While I love NPR, it has reminded me that some things are just tired. You know when there is one song they play CONSTANTLY on the radio.... Even if it's a good song, you start to hate it, because no song is enjoyable when it's played every other minute. Sort of like what happened to "Friends" and "Trading Spaces". Anyways, terrorism is the equivalent of these songs/tv shows in news story form. I am sick of hearing about terrorism and the war on terror. No one can actually say anything substantive on terrorism or the war on terror, because what is there to say about a war on a concept where there is no specific enemy or target and therefore no good way to fight the war.
I have decided there are about six stories on terrorism that simply keep repeating on the news.
1. "[fill in the blank western government] has tightened their [your choice of transportation] safety in hopes of preventing possible terrorist attacks."
2. "[fill in the blank US state] has arrested [1-9] men from [fill in the blank arab/south asian/muslim country] suspected of conspiring for a terrorist plot."
3. "A [arab/south asian/muslim] man is suing the [national/state/local] government for wrongly holding him in conjunction with a terrorist investigation."
4. "[fill in the blank government agency] is being restructured, hopefully a move that will improve homeland security and prevent future terrorist attacks."
5. "[fill in the blank senator/representative] has announced a [bill/opinion] [supporting/antagonizing] President Bush's war on terror."
6. "President Bush is on vacation in [fill in the blank place] despite [fill in the blank tragedy/mass protest/terrorist event] happening in his backyard."
Lastly, I have decided that I could definitely be a terrorist were I in some of the situations of the worlds' people. For instance, if I were a Palestinian refugee who grew up in a refugee camp my entire life, not granted citizenship in Israel or the country I was a refugee in, refused jobs, good education, or any way out of my plight, watching my parents suffer while Israeli Jews lived in the house they were forced out of... well, chances are I would be a terrorist. The same with many other situations around the globe. Peace talks would hold little promise of help. With no military, political, or economic power, what else is there left to do? I really do understand why people resort to terrorism. If your voice is constantly being muted by the international community, where do you turn? I am not condoning terrorism, just accepting that sometimes there is nowhere else to turn.
Before you say, "But never! I would never turn to terrorism! How barbaric!" consider other hard-to-face facts. A famous set of experiments known as the Milgram experiments were done after World War II. The motivation was to see how nice, normal German people could have turned into Nazi murderers. The experiments showed that almost all Americans would obey an authority to the point of physically harming another human (even while the person's screams were audible). Read about the experiments for more info. The study was very controversial, and I think most of that controversy was because no Americans wanted to admit that they could have been Nazis were they simply in a different place at a different time.
In any case, I have decided that we need to stop making such a big deal about terrorism. If the conditions are right, most people (including you and I) would become terrorists or murderers. So why don't we start working on fixing the conditions that produce terrorists? It's the only way to end this stupid, ridiculously nebulous war on a concept of terrorism.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Raking in a haul
Two nights this week I have had the luck of hanging out with Hannah. Luck because we are rarely on the Main Line at the same time. By "hang out" I really mean help her unpack from her year in DC in order to re-pack for her move to New Haven. Being a genius, she is heading to Yale law, to join the ranks of all my other genius friends in various top law, medical, and grad school programs.
I have always been a believer in watching out for other people's junk they don't want. At the end of senior year in college I raked in a gold mine of laundry detergent, dishes, foodstuffs, and the like. Tonight I acquired: a set of red, green, and yellow tin plates (perfectly matching my Pier 1 place mats); an old timey flour sifter; an unopened jar of vanilla; and a set of brightly colored plastic mixing bowls.
I also got a bunch of recipes from Hannah's mother. This was perhaps the most exciting thing (rivaling the plastic mixing bowls), as I aspire to be Hannah's mother. She is the best cook/chef/baker I know. I have rarely tried any of her creations more than once because there is so much variety, and everything I've tried has been downright fantabulous. If I ever am a housewife, I aspire to kitchen skills of her caliber.
We watched Spellbound while we packed. For those of you who haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. You'll never appreciate how un-nerdy you truly are until you hear from middle schoolers who study the dictionary six hours a day to learn spelling words. You'll also meet some truly freakish people. For instance, one Indian family was going to pay to feed 5,000 hungry people in India if their son won the national spelling bee. Talk about pressure. "The hunger of 5,000 people is riding on this word, son." The kid didn't win. So did they not feed all those people? I don't like to think about that.
I have always been a believer in watching out for other people's junk they don't want. At the end of senior year in college I raked in a gold mine of laundry detergent, dishes, foodstuffs, and the like. Tonight I acquired: a set of red, green, and yellow tin plates (perfectly matching my Pier 1 place mats); an old timey flour sifter; an unopened jar of vanilla; and a set of brightly colored plastic mixing bowls.
I also got a bunch of recipes from Hannah's mother. This was perhaps the most exciting thing (rivaling the plastic mixing bowls), as I aspire to be Hannah's mother. She is the best cook/chef/baker I know. I have rarely tried any of her creations more than once because there is so much variety, and everything I've tried has been downright fantabulous. If I ever am a housewife, I aspire to kitchen skills of her caliber.
We watched Spellbound while we packed. For those of you who haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. You'll never appreciate how un-nerdy you truly are until you hear from middle schoolers who study the dictionary six hours a day to learn spelling words. You'll also meet some truly freakish people. For instance, one Indian family was going to pay to feed 5,000 hungry people in India if their son won the national spelling bee. Talk about pressure. "The hunger of 5,000 people is riding on this word, son." The kid didn't win. So did they not feed all those people? I don't like to think about that.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Sociology on crack
Let me tell you about this little conference known as the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, one I attended for the second time this past week. Basically, it's the invasion of around 5,000 sociologists (yes, five thousand, I didn't put extra zeroes on there by mistake) to several downtown hotels in a brand name city. The conference is strangely scheduled over a weekend, but that doesn't stop everyone and their dogs who do anything related to sociology from showing up.
There are about 500 sessions where people present the research they doing, all across the sociological spectrum. Everything from the demographics of immigration to the state of race relations to the sociology of food. There are plenty of sessions whose names I don't even understand, so I'm sure I wouldn't understand the presentations.Here are a few examples:
"Hansel's Pebbles: Theory as Wayfinding in Communication and Information Technology Research"
"Animal & Homo Sapien Interactions: Theory, Symbolic Interaction, and Policy"
"Identity, Discourse, and Civil Society"
"Social Construction of Intelligence: Towards a Sociology of the Institutionalization of Human Cognition"
You got me what any of that junk is about!
Last year I attended sessions. Most of them are freakin' boring. Everyone wants to be accepted to present research because you can put it on your resume. Nobody actually wants to present.
The second thing people do at these conferences (and really the much more important thing than presenting or going to sessions) is networking. Everyone sets up gadzillions of meetings with the people who do research in their field. People looking for jobs do this even more, as they are trying to get some foot in the door with the people who are looking to hire. Given that there is just a hotel lobby for people to meet in (all the meeting rooms are taken up by the hundreds of research presentations), it seriously looks like networking gone bonkers. Hundreds and thousands of people trying to find places to plop down and have one-on-one conversations. I seriously think the hotels we meet at must hate us for infesting their lobbies for days on end.
The third thing people do is eat nice meals and drink a lot. All meals you get reimbursed for, since it's the equivalent of a business trip. People go crazy with nice dinners, ordering everything they want. And second, people go crazy at night going out to bars. I think lots of people come from small college towns with a limited selection of restaurants and bars, so being in a big city unleashes the beast inside them. Luckily, you can just play off heavy drinking as "networking" and nobody can think badly of you. It's pretty amusing watching your professors get drunk at these conferences and then have to preside over sessions with a hangover.
I would also like to highlight the extreme nerd factor. Pretty much, if you're at a sociology conference, you are a nerd. Sure, that fact gets diluted in your mind because you are surrounded by thousands of other nerds, but the fact is EVERYONE there is a nerd! The last day of the conference they had a student book giveaway. All the book dealers at the conference who had extra textbooks and sociology books they didn't want to ship back give them away for free. There was a huge line and a CRAZY mad dash for books once the doors opened. I had one book snatched out of my hand while I was picking it up from the table. These people are not only nerds, but CRAZY nerds.
So, for an amusing time, come to Montreal next August and witness the comedy of an annual ASA meeting.
There are about 500 sessions where people present the research they doing, all across the sociological spectrum. Everything from the demographics of immigration to the state of race relations to the sociology of food. There are plenty of sessions whose names I don't even understand, so I'm sure I wouldn't understand the presentations.Here are a few examples:
"Hansel's Pebbles: Theory as Wayfinding in Communication and Information Technology Research"
"Animal & Homo Sapien Interactions: Theory, Symbolic Interaction, and Policy"
"Identity, Discourse, and Civil Society"
"Social Construction of Intelligence: Towards a Sociology of the Institutionalization of Human Cognition"
You got me what any of that junk is about!
Last year I attended sessions. Most of them are freakin' boring. Everyone wants to be accepted to present research because you can put it on your resume. Nobody actually wants to present.
The second thing people do at these conferences (and really the much more important thing than presenting or going to sessions) is networking. Everyone sets up gadzillions of meetings with the people who do research in their field. People looking for jobs do this even more, as they are trying to get some foot in the door with the people who are looking to hire. Given that there is just a hotel lobby for people to meet in (all the meeting rooms are taken up by the hundreds of research presentations), it seriously looks like networking gone bonkers. Hundreds and thousands of people trying to find places to plop down and have one-on-one conversations. I seriously think the hotels we meet at must hate us for infesting their lobbies for days on end.
The third thing people do is eat nice meals and drink a lot. All meals you get reimbursed for, since it's the equivalent of a business trip. People go crazy with nice dinners, ordering everything they want. And second, people go crazy at night going out to bars. I think lots of people come from small college towns with a limited selection of restaurants and bars, so being in a big city unleashes the beast inside them. Luckily, you can just play off heavy drinking as "networking" and nobody can think badly of you. It's pretty amusing watching your professors get drunk at these conferences and then have to preside over sessions with a hangover.
I would also like to highlight the extreme nerd factor. Pretty much, if you're at a sociology conference, you are a nerd. Sure, that fact gets diluted in your mind because you are surrounded by thousands of other nerds, but the fact is EVERYONE there is a nerd! The last day of the conference they had a student book giveaway. All the book dealers at the conference who had extra textbooks and sociology books they didn't want to ship back give them away for free. There was a huge line and a CRAZY mad dash for books once the doors opened. I had one book snatched out of my hand while I was picking it up from the table. These people are not only nerds, but CRAZY nerds.
So, for an amusing time, come to Montreal next August and witness the comedy of an annual ASA meeting.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Married couples, how does it work?
I expect all of you to comment on this, married or not. (although I'm particularly interested in the marrieds/involved in healthy serious relationship people).
Your spouse/significant other: source of your biggest frustrations, or source of your biggest comfort?
I imagine it is both; the person closest to you in the world would easily have the ability to most frustrate you/make you upset. For example, if your acquaintance breaks your lunch date for lunch with another acquaintance, you'd be put off, maybe. If your friend breaks your lunch date for lunch with another friend, you'd probably be upset. If your spouse breaks your lunch date for lunch with another lover, well, you'd be mad beyond belief. Granted, it would rarely be this extreme, but I can think of less extreme examples. For instance, simply because you are around your spouse so much, they have the opportunity to annoy you more than joe schmoe walking down the street.
For the second part of the question, I think a spouse would probably be your biggest source of worldly comfort, for obvious reasons.
So what about when these two roles come to heads? If your spouse makes you upset, do you then turn to them for comfort? Or do you turn somewhere else for comfort? Do you force yourself to make up so that he/she can comfort you? Or do you ever have to go to comfort in another person? Going to someone else could be dangerous... ratting on a spouse to friends/family when needing comfort after a fight could come back to bite you in a big way, the least of which is people knowing your marital problems and at some point having a closer spot to you than your spouse.
On the other hand, is it healthy to bottle stuff in if a fight is ongoing? Is it really possible to make up soon after every spousal fight, so you don't have to turn outside to another person for comfort? If you do make up after every fight, can the person you just fought with really comfort you well after that fight? Sure, in some way, they are the best one to comfort you. But sometimes it seems things would be a bit too raw for real comforting/consoling.
What do you married people do? And what do you other people think? I plan to leave up this post until lots of people have commented, so please get going!
Your spouse/significant other: source of your biggest frustrations, or source of your biggest comfort?
I imagine it is both; the person closest to you in the world would easily have the ability to most frustrate you/make you upset. For example, if your acquaintance breaks your lunch date for lunch with another acquaintance, you'd be put off, maybe. If your friend breaks your lunch date for lunch with another friend, you'd probably be upset. If your spouse breaks your lunch date for lunch with another lover, well, you'd be mad beyond belief. Granted, it would rarely be this extreme, but I can think of less extreme examples. For instance, simply because you are around your spouse so much, they have the opportunity to annoy you more than joe schmoe walking down the street.
For the second part of the question, I think a spouse would probably be your biggest source of worldly comfort, for obvious reasons.
So what about when these two roles come to heads? If your spouse makes you upset, do you then turn to them for comfort? Or do you turn somewhere else for comfort? Do you force yourself to make up so that he/she can comfort you? Or do you ever have to go to comfort in another person? Going to someone else could be dangerous... ratting on a spouse to friends/family when needing comfort after a fight could come back to bite you in a big way, the least of which is people knowing your marital problems and at some point having a closer spot to you than your spouse.
On the other hand, is it healthy to bottle stuff in if a fight is ongoing? Is it really possible to make up soon after every spousal fight, so you don't have to turn outside to another person for comfort? If you do make up after every fight, can the person you just fought with really comfort you well after that fight? Sure, in some way, they are the best one to comfort you. But sometimes it seems things would be a bit too raw for real comforting/consoling.
What do you married people do? And what do you other people think? I plan to leave up this post until lots of people have commented, so please get going!
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
There's no turning back
Today, I have twice been disgusted by the smell of food in my house. (Sorry, fam!) Now to the credit of the chefs, none of this food was cooked poorly. I realized that my tastes have simply changed quite drastically.
Apparently once an employee at an Indian restaurant in South Bend told some of his customers (my friends) that once you start liking Indian food, you can never go back to non-spicy food. I entirely agree with this statement. While I still like some American food, the list is small. Usually now I have to go for food that is much more full of flavor than American food. This is generally available in a large selection of ethnic food, including a lot of Mexican and South American, some Italian (lots of garlic, basil, Oregano, tomatoes, and flavor-full cheeses are necessary, we are not talking spaghetti and acme-brand sauce), lots of East Asian food, Indian food, etc. However, your regular old American food won't cut it. I was thinking back to what I ate every night my sophomore year of college: a piece of chicken breast, some spaghetti and sauce, and frozen vegetables. Yuck I want to gag thinking about eating that now! Rice won't do it for me unless it's thickening a very spicy Thai or Indian dish. Even mashed potatoes or regular steamed vegetables don't cut it.
Alas, this is somewhat distressing; ignorance is bliss, and while I love all the new food, it probably would be easier to live in America and around whtie Americans without a hankering for really flavor-full food. However, now there is no turning back! So, thus continues my quest for more flavor-full cooking talents. I'm going to get some non-American cookbooks from the library right now.
Apparently once an employee at an Indian restaurant in South Bend told some of his customers (my friends) that once you start liking Indian food, you can never go back to non-spicy food. I entirely agree with this statement. While I still like some American food, the list is small. Usually now I have to go for food that is much more full of flavor than American food. This is generally available in a large selection of ethnic food, including a lot of Mexican and South American, some Italian (lots of garlic, basil, Oregano, tomatoes, and flavor-full cheeses are necessary, we are not talking spaghetti and acme-brand sauce), lots of East Asian food, Indian food, etc. However, your regular old American food won't cut it. I was thinking back to what I ate every night my sophomore year of college: a piece of chicken breast, some spaghetti and sauce, and frozen vegetables. Yuck I want to gag thinking about eating that now! Rice won't do it for me unless it's thickening a very spicy Thai or Indian dish. Even mashed potatoes or regular steamed vegetables don't cut it.
Alas, this is somewhat distressing; ignorance is bliss, and while I love all the new food, it probably would be easier to live in America and around whtie Americans without a hankering for really flavor-full food. However, now there is no turning back! So, thus continues my quest for more flavor-full cooking talents. I'm going to get some non-American cookbooks from the library right now.
Strategic Ads
Long gone are the days when blogspot put ads at the top of our blogs. But oh, those were the days. I don't remember too much, except they were hilarious. My ads usually were something like, "Discrimination and housing law: Fight discrimination in the housing market!" Kevin's were all about the Iraq war. I think Cohen had some save the animals ones. And of course Dave got the scientology ads, God knows why, followed by an ad for online counseling for extramarital affairs. Too bad the ads departed before we could have a contest on who could get the best ads at the top!
I did get some amusing ads in gmail, from time to time. These are from an email string a friend and I were having, that eventually turned to the boyfriend of one of our other friends that we weren't particularly thrilled with.
Breaking Up
Offering advice about breaking up using the theory of love economics ...
I Used to Miss Him
But My Aim is Improving: Not Your Ordinary Breakup Survival Guide
FantasticBoyfriends.com
Nominate your Boyfriend for Boyfriend of the week or reserve ...
Now, my blog doesn't get ads on the top, but apparently I have attracted the robots placing ads in my comments. I direct you to this comment on my last entry:
Feeling lonely? Hook up with Real Singles now for $4.99 to connect, and only $0.99 a min. A true match is only a phone call away. Give it a try 1-800-211-9293.
Apparently my concern for the lack of clean water just screams "I'm single! Help!"
I did get some amusing ads in gmail, from time to time. These are from an email string a friend and I were having, that eventually turned to the boyfriend of one of our other friends that we weren't particularly thrilled with.
Breaking Up
Offering advice about breaking up using the theory of love economics ...
I Used to Miss Him
But My Aim is Improving: Not Your Ordinary Breakup Survival Guide
FantasticBoyfriends.com
Nominate your Boyfriend for Boyfriend of the week or reserve ...
Now, my blog doesn't get ads on the top, but apparently I have attracted the robots placing ads in my comments. I direct you to this comment on my last entry:
Feeling lonely? Hook up with Real Singles now for $4.99 to connect, and only $0.99 a min. A true match is only a phone call away. Give it a try 1-800-211-9293.
Apparently my concern for the lack of clean water just screams "I'm single! Help!"
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Cute dresses lead the way
Well, after waiting, oh, five years since I moved out to clean out my room at my parents' house, I embarked upon the mission yesterday. The great thing in waiting five years to do the job is that I've got almost no sentimental value attached to anything left in the room. My brother is having a garage sale soon, so most working things just go in boxes for his sale, and really crappy stuff I just toss.
I seriously spent half an hour (or less) total cleaning out the entire closet. It would have been significantly less but I found some uber cute dresses from when I was about fourteen, and I just had to try them on. Well hey, what do you know, they are still uber cute and they actually fit! I guess I outgrew my Moroccan baby fat finally (read: the 30 pounds I gained in Morocco thanks to the most bread, butter, jelly, and meat laden diet you could possibly imagine). My mom's great quote, "I hate to say this, but you're so much skinnier than you were in high school!" Now, I couldn't really argue with this. I had on the cutest sundress I think I have ever owned, light blue with a tiny periwinkle flower pattern. I'm proud to say that the dress was a steal from good ol' Delia's, usually the purveyor of the hoochiest of the hoochie. In any case, the dress was actually large on me. Nice! Except now I'm going to have to alter it a little bit.
Apparently lots of people have gone the route I have. My mom likes to update me on everyone in my high school class and what they are up to. Several times yesterday my mom would tell me about someone and then say, "Oh, I saw her recently, and she was really skinny and pretty!" What's with everyone graduating college and being skinny and pretty? I guess while there might be a freshman 15, there also seems to be a senior slough-it-off whereby girls lose a bunch of weight and become "really skinny and pretty." Hm.
I guess it proves just how self-centered I really am when one thought that came to my mind was, "Darn it! I'm not special for finally losing all the flab!" As an American, we all think it's just the biggest accomplishment of the century to get down to what nutritionists would dub an "ideal weight". My friend David once mused what people from a thousand years ago would think if they heard what life was like today. "People just run when they don't have to? They exercise for fun? People try to lose weight because society has too much food??" Ah, how true. The modern diet and exercise industry would seem absolutely ludicrous to a 1st millennium man.
Anyways, I digress. Now it is back to my pit. Things are going nice and quickly, and I think I should manage to have the whole room empty and organized in the next three hours. All the typical justifications for keeping junk pretty much fly out the window in this case. If I haven't used it for five years, there is no way in heck to justify keeping it.
I seriously spent half an hour (or less) total cleaning out the entire closet. It would have been significantly less but I found some uber cute dresses from when I was about fourteen, and I just had to try them on. Well hey, what do you know, they are still uber cute and they actually fit! I guess I outgrew my Moroccan baby fat finally (read: the 30 pounds I gained in Morocco thanks to the most bread, butter, jelly, and meat laden diet you could possibly imagine). My mom's great quote, "I hate to say this, but you're so much skinnier than you were in high school!" Now, I couldn't really argue with this. I had on the cutest sundress I think I have ever owned, light blue with a tiny periwinkle flower pattern. I'm proud to say that the dress was a steal from good ol' Delia's, usually the purveyor of the hoochiest of the hoochie. In any case, the dress was actually large on me. Nice! Except now I'm going to have to alter it a little bit.
Apparently lots of people have gone the route I have. My mom likes to update me on everyone in my high school class and what they are up to. Several times yesterday my mom would tell me about someone and then say, "Oh, I saw her recently, and she was really skinny and pretty!" What's with everyone graduating college and being skinny and pretty? I guess while there might be a freshman 15, there also seems to be a senior slough-it-off whereby girls lose a bunch of weight and become "really skinny and pretty." Hm.
I guess it proves just how self-centered I really am when one thought that came to my mind was, "Darn it! I'm not special for finally losing all the flab!" As an American, we all think it's just the biggest accomplishment of the century to get down to what nutritionists would dub an "ideal weight". My friend David once mused what people from a thousand years ago would think if they heard what life was like today. "People just run when they don't have to? They exercise for fun? People try to lose weight because society has too much food??" Ah, how true. The modern diet and exercise industry would seem absolutely ludicrous to a 1st millennium man.
Anyways, I digress. Now it is back to my pit. Things are going nice and quickly, and I think I should manage to have the whole room empty and organized in the next three hours. All the typical justifications for keeping junk pretty much fly out the window in this case. If I haven't used it for five years, there is no way in heck to justify keeping it.
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