suggestions for holiday reading

book reviews for the second half of 2007

(though judging by the length of this, I think I will have to do this on a quarterly basis, the way big corporations announce their earning growth)

Since I’ve graduated from college, it’s been much harder to make time for reading. When there isn’t the pressure of papers to write or the fear of appearing stupid in class, I can easily waste my time surfing the internet or looking at knitting patterns (sometimes I feel like I spend more time looking at other people’s knitting than I actually spend knitting). I’ve also lost my subway reading time as I commute by bike on most days (I also find the trolley a bit too shaky to read seriously).

The past month or so, I feel like I’ve been swamped with packing/moving and wedding planning that have pushed reading to the backburner. I don’t think I’ve read a single book since mid-November and I miss it. If long plane rides to California have any benefit, that is that they give me plenty of time to read.

Once again, I post all my reviews to GoodReads.

* didn’t like it
** it was ok
*** liked it
**** really liked it
***** it was amazing

Fiction

** or *** American Pastoral (Phillip Roth) ~ It’s very hard for me to rate this book—I have a lot of stylistic and thematic appreciation for this book, but reading it at times was torturous. There were so many times while reading the book that I just wanted to put it down and give up on it, because it got long-winded. Roth is a brilliantly talented prose writer and can go on for pages and pages for just one thought, one idea or one scene, which can be delightful or a total a drag that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. I’m not sure whether that was a failure of the novel itself or just the situations where I was reading it (a.k.a. Philadelphia’s trolley system). I would give this book 3 or 4 stars, had I been able to really get into the book. I want to give the book 2 stars based on my actual experience reading it. All that being said, I thought the book had some really hilarious/insightful/beautiful passages, and its overall story reflected several narrative strands of meaning --- of immigrant life, of an American life, of America’s own consciousness as a nation. Roth writes about the Jewish American Swede Levov, high school sports star, who marries Miss New Jersey, inherits his father’s glove factory and appears in everyway to have achieved the American dream. Yet his “perfect life” disintegrates after his daughter bombs a post office and kills a man in protest of the Vietnam war. The last section of the book “Paradise Lost” highlights the aftermath and the downfall of Levov, and in doing so, paints a picture of America’s own decline.

* Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh) ~ So I've heard many good things about this book before reading it, but I just didn't like it that much. Maybe I just didn't get it? It's supposed to be funny but I didn't pick up that much humour. The book recounts the memories of Charles Ryder, his college year friendship with Sebastien (who carries around a delightful teddy bear named Aloysius), and his later affair with Sebastien's sister, Julia (and in the course of that, retells the story of their entire family). Though Waugh's prose is smooth, reflective and at times high-brow, the storyline tends to drag. The novel felt like a series of little witty conversations and indulgent descriptions of the upper class in pre World War II England. The ending, with its potentially redeeming characteristics, appeared rather trite and out of the blue, a feeling of Deus Ex Machina (which I guess in many ways may be the point if the novel is about divine grace).

** or *** Beloved (Toni Morrison) ~ If it weren't for a long plane ride, I probably wouldn't have gotten past the first 30 or so pages of this novel. But I'm glad I did because the novel is very beautifully written and well-constructed, though not necessarily a page-turner. The prose is very lyrical and dream-like, as it weaves the reader in and out of the past, but can also be confusing, especially if you read the novel in short chunks on the subway. The book basically explores the return of Paul D., a slave who once worked for the same owners as Sethe, and the return Sethe’s dead daughter, Beloved, as a physical (and sexually mature) young adult, and the accompanying memories that they stir.
As a book about slavery and life after slavery, it is not a "explicitly physical" account, recounting the physical horrors of the oppression. Rather, it explores the subtle psychological impact. (It makes me think of a quote I saw at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia: "We believed we were made to be slaves"). The novel poses the question of identity, but not primarily in terms of ethnic identity. The novel is not concerned with what it means to be "African-American" so much as it is concerned with what does it mean to be human. As it narrates the lives of former slaves, it is intimately and constantly exploring the questions associated with entering the territory of freedom. How do you belong to yourself when you've always belonged to someone else? How do you learn to love when your whole life you've tried not to love too much, since whoever you loved could always be taken away? What does it mean to suddenly wake up one morning and be able to decide what you want to do?

*** Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) ~ I absolutely devoured this book in a week when I first read it in sixth grade (or “grade six” since I was still in Canada at that point). As a melodramatic pre-teen who already to claimed to have “fallen in love”, and already submerged in unattainable celebrity crushes, I was absolutely captivated by the “love” and the “passion” in the book. The book was still highly enjoyable and a page-turner this time that I read it, but perhaps for different reasons. I found the book much funnier than before, with its hints of satire and exaggerated characters. I also laughed because Mr. Rochester reminded me of my fiancé’s personality. Jane Eyre’s character was still the biggest draw of the book—her defiance of social norms, and her firm hold on what she believed to be right makes her extremely memorable. I think the best section of the book are the initial chapters on the early years of Jane Eyre’s life, where the reader gains a vivid picture of Jane’s strong and proud character.

Non-fiction

*** Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (Barbara Ehrenreich) ~ This book documents writer Barbara Ehrenreich's short-lived descent into the life of a minimum-wage earner. Though she bears no pretense of actually "experiencing poverty" (given her safety net of assets, education, connections etc...), she attempts to see how she will survive a minimum wage (or slightly higher than minimum wage-- up to $7.50 an hour). This book reads as a documentary with attitude, as Barbara recounts her adventures of finding a job, finding housing and working a job (her coworkers and bosses). She barely gets by, having to resort at times to a food bank, and almost ends up in a shelter. The book's strength lies in its ability to illustrate the sheer difficulties of surviving on minimum wage. The book only really has one point (it doesn't necessarily offer a full-scaled comprehensive analysis nor does it purport to do that), but makes that one point extremely clearly. Something needs to be changed, if hard-working people, laboring 40-70 hours a week, cannot afford decent housing and nutritious food, much less properly raise children and accrue savings. Minimum wage full time, or even more than full time, just doesn't cut it.

**** Why the Rest hates the West (Meic Pearse) ~ Even if I did not agree with everything in the book, I found it extremely thought-provoking. It revealed many assumptions I have that I have held as universally true as being assumptions of my culture. The book examines Western culture, explaining why the rest of the world often seems to bear so much animosity (and yet also envy) of our way of life. Pearse questions values that Westerners hold as universally good (human rights, democracy, freedom), showing the cultural context in which they arose, as well as illustrating the costs for other cultures to become more like ours. Pearse shows us our own intolerance and the continuation of our cultural imperialism. (He generally does this, without revering or idealizing other cultures. He criticizes the West really hard, because we’re so used to accepting the way that we think as true.)
Pearse’s last chapter is perhaps the most peculiar. He argues that our declining birthrate is the ultimate indicator of the unsustainability of our current cultural climate, because our focus on consumption and individual “freedom” has greatly reduced our desire to have children. (In fact, when it comes to caring for the environment, we advocate less children rather than cut consumption - http://www.slate.com/id/2173458/fr/flyout). If survival of the fittest applies, our Western culture will not last for that many more generations, in which case from both a practical and moral perspective, we can infer that perhaps something is awry with our culture, if it can’t reproduce itself sustainably.

** Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (David Brooks) ~ Though it’s not necessary to read the whole book, the introduction and opening chapters provide a good characterization of my generation and my social class. Brooks describes today’s new upper class—the Bobos—Bourgeois Bohemians. While earlier in the 20th century and before, the bourgeois and bohemians existed in separate social and economic circles (the bourgeois dominating with “old money” and all the financial resources, the bohemian artists gathering in their coffeeshops and run-down neighbourhoods), today these two groups are blending. Brooks’ style is very conversational—it’s “snazzy” and “smooth”, evocative of the Bobos that he is trying to describe, but that same trendiness of prose can be irritating at times. Though he presents a general historical overview and plenty of descriptive examples, his sweeping generalizations can sometimes be more a matter of prose style than substance. His descriptions are entertaining and informative, and he does intersperse some key bibliography and references throughout his book. His best chapters are the opening two or three and “Spirituality” and “Politics and Beyond”, where he finally offers his brief criticism of the consequences of the Bobo mentality--- a mediocore, complacent existence, concerned with “small-scale morality” and a comfortable lifestyle. Though some may celebrate that we can now be cultured and artistic, and have our money too, it appears to me that this marriage between bourgeois and bohemian as but another step towards the complete commercialization of thought, the disappearance of a grander vision (and hope), and the loss of authenticity and anything real.

* Written Lives (Javier Marias) ~ Sometimes you have to know when to put a book down. This book is one of those books that I didn’t really want to stop reading but decided that I should, because it didn’t really have anything substantial to offer. It would have been mildly entertaining but probably not worth my time. I spotted this in a bookstore and it seemed interesting – a collection of brief 3-5 page biographies or snapshots of famous authors, revealing their strange habits and tendencies. I read about 2-3 biographies and found them amusing, but not particularly enthralling or illuminating. This book is more a collection of pleasant magazine reading to pass your time before diving in something more engaging.

**** The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Michael Pollan) ~ I was not expecting to enjoy this book quite as much as I did, but I'll have to say this is probably the best non-fiction book I've read so far this year. In an easy-to-understand style that is both funny and intelligent (he manages to make 100 pages on the subject of corn absolutely fascinating!), Michael Pollan writes about the history of four meals - a fast food restaurant order, a meal made from ingredients purchased from Whole Foods, a meal with ingredients from a local farms, and a meal with ingredients gathered and hunted by Pollan himself. In the process he traces the production of our food in America, narrating the industrial and agricultural complex that the iceberg tip of our supermarket and fast food purchases do not reveal. While his informative exposition of the economic injustices and environmental damage of the mass-produced food industry (your usual supermarket purchases) and the mass-produced organic food can be disheartening, his week-long sojourn at Polyface Farm with Joel Salatin gives a glimpse of alternative agriculture that can produce sufficient food and remain environmentally restorative and humane to animals and invigorating for farmers. Pollan's last section on his self-gathered meal is a little less interesting, but also piques your interest on how earlier humans selected their food and developed their eating habits. Pollan's book has definitely made me reconsider what I eat and how I eat it-- and has peaked in an interest in me to read and learn more about food.

** Bait and Switch (Barbara Ehrenreich) ~ Similar to her hands-on investigation of life as a blue collar wage earner in Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich proceeds to explore the white collar profession by attempting to find a job. The catch is she never actually succeeds in finding a job, so the entire book is about the culture of the white collar unemployed as Ehrenreich attends career coaching, networking events and job fairs. While I enjoyed Nickel and Dimed, this book grew irritating after awhile. Ehrenreich is highly critical and writes with a slightly mocking, dry and sarcastic tone that appears almost elitist.
In any case, if you’re interested in the subject, perhaps it would benefit most to read the last two chapters, where Ehrenreich makes a few insightful conclusions from her experience (or peruse her bibliography)—namely the need for better unemployment benefits, the collapse of the attainability of upward mobility for everyone who does what they’re supposed to do (e.g. go to college, take a white collar job), the strange emphasis on “attitude” and “personality” and “culture” in corporate culture, and the transformation of employees from valuable long-term assets of companies to costs that can be cut.

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Amartya Sen) ~ I was drawn to this book by its title, and also because I had heard of Amartya Sen (a recent Nobel Prize Winner in Economics). However, I only read the introduction—because most reviews said that the book was very repetitive. The book is a edited compilation of various essays and talks given by Amartya Sen on ethnic or religious identity. His basic argument is that a person’s identity is far too complex to be reduced to a compartment such as one’s ethnicity or religion, and that by recognizing the pluralism of identity, we can form more understanding and reduce the amount of violence resulting from “clash of civilizations”. It definitely seemed interesting, but with my endless and constantly-growing-faster-than-I-could-ever-keep-up list of books to read, I had to put this one down.

**** Overtreated: Why More Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Shannon Brownlee) ~ Though not nearly as deliciously funny or narratively delightful as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Shannon Brownlee’s book was very informative on a subject that I didn’t know much about previously (though apparently is common knowledge across medical schools in the nation). Primarily through concrete examples of hospitals and individual cases, and an accessible, easy-to-understand overview of plenty of academic studies, Brownlee demonstrates how doctors overtreat patients with drugs, scans, and procedures that do not necessarily make them any healthier. Brownlee delves into hospital management, the latest body scanning technology, cultural incentives concerning medical care, the incentive structures of the current health care system, insurance policies, pharmaceuticals and advertising—exploring the various (generally economic) reasons why we are so “overtreated”.
At times, she can get repetitive, drilling home the same point again and again, but she manages to explore enough facets of her thesis that it does not actually get boring—her book is replete with examples, references and other information to support her thesis, instead of just endless abstract ruminations.
She also manages to present some hope in the situation, by examining a few health care systems that do work—Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente and surprisingly enough, the Veterans Health Administration, which recent turnaround in 1992, runs an incredibly successful health care system. By properly aligning financial incentives, implementing better record-keeping and technology, the care received by patients in these health care systems is far better and far cheaper. Brownlee also envisions small steps of reforms that could lead to the replication of these medical groups.
In any case, whether or not you actually do support universal health care, this book is a wonderful introduction to the economics and injustices and inefficiencies of the health care system, that have resulted in some (usually the rich) getting far too much care, and others (the poor) not receiving enough. (It’s that irony—that while in third world countries, people still die of starvation, people die from too much food in America).

** The Overspent American (Juliet Schor) ~ This book is really excellent for anyone who cares about consumerism, but find themselves estranged by the harshness or extremeness of Adbusters and other anti-consumerism/anti-corporate books and groups. Schor’s argument is essentially the same, but her method is more explanatory and empirical.
Juliet Schor, Harvard Professor, explores what increases the tendency for people to consume (television, education, neighborhood where they live), focusing mostly on the role of status and the symbolic power of brands. She illustrates that “keeping up with the Jones’” is still very much alive, though oftentimes, we don’t just aspire to be like our neighbours, but like the next social class up. She also spends considerable time exploring the lives of downshifts—people who have voluntarily or involuntarily given up higher salaries for lower paying jobs in order to free up more time, as well as “simple-livers”, who don’t give symbolic power to their consumption and find that buying more actually makes them less happy. She draws upon both statistical data in addition to anecdotal interviews and case studies to prove her point. Her basic conclusion are simple—that we spend vast amounts of money (often going into debt) to buy things that don’t actually bring any real value to our lives (beyond perhaps the “social status” and “identity” it may confer to us—a power that we give the objects). She then spends a chapter exploring practical suggestions on how to buy less and enjoy more, as individuals, and slowly as a society as a whole.
Though at times, Schor’s analysis can be a bit dry as she runs through numerous studies, her empiricism is appreciated. I wish that she did delve into more academic and theoretical explanations, as she only alludes to Pierre Bourdieu and only begins to explore the question of “Will spending less wreck the economy?” in her epilogue. Nonetheless, Schor’s work is an easy-to-read and accessible introduction to the effects and causes of consumerism.

** Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser) ~ I only skimmed this book, not only because I was mostly familiar with the ideas in it, but it lacked the narrative cohesiveness and strong writing present in Michael Pollan’s Omnivore Dilemma, which touches upon similar topics. Schlosser tends to jump around from topic to topic quite a bit and spends excessive time talking about the history of different corporations. His analysis tends to be less theoretical and more factual and broad. The book does have some really informative chapters on the concoction of natural and artificial flavours in New Jersey and of labour abuses in the meat slaughtering business. Schlosser’s vision of change is not as well articulated. His focus seems to be placed on the necessity of large fast food companies (e.g. MacDonalds) to be more socially responsible.

Christian

*** Life Together (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) ~ Despite a heavily Germanic writing style, and frequent grammatically awkward sentences, Bonhoeffer’s classic is a delight to read. Better read in small chapters with plenty of time for reflection, Life Together is an exposition of life in Christian community. Bonhoeffer explores how to interact with others in the light of what Christ has done for us. He covers the topics of Community, The Day with Others, The Day Alone (reflections on prayer and meditation), Ministry (reflections on work, includes the ministry of listening and humility), and Confession and Communion. Bonhoeffer writes some incredibly insightful passages about what it means to let others be free in Christ, which constitutes the core of how he approaches the subject of fellowship with other Christians.

** Don’t Waste Your Life (John Piper) ~ This is classic (or typical, depending on how you want to spin it) John Piper—a Biblically grounded argument for the importance of risking our lives in order to live more fully for Christ (and not just doing what everyone else is doing), and an exploration of how to go about doing it. Piper is solidly grounded Biblically and presents a very compelling argument, spending most of his time investigating scripture for the reasons we will be most fulfilled if we value Christ supremely in our lives, and how that can be lived out in our work, in our ministry and in our lifestyles. For those familiar with his other books, most notably “Desiring God”, will find that many of his ideas are repeated again. In comparison, this book is less abstract and less mired in theological musings. It is much more concise and quick to read than his other work. His most poignant chapter is the one titled “Risk is Right—Better to Lose Your Life than to Waste it”, which I should probably aspire to make a principle by which I live. (That chapter was also photocopied for me by my dearly beloved significant in hopes that I would take a risk and quit my previous job…. )
Here’s the teaser from John Piper himself: “I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader’s Digest: A couple ‘took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells. . . .’ Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’ That is a tragedy.”

Knitting

** Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter (Stephanie Pearl-McKee) ~ I skimmed through this book fairly quickly since it is a bit of a guilty light-reading for me. For a non-knitter this book would probably make no sense whatsoever. For someone who has is slowly being pulled into the lure of the craft, the book is slightly amusing and mildly entertaining, reading like a series of blog entries. It consists of short stories and essays, ranging from falling in love with lace knitting, the excruciating pains of knitting gifts for Christmas, and the infamous yarn stash. I guess the more you’ve knit, the more you can relate to these stories and the more you are able to laugh when you feel the same way. Other than that, there isn’t that much solid substance to the book. It’s chatty, but doesn’t offer any theoretical, abstract or conceptual ideas about knitting…. That being said, Stephanie does make an interesting observation that people tend to think that knitting is hard. (A brain surgeon once commented to her that she would never be able to do anything as complicated as that). Knitting is actually very easy—two types of stitches and lots of practices is really all you need. Everyone knew how to knit back in the day (and cook for that matter), but somehow these historical necessities have become superfluous hobbies, that we need to have “talent” in order to practice them.

**** The Joy of Knitting (Lisa R. Myers) ~ Written by the co-owner of Sophie’s Yarns in Philadelphia and an English Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, this book was close to my heart. Out of my very meager reading of knitting books, this is by far the one I have enjoyed the most. This book provides a brief summary of knitting history and technique, and includes several simple patterns along the way. What I found most valuable were Myers’ explanations on different guidelines of working with color (e.g. hue, intensity and saturation). Unlike some other knitting books, she doesn’t spend a lot of time on one technique or one item of clothing, but gives the reader different characteristics and tendencies of fabrics and encourages the reader to experiment. The style is detailed and factual, but is backed up by a theoretical framework. It’s easy to understand but will give you the tools and concepts to do more yourself. (In those of you who enjoy Myers Briggs personality, this book was written by an N in S language.) It’s not the best book to pick up if you want to learn knitting by yourself, because it lacks diagrams, but it’s a pleasant, informative read for someone who has started learning but wants to delve deeper into the craft.

** Luxury Knitting: The Ultimate Guide to Exquisite Yarns Cashmere, Merino and Silk ~ This book explains the history and characteristics of three types of “luxury” materials: cashmere, silk and merino wool. Though the sections on the characteristics of the materials (e.g. drape, stretch, memory etc…) was extremely useful, the historical overview and current day production was brief and general. I had the impression that the author was romanticizing the work and the lifestyles of these wool and silk farmers living at subsistence in far-off countries. She doesn’t present a particular in depth study and does not explore the difficulties or challenges of their livelihood or the injustices that may be involved in compensation for their products. The author also annoyingly alludes constantly to the fact that high quality yarn is the same stuff used by the luxury fashion industry (perhaps a result of owning a luxury yarn store on Madison/Fifth Avenue area in NY). The book also explores different blends of high quality yarn materials and presents a useful list of good quality yarns. Some have criticized the list, because they’ve noted that these yarns are all available at the author‘s store, but I’m not too bothered by it since they retail all over the place. The book also contains several patterns, specifically geared for each type of material. While it does contain a few patterns I like (a lace sweater, silk decorative pillows), it also contains some incredibly ugly ones (blue and pink pastel cover-up thing with matching mink fur). The patterns in and of themselves were rather basic and simple—they are also photographed in artsy manners that make you suspicious that the actual garment doesn’t fit very well.

why retire?

Alternatively: “Retirement” is a damaging societal construction that designates the elderly as unproductive, unimportant and expendable outcasts of society.

Retirement also suggests that the ultimate goal of life rests in some form of leisure and withdrawal from meaningful activity. Play cards, collect seashells, watch soap operas, until you get enough diseases that you either die or cannot function anymore.

Alternatively: Why withdraw from life?

Alternatively: Our society does not value the elderly. They were once considered the repository of wisdom and often consulted for their guidance – now we are suspicious of the old and traditional, because they can’t possibly be as sophisticated and knowledgeable as ourselves, because we have you know, all this new knowledge and technology and international cultural exchange and all. And plus, they’re old. Their brains must not work as well. Despite the fact that vintage and recycled clothing have definitely grown trendy, it still seems like the old will never be the new new.

Alternatively: Why retire? I know plenty of people who are well over their 65 years, but are still active, contributing members of society, that debatably have done more than I would on a two-year Peace Corps stint:

• Wilson Goode, who may not have been the best of all mayors for Philadelphia, earned a Doctorate of Ministry at age 62, and then started working as the director of Amachi, a nonprofit established to help children with incarcerated parents. I had the privilege of meeting him recently, and he’s nearly seventy, but still actively involved.
• Gay Brasher ~ My former speech and debate coach from high school. While I was in high school, there was constant talk of her retirement. However, many many years later, not only has she not retired, but she’s also continued to coach the high school team to top ranks nationally, and started middle school speech and debate clubs.
• Jim Di Raddo ~ The new temporary supply pastor at our church is slightly over 75, but still is running up stairs, full of fire and passion, and wisdom.

Activity, rather than rest, is helpful and restorative to aging body:

The brain, like every other part of the body, changes with age, and those changes can impede clear thinking and memory. Yet many older people seem to remain sharp as a tack well into their 80s and beyond. Although their pace may have slowed, they continue to work, travel, attend plays and concerts, play cards and board games, study foreign languages, design buildings, work with computers, write books, do puzzles, knit or perform other mentally challenging tasks that can befuddle people much younger.

But when these sharp old folks die, autopsy studies often reveal extensive brain abnormalities like those in patients with Alzheimer’s… Later studies indicated that up to two-thirds of people with autopsy findings of Alzheimer’s disease were cognitively intact when they died.
…
In 2001, Dr. Scarmeas published a long-term study of cognitively healthy elderly New Yorkers. On average, those who pursued the most leisure activities of an intellectual or social nature had a 38 percent lower risk of developing dementia. The more activities, the lower the risk.
…
Long-term studies in other countries, including Sweden and China, have also found that continued social interactions helped protect against dementia. The more extensive an older person’s social network, the better the brain is likely to work, the research suggests. Especially helpful are productive or mentally stimulating activities pursued with other people, like community gardening, taking classes, volunteering or participating in a play-reading group.
…
Perhaps the most direct route to a fit mind is through a fit body.*

~ Mental Reserves Keep Brains Agile by Jane Brody

Why resign ourselves to collecting seashells and yachts and other meaningless trivialities when there’s plenty do when we are old? If we believe that the world doesn’t matter anymore once we’re 65, then it’s likely that the world will believe that we don’t matter much either, except for perhaps, retirement home sellers and other entrepreneurs pursuing commercially promising opportunities.



*Just a side note as another reason to bike! (Or walk!) Wow I just walked from 2nd and Market to 30th street today. phew!

here's to biking

Though my poor dear fiancé now currently suffers from a lip laceration and chipped tooth, general cosmetic unpleasantness, and medical bills, his mother is still recovering from brain damage inflicted by a rear SUV collision in Feburary.

So I wonder why do people think SUV’s are safer than cars? Look at these statistics (these are odds of dying if you’re in a crash):

Odds of Death vs. Injury in Crashes by Vehicle
Vehicle	Deaths	Injuries	Odds
Bus	17	17,000	1 in 1000
Car, Station Wagon	21,969	2,378,000	1 in 108
Pickup, SUV, Van	10,224	768,000	1 in 75
Bicycle	813	58,000	1 in 71
Large Truck	717	31,000	1 in 43
Motorcycle, Motorbike	2,106	54,000	1 in 26
On Foot	5,307	77,000	1 in 15
Data From NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts 1997

~ From Is Cycling Dangerous? on Ken Kifer’s Bike Pages

My apologies to those I know who are SUV drivers, but they only offer the illusion of safety!* Not only are they gas guzzlers, but they endanger both who ride within it and others who are on the road. So if you really must buy a car, in the case that a car sharing program or public transportation is unavailable, please atleast invest in something sensible that doesn’t take up three quarters of the road.

But please do consider riding a bike! I am by no means one of those crazy super intense bike-obsessed people like my fiancé (I don’t eagerly find myself commenting on Bike Snob though I do read it…..). To be honest, I prefer the comfort of a car where I’m not as exposed to the wind and other various unpleasant elements.** In fact, it’s usually a struggle to make myself ride my bike to work, but when I do, the moment I start peddling, I’m usually glad I did. So in the interests of sustainability, exercise and the practicality of getting places fast without a car, here’s to biking!


For those of you who are a little wary of navigating the roads on two wheels, it does take a bit of adjustment. When I bought my bike in June, I had not biked regularly since childhood, much less done any city riding. It was scary to bike on city roads at first. I went slowly (well, I still go slowly) and started making mental notes of all potentially dangerous hazards (cars, car doors, pedestrians, and trolley tracks) and situations (two-way unprotected left turns because cars turning left don't notice that you have the right of way, getting squished between a row of automobiles because cars don't notice you, right turning cars that don’t notice you…). It took me until the end of July (and the loss of my subway pass) before I attempted to ride to work, and probably until the end of September or October before I started enjoying the ride. Even now, it’s still stressful for me to bike at night, but I’ve found myself in close-call situations far less often than when I began.

And in the spirit of my previous blog entry and at the risk of sounding really tacky, it is good to experience the physicality of riding a bike. Instead of the climate controlled metal shell of a car where the outside world can sometimes seem simulacral, when you ride a bike, the rest of the world feels real. You feel directly connected with the ground, with your environment and with your movement as you pedal and steer. You might be able to fly around in the air in Second Life and see magnificent aerial shots on your monitor, but you certainly won't be able to feel the wind on your cheeks or the gentle increase of your heart rate as you do when you cycle around the city.


*Okay, to be fair, there’s always evidence to support both sides of the argument. In a brief google search, I found a few articles claiming that SUV’s are safer than cars:

• Some government pdf study
• IIHS and NHTSA Agree: SUV’s Safer Than Cars
• An article based on the SUV Owners of America

Here’s stuff saying that SUVs are less safe:

• Some links from Detnews, carcarscars.blogs.com and cnn.com about a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia study that shows children are no safer in SUVs than cars.
• Myths and Realities about SUVS
• SUVs: Live And Let Die

** … as long as I’m not driving!
*** If you don’t own a bike, consider investing in a good one. Be prepared to spend several hundred dollars on a decent used bike, and up to a thousand for a new one. If you’re in Philly, check out Firehouse Bikes for a good quality used bike or Trophy Bikes for something new that’s pricier. There are also some neat nonprofits relating to biking: Neighbourhood Bike Works and Spokesperson.
**** My brother has built a website with comics about bears sometimes.

for the love of flesh

As Second Life continues to spread its meta domination of the seemingly infinite expanse of cyberspace and the limited confines our everyday lives, I remember how much I love the physical.

Matt and I recently found a beautiful third floor 2-bedroom apartment at a corner house in Garden Court near Malcolm X/Black Oak Park. Original hardwood floors. Huge windows. Large rooms. Lots of light. A home for us, atleast until rent gets too expensive. I feel like it will be a place where I will love living and being (with Matt of course).


It is good to feel the chill of morning air as I slip out of my warm cozy bed. It is good to walk my slippery way across the icy sidewalks. It is good to feel warmth returning to my ears after biking around in the cold. It is good to be able to sense the varieties of feeling that our bodies are designed to experience.

It is good to touch and feel. It is good to remember that our bodies are good, that our enlightenment and salvation does not exist in some ethereal airy region of the netherworld, but in a tangible, concrete, redeemed existence of what is physical. (We know that we have become gnostics, when we think that prayer is a more spiritual act than sex.)


The simulation of Second Life does hold its appeal to me—the idea that you can be things you would never be, go to places that you’d never go to, fly around and survey the landscape from the comfort of your own home—the illusion that you are not limited by your physical body or your physical situation.

But I am not just whoever I want to fashion myself to be. I do not believe I can create my own identity according to my preferences. There is something more essential inside. There is something more true that I am becoming. I am real. I am made out of flesh. I can touch and be touched. I have a body. And there is something so intangibly beautiful about the pleasures and the vicissitudes of what is tangible. Maybe I’m missing out by not starting a second life, but I am counting on there being enough in this life to keep me busy and satisfied.

entitlement vs. gratitude

The thinness of the new atheism is evident in its approach to our civilization, which until recently was religious to its core. To regret religion is, in fact, to regret our civilization and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy. And in my own view, the absence of religious faith, provided that such faith is not murderously intolerant, can have a deleterious effect upon human character and personality. If you empty the world of purpose, make it one of brute fact alone, you empty it (for many people, at any rate) of reasons for gratitude, and a sense of gratitude is necessary for both happiness and decency. For what can soon, and all too easily, replace gratitude is a sense of entitlement. Without gratitude, it is hard to appreciate, or be satisfied with, what you have: and life will become an existential shopping spree that no product satisfies.

~ from a very excellent article, What the New Atheists Don’t See by atheist/agnostic (I forget which) Theodore Dalrymple

Human rights have increasingly become the defining idea in Western morality over the past two centuries. They have changed our conceptions of right and wrong, of permissibility and impermissibility, atleast as importantly, they have changed the very nature of moral debate. It bears repeating, therefore, that human rights are essentially an invention of the eighteenth century Enlightenment. Traditional systems of morality worked on the principle of obligation: act this way, don’t do that; you must; you shouldn’t. Human rights reverse this and tell the person what is his or her due. The person from whom something was expected becomes the putative recipient of care or provision with hand outstretched in righteous demand. … Human rights are not the correlative of obligations, as its defenders might claim, but the converse; instead of being a mirror-image way of expressing duties, it is—in its cumulative effects, even if not explicitly—a denial of them. That is why all the enculturation mechanisms of turn-of-the-millennium Western societies—education, the Babel of the media, peer pressure—have bred two generations with little or no sense of their own obligations. At most, conservative-minded politicians whine about the “need to balance rights with obligations.” Such blandishments are good for rallying cheers of support, but they do so to no discernible social effect, for the “obligations” that the audience have in mind are always those of others, never of themselves; their own enculturation processes are too strong to work in any other way than to highlight grievances—and so to see themselves as sinned against, not as sinned.

~ excerpts from the very thought-provoking book, Why the Rest Hates the West by Meic Pearse,

This is not to say the concept of human rights are bad—they have served as good guidelines for how other human beings should be treated. However, for those of us who are the lucky few of the wealthy west, they should be primarily guidelines for what we strive to give to others, instead of what we demand to receive.

Tread carefully, because we really are entitled to nothing. And if we do not act responsibly and gratefully with what we have received, then perhaps it too will be taken away.

all that glitters is not gold

When I first stumbled upon the new housing projects for lower income families in Philadelphia, I have to admit, I celebrated. The rows of identical homes seemed so clean and sparkly after walking through streets of abandoned and dirty old housing stock. But visit a housing project a few years later, and it will look like a bland Edward Scissorhands suburb gone bad—with broken glass on the ground, restlessness in the air and houses fallen into disrepair.

The new housing is often poorly constructed and designed. Oftentimes, the walls between houses are not fireproofed. After their shiny newness wears off, they look a whole lot more ugly than rehabilitated early 20^th century row homes, which give much of Philadelphia its architectural character.

A nonprofit organization dedicated primarily to property rehab and renovation is facing drastic funding cuts that may force them to close because a national housing group has decided to focus on new housing because its results are more measurable.

It’s sad. A nonprofit doing valuable work is failing just because “300 new homes created” sounds so much better than “300 homes renovated”. Or perhaps because new homes are easier to count than it is to determine the value created from restoring an abandoned buildings, or from performing major repairs on an existing property. Or perhaps because we just like what’s new and flashy, or what’s streamlined and efficient. But creation of the new is not always better than restoration of the old. All that glitters is not gold.

* It's been awhile. My blog writing appears to have gone into hibernation with the onset of the cold weather and of my endless wedding/life related to-do lists.

how to change the system

“The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson. Often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.”

~ Stanley Milgram

"Zimbardo concludes that situational features, far more than underlying dispositional features of people’s characters, explain why people behave cruelly and abusively to others. He then connects these insights to a detailed account of the abuses by United States soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison, where, he argues, the humiliations and torments suffered by the prisoners were produced not by evil character traits but by an evil system that, like the prison system established in the Stanford Prison Experiment, virtually ensures that people will behave badly. Situations are held in place by systems, he argues, and it is ultimately the system that we must challenge, not the frequently average actors."

~ Martha Nussbaum on The Lucifer Effect, a recent book by Philip Zimbardo, who led the infamous Stanford Prison Project

If what Milgram and Zimbardo say is indeed true-- that our propensity for evil behavior is more situational than dispositional, then those of us who hope to change the system from the inside should be very wary. Let’s extrapolate from torture to some “milder” forms of evil—the sweatshop conditions of garment factories, the intentional advertising of cigarette products to children, and the use of workers who are paid less than a living wage. Those of us who think that we are above the questionable morality of profit-oriented corporations should not let pride be our downfall.

We may have noble impulses, but we’re probably not as strong as we think we are. The pharmaceutical officials who conceal information about the harmful side effects of their drugs after conducting clinical studies, probably reasoned to themselves that the benefits of the drugs outweighed the potential risks, and that there’s no cause to raise alarm. The sub-prime mortgage lenders justify their actions by saying that they’re offering the poor a chance at home ownership. The tax accountant writes a check to below-the-poverty-line customer for $500 for their federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), while pocketing one month later, the additional $2,000 from the government, reaping a usurious profit, all the while telling himself that he provided much-needed cash for his customer. The Wal-Mart store owners who cheated employees out of overtime pay were under pressure from upper management to cut costs.

They are not who we’d like to imagine them as--- wicked, evil and sinister bad seeds-- they’re you and me in difficult situations

A friend of mine who is now pursuing a career in nonprofit management and international development once found himself participating in a consulting proposal to try to get a company to sell predatory mortgage insurance to the poor, without the courage to say no. (I myself don’t know if I would have the moral fiber to say no either. Perhaps that’s yet another reason why I had to leave that field).

David Brooks, a New York Times columnists, lamented that all us prestigious college graduates have become organization kids, seeking the security and materials comforts of the status quo by taking jobs in big corporations or lucrative hedge funds, instead of seeking societal transformation.* A recent article was published in response to his opinion, praising our generation for entering the ranks of “the organization” (the corporate industrial complex), and hopefully transforming the system from inside out, instead of calling for all the disruption and chaos of revolution.

My question is… whether or not our generation will really change things from inside out, or whether we’ll succumb to the situation, and conform to the dismal patterns already in place?**


* To summarize his viewpoint in his words: "The young men and women of America's future elite work their laptops to the bone, rarely question authority, and happily accept their positions at the top of the heap as part of the natural order of life."
** Oftentimes, it seems like the costs of changing the system are high. Dr. Patrick Campbell lost his job and his family as a result of his efforts to expose the malpractice and fraud committed by several heart specialists at Redding Medical Center. Biblical characters, Daniel and Esther, who both made their way to the king’s court, put their own lives on line in order to preserve their own integrity and to save lives. Daniel and his friends said: “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." Esther declared, “If I perish, I perish.”

outsourcing our brains*

Welcome to the information age where knowledge is abundant and accessible. GPS devices replace maps and directions. Cell phones abolish the need for recalling phone numbers or writing them down on slips of paper. Itunes helps you organize your music and figure out what your musical tastes are while Facebook allows you to remember who your friends are and what they’re up to.

Until that moment, I had thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more, but then I realized the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less. It provides us with external cognitive servants — silicon memory systems, collaborative online filters, consumer preference algorithms and networked knowledge. We can burden these servants and liberate ourselves.

~ excerpts from the article “The Outsourced Brain” by David Brooks

We’re so eager to implement the latest technology to solve our problems, that we forget the use of computers often diminishes our own cognitive abilities. Doctors come to rely too much MRI scans, and their diagnosis skills grow rusty. Our memories grow weak as we can google the texts in books and search for the latest trivia answers. And apparently, a third of people under thirty can’t remember their phone numbers.

Our infatuation with technology is spreading. We’re excited about the potential of giving laptops to third world countries in order to help improve education, and connect children to the rest of the world. Though many are hopeful about the changes that these laptops may bring, and I do applaud the people involved who have forsaken higher salaries in order to try to positively impact the world, I find it strange that we’re doing this while studies and commentary are coming out that show that technology doesn’t really enhance education.**

So before we continue on our high and noble quest to turn the rest of the world into a spitting image of ourselves, let us remember what we lose with all that we gain. In the period of colonialism, cultural and political dominance was conducted in the name of Christianity. Perhaps today, we are conducting cultural and economic dominance in the name of “development” and “poverty alleviation”.

~

Meanwhile, on this side of the globe, we continue to carry around more electronic gadgets, and Google continues to learn more about us than we could ever know about ourselves. David Brooks notes:

Now, you may wonder if in the process of outsourcing my thinking I am losing my individuality. Not so. My preferences are more narrow and individualistic than ever. It’s merely my autonomy that I’m losing.

Perhaps the disappearance of agency*** is the biggest cost of our postmodern information age:

though knowledge is vast and abundant, understanding has become a lost art
though our identities are distinct, unique and express, our lives still fail to have meaning


* Title taken from Brooks’ article. I can’t take credit for it.
** Unplugged schools is an interesting reflection on the role of education and technology in America.
*** Arguably, I could list many other costs that may also be conferred the honor of being the “biggest loss”: authenticity, community, Meaning, Answers with capital letters
**** Speaking of loss of agency, there’s a fear that one day people will believe that they’re not responsible for things that their brain made them do!

why less is more

The four horsemen of my apocalypse are called Efficiency, Convenience, Profitability, and Security, and in their names, crimes against poetry, pleasure, sociability, and the very largeness of the world are daily, hourly, constantly carried out.
…
This is most manifest in the life of the suburban commuter who weekly spends a dozen or more hours on the road between the putative dream house and the workplace, caught in the gridlock of tens of thousands likewise trying to move from the residential-warehousing periphery to the economically productive inner rings. Space is quantifiable and we are constantly taught to covet it (though leisure is advertised too—mostly as vacation packages). You can own those two thousand square feet including two-car garage, and it is literally real, the real in real estate. But to have this space you give up time, the time that you might be spending with the kids who are housed in the image of domestic tranquility but not actually particularly well nurtured by their absentee parents, or time spent immersed in community life or making things with your own hands or doing nothing at all—a lost art. You give up time, and you often give up the far more than two thousand square feet that you don’t own but get to enjoy when you live in, say, a rented apartment in a neighborhood full of amenities nobody advertised to you, because you don’t have to buy the public pool or playground that your kids don’t need to be driven to. The language of real-estate ownership is loud, clear, and drilled into us daily; the language of public life and leisure time is rarer and more complex.
…
Ultimately, I believe that slowness is an act of resistance, not because slowness is a good in itself but because of all that it makes room for, the things that don’t get measured and can’t be bought.

~ excerpts from the article Finding Time by Rebecca Solnit

While we are working really hard to increase profits and grow our GDP—attempting to make an image of white picket fence life real—we sometimes never figure out what a good standard of living truly is (it’s easy to waste our life away in a life that isn’t really life).

I quit a high-paying, high-flying job almost six months ago. A job that put me on the fast track for that suburban dream of comfort and security. A job that promised much, but arguably delivered little.

Due to this unnaturally warm spell in October, the weather has greatly resembled what it was like when I first moved back to Philadelphia in May. The shade of green of the trees in Rittenhouse, the mostly full park benches, the gentle sunlight, the music from the street performers. The sensory details have been ushering back my memories of how free it felt to make that change of pace.

Though I now eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of pricey Mediterranean cuisine for lunch (and cannot eat out very often), though I now have to stay in hostels for my honeymoon instead of 5-star hotels, though I now must take the Chinatown bus to travel, instead of Amtrak, I wouldn’t go back. Not even if you paid me :)

~

Some other excerpts from the same article (on the subject of walking, instead of driving):

The problem is partly one of language. The language of commerce has been engineered to describe the overt purpose of a thing, but cannot encompass fringe benefits or peripheral pleasures. It weighs the obvious against what in its terms are incomprehensible. When I drive from here to there, speed, privacy, control, and safety are easy to claim. When I walk, what happens is more vague, more ambiguous—and in many circumstances much richer. I am out in the world. It’s exercise, though not so quantifiably as on a treadmill in a gym with a digital readout. It’s myriad little epiphanies and encounters that knit me more tightly into my place and maybe enhance the place overall. The carbon emissions are essentially nil. Many more benefits are more subjective, more ethereal—and more wordy. You can’t describe them in a few familiar phrases; and if you’re not practiced at describing them, you may not be able to articulate them at all. It is difficult to value what cannot be named. Since someone makes money every time you buy a car or fill it up, there’s a whole commercial language built around getting us to drive; there’s little or no language promoting the free act of walking. Have you not driven a Ford lately?

Even the idea of security illustrates the constant conflict between the familiar and the intricate. When I drive, I have a large steel and glass carapace wrapped around me and my contact with other human beings is largely limited to colliding with their large metal carapaces at various speeds or their unbuffered bodies in crosswalks. Fifty thousand or so people a year are killed by cars in this country, but its citizens officially believe that safety lies in the lack of contact that cars offer. Walkers make a place safer for the whole community—what Jane Jacobs called “eyes on the street”—and in turn become more street-smart themselves. Too, safety is a reductive term for what being at home in the world or the neighborhood can provide. This is a more nebulous kind of security, but a deeper and broader one. It is marked by expansiveness, not defensiveness.

Walking versus driving is an easy setup, but the same problem applies to most of the technological changes we embrace and many of the material and spatial ones. The gains are simple and we know the adjectives: convenient, efficient, safe, fast, predictable, productive. All good things for a machine, but lost in the list is the language to argue that we are not machines and our lives include all sorts of subtleties—epiphanies, alliances, associations, meanings, purposes, pleasures—that engineers cannot design, factories cannot build, computers cannot measure, and marketers will not sell. What we cannot describe vanishes into the ether, and so what begins as a problem of language ends as one of the broadest tragedies of our lives.

tax deductible

With all my commentary on the injustices committed by big corporations, and my own personal career trajectory from for-profit to nonprofit, it may appear that I think all nonprofit organizations are good and all for-profit companies are bad.

But to clarify, I don't think such a distinction can be made. I’d much rather work for In-N-Out Burger, who pays their employees benefits and good wages, and sources local fresh food, than be part of the National Sleep Foundation, whose heavy funding from pharmaceuticals appears to strongly influence their studies and campaigns.

In fact, nonprofits can be particularly susceptible to corruption and fraud. Just think about all the sex scandals involving priests, and adultery cases involving pastors. Because people are less suspicious of nonprofits, hiding under the guise of being "independent" and “doing good work”, it’s easy to get away with deceptive research studies, misleading marketing and unhelpful programs. Meanwhile, for-profits that take social responsibility seriously can be extremely beneficial to society.

Yet public for-profits are accountable to maximizing their shareholder wealth, making them susceptible to make profit-increasing decisions that may not be beneficial to their employees, customers or society at large. In contrast, nonprofits are held accountable to their funders to accomplish their mission.

The nonprofit vs. for-profit classification originated as a tax distinction. Do you really trust the federal government to determine what is "altruistic" and what is not? So if you work for a nonprofit, don’t think that you’re immune from the “evils of the corporate world”. And if you work for a for-profit, then I don’t think that should be an excuse not to consider corporate social responsibility.*



* I don’t really like that term very much. I don’t really know if it means anything anymore… but since it may still signify a hint of what I do want it to mean, I’ll use it, rather than ramble on and try to explain what I’m trying to say…..

why more?

When a nation’s standard of living is measured by GDP divided by population, and companies are driven to maximize shareholder’s profits, we seem to be caught in an endless upward spiral.

We invent new illnesses so we will buy more medicine.
We manufacture new processed foods so we can buy more groceries.
We create trends so we can buy more clothing.

It’s sometimes acknowledged in the nonprofit sector that growth isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes, it’s perfectly okay for a nonprofit to stay the size it is, and just continue serving the people it has served in the past.

Why can’t we acknowledge this in the corporate sector as well?

Joel Salatin, of Polyface Farms, heavily featured in Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, acknowledges that his environmentally regenerative agriculture is not reproducible at a large scale. Though he encourages others to engage in similar agricultural practices in their local areas, Salatin himself doesn’t want to expand and sell more.

Why can’t companies take a more holistic view at their operations? Call it social responsibility or what you want. A company’s worth is not solely in the profit it confers to its elusive shareholders, but in the value it can provide to its customers and its employees. The narrow-minded focus on profits has become incredibly destructive--from the promotion of drugs that pharmaceuticals knew could kill people, to cost-cutting measures that have kept employees at poverty level.

Can a company not rest at peace in operating year to year selling good quality products, and providing well for its employees? Why does there exist this constant need to grow the business every quarter?*

Why do we need more? Why do we demand more?
When does it stop?

we're all going to die

"Our relentless search for wellness through medicine has created a kind of therapeutic imperative, the urge to treat every complaint, every deviation from the norm, as a medical condition. We’ve come to believe that if a test can be performed, it should be performed; if a treatment can be used to lengthen life, no matter how incrementally, it should be used, regardless of whether the intervention will improve the patient’s sense of well-being, or is what the patient really wants. Families often tell doctors to “do everything possible” for their elderly and dying loved ones, often without realizing that “doing everything” won't necessarily stave off death for so long but could make the patient’s last few days or weeks more miserable than they might have been. Physicians, too, forget that their power to prolong life is limited, and that they are still able only “to cure, sometimes; to relieve, often; to comfort, always”, in the words of a French proverb.”

~ Overtreated: Why More Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Shannon Brownlee)

I guess I may get labeled as insensitive when I say this. But sometimes I get frustrated with all the rhetoric you hear about finding cures for diseases, especially ones relating to aging, such as certain types of cancers, Alzheimer’s, stroke etc… I get frustrated because we talk about prevention and cures for these diseases as though we could ward off death indefinitely.

On average, one hundred thousand dollars are spent per Medicare recipient in the last two years of life, from numerous tests for problems, to treatments that promise to prolong life for a few more months, to nasogastric feeding tubes and breathing machines designed to keep people alive far beyond what their natural bodies would allow.

We are all going to die someday. Why not accept it and do it with dignity? Why not do it without putting a huge burden on the health care system? Perhaps it’s better to die 10 years earlier, than to spend 20 years undergoing multiple treatments for various “diseases” that are but products of aging.

This is not to say that I’m against medical research altogether relating to aging or against any sort of medical treatment for the elderly. I do believe that they should be cared for and should be enabled to live their lives as fully as possible. But I guess because of this very belief, I agree with Brownlee—I wish the medical research we engage in and the treatments we use for the elderly would be more focused on alleviating their suffering and promoting their ability to enjoy the last years of their life, rather than trying to “cure” them of what is inevitably their old age and proximity to death.

But maybe I can only say this, because I'm young and haven't yet experienced the gradual decline of my body-- the aching of joints, the susceptibility to falls, the fuzziness of memory.... Perhaps because I haven't known my body becoming something other than my body as I know it, that I can say these words so easily. Perhaps because I have yet to experience the passing of a close friend or family member, that death for me is still an abstract concept that I can wax and wane eloquent on without actually knowing anything.

But we are all going to die. Maybe one day we will cure all cancers, but we will never be able to escape death.

~

“So little of what is done for old people seems aimed in any direct way at making the patient feel better. With medicalization, the role of physicians has become so expanded and technologized that we fail at our most important task—providing relief from suffering. Medical care of the elderly is particularly distorted by this new focus. Medicalization externalized experience, whereas the major tasks of aging are internal. Every clinician has witnessed the medicalized 80-year-old obsessed with arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and serum cholesterol levels. Contrast the patient with someone else in the same physical condition, who admits that her knees are bad and that she has trouble remembering things. Which patient is better off? Attention to some proto-illnesses arguably could benefit 80- and 90-year-olds: certainly osteoporosis, probably also high blood pressure. But 80-year-olds can ill afford the ceding of responsibility and loss of control inherent in medicalization. The challenges of very old age are spiritual, not medical. The appropriate role of the physician is a counselor or helper, not as scientific expert."

~ James Goodwin, geriatrician at the University of Texas Mexical Branch, in an essay in the New England Journal of Medicine

in pursuit of riches

quick thoughts on lottery games

Many states in America depend upon income from lottery games to support public education and other important social services. The ends seem satisfactory —when you buy a lottery ticket, not only do you have a chance of winning a lot of money, but proceeds are also going to educate children. It seems like a win-win situation.

However, many studies have shown that lotteries actually function like a regressive tax. Someone earning several million a year isn’t going to be tempted by the lotto game, whereas low-income single mothers see winning the lottery as an opportunity out of poverty, and could regularly buy several tickets a week. If their weekly earnings are only near minimum wage, e.g. $250 or so, then $5 is a 2% tax. This may not seem like a lot, but I remember reading about how difficult it was for people to afford the fare increases with public transportation which only amounted to a few dollars each week. Through supposed “voluntary contributions”, the lottery has basically made the poor pay an unfair share of state services.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that lottery winners returning to their same level of happiness as before. The burdens of wealth can cause an undue strain on relationships with family and friends. Lottery winners can also end up poorer than before by buying cars, houses and electronics that they cannot sustain with their income (especially because lottery winnings are often paid out over a long time period so people end up taking out loans to make these purchases). Lower-income winners of the lottery are probably more susceptible to this as they are less educated about proper financial management.

While winning the lottery may promise an end to payday-to-payday subsistence to a few select, it does nothing to alleviate systemic poverty. It dangles false hopes of happiness and riches for the poor and for the middle class. Instead of being content with what we have, we find ourselves secretly hoping for a quick solution to our problems—getting rich really fast and easy.

So yes, lottery games are a good government revenue generator—but do they do any good?



* There was recently a huge lottery jackpot a few months ago. Our office had a pool and despite the fact that several years ago, I had made a decision not to buy lottery tickets, I found myself tempted to participate in my office pool. It didn’t seem like a big deal. It would only be a dollar or two contributions, and I found myself daydreaming about what I could do with all the money—pay off my loans, pay for graduate school, pay off my parents’ mortgage. It seemed so easy and it was so hard not to pull out a dollar from my wallet. But I don't want to support a system that is unjust to the poor, nor do I want to chase pipe dreams of wealth, because I want to be content with what I have. And for all that I do not have right now, I want to trust that God will provide. All those high and lofty things said aside, I did breath a huge sigh of relief when I found out that my office did not win. Life returns to normal. And those dreams of wealth are put to rest, atleast for the time being.

killing religion, tolerating culture

Apparently, China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs has instituted Order No. 5, a law announcing: “the management measures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism.” This “important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation” basically prohibits Buddhist monks from returning from the dead without government permission”

Slavoj Zizek in a New York Times op-ed piece, responds:

It is all too easy to laugh at the idea of an atheist power regulating something that, in its eyes, doesn’t exist. However, do we believe in it? When in 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, many Westerners were outraged — but how many of them actually believed in the divinity of the Buddha? Rather, we were angered because the Taliban did not show appropriate respect for the “cultural heritage” of their country. Unlike us sophisticates, they really believed in their own religion, and thus had no great respect for the cultural value of the monuments of other religions.

The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to “culture.” All human sciences are turning into a branch of cultural studies. While there are of course many religious believers in the West, especially in the United States, vast numbers of our societal elite follow (some of the) religious rituals and mores of our tradition only out of respect for the “lifestyle” of the community to which we belong: Christmas trees in shopping centers every December; neighborhood Easter egg hunts; Passover dinners celebrated by nonbelieving Jews.**

“Culture” has commonly become the name for all those things we practice without really taking seriously. And this is why we dismiss fundamentalist believers as “barbarians” with a “medieval mindset”: they dare to take their beliefs seriously. Today, we seem to see the ultimate threat to culture as coming from those who live immediately in their culture, who lack the proper distance.**

Perhaps we find China’s reincarnation laws so outrageous not because they are alien to our sensibility, but because they spill the secret of what we have done for so long: respectfully tolerating what we don’t take quite seriously, and trying to contain its political consequences through the law.

~

On a side note, Zizek also points out that these government measures may pale in comparison to other economic transformation—Lhasa now is also home to karaoke bars and Disney-like Buddhist theme parks:

“In short, the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers terrorizing Buddhist monks conceals a much more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation: in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of the Native Americans in the United States. Beijing finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police forces, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations?”

Better than all the crusades and genocides and laws, what better killer of religion than the promise of material comfort?


* Except that for all I know, there’s nothing ACTUALLY Christian about Christmas trees and Easter egg hunts. I guess I owe my thanks to Hallmark, but I can’t be too critical, I use their e-cards.
** As a counterpoint, Meic Pearse argues in his book Why the Rest hates the West: "By their constant, mindlessly inaccurate resort to the “f-word” – fundamentalism – to describe the upsurge of religious fervor in much of the non-West, Western secularists are employing a boo-word that long ago lost its original meaning and has come to signify “more-religious-than-I-happen-to-like”—and thus to say more about the speaker than about the persons, things or phenomena described. It is one more signifier that Western self-styles “multiculturalists” are, in fact, refusing to take seriously any culture but their own

super market choices

We sometimes do quite a bit of research on what we buy. We read reviews about car mileage and maintenance and comparison shop our electronics. Yet when it comes to food, the very items we use to nourish our bodies, we often don’t ask where it comes from and we end up having our choices made for us. Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma explores the food industry and the findings are initially rather dismal.*

Low-income Iowa farmers purchase vast amounts of fertilizer, pesticides and corn seed, in order to produce more generic corn (which only pulls down prices, which will only erode the land and pollute the water). The corn will then be purchased and transformed into high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil, the backbone of processed foods (and also found in a surprising number of other foods—cereal and bread).

Cows and chickens are crammed in confined quarters, and forced fed meat and corn mixtures (contrary to their natural diets) until they are ready for slaughter. Egg hens are crammed even more tightly than meat hens, with as many as 10% dying from the confined conditions.

While organic once offered an alternative to our mass-produced supermarket choices, it has also turned into economies of scale affair. As Gene Kahn, former (?) CEO and founder of Cascadian Farms (a big corporate organic produce company) comments, “Everything morphs into the way the world is.”

Organic produce mostly comes from large industrial size farms since it’s cheaper than buying from many individual farmers, and then tons and tons of oil are expended in shipping the produce fresh across the nation or even across the globe. Free range chickens are only given a small door open to the outside in the last two weeks of their nine week lifespan (after they have grown accustomed to staying indoors in their cooped up pen, only slightly better than those of the non-free-range variety). As Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, “Now which chicken shall we call ‘organic’? I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the government, because now they own the word.” I guess organic ceases to mean anything anymore when organic TV dinners are now sold at Whole Foods. (All that being said, organic food has greatly diminished the amount of pesticides and chemicals poured into our soils and waters).

So it saddens me to see even the most integral choices of our lives embedded with injustice to the poor and damage to the environment. I find it harder and harder to imagine being able to live without participating in these injustices, as I am certainly one who has benefited greatly from the comforts that these systems have afforded us.

As Geez magazine puts it, I wake up finding myself “somewhere between dreams for a better world and a padded, private life (I) didn’t exactly choose”. In today’s supermarket abundance, the vast array of flavours and textures, I don’t feel like I have very many real choices.



* This entry was compiled from quick notes I made in response to the earlier half of Pollan’s book, which was rather depressing. If I ever get around to it, I will write my response to the second half of his book, which was far more hopeful, and does offer some alternatives to our usual supermarket choices. By the way, Omnivore’s Dilemma is an excellent book—I highly recommend it. Not only does Pollan succeed in making 100 pages written about corn engrossingly interesting, he’s also made me rethink what and how I eat. I actually have an extra copy… so please contact me if you would like to borrow it/have it (you have to promise to read it!).

there's a whole world out there

Lots of blogs have many entries that consist mainly of interesting links (e.g. The Elegant Variation). Since nothing in this world is truly original, I'm debating whether or not to do this permanently on a weekly or monthly basis, so I'm trying it out.

Basically, here are some interesting links (articles, sites, thoughts) I've stumbled upon recently. Most of them have probably made me want to write a blog entry about them, but by now, I know that I will never get around to it, but I think these links are worthy enough to be shared.

In order to disclaim any credit for my own web surfing skills (though I do probably spend too much time on the internet), most of my article browsing comes from: Arts and Letters Daily (actually most of my links come from here), the Philadelphia Inquirer, Footnoted, Craftzine blog and the NY Times. I occasionally visit McSweeney's, Adbusters, and Slate. I keep the Economist on my bookmarks toolbar folder to motivate myself to read it and keep up with international relations and economics, but I never actually do. I've also started frequently the Daily Pennsylvannian blog, now that my friend Nick is blogging for it. I have now finally started using Google Reader, which wonderfully cuts down on the amount of listless surfing I do.

• The whole Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris atheist debates are raging on. Just as a few Christians may not agree with others of the same faith, the same thing seems to be happening in the arena of non-belief. A Third Edge article presents a more balanced view of religion. And a glowing review of the recent book, Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Riposte to the God Delusion can be found here (okay, this may not have been written by an atheist, but as far as I know, it is a secular publication).
  


• An academic blog debate has spurred as a result of Bitch PhD's ranting complaint about her $5000+/month salary. Oh No a WoC PhD writes an excellent "Shame List" regarding academia in response.


• Since carbon offsets are now morally questionable, the latest development in keeping our carbon footprint small is to stop having children.
  


• Both Madeline L'Engle and Luciano Pavarotti have passed away recently. If you have not read Madeline L'Engle, I highly recommend that you start with A Wrinkle in Time.
  


• Seward Johnson has some amazing trompe l'oeil sculpture copies of famous paintings. Much of his collection can be found at Grounds for Sculpture, a 35-acre sculpture garden in NJ.
  
  
• Knitting is not boring (except when I'm really trying hard to finish a sweater). I want to be able to make this someday. I also wouldn't mind being able to spin out this vest. In the meantime, I will stick to bunny rabbits. There's also been quite a boom in knitting art: These sweatshirts can keep you up to date with the news. There was also that knitted homes of crime exhibit at the ICA.