The Hiccurp

Since at least eighth grade (and maybe before that, but I can't remember) I have made a funny little sound. If you are reading this, you have probably heard it. It sounds like a hiccup, but it stands alone. One, solitary hiccup. It's not quite a hiccup, either, because it doesn't have the accompanying uncomfortable stomach spasm feeling that goes with any real hiccup.

Over the years, "hiccurp" has been the most widely accepted name for the noise. The word "hiccurp" comes from combining hiccup and burp: it sounds like a hiccup, but there's only one, like a burp. It also sometimes has been called a reverse burp because that's pretty much what it is. Last week my friend Joanna came up with the cleverest name for it yet: a prub. (That's "burp" spelled backwards). I don't know how no one else in almost ten years has come up with that, but Joanna deserves props for her sharp thinking on this.

There have been some stellar brup moments over the years. In high school, about 100 of us were taking the AP psychology test in an auditorium at our school. The teacher proctoring had just handed out all the tests, and the room was silent, waiting for the signal to start the tests. "PRUB!" A nice loud hiccurp, echoing through the room, diffused some of the pre-test jitters as we began. My freshman year of college I took Introduction to Linguistics. We were reviewing the IPA symbols (the international symbols for writing phonetically). Our professor said, “Who can tell me what sound this symbol stands for?” And right on cue, “PRUB!” The class dissolved into laughter, and our professor replied, “Well, no, that’s not it.”

In high school, several people (including one or two teachers) suggested I should go to a doctor regarding the hiccurp. They thought it might be a symptom of some real health concern. I haven't ever gotten it checked out, and I have never even asked a doctor about it. I have met a few other people here and there who make the same sound, though. In high school, my friend Ann made it. My friend Orin claims his new co-worker makes it. Hannah (see entry #1 for who she is) has a friend Christine who makes it. My freshman year when I was visiting Hannah in Chicago, Christine informed me that she read singular hiccups can be the sign of a brain tumor. Mine must be pretty big by now.

I don’t really like my hiccurps. They are usually embarrassing and definitely not professional. I fear the day I am in a job interview or presenting a paper at a conference and whip out with a loud “Prrrrub!” Unfortunately, thus far I have not figured out how to stop the hiccurps. Theories and/or ideas on getting rid of hiccurps are welcome.

Cmabrigde Uinervtisy

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

The Melon Lesson

I should have known. The cantaloupe was on sale at Super Target for $1. I was there to pick up some washer fluid for my poor sap stained windshield, but a nice prominent table was set up in the front with melons. Cantaloupe for $1, honeydew for $2. As someone who eats at least a melon or two a week, I knew that cantaloupe price was practically unbeatable. So I bought one of each.

Melons are great to snack on or to put in plain yogurt. Yum. When I buy them, I usually immediately cut them up into pieces and put them in a tupperware container my fridge. Cutting a cantaloupe is always enjoyable for me. Cantaloupes are usually very soft inside, and so knives go through easily and make it a pleasant process. Honeydews are less soft, and more of an ordeal to chop up. As a result, I eat far less honeydew. In fact, I don’t even really like honeydew. I have a fond memory from my childhood of soft, juicy green honeydew, and I keep buying honeydew in search of that. But as of yet, I’ve only found rather crunchy, sort of green, bland honeydew melons.

Yesterday I started with the cantaloupe. I knew there were problems when it was hard to slice. By the end of chopping the cantaloupe, I was pretty tired. And I still had a freakin’ honeydew to go! I got through it, but it took me a long time, and I was not excited to eat it. I tried a piece of the cantaloupe, and I’m sure a look of horror crossed my face when I realized this cantaloupe tasted like North Servery (Rice's on-campus dining) cantaloupe: too crisp, not sweet enough, not orange enough. Yuck. I didn’t even try a piece of honeydew. I threw the tupperware in the fridge and tried not to think about how I would get through all that melon.

The obvious yet learned-the-hard-way moral of the story: if you go somewhere to buy car stuff, you probably don't want their produce.

Sad facts....

I am a dunce when it comes to economics, but there is one simple economic truth that has been on my mind lately: in a given market, economy, or planet, there are a limited number of resources, or capital. When one person has a lot of something, it means another person has little.

There are many arenas in which this simple fact becomes quite important. I recently read that Americans consume something like 30% of the world's resources. Clearly then, not everyone in the world can live like Americans, for the world simply cannot support it. Global inequality is spectacular; another fact I picked up is that American children under 13 have an average of $230 spending money per year, which is more than the 500 million poorest people in the world. (See Simpler Living, Compassionate Life by Michael Schut for more on this)

In light of staggering global inequality, many people overlook or forget about inequality that is closer to home. If you know me well, you know I rarely talk about inequality without bringing up racial inequality in the United States. One of my pet peeves is when white people claim that they aren't racist (it was just their ancestors), and they haven't profitted from racism. While we may not be racist, every white person has the distinct advantage of being white. This is a topic I will probably discuss more thoroughly in future blogs, but for now I want to talk solely about economics. The basic idea is this: white Americans today have vast holdings of wealth that have amassed over generations. White plantation owners profitted hugely from black slave labor, whites throughout the country benefited from cheap land as Indians were forced onto reservations, and whites generally enjoyed better access to jobs, property, loans, and home equity partially because discrimination limited competition and rewarded whites for being white.

Although the current generation might claim to be guiltless of racial exploitation to achieve that wealth, inheritance has left its legacy as whites have phenomenally more resources than blacks. Here are some handy facts from a book I read last weekend, called Black Wealth, White Wealth by Merlin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro. The authors did research that looked at racial inequality in wealth. Wealth is different than income; income is a rate you get paid per hour, month, or year, while wealth is the accumulation of your assets and property. Wealth is very important: a person with substantial wealth can weather a financial crisis (such as a layoff or big medical problems), while a person without wealth will probably fall into poverty.

Below is just one of their many charts illustrating the vast inequalities in wealth. Net wealth is calculated as the total of a persons assets and property (including house and car) minus their debt. NFA stands for Net Financial Assets, which simply do not include housing and car value. (And if you're not familir with it, a median is a kind of average).

Race Median Income Median Net Worth Median NFA
White $25,384 $43,800 $6,999
Black 15,630 3,700 0

And even comparing just those with college degrees...
Race Income Net Worth NFA
White $38,700 $74,922 $19,823
Black 29,440 17,437 175


The basic fact in the end is that there is limited wealth to be had in America. Those at the bottom will continue to suffer until those at the top give up some of their holdings. There are certainly other policies, programs, and approaches that will help and benefit the disadvantaged. For instance, many more black attain a college degree today and the income gap has closed considerably in recent years. The wealth gap, however, remains. Without some redistribution, other efforts and programs will all only put a band-aid on a gaping wound of racial injustice.

My people weren't meant for this

I am clearly out of my element at this latitude. Yesterday I went to Galveston, and I managed to get sunburn from being out a measly two hours (maybe less). I started thinking: what did people do before there was sunscreen? Particularly back when society was mostly agricultural, or even hunter-gatherer. They would have had to spend many an hour out of doors. How did white people deal with the sun?

Then it dawned on me: my people didn't have to deal with the sun. While white people currently reign over the United States, Canada, and Australia and currently control (or "influence") most of the world, we really come from a geographically tiny (not to mention climactically chilly) region. Certainly my Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestors rarely had to worry about a bad sunburn. Those countries are nice, but they don't face the blazing sun like much of the United States does. My French and German ancestors would also not have faced the sun like this. I have no Spanish blood in me, and you can tell; sunny Spain is actually along the same latitude as New York City, and Spaniards are considerably darker (and less burn-prone) than other Europeans.

Perhaps the magnitude of my displacement is best illustrated with a fact I just learned: Texas and Florida are on the same lattitude with the Sahara desert, Saudia Arabia, and Northern India. (Click here for a map to prove it)

In short, my poor skin genes never realized what they were up against. Sunburn really is the curse of the white people. Maybe it's one of our punishments for trying to conquer so much of the world. If white people stayed generally where they came from, they would never have started suffering the wretched pain and tenderness of nasty sunburns, not to mention melanoma down the line.

I can hear a faint voice coming from my red, itchy skin. "See? We told you not to take over like that. How easy is it to bear that white man's burden on a beet-red sunburnt back?"

Trees, Toilets and Sustainability

Kevin's comment on my last entry reminded me of this.

While I was in Morocco, one recurring theme was sustainability. Here are two very interesting facts I learned that made me think:
1. If only China and India (not even the whole rest of the world) started using toilet paper like Americans use toilet paper, all the world's forests would be gone in 48 hours.
2. If everyone showered like Americans shower, the supply of usable water would be gone in roughly the same amount of time.