Monday, December 31, 2012
The quietest week of the year
To me, the week between Christmas and New Year's Day seems to exist in an entirely different sort of time from the rest of the year. I can tell the difference when I wake up on Boxing Day: The frenzy of holiday preparations and celebrations has come to a crashing finale, and the new year doesn't start for a week yet. Because so many people are on vacation, not much gets done at work. The kids are out of school. The weather is, at best, cold enough to encourage one to stay indoors. There's a sense of expectation hanging over the days - it feels too soon to start anything new, but too late to finish anything old. Everything's in kind of a quiet holding pattern. It's a welcome change from the hyperactivity of the Thanksgiving to Christmas period, but I'm glad it doesn't last any longer than it does. By the time New Year's Day rolls around I've recovered from the finale of the previous year and I'm itching to start the new one.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Do you know anyone who is transgender? Are you sure? Given the danger transpeople find themselves in just by being who they are, it's really no surprise the lengths they go to in order to hide themselves.* Being outed as trans doesn't just mean potential for loss of friendship, employment or housing - it often means serious injury or loss of life. The Transgender Day of Remembrance was created to memorialize the transgender people who were killed during the course of the past year. Officially Transgender Day of Remembrance is on November 20, but since the 20th is on a Tuesday this year, many events are scheduled during the weekend before. So please, find a Transgender Day of Remembrance event near you and come out to remember the people who were taken from us in the past year, to show solidarity with the trans community, and to show the bigots that what they're doing is not okay with you.
* Not to mention most of them just want to be able to live as "a man" or "a woman," not "a transman" or "a transwoman."
* Not to mention most of them just want to be able to live as "a man" or "a woman," not "a transman" or "a transwoman."
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
New books!
I got my copy of The Inexplicables by Cherie Priest in the mail today. I pre-ordered this as soon as it was announced and I've been eagerly awaiting its arrival ever since. What books have you been looking forward to?
The rich are different from you and me
Well, from me at any rate. I can't can't say for certain about you, but I'd be willing to take a bet they're different from you too.*
It seems to me that the non-rich people of the world can be divided into 2 camps: Those who love reading about the rich, and those who don't. I generally don't. This isn't because I don't like the rich. Hell, given a chance I'd like to be one of them**. It's because, in some perverse distortion of equality, the rich to try deny that they're different. They try to portray themselves as "just regular folks," when anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that it's just not so.***
A rich man still puts his pants on one leg at a time, but they tend to be much nicer pants. And if they're not, it's because he chose to buy cheap pants - and that's the crucial difference. I'm not naive enough to think that rich people don't have problems, but a great many of their problems can be solved by throwing money at them. And those that can't, can often be ameliorated to some degree or another by throwing money at them.
So rich folks: If you want to write about what it's like to drive a Ferrari, I'm all ears. That's an experience I've never had and that I'm unlikely to ever have. But the moment you start complaining about the costs of maintaining a Ferrari, I'm out of there - I've got plenty of worrying about auto repair costs in my own life, thank you very much. Similarly, if you want to write about your battle with cancer, please do. But if you want me to read it, you'd better be sure to acknowledge how fortunate you are that your dilemma lies in choosing which esteemed specialist you seek treatment with, not in wondering if you're going to be able to find a way to get treatment at all.
The poor recognize that the rich are different. It just seems like the rich people never got the memo.
* In the event you are rich, which it seems no one will ever admit to, I'd love to talk to you about investment opportunities in this blog, but that's another matter entirely.
** Not enough to actually do the sort of things it generally takes to be rich - I lack the killer instinct where business is concerned.
*** This post was prompted when I stopped reading a book in disgust after the author**** was dissatisfied to have received a Honda motorcycle rather than a Harley Davidson as a present from his boss to celebrate his 25th anniversary with the company. Heads-up, Mr. Ungrateful Author: You know what most of us will get after 25 years with a company (should we be so fortunate as to get such a thing)? A 26th year, hopefully to be followed by a 27th, a 28th, etc.
**** Who I will do the favor of not naming here.
It seems to me that the non-rich people of the world can be divided into 2 camps: Those who love reading about the rich, and those who don't. I generally don't. This isn't because I don't like the rich. Hell, given a chance I'd like to be one of them**. It's because, in some perverse distortion of equality, the rich to try deny that they're different. They try to portray themselves as "just regular folks," when anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that it's just not so.***
A rich man still puts his pants on one leg at a time, but they tend to be much nicer pants. And if they're not, it's because he chose to buy cheap pants - and that's the crucial difference. I'm not naive enough to think that rich people don't have problems, but a great many of their problems can be solved by throwing money at them. And those that can't, can often be ameliorated to some degree or another by throwing money at them.
So rich folks: If you want to write about what it's like to drive a Ferrari, I'm all ears. That's an experience I've never had and that I'm unlikely to ever have. But the moment you start complaining about the costs of maintaining a Ferrari, I'm out of there - I've got plenty of worrying about auto repair costs in my own life, thank you very much. Similarly, if you want to write about your battle with cancer, please do. But if you want me to read it, you'd better be sure to acknowledge how fortunate you are that your dilemma lies in choosing which esteemed specialist you seek treatment with, not in wondering if you're going to be able to find a way to get treatment at all.
The poor recognize that the rich are different. It just seems like the rich people never got the memo.
* In the event you are rich, which it seems no one will ever admit to, I'd love to talk to you about investment opportunities in this blog, but that's another matter entirely.
** Not enough to actually do the sort of things it generally takes to be rich - I lack the killer instinct where business is concerned.
*** This post was prompted when I stopped reading a book in disgust after the author**** was dissatisfied to have received a Honda motorcycle rather than a Harley Davidson as a present from his boss to celebrate his 25th anniversary with the company. Heads-up, Mr. Ungrateful Author: You know what most of us will get after 25 years with a company (should we be so fortunate as to get such a thing)? A 26th year, hopefully to be followed by a 27th, a 28th, etc.
**** Who I will do the favor of not naming here.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Solar eclipse, 13 November 2012
There's a solar eclipse tomorrow. Unfortunately, unless you live in northern Australia (or in the ocean just east of northern Australia), you're not going to be able to see it. Fortunately, there are several sites where you can watch the eclipse online - this article from Space.com gives links and more information. I know I've going to have a tab to one of these sites open in the background while I'm working tomorrow, and I hope that you're able to check out this eclipse as well - no matter many eclipse videos or photographs I see, I continue to be amazed by the phenomenon.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
October reading log - Infinite Jest
I haven't finished any books this month, as I've been working on reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. (As finishing this book in a summer is considered an accomplishment, I pretty much flew through it, considering that if I finish in the next few days [as seems likely] I will have finished in just over a month.)
Infinite Jest has turned out to be everything I'd heard it was, in terms of breadth and density. If you want a straightforward "A then B then C" story, this is definitely not the book for you. At about 1/3 of the way in, I still wasn't certain whether there as a story beneath the encrustation of detail or if it was just a mass of encrustation with a hollow core. At halfway in, I was starting to see a story. At 2/3 of the way in, I had found the story, was determined to finish the book to see how it turned out, but swore that I would never read anything by David Foster Wallace again. At 75% I discovered that what I had thought was the story was just a part of the story, and I was getting more excited about it. Now I'm at 90+%, I'm pretty sure I've got a handle on the shape of the story and not only do I want to read Wallace's other books and stories, I'm looking forward to rereading Infinite Jest.
When I do reread Infinite Jest, I'm going to do it in conjunction with reading about the book, which I have studiously avoided this time through so as to force myself to think it out and try to find the patterns myself.
Infinite Jest has turned out to be everything I'd heard it was, in terms of breadth and density. If you want a straightforward "A then B then C" story, this is definitely not the book for you. At about 1/3 of the way in, I still wasn't certain whether there as a story beneath the encrustation of detail or if it was just a mass of encrustation with a hollow core. At halfway in, I was starting to see a story. At 2/3 of the way in, I had found the story, was determined to finish the book to see how it turned out, but swore that I would never read anything by David Foster Wallace again. At 75% I discovered that what I had thought was the story was just a part of the story, and I was getting more excited about it. Now I'm at 90+%, I'm pretty sure I've got a handle on the shape of the story and not only do I want to read Wallace's other books and stories, I'm looking forward to rereading Infinite Jest.
When I do reread Infinite Jest, I'm going to do it in conjunction with reading about the book, which I have studiously avoided this time through so as to force myself to think it out and try to find the patterns myself.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
The paleo diet's fatal flaw?
Over the past year or two I've done some reading about the paleo diet. At at first glance, this seemed to make sense to me: That eating foods that humans had evolved to eat would be the best diet. And yet I couldn't buy into it. I kept having a feeling that there was something missing, some problem in the rationale that would blow the whole thing up. Besides the fact that historical humans didn't follow this diet and seem to have done okay. (Paleo advocates would no doubt tell me that historical humans would have done even better had they followed a paleo diet.) As I was fixing lunch today, the answer occurred to me: Peppers. As an SCA chef can tell you, peppers (along with tomatoes and potatoes) are a New World food. And so a quick web search was in order: Are peppers paleo? Apparently so. But unless you're Native American, your ancestors were only exposed to peppers for 500 years, certainly not enough time (by paleo standards) to have evolved the ability to process them.
Now, I'm not trying to take this as any sort of debunking of the paleo diet. (People who have such large amounts of time, energy, and money invested in an idea aren't so easily swayed.) And if you're currently eating a paleo diet and it's working for you, more power to you. But as for me, I no longer feel the compulsion (and certainly never felt a desire) to go paleo.
Additional trivia: While doing research for this post, I learned that 3 out of the 4 founding members of Black Sabbath are vegans. (Tony Iommi is the odd man out.)
Now, I'm not trying to take this as any sort of debunking of the paleo diet. (People who have such large amounts of time, energy, and money invested in an idea aren't so easily swayed.) And if you're currently eating a paleo diet and it's working for you, more power to you. But as for me, I no longer feel the compulsion (and certainly never felt a desire) to go paleo.
Additional trivia: While doing research for this post, I learned that 3 out of the 4 founding members of Black Sabbath are vegans. (Tony Iommi is the odd man out.)
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