simulating friendship*

Priority of sensation over substance. William Deresiewicz writes, in reference to Facebook:

We have turned [our friends] into an indiscriminate mass, a kind of audience or faceless public. We address ourselves not to a circle, but to a cloud.... There they are, my friends, all in the same place. Except, of course, they're not in the same place, or, rather, they're not my friends. They're simulacra of my friends, little dehydrated packets of images and information, no more my friends than a set of baseball cards is the New York Mets.

Friendship is devolving, in other words, from a relationship to a feeling—from something people share to something each of us hugs privately to ourselves in the loneliness of our electronic caves, rearranging the tokens of connection like a lonely child playing with dolls. The same path was long ago trodden by community. As the traditional face-to-face community disappeared, we held on to what we had lost—the closeness, the rootedness—by clinging to the word, no matter how much we had to water down its meaning. Now we speak of the Jewish "community" and the medical "community" and the "community" of readers, even though none of them actually is one. What we have, instead of community, is, if we're lucky, a "sense" of community—the feeling without the structure; a private emotion, not a collective experience. And now friendship, which arose to its present importance as a replacement for community, is going the same way. We have "friends," just as we belong to "communities." Scanning my Facebook page gives me, precisely, a "sense" of connection. Not an actual connection, just a sense.


* I could also call this, as you may expect, "when words change their meaning" or "when words lose their meaning", but I thought it might be nice to have a change
** I discovered Deresiewicz via Charles Petersen's article In The World of Facebook

the slippery slope

Improved technology and more goods and services have raised the standards for what is acceptable in our culture. While there is more to choose from, we also have more to live up to. The introduction of indoor plumbing, electricity and household appliances into our homes have only pressured us to maintain higher levels of cleanliness. While wrinkles were once an accepted symptom of aging, we are now pre-occupied with anti-wrinkle creams and Botox treatments. The greater variety and availability of clothing has only raised expectations for our appearances (It’s not terribly acceptable to wear the same thing every day, unless you’re my husband. He somehow manages to get away with it).

The odd thing about the constancy of (housework) hours is that it coincided with a technological revolution in the household. When the early studies were done, American homes had little sophisticated equipment. Many were not yet wired for gas and electricity. They did not have automatic washers and dryers or refrigerators. Some homes even lacked indoor plumbing, so that every drop of water that entered the house had to be carried in by hand and then carried out again.

By 1950, the amount of capital equipment in the home had risen dramatically. Major technological systems, such as indoor plumbing, electricity, and gas, had been installed virtually everywhere. At the same time, many labor-saving appliances also came into vogue- automatic washing machines and dryers, electric irons, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and freezers, garbage disposals. By the 1990s, we had added dishwashers, microwaves and trash compactors. Each of these innovations had the potential to save countless hours of labor. Yet none of them dead. In terms of reducing time spent on domestic work, all this expensive labor-saving technology was an abject failure.
…
Laundry provides the best example of how technology failed to reduce labor time... Laundry that had previously been sent out began to stay home. At the same, standards of cleanliness went up… In the (colonial) days, washing would be done once a month at most and, in many families, much less—perhaps four times per year. Nearly everyone wore dirty clothes nearly all the time. Slowly, the frequency of washing rose… Standards have crept up for nearly everything that housewives do—laundry, cooking, care of children, shopping, care of the sick, cleaning…

One 1920s housewife realized: Because we housewives of today have the tools to reach it, we dig every day after dust that grandmother left to a spring cataclysm. If few of us have nine children for a weekly bath, we have two or three for daily immersion. If our consciences don’t prick over vacant pie shelves or empty cookie jars, they do over meals in which a vitamin may be omitted or a calorie lacking.

But we were not always like this. Contemporary standards of housecleaning are a modern invention, like the vacuum cleaners and furniture polishes that make them possible. (The culture of cleanliness) was delayed because it was expensive. The labor of colonial women was far too valuable to be spent creating spic-and-span…

~ Juliet Schor in The Overworked American

Likewise, more freedom around what parts of our body we can display has resulted in more concern for how those parts of our body appear.

By the 1920s, both fashion and film encouraged a massive “unveiling” of the female body, which meant that certain body parts-such as arms and legs- were bared and displayed in ways they never had before. This new freedom to display the body was accompanied, however, by demanding beauty and literary regimens that involved money as well as self-discipline. Beginning in the 1920s, women’s legs and underarms had to be smooth and free of body hair; the torso had to be svelte; and the breasts were supposed to be small and firm. What American women did not realize at the time was that their stunning new freedom actually implied the need for greater internal control of the body, an imperative that would intensify and become even more powerful by the end of the twentieth century… cultural pressures have accumulated, making American girls today, at the close of the twentieth century, more anxious than ever about the size and shape of their bodies, as well as particular body parts.

~ Joan Jacobs Brumberg in The Body Project

No doubt we have made progress since the early twentieth century. And while most of these accomplishments have materially improved our quality of life, we continue to expect more. Improved technology designed to make life more convenient has not given us more leisure and rest time. And more freedom to choose what we wear and how we appear, may have only increased anxiety and worry.


* Somehow I feel a bit better that my apartment is not Real Simple-worthy. There are piles of books and papers stacked up in the corners collecting dust. Our bathtub is developing a ring of soap and scum residue and I believe our sink is building a lovely layer of grime. Yes, I would like my home to be cleaner, but I’m just too damn lazy to do it myself or to nag my husband to do it. But now I can say something elitist like I’m intentionally being counter-cultural and protesting the absurd standards of hygiene in our society… or tell everyone that I’m saving the environment. But don’t we often discover that our practical decisions end up being political? We didn’t buy a car, because we’re cheap. We line-dry our clothing, because there was no room in our apartment for a dryer. We try to reduce our meat consumption, because I don’t like cooking meat…
** Did you see this study that asked households to rank appliances as luxury or necessity? Fascinating!

another first quarter

I noticed that every book I’ve read this quarter is one that I physically own. Our post-marriage bookshelf (or more appropriately, our bookshelves plus random piles of books), are a gold mine, especially after Christmas, birthdays, routine trips upon my insistence to the Last Word Bookstore and a year of using Paperbackswap. Two books are missing from this photo because they are at my office. I’ve started keeping personal books at my office, because there’s really no space in our current apartment. Sigh. (Wait, three books are missing. I suppose one has just been misplaced....)

Seeing all these books stacked on top of one another reminds me of how much I love the physicality of books—the binding, the texture of the cover, the smell of the pages. Hannah Arendt describes the printed book as the “transformation of the intangible into the tangibility of things,” something that is lost in the gadgetry of Kindles and the liquid crystals of internet text. From Christine Rosen’s People of the Screen:

As he tried to train himself to screen-read—and mastering such reading does require new skills—Bell made an important observation, one often overlooked in the debate over digital texts: the computer screen was not intended to replace the book. Screen reading allows you to read in a “strategic, targeted manner,” searching for particular pieces of information, he notes. And although this style of reading is admittedly empowering, Bell cautions, “You are the master, not some dead author. And that is precisely where the greatest dangers lie, because when reading, you should not be the master”; you should be the student. “Surrendering to the organizing logic of a book is, after all, the way one learns,” he observes.

So for now, no Kindle for me. Let me submit to the mastery of the printed text! I’m already susceptible to skimming. Besides, I don't get along with gadgets-- I drop my cell phone frequently and lose it for days on end...

In any case, in the past, I usually review books right after I read them. This time around, I procrastinated and ended up writing most of these in the last two weeks, so they may be a little lacking in quality. At the very least, I hope they can give you an idea of what the book is about and whether or not you might want to read them. Italicized books are the ones that I did not finish.

Rating scale from Goodreads
* didn’t like it
** it was ok
*** liked it
**** really liked it
***** it was amazing

Fiction

* or ** The Tin Drum (Gunter Grass) ~ I wanted to like this book, as it’s been compared to two of my other favourites: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. With a trip to Europe planned for the summer, I was also excited to learn about Poland and Germany, as the novel recounts a midget drummer’s childhood and coming of age during the Nazi’s rise and fall of power. But what can I say? I didn’t really like the book. The novel’s language lacked the narrative fluidity that made me love the other two novels (perhaps because it was originally written in German?). The novel’s surreal details were less magic realist (which resonates more with me) and more absurdist in the line of Pynchon (which perhaps because of my cultural background, doesn’t make any sense to me). The novel had several funny and/or insightful passages and I can understand why it has been acclaimed as one of the greatest pieces of German literature since World War II, but to be honest, I can’t say I enjoyed reading it very much.

*** China Men (Maxine Hong-Kingston) ~ I didn’t really get into this book as much as I had hoped. I wrote on Maxine Hong-Kingston’s The Woman Warrior as my senior thesis so I am familiar with her work and style. Hong-Kingston weaves together myth and fact as she recounts the stories of Chinese male immigrants to the United States, from as early as the gold rush and railroad construction to the 1990s. The narratives are detailed, vivid and suggest a mythical historical memory. Her descriptions of the railroad construction by Chinese men and the confusion of the Communist revolution are particularly compelling, but some of the latter stories in the novel were less interesting.

**** Beasts of No Nation ~ After reading the first chapter, I wasn’t expecting to like the book. It was very “loud”, full of yelling and violence and what you’d normally expect from a book about child soldiers. Fortunately, the book did not turn out to be the usual narrative about the horrors of war. Instead, the book explores the psychology of a child soldier amidst the violence of war. What does it mean for someone so young to kill? What does it mean to be both perpetrator and victim?

*** Black Hole (Charles Burns) ~ This graphic novel depicts the spread of a mysterious STD amongst high schoolers in Seattle in the 70s. The disease manifests itself in bizarre physical mutations—tails, mouth, peeling skin etc… The graphic novel is as much as about the initial AIDS as it is about high school social politics, isolation, boredom and rebellion. The artwork is also remarkable as the drawings are also entirely done in black and white strokes (no gray-scale). As a warning for those who are sensitive, the novel has graphic depictions of male and female genitalia.

Non-Fiction

**** On Writing Well (William Zinsser) ~ The first section of the book covers general principles for writing well, while the second section describes guidelines for specific types of writing, including business writing, sports-writing, memoir-writing etc.. The book helped me think about how I can better improve both my business writing, my blog writing and my elusive in-my-head magazine articles that have never actually been written. It is also very enjoyable and readable—much less dry than Strunk’s Elements of Style, which I don’t think I ever finished reading.

***** Engaging the Powers (Walter Wink) ~ I haven’t had a five star book in awhile, but this book definitely qualifies as such. Walter Wink writes about the domination system of the world and the spiritual interiority of institutions. Though Wink may fall on the more liberal end of scriptural analysis, his ideas concerning the spiritual core of institutions and the role they play in society, the significance of Christ’s death and the power of nonviolent action provide a much more comprehensive understanding of the world.

*** Reclaiming Capital: Democratic Initiatives and Community Development (Christopher Gunn) ~ Similar to his other book Third Sector Development, Gunn explores ways to reclaim capital for investment and use within a community. To set the context, Gunn describes the way in which capital is internationally mobile and flows to the area of greatest return. Communities who wish to attract firms often do so at their own detriment—lax labour and environmental standards or tax incentives. Frequently, firms who do locate within a community do not provide the benefits promised. For instance, Gunn assesses how little of the economic benefits generated by the opening of a new MacDonald’s restaurant are actually retained by the community. For the rest of the book, he describes the efforts of different community institutions in reclaiming capital for improving their own communities. This book is clear and well-written even for those unfamiliar with economics or development. It is an excellent introduction for thinking more critically about how capital flows in the world and how it affects different communities.

**** Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (William Webb) ~ Through the examination of three controversial issues in the church historically and/or currently, Webb provides a framework for “the hermeneutics involved in distinguishing that which is merely cultural in Scripture from that which is timeless." He presents a set of 18 or so criteria that can help us determine how scripture texts apply to our current context. He explains each of the criteria and then assesses the three controversial issues in his title in light of those criteria. While his final conclusions on the three controversial issues are important, the book is most valuable for providing anyone with a framework of distinguishing what is cultural and what is transcendent in scripture.

** The Financial Ascent of Money (Niall Ferguson) ~ When I read non-fiction books, I tend to get irritated at the author’s tone after about 100 or so pages. It was a bad sign when I got annoyed at the Ferguson’s writing style after about one paragraph. He writes like a slick modernist, one that firmly believes in greatness of our Western cultural and economic trajectory. However, I decided to give the book a chance and ended up reading/skimming most of it. It turned out to be okay. I expected the book to be focused on currency specifically, rather than all sorts of financial instruments. The book covers the historical development of bonds, stock exchanges, insurance, real estate and derivatives (including the crash of Long Term Capital management). Ferguson’s final chapter describes the influence of finance on the British empire and international relations, including the recent development of Chimerica (China + America). Ferguson goes into great narrative detail describing specific events and/or people—not surprising given that he is a historian. I don’t think he goes into sufficient detail in explaining how the different financial institutions and instruments work. As someone with a business education (is that an oxymoron?), it was okay for me to understand but it may be more challenging for someone who isn’t as familiar with these terms. Not bad, not great. The writer’s tone also became slightly less annoying over the course of the book. He makes a good point of indicating that despite all our mathematical models, our current form of capitalism is subject to extreme volatility—bubbles and crashes—and that history may be as important a lesson as statistics.

*** Eichmann in Jerusalem (Hannah Arendt) ~ I expected this book to be a philosophical and psychological exploration on the nature of evil, but it turned out to be more about the trial of Karl Eichmann in Jerusalem and a historical overview of his rise to power and his orchestration of Jewish deportation in each of the German-occupied nations. The book reads tediously at points, but other sections are fascinating—the Denmark resistance to Nazi orders, the significance of Eichmann’s kidnapping from Argentina by the Israeli Mossad, the desire for Eichmann’s sentence to deliver justice not just for the crimes for which Eichmann was individually responsible but for also for all Nazi crimes against Jews, and the contested fairness of a trial where the judge was Israeli and no defense witnesses were available because no former Nazi would come to testify in Israel. The last chapter provides the best overview and commentary of the trial, with a particular focus on legal and judicial philosophy. If you don’t want to read the whole book, but are interested in the ideas—I would suggest reading the last chapter.

**** Money and Power (Jacques Ellul) ~ From the title, I thought this book would be about people with money and power. However, the book could be more appropriately named the power of money. Ellul first explores wealth in the Old Testament. He examines instances when God used wealth as a reward or blessing, emphasizing that the riches were a gift and a material demonstration of God’s power. Ellul then elaborates on how Jesus completely transforms our relationship to money, especially as He becomes the “Poor One”. Why are the poor amongst us? How must we relate to them? Ellul’s final conclusions are challenging—that Christians should not be in the practice of saving or hoarding, and that everything beyond what they need should be given away. This practice allows one to be freed from serving Mammon (the system of selling and buying) and to “enter” the kingdom of God, where grace and giving reign.

** The People’s History of the United States of America (Howard Zinn) ~ I had read some excerpts from this book earlier and enjoyed them and was hoping for a insightful critique of the mainstream reading of American history. However, the book (or atleast the parts I read) seemed to list the usual liberal grab bag of events and facts combined with a hefty dose of lefty rhetoric. While a decent introduction to the injustices committed by America to its own people and to others, I don’t think the book provided any astute or significant commentary on either American history or the writing of American history.

*** Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism (Mike Davis, Daniel Bertrand Monk, editors) ~ This book is a compilation of essays on the urban and spatial developments of the wealthy in the world. I have read about half the essays-- most of them elucidate not just the stark contrast between the rich and the poor, but also the economic, social, environmental and moral cost of these “dreamworlds” to the poor and to humanity.

**** Commager on Tocqueville (Henry Steele Commager) ~ Despite a somewhat self-preoccupied and unenticing title, the book is excellent. Commager assesses American history in the last century through the set of questions raised by Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French aristocrat who wrote about America in Democracy in America. Tocqueville primarily was concerned with democracy – especially the tensions raised between liberty, order and equality. He examines issues of slavery and justice, centralization and democracy, military vs. civil power and political equality and economic inequality in America.

fruits of my labour

In the case of the white-collar man, the alienation of the wage-worker from the products of his work is carried one step nearer to its Kafka-like completion. The salaried employee does not make anything, although he may handle much that he greatly desires but cannot have. No product of craftsmanship can be his to contemplate with pleasure as it is being created and after it is made. Being alienated from any product of his labor, and going year after year through the same paper routine, he turns his leisure all the more frenziedly to the ersatz diversion that is sold him, and partakes of the synthetic excitement that neither eases nor releases. He is bored at work and restless at play, and this terrible alternation wears him out.

~ C. Wright Mills, White Collar: The American Middle Classes

As white-collar worker in a nonprofit institution (which inevitably has its bureaucraucies), I understand my craving and my need for my manual creation. A desire to touch and hold the product of my labour—to contemplate it with pleasure. To partake in an activity that is not mere diversion, but creation that eases and releases. A comfort from the haunting sense that my work is disappearing into a labyrinth of papers, emails and electronic files and meetings.*

Finished product:
Collared Wrap from Sally Melville's the Knitting Experience Book 2: The Purl Stitch. Knit as a mother's day gift. I can't say I enjoyed four months of knitting with dull green worsted-weight acrylic wool. But I am so pleased with the final result that I am tempted to make the same item for myself...





Finished product:
Garter Rib socks from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks
Knit as a father's day gift. I am concerned that these socks are going to be too big for him.... but he will probably wear them anyways. Aren't fathers great?




* Though for the record, for the most part, I do believe my work is valuable. I just have occasional melodramatic days. :) Or perhaps, I posted this to have an excuse to present pictures of my knitting-- Why must the intangible justify the tangible? Actually, to be honest, I'm just crazy about C. Wright Mills. Everytime I read something by him, I end up highlighting every other sentence and resisting the urge to type up his entire book in a blog entry...

the disappearance of time

The sprawl of highways, the hub and spoke of airplane trajectories, combined with the electronic network of telecommunications are monuments to our domination of space.

As we have dominated space, we have also rushed along. Consultants break the day at dawn to catch their next plane. Soccer mums shuttle their children back and forth from practices and playdates with her soup in a can in the cupholder of her SUV. A graduate student types away in the dim light of the library. Late at night, a corporate vice president frets over revenue and expense figures of his division, on which his compensation depends.

And it’s good news to hear that GDP per capita has gone up, because that means that our standard of living has improved.

In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective… To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.

We like to live as though time does not exist, as though the ticking bomb of our mortality has been silenced. We live as though we can take all the things that we’ve acquired in our time here on earth with us when we die:

… to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the border of time. But time is the heart of existence.

Most of us seem to labor for the sake of things of space. As a result we suffer from a deeply rooted dread of time and stand aghast when compelled to look into its face… Is joy of possessions an antidote to the terror of time which grows to be a dread of inevitable death? Things, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness, they are a threat to our very lives; we are more harassed than supported by the Frankensteins of spatial things.

Bertrand Russell writes that time is "an unimportant and superficial characteristic of reality… A certain emancipation from slavery to time is essential to philosophical thought… to realize the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom."

But perhaps we have failed to enter the city of wisdom because we’ve forgotten about the importance time, and have only focused on space (Perhaps because we can control space, while time eludes us). And thus much of our labor is in vain, and we spend much of our time chasing forgeries of happiness.

~

Time and space are interrelated. To overlook either of them is to be partially blind. What we plead against is man's unconditional surrender to space, his enslavement to things. We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is a moment that lends significance to things.



* Unless otherwise noted, all italicized text is from Jewish writer Abraham Heschel’s book The Sabbath

the disappearance of place (2)

We celebrate the internet because it seems to connect us to a degree that we never could have imagined before: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, YahooGroups, Ravelry, Second Life, not to mention the numerous message boards and special interest, dating websites and chatrooms--- all the various networks tying us to people we’ve never met and locations we’ve been never been to. But the internet only links us via the “space of flows”, and not through an integration of place. It connects us conveniently and without real risk or vulnerability—we can choose to hide behind screennames and profiles, and there is always the easy option to sign off, and sign back on again with a new username.

While I do believe there has been value from the internet, especially in the trading of information and ideas, and the outlet for communication and dialogue—I sincerely hope our “Second Lives” here do not become our First Lives—that we do not choose to play our games in our online networks at the expense of loving our neighbours, as Jesus has called us to do. (While we think we are in charge of technology, sometimes technology is taking charge of us…)

In physical communities we are forced to live with people who differ from us in many ways. But virtual communities offer us the opportunity to construct utopian collectivities- communities of interest, education, tastes, beliefs, and skills. In cyberspace we can remake the world out of an unsettled landscape.

~ Stephen Doheny Farina*

~

Likewise with the television, we run similar risks of trading in the reality of our neighbourhoods, for the abstractions of our easy, low-cost (and unfulfilling) entertainment:

The American house has been TV centered for three generations. It is the focus of family life, and the life of the house correspondingly turns inward, away from whatever occurs beyond its four walls. (TV rooms are called “family rooms” in builder’s lingo. A friend who is an architect explained to me: “People don’t want to admit that what the family does together is watch TV.”) At the same time, the television is the family’s chief connection with the outside world. The physical envelope of the house itself no longer connects their lives to the outside in any active way; rather, it seals them off from it. The outside world has become an abstraction filtered through television, just as the weather is an abstraction filtered through air conditioning.

~ James Howard Kuntsler,

~

Speaking of which, some random tidbits about television gleamed from Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone:

- People who say they “Strongly agree” with the statement “Television is my primary form of entertainment” also have much higher incidences of giving the middle finger to another driver than those who say they “Strongly disagree” with that statement.
- Studies conducted on people’s moods throughout the day through different activities, discovered that people’s happiness/satisfaction in watching television was similar to that of doing laundry, cooking or other household chores.
- Nevertheless, researchers found it difficult to get people to give up television for their studies. One couple was paid $500 to give up TV for a month. The wife remarked “There was nothing to do. I talked with my husband” (paraphrase).

Sometimes I wonder: would I have turned out differently (a better, more knowledgeable person perhaps?) had I not watched my 1-4 hours of television a day growing up?

~

The Amish when asked about how they know which technological inventions to admit and which to refuse from Tay Keong Tan “Silence, Sacrifice and Shoo-fly Pies: An Inquiry in to the Social Capital and Organizational Strategies of the Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania”:

We can almost always tell if a change will bring good or bad tidings. Certainly things we definitely do not want, like the television and the radio. They would destroy our visiting practices. We would stay at home with the television or radio rather than meet with other people. The visiting practices are important because of the closeness of people. How can we care for the neighbor if we do not visit them or know what is going on in their lives?

~

In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbours. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as ourself; modern society acknowledges no neighbour.

~ Benjamin Disraeli (1845)

*All quotes in this entry are from Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

why do the poor always end up having to pay?*

While middle-class America may suddenly struggle with higher gas prices with their long highway commutes from suburbia to their workplaces, others in the world find themselves struggling to eat.

Food prices have been shooting up around the world, not because of any massive food shortages, but because demand has increased. Rising incomes in China and India have increased their appetites for meat and grain, but more notably, western biofuel** programs have been hoarding the harvest. The results have been devastating (for instance, the resignation of Haiti’s prime minister because of food riots):

We are the canary in the mine,” says Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid. Usually, a food crisis is clear and localised. The harvest fails, often because of war or strife, and the burden in the affected region falls heavily on the poorest. This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines. “For the middle classes,” says Ms Sheeran, “it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.” The poorest are selling their animals, tools, the tin roof over their heads—making recovery, when it comes, much harder.

~ from The Economist, The New Face of Hunger

The economist article seems to be a bit more optimistic about recovery—believing that market forces will eventually increase supply, but seems to ignore ecological implications of the limited availability of land (and that growing too much too quickly with too many chemicals can destroy valuable soil). Is it really possible to think that we could plant enough corn to satisfy our only-increasing appetite for biofuel? Are the rich countries going to enjoy their frequent flyer miles, their blueberries and pomegranates shipped from miles and miles away, while the rest of the world experiences a Malthusian catastrophe? And furthermore, even if we do recover from this catastrophe, how many people will starve to death or suffer from malnutrition in the process? Is it worth it? Of course, I guess the life of someone poor in a third world country is worth a lot less than my life.

Yes, alternative fuel options for the sake of environment stewardship and sustainability are probably a good idea. But when it involves disrupting agricultural markets in such a way, that we get our biofuel while the poor starve, then I can’t help but think/cry/wail injustice.

While we try to find some “sustainable” method to continue our SUV gas guzzling habits, we seem to be doing it on the backs of the poor. And that angers and saddens me deeply: how it seems that we are constantly getting more comfortable from the sweat and blood of the poor.

And somehow, I’m also implicated in this system. I feel dirty buying my airline tickets to return home, my Florida-grown oranges and Mexico-grown asparagus, that’s been shipped many petroleum miles to reach me in my supermarket so that I can have my diverse food options. Meanwhile, others starve.

I am trying to understand why I was born into privilege and abundance, and not another life that could be so different. And if it’s only to perpetuate the oppression of the poor, then I feel very very sorry for myself.

* In case you can’t tell, I am/was angry as I write/wrote this. Perhaps, I might have more hopeful/more practical to say later, but this is how I feel right now. I am trying to learn to feel my emotions more, because they give indication into what I care about. And this has been part of a long reflection in the past few months of trying to understand my economic and social privilege…. Trying to learn not to feel guilty about it, but to learn how I can live differently with it, so that it won’t be wasted on myself.
** Please read comments to this post for clarification about biofuel-- there are apparently different types, and not all of them rely on edible food (e.g. some apparently use waste products)

*** In the same vein as this, India has been displacing massive amounts of its indigenous population in the name of environmental conservation: Wildlife conservation in India has generally emulated the early American (Yosemite/Yellowstone) model which regarded forests as pristine wilderness, excluded human beings from national parks and other protected areas, and saw its aboriginal people as “marauders,” “poachers” and “encroachers,” all the while sanctioning the lifeways and hunting practices of elite sportsmen and urban tourists. Throughout rural India, tribal Adivasis, ancient forest dwellers who occupy thousands of villages, are routinely blamed for declines in local biodiversity. (from: Guernica, Eviction Slip)

more than paper pushing

I just wanted to applaud the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades, and the $45 million generous donations of Henry & Lee Rowan, and Gerry & Marguertie Lenfest. More details on their donation can be found here in this Inquirer article.

Recognizing the shortage of skilled technical workers, the Williamson School gives college-age students degrees in carpentry, power-plant operation, turf maintenance, and machining, with free tuition and board. Further details of this award and the school are found in a Philadelphia Inquirer Article.

Far too many college and job training programs emphasize the importance of the services industry, urging people towards research, law, administration, management and business.

But I wonder (and especially in light of the downfall of Bear Stearns and the real estate losses experienced by the "money-moving" industry): How much paper pushing is needed? In this material age, why do we value the abstract so much more than the concrete? Why is the services sector far more prestigious than skilled trades? Why is a lawyer higher up on the social ladder than a carpenter? Yes, I might be an Excel whiz, but I certainly don’t know how to fix a leaking roof.

"[Craft] knowledge confers authority on the one who possesses it, and, as Sennett illuminatingly argues, craft traditions have been as much under threat from the modern suspicion of authority in all its forms, as from the industrialisation of the productive process. Originality and "doing your own thing" have replaced obedience and perfection as the standards to live up to, and this is everywhere to be observed in the deskilling of modern societies and in the marginalisation of those who truly know their job, and know it as something more interesting than themselves."

~ a review by Roger Scruton on the book The Craftsman by Richard Sutton

"progress is a comfortable disease"

Excerpts from Thomas Lynch’s review of the book “Swimming in a Sea of Death” by David Rieff, written in tribute to his mother Susan Sontag who died of cancer:

Swimming in a Sea of Death" is Rieff's brief record of how high priests of the body and blood sort -- whether oncologists or monsignors -- must so often disappoint. And how they disappointed his mother. In the end, neither science nor medicine, reason nor raw intellect, "avidity" for life nor her lifelong sense that hers was a special case -- nothing could undo her death. Susan Sontag "died as she had lived: unreconciled to mortality." And there is the sadness at the heart of Rieff's testimony: that mothers die, as fathers do, regardless of what they or their children believe or disbelieve. It is our humanity that makes us mortal, not our creeds or their antitheses.

All of us swim in the one sea all our lives, trying to stay afloat as best we can, clinging to such lifelines and preservers as we might draw about us: reason and science, faith and religious practice, art and music and imagination. And in the end, we all go "down, down, down" as Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, "into the darkness," although she did not approve and was not resigned. Some lie back, float calmly and then succumb, while others flail about furiously and go under all the same. Some work quietly through Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' tidy, too hopeful stages; others "rage, rage" as Dylan Thomas told his father to. But all get to the "dying of the light." Some see death as a transition while others see it as extinction. Sontag studied in this latter school and tutored her only son in its grim lessons. What is clear from his book -- an expansion of an essay that first appeared in the New York Times Magazine a year after her 2004 death -- is that while she battled cancer, she waged war on mortality. That we get sick was acceptable to her. That we die was not. Pain, suffering, the awful losses her disease exacted, were all endurable so long as her consciousness remained animate

~

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

~ e. e. cummings

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.

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!