuous ones? Another tardy response/apology oozed from the White House after that one.

I have concerns about health care, but I appreciate that Obama and his administration have actually been prodding congress to have viable discussions about this. One gold star for this! Now get something done.

The Obama administration killed the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository Project (which was, admittedly, flawed to hell) and has set forth an empty edict that the nation needs a long term storage plan for dangerous nuclear waste. Right now, the federal government is in violation of a contract between nuclear energy producers and the Department of Energy (DOE) because the DOE has no repository for the waste. Additionally, the Nuclear Power industry is actually being touted as a climate change solution, even though current storage techniques for nuclear waste are only safe on the DECADE scale.

Part of the reasoning cited for giving Mr. Obama the Nobel Prize was for his attitudes towards nuclear non-proliferation. The first uranium mill to be opened in the US in decades is in final approval states in Colorado (pending final permitting by the State of Colorado). His administration passed on comment, deferring comment to the DOE. If you want, think a bit about Uranium chemistry, and the reactants and by-products of Uranium decay reactors, then you will see that increasing the use of nuclear power will increase environmental mining damage (Strip mining, radioactive mine tailings, etc., etc.) and will also increase the stock of potential weapons-grade radioactive isotopes. Nuclear power is counterproductive to non-proliferation and to climate/environmental sustainability.

I could go on, but i hope you see my point. I am frightened and concerned that people are not really paying attention to what is happening with the Obama Administration. Please don't forget that we have a democratic senate, a democratic house, and a democratic white house, though no real legislation has come to pass.

We, as the people who are represented and governed by Obama need to hold him accountable for the actions of his government. I agree that he has an amazing potential for good, but he seems to me to be stuck in too easy of a gear that is causing him to spin his wheels on a steep incline (my apologies or the bicycle analogy). His gear needs to be changed, because it seems to me he is sliding off the mountain right back into the rut the last administration left. Obama promised diplomacy, and I feel his actions surrounding Oslo and Copenhagen are illustrating his international naivete.

I welcome and enjoy all y'alls comments about all this. The discussion helps me to actually construct my thoughts into real ideas. Thanks.

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Jamie Ramirez: gotta jump back in. *reminder*: obama is no longer in the house or the senate. he can urge them to make progress, but that doesn't mean they will. he's trying to delegate, rather than micromanage, which is disappointing in some ways because he's so much more intelligent and open-minded that a great number of the people he has to work with.

and to respond to the bit you say about people not really paying attention to obama -- i don't think that's true. i could be wrong, because i can only really speak for myself, but i *think* a lot of people are watching and waiting. i was in elementary school when clinton was elected, but i am curious whether after his first year in office was barely up, everyone jumped all over him for not having fixed everything yet. clinton and obama both had to enter the white house in the middle of long spells of republican rule and policies. so i'd assume they'd both be under similar scrutiny from the people who elected them. now, i'm not attempting to pass judgment, good or bad, on clinton overall. but we all know he balanced the budget, which was great. but how much progress did he make in the first 10 months in office toward that goal? anyone know?

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Jamie Ramirez: regarding health care: i don't think that any of the options currently being considered come anywhere CLOSE to qualifying as universal health care. the original spirit of the idea has long been dead. i can't think of one person who is in dire straits medically/financially who the current proposals will actually help. but obama farmed it out to congress, so i blame them for compromising it to death--not obama.

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John Zayac: I hope you're right about the attention thing, I could have a skewed view seeing how I mostly interact with college students, the exact population that I feel needs to be really paying attention.

Regarding Bill Clinton: funny you say you were in elementary school Jamie, my very first election I was old enough to participate in was the 1992 election that Clinton won. Man, I'm getting old.

A few examples of Clinton's accomplishments in his first year: He accomplished signing into law an economic recovery bill (to fix Reagan's and Japan-puking Bush's war on the economy). Bill Clinton ACTIVELY sought to increase taxes on the wealthy during his first year. As an interesting side note, the Northridge earthquake of January, 1994 actually boosted the Clinton Administration's economic recovery (at least in California). In his first year, Clinton was also a key player in the signing of the Oslo Accords between Yassir Arafat (a Nobel Peace-Prize Laureate like Mr. Obama) and Israeli prime minister Rabin. The ratification of NAFTA also occurred during Clinton's first year (I know I am opening a potential bomb with this one, feel as you will about free trade). So, yes, Clinton did get stuff done in his first year that was on par with his campaign goals.

With health care, the situation is tricky, and this is why I have given Obama credit for actually getting the two sides to actually sit down and hammer out plans, whether they are universal or not. While I know of nobody who does not believe that access to health care is a fundamental human right, We do not have a tax system that supports the financing of a large gonvernment-run system. Talk to some people that come from countries with state-run healthcare and see how they feel about the bureaucracy. (SJF I know how you feel...). This debate can go on and on, and will, and should.

I would like to throw in a bit about education while I am at it. I am deeply concerned about Obama's threat to withhold federal monies from California public schools if CA does not begin using student performance on standardized tests to evaluate teachers and for determination of teacher salaries. Besides this being a direct attack on academic freedom for instructors, it also changes the emphasis from educating students to develop abstract reasoning skills to instructing them in a concrete "fact" way for a monetary gain for districts, teachers, and the state.

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Jamie Ramirez: you don't know *ANYONE* who believes that health care is a privilege, and not a right? i can't tell you how many people i've spoken to over the years who have a very pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps attitude toward this topic, as well as issues of homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illness. in fact, i've met very few people who are willing to see their taxes go up to "subsidize free riders".

btw, this argument "just ask people who live in countries with socialized medicine how much they like it" is lazy. there are obviously two ways to measure the efficacy of health care policies: ask people how much they like it, or look at the actual statistics of how healthy people are. our country is plummeting quickly on the latter, so no matter what you or i or anyone in europe thinks, if they're going to live longer, healthier lives than us, they *ought* to be glad they live there instead of here. and if they wish they lived here, then they don't know what they're wishing for, because i seriously doubt they want the lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rate that our country boasts.

of course, it's skewed lower because of all the poor people in this country. and, you know, since it's poor people's faults that they're exposed to higher rates of toxic chemicals at home and in the workplace, and since it's also their faults that they get sick as a result, the well-to-do are always ignoring these facts.

if the intersection of poverty, the housing crisis, mental illness & sustainable environments wasn't what i'd studied in school, i might not realize how firmly stuck in the dark ages most of my peers are. it's scary how many are downright hostile toward the impoverished. i think it's because it's scary. they don't want to think about it, and start to feel guilty, so they tell themselves these are bad people who can't possibly have worked hard their whole lives and still just failed. they won't even entertain the thought, oh, wait, that could happen to me.

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John Zayac: Jamie, I did not profess to know the answer to the healthcare issue, and for you to call me lazy for suggesting that you talk to people who live in socialized countries with astronomical tax rates and buearacratic health care (do you know many people who are stoked with their HMO in this country?) is flat-out wrong and exceptionally lazy on your part. You state we should look at life expectancy. According to the world population factbook, the average life expectency in the USA is 78.11 years, UK: 79.01 years, Switzerland: 80.85 years, Denmark: 78.3 years. There is not much variation here. I do not get your point about life expectency, and your arguments are sounding a bit Michael Moore-esque stretch the facts and use inconsistent data to illustrate your point.

Why is it wrong to consider quality of care and quality of life issues in this debate? I do not see how the rest of your statement is relevant. I assuming you agree with my stance regarding nuclear energy with your credentials in sustainable environments, no?What about the economy. Has the stimulus package done anything, in your opinion, to help the poor and unemployed in this country? Any views on education? I am trying to exchange views so that we may all learn from one another, and spread our dialogue further. To quote Obama, "I am asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington... I'm asking you to believe in yours" (http://www.barackobama.com). I want change. We are in dire straights in this country and especially in the state of CA.

On a personal note, don't assume that I have no knowledge of poverty, poor health-care coverage, or seemingly insurmountable obstacles to success. My life experiences are very integral to who I am and what I believe today.

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Jamie Ramirez: i was calling the argument tired, and the logic lazy. not like you're the first one to say it. i'm calling the point of view itself a lazy one, and that makes me surprised to hear you say it. but i never called you lazy. what kind of lazy person would have this kind of dialogue on their facebook wall? silly.

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Jamie Ramirez: oh, and now you're hatin' on michael moore? geez john, you're such a hater! :D

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Jamie Ramirez: and i said "longer, healthier" because quality of life (level of health) is just as important as longevity. what's the point of living a long time if you're just suffering? no good. i never meant to imply the opposite, and my point was in a lot of ways just that the grass is always greener somewhere else.

i know they have higher taxes in socialist countries, john. so what? in the end, if there's not enough for everyone to get by, someone's going to suffer. if we split the bill equitably through high taxes, everyone suffers a little bit, instead of building an aristocracy on the backs of an even larger underclass. if there *is* enough for everyone to get by, then it's totally reasonable to think that everyone should be able to. if high taxes are how that is achieved, and your income was only needed for the things above and beyond your basic needs, you wouldn't need as much take-home pay. some people think this is possible with capitalism, but i subscribe to the line of reasoning that as long as corporations have the primary goal of not only being profitable, but continually increasing profit, then this machine is going to run people over along the way.

life expectancy is a tricky beast, though. today's life expectancy only applies to us if the mortality rate doesn't increase. but with all sorts of fatal diseases on the rise, and a growing elderly population, it's got to rise. meanwhile, according to the WHO, cuba's life expectancy (as of 2006) is 78. same as ours. most people point to cuba as an example of a communist state which has failed. but even they're making it to a ripe old age, so michael moore can't be *too* wrong about cuba having good health care. i think when you control for differing stress levels, it may become somewhat skewed. meaning, populations which endure lower stress levels require less medical care, so it might not be the health care system alone which accounts for a country's life expectancy. but i'd sure rather live to a ripe old age without having to undergo a ton of life-saving medical procedures. seems rare in the US. i fully expect to get cancer at some point.

and btw, are you getting snarky with me, john? you're the one who said a few posts back that everyone shouldn't get mad & stuff. i wasn't questioning your credentials at all, or making a personal attack. i think it's that phenomenon where in text form everyone sounds like they're being short with you.

that said, i'll take my own advice and treat your questions as serious ones, and not just as snappy rhetorical questions.

(1) nuclear power: i do not have a strong opinion on this, because i don't know enough about it to have a strong opinion. i have heard and considered both sides, but i don't think i have enough information to come to a conclusion. good thing it's not my job to make that decision. phew. however, the whole concept that it's "clean" is just a matter of looking at it. i agree with you. if there isn't a safe way to store spent fuel, then there isn't a safe way to use nuclear power. but, i also don't think there's a safe way to continue burning fossil fuels at the rate we are using them. does nuclear power scare me? of course it does. but that's my gut speaking, and i'm not stephen colbert. as far as mining goes, yeah, anything that got sequestered into various layers of earth before life for humans was possible here, i think we'd probably be best leaving where it is. but that, too, is just an intuition.

(2) stimulus package: i haven't studied this academically, but from what i've heard on NPR, i think that this, too, is a complex issue that i'm unable to weigh in on. i've heard very compelling arguments that the stimulus wasn't big enough. compelling when i heard them, but i don't remember well enough to explain why. i also don't think that the stimulus package was about the poor. the poor haven't even entered people's consciences yet. that's why everyone keeps talking about the middle class. if it's the middle class that's suffering, people seem to care. personally, i'm convinced socialism and a little bit of old-fashioned human compassion, would be the most effective way to improve quality of life for everyone.

(3) education: where would i even start? until things are more equitable across the board, there will continue to be substandard education in many places. i also think that our methods of evaluating teachers & professors are totally off-base. it doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are on a topic, that doesn't make you good at explaining it to people who are new to it. but although some instructors have the personal integrity to strive toward being great at helping people have the series of "aha!" moments that lead to true comprehension, this is hard to measure, and i think it's largely ignored when measuring the quality of the instructor.

one interesting find for me while i was studying physics at CSULA (and finding the instruction to be lacking, in part because the class size was so large, there wasn't time for us to ask our individual questions and get clarification before we felt lost) is that actual comprehension of the basic principles is very low among beginning physics students who receive the highest marks, even those who will go on to major in it, and even at very esteemed institutions. using students who had passed all their tests with flying colors as the test group, the researchers asked a team of physicists to come up with a very simple set of questions which any first-year student of physics should know, and across the board, the scores were very low. the same test was given to students who maintained high grades through their 3rd year, and that group scored very well. whatever its wider implications, this study points out that how well you score on a test is highly dependent on how well the test is written. so i understand the desire for standardized tests. but those are, of course, fraught with their own problems. so i think tests should carry less weight. i actually really like the idea of doing away with grading. you pass or you fail, and if you fail, you try again. that's how it goes in the real world, and we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, so there shouldn't be so much stigma on having to spend longer learning something than someone else. chances are, the tables are flipped for some other subject or skill set. complicated issue. to quote my friend jill, who quotes the movie _drop dead fred_ a lot, "what are your thoughts?". actually, i bet jill has a lot more useful input on the subject than i do.

my neck hurts very much. i think i've got it cocked to one side or something. thanks, john! :P

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Jamie Ramirez: omg, you're probably so sick of my comments at this point, but i want to clarify something: when i said my peers are stuck in the dark ages, i was referring to the people *i* recently attended school with. the people who *don't* think access to healthcare is a fundamental human right.

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John Zayac: Jamie, no worries about anything. I'm glad that you engaged me in the discussion about that link. You know it's much easier to not be angry, when you really start to think about issues through discussions with others. It forces you to think about your stance.

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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note: john & i are friends, and amy is my wife, but i didn't know any of the other people who commented on this topic. i left out all of the people whose comments didn't directly tie in to this line of discussion, but i left all the comments in the same order they appeared originally. i didn't know that thomas cawson was john's bf until after this whole string of comments came to a close. i was bummed out that he had no response when i called him out for seeming racist and out-of-touch with his pretending not to know how i was using "hater". it seemed very uppity and pretentious of him, and from the very beginning, my only hint of actual annoyance/aggression was toward this thomas guy. of course, john knew all along i wasn't insulting him by calling him a hater. right? well, john suddenly getting a bit snippy came as a surprise to me, but then later i realized i'd gotten snippy with no less than his beau. whoops! but it had to be said. i admit, i might have been a bit more tactful if i'd realized this was john's bf. but based on the comment, i never in a million years would have suspected that john would date him. i think the tone of all of it would have been different if (a) thomas had realized that my tone with john was affectionate and approving (disagreeing with his views in some cases, but approving of his choice to bring up real issues on facebook), and if (b) i had realized that thomas was john's new bf. oh well. john's totally right, though, about how conversations like this allow you to put some of your thoughts into concrete form. so i'm actually glad it took on this twist. although i'm still waiting for thomas to attempt to defend his first comment. hehe...

new blog approach

so, since i am now attempting to stay tuned in to a social life via facebook, in order to combat the tendency of me to be a home body who, especially while unemployed, tends to feel cooped up, i have decided to do something new with my blog.

since i've got a wide variety of friends (and friends-of-friends) on facebook, there is an equally wide variety of topics which arise and to which i have responded.  sometimes an awesome debate or discussion is going on, and i wonder why none of my other pals jump in with their points of view.  then i realized that when i comment on the page of [person A], if i want [person B] to be able to see it, those two have to be friends on facebook.  but my network is composed of lots of different actual real-world social networks, which means that half the stuff i write on facebook is never available for further comment to my other friends.  not that i think anyone is going to visit my blog and comment here.  that's why everyone's on facebook.  but, since i've accepted the fact that everything i do online is potentially permanently attached to me, and searchable by future employers and the like, why not just put it all here on my blog?  then if anyone wants to see all the things that i think and say, they can find it all in one place, instead of digging through facebook for juicy tidbits.  and maybe, occasionally, i'll get a good discussion going.

so, i'm just explaining this new way of using my blog, so in case there's a soul out there following my blog, it will be clear why it is that the approach has changed.  i'm ranting on facebook now, instead of my blog, and importing those rants to my blog.  i am also prone to rant about redundancy, and how it's such a waste of time, but since there is the layer of privacy on facebook for each individual user to set to their own tastes, some of this might not have been visible to anyone else otherwise.  so it's only partially redundant.  which makes it the kind of redundancy you want, like the redundancy in a RAID.  or maybe you don't want it.  but let's just pretend.

this is a test

and this is the body text of the test.  hope this works!

alright, well, i finally installed a script on my website for automating a photo album. now i can share lots more photos, and more frequently, too.

alrighty. i said i'd get those shots of the loft posted eventually, and i've finally done it. what must be pointed out, however, is that these are not works of photography. these snapshots were taken quickly, all on a single night—the night we invited friends over to help us begin the process of dismantling the loft and packing its pieces into boxes. since my camera at the time didn't take very good video clips, the best way for us to document every little bit of it was to run around the loft snapping shots from every angle our eyes had previously viewed it. they may not be art-worthy photographs, but we hope that the art project that was our loft can be glimpsed through the blurry, hand-held, low-light shots.

okay, hey everyone. here's gonna be a 4 1/2 minute video taken on a normal morning in our new place... this will show our living space a bit, and how it looks in natural light. really, it's going to be the first installment of documenting our place, both for ourselves and for our friends and family at great distances.

the summer quarter is almost over. i'm ever more behind. getting the apartment ready for the housewarming took most of my time and energy. thank god it'll be clean from now on. now i have to get back to the whole being-a-good-student thing. this is going to be a rough next three weeks. i know, i always say images coming soon. and there never are. but, i am going to post 4 videos of the new place on youtube soone enough, and then you can all see it even if you can't be here. or see stuff it was too dark to notice. or whatever. we just wanted to document our current place better than we documented the loft (not very well at all). so we're being proactive this time. and we can easily share this with you. but, i've got to post the loft photos first. my computer has just been plugged in again so i should be able to do that soon. as soon as i catch up on all my email. i'm totally behind. :P

so, i just took my last final on thursday. it's saturday morning and for some strange reason, i shot out of bed at 7:40 thinking i'd overslept. yeah, i still haven't posted those photos of the loft. (like anyone's keeping track). but now that i'm on break (for a week) i have no excuse. hopefully i make the time to do this. we're still trying to get moved in to the new place. it's enough smaller than the loft that it's been a huge challenge trying to make everything fit and still be comfortable. and we're still looking for a dining room table. but the patio is looking great! thank god amy has such a green thumb. well, the housewarming should be soon. this break is my chance to get it all ready (since there's no homework to neglect).

oh, by the way: expect to hear not a peep from me next quarter. i'm anticipating being insanely busy. if you're interested in knowing why i'll be so busy, possibly stressed out, and neglecting my loved ones, i'll explain. i'm taking 4 classes, all heavy on reading and writing.

ECON360
[developing countries and the new global economy]
i expect this will be the easiest course, but if it involves research papers, well, i'm going to work hard on them because i'm really interested in this subject. i've heard a lot of stuff about how globalization and trade agreements of various sorts cause unfair labor practices. hopefully i'll realize some of the ways my consumption habits cause disadvantage to less-developed countries' women and children and learn how to reduce that impact.

HIST388
[historiography]
i emailed the instructor to ask a few questions about this one. in his reply, he said, "The course focuses on exploring how historians conceptualize the past, think about issues of agency, frame topics, use sources, etc." we'll be reading ~15 articles from academic journals that focus on medieval/early modern venice by various folks (mind you, this is in a 10-week quarter). and at the end, we write a 15-page essay analyzing these articles.

HIST390
[historical research and writing]
since most of what we do in school involves doing research in academic journals, most of what we produce is based only on what other people have actually researched first-hand. but who writes a book, or a newspaper or magazine article, based on academic journals? yet college doesn't, on the whole, prepare us to do primary research. thus my interest in this class. i would like some practice conducting primary research. it seems like a good skill to pick up while i'm in school. so i assume this quarter will be spent digging up information, conducting interviews, etc., and culminating in a rather lengthy original work of research.

PHIL400b
[advanced philosophical writing and journal production]
in this class, luckily, i don't have to write anything from scratch. no new research. what i will be doing is taking one of the philosophy papers i've turned in for class previously, that i think is my best work, and editing it over the quarter. of course, that's not all that's involved. i'll be helping all the other students edit theirs, too. everyone in the class will read (and make suggestions for editing) all the other students' papers. in addition anyone can submit a paper to the yearly cal state philosophy journal. we will also review these entries and help edit them as well. we're graded both on how helpful we were to the editing process of others and on how much we improved our paper.

as you can see, it's going to be a writing-heavy quarter for me. not to mention, there's lots of reading, too. and if you don't know this about me, i'm a very slow reader. it'll be a hard quarter, but a rewarding one. sorry if i'm neglectful. i'm trying to keep up my GPA for grad school.

and before you tell me that i don't need to worry, let me explain: currently it's too low to get admitted to UCLA. i've got a 3.4 and they require a 3.5. it's the only architecture grad school i can afford to go to in southern california, and it's incidentally also one of the best, if not the best. so, i've got something like 3 or 4 quarters, starting with next quarter, to bring up my GPA.

yeah, so, it's been almost 2 years since i posted on blogger. whoa. we did finally finish the loft, and we did take loads of pictures, but i am writing now at the end of our move out of the loft and into a quiet, cozy place in silverlake. maybe soon i can finally put up those photos. it's been a crazy quarter at school trying to move and study for midterms. but believe it or not, i think i've fared pretty well so far...

make sure you ask me for my new address. it's probably not smart to post it on blogger, so i won't do that. my phone # hasn't changed, though. i've intentionally kept that the same over the years since i've been in L.A. so everyone would be able to reach me.

"a school key wedged in a sexy dress has been locking me"

what the hell are they saying in that belle & sebastian song?

when i was a kid

our school took field trips on earth day to a local park, where we each received a sapling and pledged to plant it. we wrote letters to the president asking that he please do something (i don't remember what) about the endangered elephants. they taught us to always cut the plastic on six-packs so poor little birdies don't get their beaks caught. we never let balloons go because once the paint wore off, they would look like jellyfish to seals who would then choke on them. and what might have seemed most obvious was that you should never, never use the hose or a gas-powered blower to remove leaves and debris from your lawn/sidewalk/wherever.

why do i keep seeing people use these blowing devices all over silverlake, of all places? am i the only one who cringes when she sees them???

postcards

postcards

as part of amy's present that most of you know i've been so busy putting together lately, i made these in photoshop & had them printed on cardstock, then hand-glued the postcard-back on each one. thank god we own a paper cutter.

"al green ain't nuthin but good"

"al green ain't nuthin but good"

i might be quoting her wrong, but i believe that's what amy said once. there's a sort of enthusiastically-mellow that he conjures and i think it's more the look on all of our faces that says it when "nuthin but good" is all you need to say. i declare february 26th al green day. if there isn't already one.

socal storms. ugh.

this sucks. we've gotten more rain this season than seattle. the benefit of living in los angeles is supposed to be that i can ride my motorcycle all year long. yesterday i was wet from the knees down practically all day. but i guess i shouldn't complain. here's a snippet from the news:

Rosa Alvarado and her husband said they knew something was wrong when they heard popping noises in the middle of the night. The Glassell Park home in which they had lived for 41 years was buckling on soil weakened by steady rains. "We just couldn't sleep," said Rosa Alvarado. "We heard 'pop, pop, pop.' We couldn't even get our stuff out. All our furniture, three televisions."

bummer dude. no more sitcoms.

lofty

lofty

since no one can understand why we're constantly busy (and exhausted) i thought i'd show a few pictures of the loft in progress. we bought 150 ft of lighting cable plus about the equivalent in extension cords. we installed switches and dimmers on a lighting scheme we designed to incorporate 19 new lights + a strand of blue christmas lights (many of these are very low wattage; elevenish). this doesn't include 2 more lights we need to install in the entryway and kitchen, plans for the upstairs area, or the possibility of something for the fire escape. we've gotten pretty much all new furniture (some free, some craigslist, some from scratch) and are parting with lots on craigslist ourselves. we're nowhere near done, but the carpentry and electrical portions are practically complete so we can finish sorting and merging all our things.

life drawing one

life drawing one

i'll fill you in if you don't know: i met amy on the friday night before the first meeting of my life drawing 1 class. i took this on saturdays to keep my in-school deferrence. because it's a 3-unit course & only met once a week, it was an eight-hour class! when you've just met the girl of your dreams and make a tradition out of getting no sleep on friday nights, you can imagine how painful this was. thank god for my ipod, really cool classmates (only people who *really* want to be there will spend that long on a saturday drawing) and a really understanding instructor. i think we were supposed to end up filling about 2 newsprint pads, but i only filled one. here's that lone, coffee-fueled pad.

karen's bday

karen's bday

karen's birthday celebration at casa bianca. i got a few pictures, so i thought i'd share them.

passion party: hotel figueroa

passion party: hotel figueroa

the man in black you see here is my coworker joey. last night amy and i had free tickets to the L.A. Weekly's *Passion Party* (thanks to my other coworker Jennifer, who you can't really make out in this picture). of course, it took us forever to get all dolled up and out the door, and then gobble down some food to hold us over on the walk (a much much longer walk than we remembered from halloween) so by the time we arrived, the people were packing up the free dinner amy had been promised. oops. we got our free drink tokens, though. and at the end of the night, we flirted with the bartender and she gave us two free beers!!! we love the hotel figueroa!

at baller hardware

at baller hardware

this was this weird little dog i met at the hardware store yesterday. there i was, buying the wrong bolts that wouldn't put our bed together, and this man comes up to me and asks me if it's my dog. i offered to take pictures and email them to him so that they could post a sign to locate its owner. before i left the store, they figured out that the dog's owner was actually shopping in the store, but i kept the pictures anyway. i wonder if his tongue grew that big over time, or if it was like that as a puppy, too?