tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18610444519871177602024-02-06T18:17:39.864-08:00Into The EtherUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-58095347929931417342013-03-30T15:19:00.000-07:002013-03-31T09:28:12.057-07:00Everybody eats: a review of Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma"<b style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Why I read this book:</b><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There is arguably no topic about which I know less given how important it is to the course of my life than food and nutrition (see Figure 1). Sure, I know the basics: junk food is bad, fruits and veggies are good, and if you are going to eat chocolate, make sure it is dark, not milk, and preferably Swiss or Belgian. But I have no answers to the questions that require some knowledge of nutrition: Is red meat bad for you because it is red meat, or is it the industrial methods of producing the meat that make it unhealthy? Is wheat bad for you? What about milk? And once the conversation disintegrates to the point where the central question revolves around the proper level of omega-3 fatty acids in your diet, you can forget about it. And where should I shop for my food? Is the organic craze a legitimate movement, or is it just another marketing ploy that exploits our perception of what seems legitimate?</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVsZ60cWh_c_i-KYHU77LS5ryPeEvpMJNvXx7Ju7yCt1nTfGqCcMbVPOKDk33Qm7-7chMKfax4LPbbgxJC1HS8Al35do-_gzIUp4DI6g6NA28DZsnsGYg59Wgqt-iotrioBYAwEE3KD_w/s1600/Omnivore's+Dilemma+-+Knowledge+Value.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVsZ60cWh_c_i-KYHU77LS5ryPeEvpMJNvXx7Ju7yCt1nTfGqCcMbVPOKDk33Qm7-7chMKfax4LPbbgxJC1HS8Al35do-_gzIUp4DI6g6NA28DZsnsGYg59Wgqt-iotrioBYAwEE3KD_w/s400/Omnivore's+Dilemma+-+Knowledge+Value.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Figure 1 - Knowledge of Food/Value-Add ratio in my life</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="font-family: Arial;"><br />
<div style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Omnivore's dilemma" may not answer all my questions, but it is a start. Help me, Michael Pollan. Help me.</span></div></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Rating</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1. Twinkie</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2. French Fries</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">3. Supermarket ground beef</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">4. Organic chicken</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>5. Eggs from a hen named Scarlet from your local farm</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Takeaways</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>- Read this book</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">This is an interesting, well-researched, and well-told dissertation on food. Michael Pollan asks a simple question: “What’s for dinner?” and then proceeds to walk through the four food chains that produce the food for the dinner table: industrial, big organic, pastoral (small farms), and food procured by foraging. By tracing the sources of our dinner from the beginning to the end, Pollan exposes the incongruities and the disorder in the way we eat. The complexities of the way we get our food, Pollan argues, stem from the omnivore’s dilemma. Unlike most animals, who are limited in the type of food they eat, we humans are quite un-picky in our food selection (I had a friend in middle school who used to eat pieces of paper for time before an adoring crowd of classmates - farther proof of the superiority of the human digestive system over that of other animals). This gift is also a curse - if you can eat anything, how do you know what is safe? What stops you from eating other humans? Tradition and culture guide and moderate the rules of eating, but the advances in agriculture (we can grow more, faster, cheaper), food sciences (we can now break down food into the smallest units and rebuild artificial food systems, like a twinkie), and transportation have removed some of the limitations (availability of food, seasonality) and have pushed the limit on what and how much food we can intake.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOMWb127kVW2Cz6VhjwF3jUWBh2wDwEv8wBsbWL-TzCrt7kZmfh5Zz-bIEOnz81TJhWZ8t-DO_Tz5SNGY8kJO436F6X0L_ldY1J7pK-Fv2MGSFx46dEgy6Pt3pg7lC55-MB-ykAbkSReo/s1600/Omnivore's+Dilemma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOMWb127kVW2Cz6VhjwF3jUWBh2wDwEv8wBsbWL-TzCrt7kZmfh5Zz-bIEOnz81TJhWZ8t-DO_Tz5SNGY8kJO436F6X0L_ldY1J7pK-Fv2MGSFx46dEgy6Pt3pg7lC55-MB-ykAbkSReo/s640/Omnivore's+Dilemma.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Figure 2 - America's Omnivore's Dilemma is definitely a first world problem.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">You get the sense that you can ask Pollan to write about any subject, and you will get your money's worth. There is so much cool, important information in this book - did you know that everything is made of corn? Like..everything. If Mexicans knew how much more corn Americans consume per person than them, they would probably be more upset over that than over the fact that the </span><a href="http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/03/27/mexico-0-usa-0-world-cup-qualifying-match-recap" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #021eaa; letter-spacing: 0px;">USA national soccer team tied Mexico at the Estadio Azteca in World Cup qualifying</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">. And do you vaguely remember your teacher blabbering something about the Haber process in freshman biology while you were busy trying to figure out if anyone would go to Homecoming with you? Well, “Omnivore’s Dilemma” accomplishes what your biology teacher never could - you will finally understand why the Haber process was so important.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Pollan is a good journalist and a good writer, but, above all, he is really passionate about food. I mean, the man REALLY likes food. For the first time, I associate term "foodie" with a respectable human being (see table 1). To be precise, Pollan is a foodie intellectual, and throughout the book, he weaves the relation of food to culture, human development, and philosophy. </span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Table 1 - My top three pet peeves</i></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse;"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color: #bec0bf; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 17.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 30.4px;" valign="top"><div style="font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>#</b></span></div></td><td style="background-color: #bec0bf; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 17.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 411.5px;" valign="top"><div style="font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Pet peeve</span></div></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 89.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 30.4px;" valign="top"><div style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1</span></div></td><td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 89.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 411.5px;" valign="top"><div style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The driver in the next lane who darts into the middle of the intersection in traffic when the light turns yellow, then cuts into your lane when cars move up while you wait patiently at the light. Three minutes of your life and your altruistic attitude that day - both gone in a flash.</span></div></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 53.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 30.4px;" valign="top"><div style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2</span></div></td><td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 53.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 411.5px;" valign="top"><div style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When people do not put the cap back on the soda bottle. I can practically see the bubbles escaping. Why would you want to drink flat soda? (OK, this is my problem).</span></div></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 53.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 30.4px;" valign="top"><div style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">3</span></div></td><td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 53.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 411.5px;" valign="top"><div style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">People who exclaim, "I am a total foodie!" No, you just like to eat out a lot. Unless you are Michael Pollan - you are cool.</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is not difficult to guess Pollan’s political dispositions or his conclusions (you are reading the musings of a Berkeley professor, not a Big Oil executive after all), but neither does he impose his views on the reader. And this is largely what makes reading the book so great - the experience feels like a long, involved conversation that delves into all corners of food, our attitude towards the sources of it, and the implications of those attitudes. It is a conversation that commands your attention and keeps your interest because the author balances the philosophical arguments (“Is it wrong to eat animals? Are they capable of suffering?”) with practical considerations (“this chicken is sooo tasty!*”). So when Pollan talks about his conflicting feelings of excitement and guilt over his hunting expedition, you understand. And when Pollan takes his family to McDonald’s and then proceeds to illustrate the true cost of that meal when you consider the skewed, petroleum-fueled, unsustainable economics of industrial food, you think: “That was probably the only time in the last ten years you had a fast food burger, Mr. Pollan, but I appreciate you walking the mean streets for us in order to get street cred”. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">But you understand. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"></div><i style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">- Think about your food </i><br />
<ul><ul><li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are so many “big” issues at stake in the discussion about how we eat:</span></li><li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Is it morally acceptable to eat animals?</span></li><li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">How do we balance the profit-driven engine of capitalism with harmonious existence with Nature? How much should be driven “bottom up” (consumer awareness/demand) versus “top down” (food policy)?</span></li><li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Why has In-N-Out not opened up operations on the East Coast?</span></li><li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What is Man’s rightful place in the Universe? Are we bigger than Nature, or are we but a small part of it?</span></li></ul><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I do not have the answers to these questions. I suspect that we will never stop progressing, and, of course, I like to have strawberries in the winter as much as the next guy, but we have to realize that our petroleum-fueled, antibiotics-driven methods of producing and consuming food are unsustainable. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Neither can I claim to have major revelations about the way I eat, at least for now. I am not quite yet willing to forego the convenience of my local supermarket for trips to the closest self-sustaining farm, but hey - I am eating a lot less meat than I used to, and my friendship with the McDonald’s drive-through lady slowly dissipated over time**, so that is a start, right? </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We will come back to the topic of food (and eventually, nutrition) again. For those of you who are as new to the topic as I am, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” serves as a terrific introduction. In this book, Michael Pollan produces a treatise on food. He also asks us to think about it. For the knowledge and for that simple request, I am grateful. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i></i></span><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Notes:</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">*The examples in quotes are not Pollan’s exact words, I am just paraphrasing for effect. If you are going to judge, judge me, not Pollan.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">** She always used to give me extra ketchup packets, and I think of her fondly to this day.</span></div></ul><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-74203347182942202322013-03-11T19:46:00.002-07:002013-03-11T19:46:57.817-07:00Thank heavens I was not born in the Middle Ages: A review of Bernard Cornwell's "Agincourt"<br />
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<b>Why I read this book:</b></div>
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Ah, historical fiction. The union of the two components in this genre makes so much sense you have to wonder why it was not invented sooner*. This genre is a perfect example of the "opposites attract" principle. By itself, history is informative and probably important, but kind of boring. Fiction is for cat people. Together, however, history and fiction are exciting and educational. It is basically like eating a cake and getting the nutritional value of vegetables. So let's learn about Agincourt, but let's have fun while we are at it!</div>
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<b>Rating:</b></div>
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1. The Black Plague - the worst.</div>
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2. The Western Schism - probably should not be second worst, it was not that bad.</div>
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<b>3. Serfdom - that must have sucked, but definitely beats the Plague.</b></div>
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4. Dukedom - people have to call you "Your Grace". I could get used to that.</div>
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5. Age of Discovery - godsend for the Europeans. Not so much for everyone else.</div>
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<b>Takeaways:</b></div>
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The book was ok. Just ok. The story line was just too predictable and not particularly captivating. You know that feeling - like when you meet someone for a first date, and you know immediately that the date is going to be perfectly pleasant, but will go nowhere. And so you exchange the usual lines: "Yes, I also really want to go to New Zealand!", "I know, Tina Fey is just so brilliant!", "Oh, so you are tapering now?", but at the end of the night, you are left with an unmemorable evening and a $100 dent in your wallet. Your own fault, of course - who gets dinner on the first date? </div>
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Anyways, the most enjoyable part of the book was the epilogue where the author explained his fascination with the Battle of Agincourt, a major event in the Hundred Years' War, when a vastly outnumbered English Army defeated the French thanks to the prowess of its long-bowmen. Perhaps I have gotten used to reading dry history books or perhaps the originality and dedication of the author shone brightest during this part of the book, but I greatly enjoyed his discussion about his sources and the analysis of how many fighters there were on both sides. I even liked the fact that the author explained that he was trying to convey how brutal the fighting was more than the numerous parts of the story where the author went into gory details describing the "actual" battles. Describing gory battle scenes is one of the few areas of story-telling a movie would do a better job of conveying than a book, and I wish the story line of the book was more engaging instead.</div>
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So should you read this book? Sure**. But probably not. You should, since we are on the topic, at least read the Wikipedia entry for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt" target="_blank">Agincourt</a> because you never know when it might come up in conversation. Well, alright, you do know - practically never. But if it does! And what if that attractive person you are talking to loves the Hundred Years' War?! Then that's true love, my friend. </div>
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*I have no idea when the historical fiction genre was created. It was probably invented by Hammurabi. That guy was way ahead of his time. The only things he did not invent are the printing press and the telephone, and that may have been on purpose so that the human race would not get depressed from not inventing anything after he was gone.</div>
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**In all seriousness, you will be better served by reading this book than by watching whatever trash is on TV right now, so you can buy the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Agincourt-Novel-Bernard-Cornwell/dp/0061578908" target="_blank">here</a>. Unless you are watching "House of Cards" on Netflix. Then do not buy this book. Continue watching that show instead.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-74602693985186681432013-02-24T14:38:00.002-08:002013-02-24T17:00:18.202-08:00Talk about credibility: A review of Viktor Frankl's "A Man's Search For Meaning"<b style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;">Why I read this book:</b><br />
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By now, the formula for how I choose my books should be pretty clear:</div>
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25% - Amazon's Daily deal</div>
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25% - Whatever David Brooks mentions in his column</div>
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25% - Friends' recommendations</div>
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25% - Whatever gets cross-referenced in these three sources: The Atlantic, Harper's, and the New York Times (aka the Yuppie Trinity).</div>
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I saw enough references to Viktor Frankl's "A Man's Search for Meaning" among my aforementioned sources that I added it to my "to read" list. You can then imagine my giddiness when I saw this book pop up as an Amazon Daily deal! The choice is clear.</div>
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<b>Rating:</b></div>
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1. I need to find new sources</div>
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2. I need to at least adjust the weighting</div>
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3. The book is as mediocre as my mainstream sources</div>
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4. The book and my formula will prepare me for dinner table conversation in polite company</div>
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<b>5. The formula is working! I just need to add Youtube so that I don't miss things like the </b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f--Ko6sIBsg" target="_blank"><span style="color: #042eee;"><b>Harlem Shake</b></span></a></div>
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<b>Takeaways:</b></div>
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First of all, you should read this book. This is a potentially life-changing book. If that does not move you, let's try a different approach. The book is widely known, and it is short. If you read it, next time someone says "There is a great book called "A Man's Search for Meaning", have you read it?", you can say "Yes! I have read it" (because it is short), and then the person you are talking to will think you are a respectable person because the main attribute of the book is not that it is short, but that it is potentially life-changing.</div>
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Viktor Frankl was an Austrian professor of Neurology and Psychiatry who developed "logotherapy" - a method of psychotherapy based on the premise that the fundamental drive of human nature is to find meaning (as opposed to power or pleasure). Frankl spent years in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Frankl survived; his parents, brother, and wife, like millions of others, did not.</div>
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In "A Man's Search for Meaning", Frankl weaves the foundations of his philosophy with his personal experience in the concentration camps. Frankl believes that a person can find meaning primarily in one of three ways: through devotion to a task, unconditional love of another human being, and, in those circumstances when fate leaves no other way, the ability to bear suffering with dignity. Frankl's thoughts are wise, but what gives his words gravity is of course his personal struggle. When a man who has walked the tightrope between life and death speaks about what truly matters, you listen. Here is Frankl on love:</div>
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<i>"But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look...Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love." </i></div>
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The words are beautiful and tragic, amplified by the deeply personal tone. Frankl then reflects on other aspects of grasping for meaning. As a man who devoted his professional life to understanding what drives us, Frankl builds his observations of prisoner behavior into his theories. For instance, Frankl observes that the survival of a prisoner depended on his will to survive. Once the hopelessness of the situation undercut a person's spirit, the biological shutdown soon followed. The thought of reuniting with loved ones provided the lone reason to hold on for many of the prisoners. For some of those fortunate enough to survive the concentration camps, the breaking point came after liberation when they discovered that their loved ones perished, and the world moved on without the survivors. </div>
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"<i>Woe to him who found that the person whose memory alone had given him courage in camp did not exist anymore! Woe to him who, when the day of his dreams finally came, found it so different from all he had longed for!</i>", Frankl exclaims abstractly in a tone of a sympathetic observer. </div>
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And yet here is a man who found himself in that very situation! You would not know that from the book - I only discovered that Frankl lost his wife when I read other sources to find out more about this remarkable man. Frankl himself never mentions this fact - a particularly striking point given his deeply personal expressions about love and his wife.</div>
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So now you begin to understand the spiritual fortitude of this remarkable man and his ability to devote himself to love and work and to transcend suffering. That detached tone is the trace of a man whose spirit is so resilient, so otherworldly, that he has come to symbolize the redeeming qualities of human beings at a time when the very nature of a Man is on trial. Where is the anger, the bitterness? In any other circumstance, we may be tempted to dismiss a man so devoid of normal human reactions as a naive peacenik. Yet here is a man who has been to Hell and back. His words, so serene and wise, stand in stark contrast with the horrors he experienced and command attention. This book is foremost a spiritual expression - a testament that some values are universal, and desperately needed proof that the human race is not a self-consuming cancer. </div>
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While reading "A Man's Search for Meaning", I could not help but compare this book to the other well-known memoir of living through the Holocaust, Eli Wiesel's "Night" because the tone of the books is so noticeably different. </div>
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Frankl is philosophical, spiritual even. His beliefs are so strong, he transcends human suffering. Wiesel's account, on the other hand, is searing, and his tone is antithetical to Frankl's. God? He hangs on the gallows with the countless, nameless bodies. Faith? It was consumed by the flames that swallowed the infants who were tossed in by the truckloads in front of Wiesel's eyes. </div>
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The difference in the philosophies of both of these men is striking. I find it all the more astonishing then that the lives of both of these remarkable men, despite the difference in their opinions about faith and the human soul, seem to converge on a common path. Both men devoted their lives to helping others, telling their story, and working tirelessly to make sure that the world does not go mad again. </div>
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Viktor Frankl leaves this final tally of the struggle for human nature:</div>
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"Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."</div>
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As the last of the members of that generation pass on, the accounts of Frankl and Wiesel take on added significance. For our sake, we must never forget their story. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-70414543964152648172013-01-30T17:02:00.000-08:002013-01-30T17:07:36.295-08:00What is all the commotion about? A review of "The Hunger Games" trilogy<b style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;">Why I read this book:</b><br />
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After reading over one thousand pages of "<a href="http://thisbloghasnegativemass.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-glimpse-into-hell-on-earth-review-of.html" target="_blank">The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich</a>", I needed a change of pace. Pouring over an unflinching, dry account of history is hard work. I needed something light, something popular, something sweet after eating my vegetables, if you know what I mean (yup, it is still true: you cannot say "if you know what I mean" without it sounding like sexual innuendo... if you know what I mean). </div>
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Perfect timing for "The Hunger Games" trilogy, and besides - people cannot seem to stop talking about it. I even read that archery is exploding in popularity due to these book and the movie (I swear, you can make anything cool if you put it in a movie). Sure, I am late to the party, but I am late to everything - I did not even learn how to ride a bike until I was twelve, so being behind the curve does not phase me. Besides, what better way to change direction away from World War II than to read about children being pitted against each other in a death match? Right... Oh well, too late now - I already purchased the books. </div>
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1. You have a decent chance of finding something better by sticking your hand down a dumpster bin.</div>
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2. You can find something better in a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes" target="_blank"><span style="color: #042eee;">thrift shop</span></a>, and not in a cool way like Macklemore and Lewis.</div>
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3. You can find this book at your corner CVS. You can probably save a bit at Walmart, but you are willing to pay for convenience.</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><b>4. This book should come with a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfNzZre-sIU#t=0m47s">gift wrap, paper mache, and cinnamon sticks</a>.</b></span></div>
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5. This book belongs in your private collection, next to the busts of Augustus and Bach. </div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;">Takeaways:</b><br />
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These are my thoughts as I made my way through the trilogy:</div>
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“The writing is rather simplistic. The sentences are short, and she writes like she is speaking.”</div>
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“This book is clearly aimed for 14-year olds and the unwashed masses. Everyone around me is a peasant.”</div>
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“Oh no, am I just getting old and bitter and out of touch?”</div>
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“This little sister angle is totally working. If I ever write anything, I must use that.”</div>
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“OK, I have to admit the concept is pretty clever.”</div>
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“Crap, it’s 12:30am.”</div>
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“I need to totally open a Hunger Games course. Some sort of a hybrid between a survival camp and paintball. Maybe have ziplining? No, that’s stupid. The ziplining, that is – the Hunger Games course is so money.”</div>
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"I wonder what Suzanne Collins looks like. I am picturing a Suzie Orman, but with dark hair."</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDi-vtmC9MvKPV8WxnU5OItiubZCyz5QD6d4bs6hpud1_Xwg_vydS09NTytyOsvGvRHaKTXS6LUH_60gMb6dRBK7hcSD7SUGgpH0mDrDlmS3fQj7GeyieB-VjkEJjjW-TdZs2hXuGEvMY/s1600/suze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDi-vtmC9MvKPV8WxnU5OItiubZCyz5QD6d4bs6hpud1_Xwg_vydS09NTytyOsvGvRHaKTXS6LUH_60gMb6dRBK7hcSD7SUGgpH0mDrDlmS3fQj7GeyieB-VjkEJjjW-TdZs2hXuGEvMY/s320/suze.jpg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">No, YOU stop it, Suze Orman!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #232323; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;">"Crap, it's 12:30am again."</span></div>
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"There is so much girl power in this book! I like that. If I were in a book club, I would definitely focus on that aspect of the book and the broader societal implications it carries. I should join a book club."</div>
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"If I find out Suzanne Collins is some crazy Glenn Beck fan, and this book is really her vision of what happens when Obamacare is fully implemented, I am going to be pissed."</div>
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"A book club with a manly twist. Maybe a Crossfit/book club hybrid? Today's workout: 15 minutes to find your one rep max squat snatch, 10 minutes to discuss the Hunger Games, then 'Fran'. Man, I am on fire!" </div>
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"Wow, I was way off:"</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ11YTlzgKdKaaB3xAvrNcPMFjrt-EaZwDqMWuIy09910ExuKy7Km9tUvcx3KTj1YIsrVGo1VHopLsx3IOtSNSt1QZriy1iqLVN4S5yLPfOERSZxya0FLNHM5d9RQaZfyb2Sz_y9J_xOc/s1600/t100poll_collins_suzanne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ11YTlzgKdKaaB3xAvrNcPMFjrt-EaZwDqMWuIy09910ExuKy7Km9tUvcx3KTj1YIsrVGo1VHopLsx3IOtSNSt1QZriy1iqLVN4S5yLPfOERSZxya0FLNHM5d9RQaZfyb2Sz_y9J_xOc/s320/t100poll_collins_suzanne.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">In case you were wondering: Suzanne Collins does not look like Suze Orman.</span></td></tr>
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"Crossfit/book club combination!? That is so STUPID. What was I thinking yesterday?"</div>
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"Still on board with the Hunger Games survival course idea, people would eat that up. If people pay good money to have their testicles zapped in ToughMudder/Zombie-thon/whatever, they will definitely pay for the Hunger Games survival course. Suzanne and I will split the profits 30/70. Ok, 40/60."</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-90942808949259250112013-01-16T20:33:00.003-08:002013-01-16T20:33:43.181-08:00A glimpse into Hell on Earth: a review of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"<br />
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<b>Why I read this book:</b></div>
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My initial introduction to William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" came several years ago when my friend Dexter*, whom I introduced earlier in this blog, and I were trading stories about ambitious projects - books of heft in theme and volume, the kind that cool the passions of bookworms everywhere. At the time, I was inspired to pick up "War and Peace" (I made it to page 300 - no small feat; the book has been sitting open on that very page on my night stand for the last two years); Dexter suffered the same fate with "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich".</div>
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With that introduction to this book, I was only too happy to pick up "The Rise and Fall" when Amazon offered it as a Kindle Daily deal. So many pages of knowledge for so little money - let's do this thing, Shirer!</div>
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1. A casting net - seriously, that's just insulting. These gladiators are trying to kill me, and you outfit me for crabbing in the Chesapeake bay.</div>
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2. A dagger - Excellent for slicing an apple, not so much to defend against the a-hole in the chariot.</div>
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3. A spear - "Hey, look, did Caesar just vomit all over the Assyrian Prime Minister?" (spear in the back). It could work...</div>
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4. A trident - It's all relative; I could have been that poor guy with the net.</div>
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<b>5. A sword and shield - the complete package</b> </div>
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<b>Takeaways:</b></div>
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Before you open this book, make sure that you first visit the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. Go there because a book, no matter how powerful or revealing, cannot strike your most primal sensations as your eyes or your ears can. Go there and walk the exhibits; read the correspondence from Nazi bureaucrats who treated death as a production process as they casually noted that the methods of mass murder at their disposal were not killing people fast enough. Feel the shiver run down your back as your mind slowly registers the horrid contrast between the numbers and projections stated as a matter of fact in a manner devoid of any emotion, as if the work were producing nuts and bolts, and the brutality that lies behind those words. Go there and stare at the mountain of shoes as it finally dawns on you that people, no different than you and I, walked in those shoes right up to the moment they were slaughtered on a scale that has known no precedent in its calculated brutality and magnitude. Go there because chances are that you grew up in a part of the world that grew prosperous and peaceful on the rubble of the most devastating war the world has ever known. Go there because you cannot really fathom what happened during the reign of the Third Reich because your parents taught you to share when you were a child, and your Mom cried when you pushed that annoying kid in kindergarten when he tried to take your fire truck even though he already had the police car AND the ambulance, and you found the whole experience so stressful that the lines between what is wrong and what is right, and what the boundaries of conduct are, became engrained in you at an early age. Go there because your upbringing and the fortunate timing of your existence has shielded you from realizing the true depths of evil that humans are capable of. Go there so that you may realize that humans have the capacity to organize all their resourcefulness, intelligence, and passion into such hatred, cruelty, and genocidal atrocities that even the imagination of early civilizations and religions could not replicate it in their representations of evil. </div>
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After you internalize in your psyche the human capacity for unspeakable evil, you should proceed to read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". For even as the book cannot make you feel the sheer terror of what transpired during World War II, these pages will meticulously catalog every minute detail of the events that plunged the world into utter destruction and help you understand the events that transpired, the causes of this madness, and ultimately, what we can do to prevent something like from ever happening again. For a history book, the writing is surprisingly smooth; an impressive accomplishment given the subject and the incredible array of sources that the author has meticulously compiled for this authoritative study.</div>
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How did this horror happen? The rise of the National Socialists (Nazis) in Germany unequivocally owes its success to the unbending will and determination of a mad, but brilliant, maniac, albeit Hitler's crude, hateful philosophy found a fertile environment. Shirer argues that Hitler's dreams of German conquest and expansion resonated strongly with a people with a long martial history.</div>
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He does have a point - naming your reign the THIRD Reich does imply some continuity (the first Reich was the Holy Roman Empire and the second Reich was the Hohenzollern Empire). Shirer also draws interesting parallels between Hitler's philosophical foundations behind his mad rants in Mein Kempf and the works of some of the influential thinkers in German history. Shirer paints a damning portrait of the complicity or lack of resistance to Germany's descent into an instrument of the most immoral destruction in history by the most powerful elements of the German society: the old guard of the government, the business interests, and the Army. Once Hitler ascended to power, becoming bigger than God and Law, and turned his maniacal hatred outside Germany's boundaries, the duty of stopping him fell to the fragmented, selfish, and mutually distrusting world powers. Disaster was already guaranteed to Germany's neighbours by the time a wavering Britain, defeatist France, treacherous Soviet Union, and an aloof United States realized the extent and brutality of Hitler's aims. Among these titans, historians of the Western world have reserved the greatest condemnation for Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler's lies and unchallenged takeover of Austria and Czechoslovakia. This hardly seems fair - while Chamberlain certainly misjudged Hitler's capacity for lying, treachery, and barbarism, the United States was only too happy to stay on the sidelines while the Old World destroyed itself into oblivion, and the Soviet Union was busy scheming with Hitler to take its share of conquests! These historians have clearly fallen for the "oldest sibling" bias: when the parents get home to find the couch on fire and the chandelier sticking out of the television, the oldest child gets punished on the principle of bearing responsibility for the domain in the parents' absence. Never mind that the middle child decided to practice her aim with a bow and lit arrows a la the Hunger games; never mind that the youngest decided that he is Tarzan; the oldest child shoulders the blame. In the case of Chamberlain, it must be noted that while history has judged the old gentleman harshly, he fought for peace with tenacity and conviction; and once he realized that he was faced with an aggressor with a bloodthirst that could not be satisfied, Chamberlain was resolute and steadfast in his opposition to farther Nazi aggression.</div>
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Chamberlain did not have a precedent for the cunning and evil that was his adversary. In no prior time in human history has such madness of hatred united with such daring in manipulation of human desire for reason and peace , and with the world's most powerful military at the disposal of a ruthless maniac.</div>
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But we do have that precedent now. And even as the last of the generation that defended the world from the horror of Nazism pass on, books like "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" live on to remind us that the quest for global peace and harmony cannot be a fool's utopian errand, but must rather be the essential goal to ensure that we do not destroy each other. This book is a reminder that war is hell, and that we cannot unleash it lightly; and just as we must resist the temptation of war when the national mood is that of bloodlust, we must not give in to naiveté and weakness when we are faced with an insatiable evil.</div>
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Note:<br />
*Dexter - as in the kid from "Dexter's laboratory", not the serial killer from Showtime's "Dexter".</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-44994879306912471372013-01-05T09:50:00.004-08:002013-01-05T10:00:07.548-08:00Happy New Year: A taste of Bay Area Crossfit gyms<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">
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I met the New Year in San Francisco, and, along with walking the crooked streets and tasting the local fair-trade, all-organic fair, I could not pass up this opportunity to visit some of the Crossfit gyms in the area. This trip was the first time I have had a chance to see how gyms other than my own box operate, and I really enjoyed the experience.</div>
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The first gym I visited is Crossfit Santa Cruz. For Crossfit aficionados, this place holds some mystical significance: this is the "original" Crossfit, the place where Prometheus stole fire from the gods, and where the original disciples received the gospel of Greg Glassman. True to form, CF Santa Cruz sits inconspicuously in a row of the uniform garages that, for some reason, seem to house in equal proportion vintage clothes shops, industrial paint dealers, and chain-smoking Eastern European mechanics who specialize in oil changes and tint jobs.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9JRplNC3lwKPN4a09uUaL2vJ6Mz8Mqh8VQ2DaQVNpm7z-ZLAiOMGWRhi4STaNaar76spTuo13Tzg1Cx3cdDxQw7NDAEVzAiU4fpU7GRn3q1Gjo67AqXlndgzx_DZFeq3655GQOjMGftE/s1600/IMG_0872.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9JRplNC3lwKPN4a09uUaL2vJ6Mz8Mqh8VQ2DaQVNpm7z-ZLAiOMGWRhi4STaNaar76spTuo13Tzg1Cx3cdDxQw7NDAEVzAiU4fpU7GRn3q1Gjo67AqXlndgzx_DZFeq3655GQOjMGftE/s320/IMG_0872.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You know you have found a true Crossfit box if you can get 20" rims next door while you work out.</td></tr>
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The gym is small, about half the size of my home gym. Despite the fact that it was 9am on New Year's Eve, there were about fifteen people already warming up, dispelling my fear about possibly being the only people to show up. People consistently came up to us (my friend Maximus* and I) to introduce themselves, and that was before we officially went around in a circle to introduce us to start the class. When I joked about the West Coast friendliness, a guy later confessed that the owner makes the regulars do burpees if the gym members do not introduce themselves to visitors. From this, I formed several conclusions:</div>
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1. No one likes burpees.</div>
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2. The gym must get a lot of visitors.</div>
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3. West Coasters are still way friendlier than us (it took six months for our Navy jock-nerds to acknowledge my presence when I first joined).</div>
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I was surprised to find no overt indication of the gym's legacy as the original gym. Only a careful scan of the records on the wall, where "Back Squat - 450" was scribbled along with the name "P. Barber", betrayed the rich history of this unassuming place. I felt like an archeologist examining the ruins of the Jerusalem Old Town. Danielle, the owner and coach, was tireless in her coaching, and I learned a lot during the class.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwTbp-S_-QBfk8S2fbu_dKUnOrMAPiTfsGITNK5UQ5ObgVYAbRy1Rq_T7Jtd6hUJ7rumSZvt4EOw033jRvJ9N-3C2E8Ey2lmggsccVzH_AYKhr9rzSDRTdJtfEJb3QfO3rj59zPX5tHw/s1600/9693861_orig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwTbp-S_-QBfk8S2fbu_dKUnOrMAPiTfsGITNK5UQ5ObgVYAbRy1Rq_T7Jtd6hUJ7rumSZvt4EOw033jRvJ9N-3C2E8Ey2lmggsccVzH_AYKhr9rzSDRTdJtfEJb3QfO3rj59zPX5tHw/s320/9693861_orig.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what Pat Barber does when he is NOT working out. Imagine what he does at the gym!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">The next day I went to check out San Francisco Crossfit. This place has apparently gained some fame in the Crossfit community. It is an outdoor facility in full view of the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge, and coached by mobility expert Kelly Starrett and gymnastics guru Carl Paoli. I was amused to note that quite a few of our ladies who mentioned these guys and their gym to me assumed the same "he-is-so-dreamy" tone that they use when talking about Hugh Jackman or Patrick Dempsey. Guys, take note: mobility is sexy. And while I, regrettably, did not get a chance to meet the dreamboats themselves, I can certainly attest to the gym's emphasis on mobility. We did enough one-armed overhead squats to last me a lifetime, and my shoulders are still sore even as I write these words.</span><br />
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San Francisco crossfit has a lot of space, and there were a lot of people at the class (to be fair, this was the only class offered on New Year's Day). The coaches told everyone to turn to their neighbors and introduce each other, and I understood that there were a lot of drop ins in the class. That, plus the sheer number of people in the class made the experience feel quite impersonal even though I chatted with my neighbors, and the coaches were helpful and friendly. I am glad I dragged myself to experience a workout at San Francisco Crossfit - they are soon leaving their open-air spot with a grand view of the Golden Gate bridge for a state-of-the-art facility somewhere else in the city.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglH3uWFkGF2QrEnqFLjcx8qIzD-5gPnaCaoMURaRQK7-SDtUKEiOKi0l9OFp-lSyPq65w_aXDdbDouMrFH7iakDVDl1A67n00rkRSpfNEZgYuDLZyvHd13yJKbzwO4v7cD6_oPYlIAnPI/s1600/Golden+Gate+bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglH3uWFkGF2QrEnqFLjcx8qIzD-5gPnaCaoMURaRQK7-SDtUKEiOKi0l9OFp-lSyPq65w_aXDdbDouMrFH7iakDVDl1A67n00rkRSpfNEZgYuDLZyvHd13yJKbzwO4v7cD6_oPYlIAnPI/s320/Golden+Gate+bridge.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Incredible picture of the Golden Gate bridge courtesy of Maximus.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">My biggest takeaway from my trip is that size matters. A small gym fosters relationships and translates into results. The coaches know their flock and understand their particular needs, strengths, and weaknesses. In the small confines of Crossfit Santa Cruz, Danielle (the coach) wasted no time critiquing my overhead squat even though I had known her for all of fifteen minutes. We get this level of coaching at my home gym. The gym members get to know each other, and this familiarity is a powerful motivator. Everyone wants to be fit and strong and to have the ability to do splits like Van Damme (when did the sun set on that career? And why did I not get a say in that decision?), but that abstract desire dissipates when you first open your eyes on a Monday morning or start shutting down your workspace after a tiring work day. Knowing that people you know are waiting at the gym to go through the class with you and push you along is the most effective way to bring you closer to the results you desire.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilujCaVYymD0jto6eyiwmAwkt4hr8EJ1P20YOq2tKQK45W_aR8qHnYYnuAuQD6EL7_cVUSydUa8mmTgAXHFsLoiBOSDOGAsOAMUYlzjCWRrtEomtSWBj_k2UgAxpqMsOx3bhyw69efeD0/s1600/van-damme-300x168.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilujCaVYymD0jto6eyiwmAwkt4hr8EJ1P20YOq2tKQK45W_aR8qHnYYnuAuQD6EL7_cVUSydUa8mmTgAXHFsLoiBOSDOGAsOAMUYlzjCWRrtEomtSWBj_k2UgAxpqMsOx3bhyw69efeD0/s1600/van-damme-300x168.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">JCVD would probably like San Francisco Crossfit.</td></tr>
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Notes:<br />
*Maximus is not his real name (yes, I also kind of wish it were).<br />
I do not own all of the images used in this post, and I am grateful for the implicit permission of the owners as to their use. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-62360357932868518832012-11-25T16:28:00.004-08:002012-11-25T16:42:20.623-08:00Eventually everyone gets shot: a review of "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray<b style="font-size: 16px;">Why I read this book:</b><br />
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Charles Murray's "Coming Apart: the State of White America, 1960 - 2010" made quite a splash among the editorial pages of the major newspapers, magazines, and the like outfits upon its publication. Murray, a political scientist and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, demonstrates that a gargantuan class divide has formed and accelerated in the last several decades as compared to the interconnected lifestyles of the American classes in the sixties. Murray argues that the confluence of education, technology, and enhanced mobility has led to the isolation of the elite classes in their own geographic, cultural, and social bubble at the same time as the lower classes have experienced a shocking decline in social capital measured by factors such as marriage rates, industriousness, and religiousness. The author focuses on the whites of America to remove race as a variable in this alarming discussion of the disintegration of the American social fabric.<br />
When my favorite columnist, David Brooks, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/opinion/brooks-the-great-divorce.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #042eee;">raved about the book in his column</span></a>, I decided to see for myself what the hype was about. Looks like "The Hunger Games" will have to wait.</div>
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<b>Rating:</b></div>
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<b><br />
</b>1. Somali shillings</div>
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2. Uzbekistani som</div>
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3.Turkish lira</div>
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4. Mexican peso</div>
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<b>5. US dollar, baby.</b></div>
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<b>Takeaways:</b></div>
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<b><br />
</b>The book comprises three main parts: demonstration of trends and data that identifies the geographic isolation of the elites and the disintegration of social capital in the lower classes, root cause analysis of the problem, and lastly, the author's recommendation for addressing the problem of the downward trend among the lower classes and the issue of the growing divide between the elite classes and everyone else.</div>
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The first part of the book produces the evidence for the conclusions that made "Coming Apart" the talk of the nation: the affluent and the educated are congregating in a handful of pockets of zip codes around major cities, flourishing, sipping good coffee, and living their lives largely unaffected by the rest of society, while the working class whites have experienced a sharply pronounced increase in unemployment rates (both willful and forced) and births out of wedlock as well as a corresponding decline in marriage rate and religious and civic participation.</div>
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Murray spends a considerable amount of time explaining his methodology using sexy terms such as "multivariate analysis" and producing a wide array of graphs to support his findings. While such discussions focus on the technicals more than the average reader (me) would care about, the discovery of trends and revealing graphs grasp at the same pleasure circuits as the more prettily wrapped works of social and behavioral economics such as "Freakonomics" and everything Malcolm Gladwell ever wrote.</div>
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The second and third parts of the book focus on the underlying causes of the divide between classes and the decay of the lower class and contain the author's views on addressing these issues. These sections of the book are subjective and open to debate (perhaps this is why every mention of "Coming Apart" that I saw in the newspapers and magazines cherry-picked only the conclusions of the first part of the book and ignore these sections), but they made a tremendous impression on me and garnered the book the highest of the ratings.</div>
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For starters, Murray spends a considerable amount of time discussing why the stratification of various elements of the American society is bad for the health of the country. At a time when inequality, economic or social, is one of the most charged political topics, how often have you stopped to think about if and why that is an issue? How often do you hear pundits and policy makers provide that explanation? The answer is practically never. You cannot, however, escape the hysterical cries of "We are the 99%" on the extreme left, finding their scapegoat in the richest 1% and short-sightedly focusing on a symptom instead of a cure; nor can you miss the roars of "socialism" and "class warfare" of the far right when the topic of inequality comes up, as they turn a deaf ear to the tremors of the changing times and choose the tactics of a shouting chid over a reasonable conversation with the other side. Murray devotes a number of pages to explain what most of us inherently know: that social trust and cohesion between citizens constitute the basic material for the success of the American project, and this effort alone elevates the book past much of the traffic I encounter on the television and the editorial pages of newspapers. </div>
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<span style="background-color: #fffb01;"><br />
</span>Murray is a libertarian, and many of his views are unconventional and stir controversy, as he readily acknowledges. They are also untenable for all practical purposes. For instance, he argues that the vast amount of resources that our government devotes to fighting social ills with self-evident lack of results are so mishandled, we may be better off by writing everyone a check for their portion of the aforementioned resources. Where Murray stands out, however, is in his ability to identify the domestic problems facing the country, and to do so in a deeply analytic, intelligent way, backed by data and framed within a historical context, leaning on writings of men who shaped American history, such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexis De Tocqueville.</div>
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What touched me the most was Murray's ruminations on the issue of executive compensation. Murray pierces right through the tired debate (of course, the rate of executive compensation growth is egregious) with a simple, yet poignant rebuke: Have you, as an executive and a leading figure in the nation, given any thought to how unseemly your astronomical compensation and your golden parachute are? This appeal to the higher principles in our business leaders resonated with me. We tend to portray the captains of industry as star individual performers, the Kobe Bryants of business, who should be compensated as such. That may be, and I cannot advocate putting artificial restrictions on someone else's earnings. I can and will, however, stand behind the notion that a leader should recognize that his position places him in the vanguard of maintaining and shaping the values that govern this nation. Humility and selflessness may seem to be relics of a bygone era, a time that is ill-suited for the pace of today's events. Murray himself exposes his fears that the foundation of values that made America great may today be crumbling. I think those fears are misplaced despite his astute diagnosis of the issues facing the country. Despite the political turbulence of today's age, American democracy is still vibrant, and its companies and universities are still the centers of global innovation. I think we will emerge from the Great Recession and its aftereffects with a renewed sense of industriousness and importance of civic participation.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH57tp7ZHb-LUY9quTz0hpw6exLi6w66aRElZD1OVrkE5OElhQITYHpeZaRrhyg_RYBpZs-e6y4W-gva6odxzMX_SndKHNW5k1hTVoHoJ3u_yYCUdVQihy3vOoAj6aYb8Va_w9fDEScbg/s1600/first-highfive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH57tp7ZHb-LUY9quTz0hpw6exLi6w66aRElZD1OVrkE5OElhQITYHpeZaRrhyg_RYBpZs-e6y4W-gva6odxzMX_SndKHNW5k1hTVoHoJ3u_yYCUdVQihy3vOoAj6aYb8Va_w9fDEScbg/s320/first-highfive.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Do not despair, Charles Murray: If we can successfully bring back the high five, we can bring back virtuousness and humility.</span></td></tr>
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Coincidentally, I had been searching for the intellectual basis for the conservative reaction to the handling of the Great Recession by making acquaintance with Arthur Brooks' "<a href="http://thisbloghasnegativemass.blogspot.com/2012/08/whats-eating-arthur-brooks-thoughts-on.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #042eee;">The Battle</span></a>" and Ayn Rand's "<a href="http://thisbloghasnegativemass.blogspot.com/2012/10/ayn-rand-paul-ryan-and-karate-kid-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #042eee;">Atlas Shrugged</span></a>". Those books left me disenchanted and in mourning for the hours that I spent laboring through the bleak, uninformative pages; hours that I could have put to use on something more productive such as watching "Game of Thrones" or working on my back squat. I stumbled upon Charles Murray's analysis by accident - the book was not advertised to me as a work of political philosophy. I am glad I did find this book - this work is by far the most robust, intelligent, and informative discussion of the foundational issues facing the nation that I have seen from an advocate of limited government. This book is not exactly an high-octane, action-packed thriller - this is not everyone's cup of tea. If you find this topic interesting, however, and you find yourself on the fence about whether to pick up this book, let me nudge over the edge. It will be worth your time; provided you are a fan of "multivariate analysis", of course.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-8426648325711134432012-11-18T18:25:00.002-08:002012-11-18T18:29:04.137-08:00An open letter to James Bond villains<br />
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To whom it may concern: </div>
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I saw "Skyfall" over the weekend. The movie impressed and has been a wild success at the box office, becoming the franchise's highest-grossing installment in its opening weekend. The movie owes its success in no small part to the tremendous performance by Javier Bardem (aka Raoul Silva). Bardem is equally terrifying, entertaining, and enthralling. There is an argument to be made that he may be the greatest Bond villain ever. Silva is as formidable an opponent as Bond has ever faced: a former star agent in MI6 with hacking skills comparable to Anonymous, hair more glorious than Donald Trump, and a small army of highly trained mercenaries at his disposal. Silva's star peaks at an opportune time as Bond faces a personal crisis that parallels an institutional crossroads at MI6 headquarters, and as whispers abound: Is Bond over the hill? Is he, like the institution he works for, a relic of a bygone era? </div>
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Despite the favorable circumstances, victory eludes Silva. Undoubtedly, this is foremost a testament to the resilience and ingenuity of James Bond and the democratic-capitalistic-political-democratic-model-Western-Civilization-is-still-peaking-so-hard way of life that he represents. Yet Silva, despite his daring and meticulously planned schemes, commits tactical and strategic errors so grave and appalling that I feel compelled to rebel against such level of incompetence in this letter. </div>
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Please do not misunderstand my intentions. I root for Bond, universal suffrage, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The observations that follow constitute no endorsement of your actions. They are simply lessons that must be self-evident to anyone with half a brain who is hoping to become a memorable villain.</div>
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<b>1. You will lose in the long-term</b></div>
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It is like playing blackjack in a casino. The odds are stacked against you. Sure, you hit big once in a while and take over Cyprus, but eventually you end up broke, spending your last five dollars on a meal at IHOP and hitch hiking your way back home to the East Coast.</div>
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Since the beginning of time, many a philosopher has burned the midnight oil mulling over the fundamental question of whether Man is good or evil. I do not consider this to be a difficult question. I hold it to be self-evident that Man is good even as he is locked in a perpetual struggle against his sinful nature. That is why we want the best for our children even if we have strayed from the righteous path. The perceived balance between Good and Evil lies in the impact that a few super crappy people wreak on the world.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCpJ-1Apvy5goj7V4ZQNlXe1KAhAbk-nDskJlXY5jjFcfQ3WhEu51XpGPyiGmf0TQ1HJn733b2wZlMX1Zek2F6afdxJT0MSe13yrnsrHWV1hyNhyphenhyphenpwWtGEWvpFNjF8VRlGokzWak3_3k/s1600/yingyang1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCpJ-1Apvy5goj7V4ZQNlXe1KAhAbk-nDskJlXY5jjFcfQ3WhEu51XpGPyiGmf0TQ1HJn733b2wZlMX1Zek2F6afdxJT0MSe13yrnsrHWV1hyNhyphenhyphenpwWtGEWvpFNjF8VRlGokzWak3_3k/s1600/yingyang1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is why I usually just borrow pictures from the Internet.</td></tr>
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Even though Evil is a huge pain in the neck, Good inevitably triumphs. Your objective then, if you dream of leaving a memorable legacy as a villain, is to prolong your reign as long as possible. With that in mind, an enterprising villain will incorporate these lessons into his budding career:</div>
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<b>2. Setup surrogates</b></div>
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Let me guess: your current evil genius plan is to announce your presence on the world stage by capturing the last of the rare Dalmatian pandas and holding them hostage until the world gives you a pension and full medical benefits. I have news for you: a) that is so cliché - BORING!, and b) the 1960s called - they want their utopian dreams back. Nobody has a pension anymore.</div>
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Once you are captured, the world will forget you and the Dalmatian pandas. Instead, send a henchman to do the job. You will gain notoriety whether your number 2 succeeds or not. </div>
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<b>3. Be charismatic</b></div>
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Once you show your face to the world, you must have an electrifying presence. Have recognizable and unique outwardly appearance - scars, crazy hair, extra limbs. Do not be afraid to "peacock". Wear a kimono. Accessorize. Consider a new pet, perhaps an iguana. Mutations are encouraged. A set of gills would be nice: modest and inconspicuous, yet highly functional. Remember: Evil is an art, not a science. Think the laugh is overdone? Carry a baton and pretend you are directing an orchestra any time you have to make a speech. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHz2n0_VwuQEgQsw6fpeFa4Ao4FRMCdoH6lVmExU_xfLiSl2vZqFE69-VY4nYAjQs4Xogx0sbwu4pzNpeG_oWvqKQMAM6M5_Qymgg8SAghChWPb095BnPqHf1lPbs0jZRHCjh3wWdyQuM/s1600/MIke_Meyers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHz2n0_VwuQEgQsw6fpeFa4Ao4FRMCdoH6lVmExU_xfLiSl2vZqFE69-VY4nYAjQs4Xogx0sbwu4pzNpeG_oWvqKQMAM6M5_Qymgg8SAghChWPb095BnPqHf1lPbs0jZRHCjh3wWdyQuM/s1600/MIke_Meyers.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-deyL4DNx8b3BMt0cA_atJVBFAa4nRCwRBQ7N5uaht6LZKd8WFCR_XPtC8sze4TtuAkZUOKtqp42okNg3jh_frf35ME6Ahr_Mjq438hRS61KMu0stdO5SkdbM-F4Kk_DmIiugzdaTO_Q/s1600/dr-evil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-deyL4DNx8b3BMt0cA_atJVBFAa4nRCwRBQ7N5uaht6LZKd8WFCR_XPtC8sze4TtuAkZUOKtqp42okNg3jh_frf35ME6Ahr_Mjq438hRS61KMu0stdO5SkdbM-F4Kk_DmIiugzdaTO_Q/s320/dr-evil.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes.</td></tr>
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<b>4. Have offspring</b></div>
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At first you considered your child a hinderance to your ascending career and your cosmopolitan lifestyle. You never understood just how selfish and unappreciative children are until you had your own. In retrospect, you have come to terms with your own father's absence from your childhood. It tears you apart to think of all the moments that you should have expressed, but never did, your gratitude to your mother for her unwavering affection and her early recognition and encouragement of your potential for unspeakable evil. </div>
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You watch your children grow. It is an arduous journey, filled with frustration and headaches - like the time your daughter accidentally killed the Dalmatian panda by feeding it "5-hour energy" shots. While you figure out how to tell your number 2 that he is probably going to be behind bars for a very long time, your son decides that he finds the family tradition of villainy too conventional and stifling and that he wants to become an artist instead.</div>
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Yet through it all you learn the deepest meaning of love and pride as your children develop into functional adults, more like their father and mother with every passing day, and you know that long after you are gone, they will carry on your legacy, immortalizing your name, and taking the Bond franchise to new heights.</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-1313662544583574322012-11-11T19:19:00.002-08:002012-11-11T19:19:35.710-08:00Who needs fiction when you have stories like this: a review of "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand<b style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;">Why I read this book:</b><br />
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Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken" hardly needs an introduction. The author who brought us the story of Seabiscuit came back to the New York Times Bestsellers List with a real-life tale of "a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption" about a son of Italian immigrants who ran track for the United States in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and suffered unimaginable horrors in the Pacific theater in the struggle against imperial Japan. <a href="http://laurahillenbrandbooks.com/"><span style="color: #042eee;">"Unbroken"</span></a> became a number one bestseller and was a smash success among the reading public. After a couple of friends raved about the book, I decided to hand Amazon some more of my money.</div>
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<b>My rating for this book:</b></div>
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1. Like fouling a pitch off your foot into the catcher's mitt - painful, embarrassing, and detrimental to the team.</div>
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2. Like hitting into a double play with one out and a runner on third.</div>
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3. A solid single up the middle.</div>
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4. A triple to round out the cycle. </div>
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<b>5. A grand slam (against the Yankees).</b></div>
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<b>Musings:</b><br />
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<span style="text-align: right;">There is really not much to analyze here. This book is a classic definition of a page-turner: it enthralls the reader with a gripping, powerful story, yet it is easy to read and difficult to put down. This book is clearly going to be made into a blockbuster movie. Thus, the pressing question of the day is: who is going to play the lead character, Louis Zamperini?</span></div>
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In order to convey Zamperini's personality and to determine which actor is best suited to play him, I have to summarize the book. Warning: this is a total SPOILER ALERT! Skip the next paragraph if you are going to pick up "Unbroken", and you feel the summary may ruin your reading experience. Truth be told, however, the appeal of this book hardly depends on preserving the mystery of the story; my summary does littlle more than expand on the full title of the book.</div>
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Louis Zamperini was a troublesome youth, uninterested in school, and always brawling, stealing, and getting into trouble. After discovering a knack for running, Zamperini channeled his tenacity into the sport and eventually reached elite levels, representing USA in the Berlin Olympics, before the outbreak of World War II cut short a promising and still blossoming running career. Zamperini became a bombardier in the Air Force and joined the fight in the Pacific against the Japanese. The real drama of the story begins when Zamperini's plane crashes over the Pacific Ocean. Zamperini faces weeks of starvation, dehydration, and sharks on a life raft, miraculously surviving being stranded in the middle of the ocean, only to be captured by the Japanese and subjected to unspeakably inhumane acts of cruelty in internment camps.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjahp0i7K0Gohy9TtEBiI_6RIVEHwmRQdpjHL8G3PSB47I-lQzaofUjCldvzB07Dq6feESpunnw_wUPeAFcCTj7b_ONoZhCzgP3hVIgoDyP0Jg-xZV-328pTLmaLPvAPBFvb81ic23SrYc/s1600/Zamperini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjahp0i7K0Gohy9TtEBiI_6RIVEHwmRQdpjHL8G3PSB47I-lQzaofUjCldvzB07Dq6feESpunnw_wUPeAFcCTj7b_ONoZhCzgP3hVIgoDyP0Jg-xZV-328pTLmaLPvAPBFvb81ic23SrYc/s320/Zamperini.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Louis Zamperini</td></tr>
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In order to bring the drama of the story to the big screen, our actor needs to personify the following characteristics:</div>
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1. <i>Sinewy toughness</i> - I know, what in the world is that? I just made that up. This character trait calls for a man who can play the outsider, his outbursts of violence and bad behavior a glimpse of an adolescent who has trouble fitting in. Someone who can portray a "bad boy" as a troubled soul with a lack of direction rather than a tough bully who knows his strength. Sorry, Vin Diesel.</div>
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2. <i>A likable loser with the opposite sex</i> - Zamperini was endlessly chasing girls, with about the same success ratio as someone who spends his time writing blogs. He does end up getting THE girl - not that it matters for the movie; the script would have a love story no matter what. After all, that is how they sold us "Titanic" and "Pearl Harbor", is it not? We have just lost Brad Pitt - the man is way too smooth for this job.</div>
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3. <i>Emotionally resonant</i> - seriously, what does that even mean!? It means that we have lost Josh Hartnett. We need someone to demonstrate the horror of war and the brutality of prisoner of war camps. We need someone who can bear the torch of the resilience of the human spirit in places where humanity ceases to exist. We need someone who can withstand endless suffering, from without and from within, and who can somehow find his way to forgiveness and an inner peace. We need someone who can help this nation re-discover the founding principles in these turbulent times.</div>
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<b>Candidate 1: Leonardo DiCaprio</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzN77xpLm5GwNKpvb-ES3Cfu9cOw8GUFXBfveuk2h5akmBKgFLBcqaQZqHVf22OnzxFk14pLbjE8ld2-j56SCJDpsSsccuSTf6QkpyMmY7r80gIrKw_9DyelONjGKX1lKp0FRdu5NxhgE/s1600/Leonardo_DiCaprio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzN77xpLm5GwNKpvb-ES3Cfu9cOw8GUFXBfveuk2h5akmBKgFLBcqaQZqHVf22OnzxFk14pLbjE8ld2-j56SCJDpsSsccuSTf6QkpyMmY7r80gIrKw_9DyelONjGKX1lKp0FRdu5NxhgE/s320/Leonardo_DiCaprio.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Do not be fooled by the "Titanic" - Leo can be a total badass.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">1. <i>Toughness</i> - I have to give it to Leo. He may look like a total wuss, but the guy is a terrific actor. His gutsy attitude gives his characters that "sinewy" aspect of the toughness that we are looking for.</span><br />
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2. <i>A likable loser with the opposite sex</i> - I know what you are thinking: "Leo could never not be a dreamboat. He has great hair, and he would be a great father to my children". That is true. Ladies love Leo, and he loves them back. However, if there is one thing that life taught me, it is that it does not take much for a man to ruin his chances with a woman. You may be pitching a perfect game all night, then you make one joke about "legitimate rape" or "transvaginal ultrasound", and all of the sudden you find yourself alone, the remains of her martini trickling down your face. I am sure we could tinker with the script a bit to make even Leo seem mortal.</div>
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3. <i>Emotional resonance</i> - Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the few actors who connects to both sexes on a deeper level. Both men and women would be captivated and react empathetically to, say, Leo's musings about his inattentive father.</div>
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<b>Candidate 2: Jake Gyllenhaal</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkum8poB7U1D30cJbrclzuhbv5RtSb44nWMK0q6Zs4f0RXGzTMLo5z9fcBX5am2kM5TG4L62b8AExKcv2WXu_4NIdhPisozs4NngbzaCTW-tBt5lj1c5APjaDDkmfVGPd8iVzHuHLI-jY/s1600/jake_gyllenhaal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkum8poB7U1D30cJbrclzuhbv5RtSb44nWMK0q6Zs4f0RXGzTMLo5z9fcBX5am2kM5TG4L62b8AExKcv2WXu_4NIdhPisozs4NngbzaCTW-tBt5lj1c5APjaDDkmfVGPd8iVzHuHLI-jY/s1600/jake_gyllenhaal.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is it me, or does Gyllenhaal look exactly like Zamperini in real life?</td></tr>
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1. <i>Toughness</i> - Jake is excellent at portraying the regular guy, be he from rural Nebraska or from the Jersey suburbs. You can easily relate to him as one of your friends or someone you know. Eric Church, a country singer, has a line in the song "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk602Y66UgI"><span style="color: #042eee;">Guys like me</span></a>" that I think captures the American philosophy on toughness: "I don't like to fight, but I ain't afraid to bleed". Jake is a natural to represent that philosophy.<br />
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2. <i>A likable loser with the opposite sex</i> - "Hey baby, you must be tired because you have been running through my mind all day long". Something like that. You get the point - it would not be difficult to bring a Mr. Hearthrob down to Earth if we had him throw out a couple of gems like that.<br />
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3. <i>Emotional resonance</i> - I always marvel at how the best actors such as Tom Hanks are able to convey the complexity of the human soul through meek, plain, and otherwise unnoticeable characters. I think Jake would surprise you and demonstrate his range here.</div>
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<b>Candidate 3: Adrian Brody</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg38Zb_fC2V_3OqV6qtIM_qi8aq15_30XWXuyDkT_WDblP7qJ8s4TU1m4CYuv1RW4F4Hj9kSX6MQ31203kRMVFzEJE7-ohCQYpP73Fm7PFiI7hyphenhyphenwjgB47eOGbqbVxu1ttweVpX7TjXnugQ/s1600/adrian-brody-chihuahua.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg38Zb_fC2V_3OqV6qtIM_qi8aq15_30XWXuyDkT_WDblP7qJ8s4TU1m4CYuv1RW4F4Hj9kSX6MQ31203kRMVFzEJE7-ohCQYpP73Fm7PFiI7hyphenhyphenwjgB47eOGbqbVxu1ttweVpX7TjXnugQ/s320/adrian-brody-chihuahua.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px;">
Adrian Brody is so frail, I subconsciously hold my breath when I look at this picture for fear of breaking him.</div>
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1. <i>Toughness</i> - ok, I am taking a huge leap of faith here. The man is the opposite of tough - the mere mention of his name conjures images of organic soap, water with cucumbers in it (surprisingly delicious, by the way), and newborn infants wrapped in soft blankets. The dude has a chihuahua, for crying out loud! Have you seen those things? They are always shivering, and they pee in a litter box, like a cat. Proposing that Adrian be cast for a role that requires toughness is a preposterous venture, but hey - if we can make Leo DiCaprio seem unappealing to women, I am sure we can work another miracle. My gut does tell me that Brody is a talented actor who will pleasantly surprise the audiences in this role.<br />
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2. <i>A likable loser with the opposite sex</i> - "Do you have any Italian in you? Want some?" - then, just as you begin to feel disgust for the hound dog, Adrian can unleash his acting talents to demonstrate his ability to persevere and to eventually find true love.<br />
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3. <i>Emotional resonance</i> - Adrian is off the charts in this category. He invokes nurturing feelings in people - he seems to always be shivering (like a chihuahua), and that is before he gets into a role that truly demonstrates his capacity to exude frailty and sensitivity as he did in the "Pianist".</div>
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I would personally love to see the studios take a chance on Adrian Brody on this one although I am certain Leo and Jake would do an excellent job as well.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Note: This blog uses images that may be subject to copyright. I do not own these images. That is probably a good thing - it would be weird if I owned images of Adrian Brody holding chihuahuas. One week of that as my wallpaper is plenty. I use these images with full appreciation and respect for those who do own these images. Please do not sue me. If you do choose to pursue legal action, know this:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. You are a d**k.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2. My closing argument will include me pounding on the docket and screaming: "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!!" </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-34743957486768582422012-10-30T19:01:00.000-07:002012-10-30T19:01:55.210-07:00Definitely not doing that! A review of "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer<b>Why I read this book:</b><br />
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While many people will know Jon Krakauer only by association - the movie "Into the Wild" was based on his book of the same title, Krakauer's account of an Everest expedition, "Into Thin Air", first earned him national recognition. While I had heard of Krakauer's work, I did not have a burning passion to read his books. It is a rather curious thing how our perceptions are shaped: armed with the knowledge that Krakauer wrote "Into the Wild", a book about a young man who discards his typical suburban life and heads into the wilderness of Alaska, and "Into Thin Air", a book about climbing Everest, and no other facts about the man to speak of, I quickly deduced that here was an author who came up with a simple winning formula: to write books titled "Into <insert extreme story/adventure/sport here>" and become fat and happy re-telling the glory tales of other men's heroics. An appealing concept, certainly, but not enough to entice me to read his works.<br />
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And so on we went with our lives, Krakauer and I, each one occupying our own little corner of the world. Now the story would typically end here, but, as it happens, fate had different ideas. One day, I was chatting with a friend (let's call him Dexter), and while the exact topic of our conversation escapes me now, it is only logical to conclude that our tete-a-tete was at least partially related to the theme of summiting Mount Everest. Whether we were discussing doing a brisk two mile hike that upcoming weekend or just walking up a steep hill, my thoughtful friend, aware of my positive disposition towards good books, exclaimed that I must read "Into Thin Air", and that he had a copy of it to give to me.<br />
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I am not one to turn down a book when one is offered to me, and that act in itself is cause enough for me to read the book. I, however, became much more intrigued by the book when Dexter informed me that Krakauer himself was on an expedition to the top of Mount Everest, and that the book is his recollection of that expedition and the tragic events that transpired during that trip. This revelation piqued my interest in the book tremendously and gave Jon Krakauer mad street cred in my eyes. I also felt guilty for having a completely erroneous and uninformed impression of him for years, but that feeling went away as soon as I realized that Krakauer very likely could care less of what I think about him.<br />
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<b>My rating for this book:</b><br />
<b><br /></b><span style="font-size: x-small;">1. Like flax-seed ice-cream - something that actively seeks to destroy happiness.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2. Like vegemite - pretty bad, but the reaction is more reserved because of cultural implications.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3. Like spam - just because something is eatable does not mean it should be consumed.</span><br />
<b>4. Like an apple - refreshing and comforting because there is probably more where that came from.</b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">5. Like bacon-wrapped scallops - a markedly noticeable step towards peace and progress.</span><br />
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<b>Impressions:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
"Into Thin Air" is a fascinating book, and I recommend reading it. The book will give you an inside look at the world of mountaineering, and that portrait will do much to alter your perception of that world. Like most enterprises that carry high stakes and hold high reward, the world of mountaineering combines gripping tension with day-to-day tediousness and the promise of glorious accomplishment with nagging loneliness. A climber and a restless soul himself, Krakauer is a great writer and weaves the history of man's quest to conquer Mount Everest into the recollection of his own doomed expedition. I could not be farther off in my initial assumption of the book serving as a puff piece deifying a summit of Mount Everest - Krakauer writes this book as a way to recreate the expedition frame by frame in order to understand how it came to be that eleven lives were lost on that day. The book, as Krakauer admits in the foreword, is an attempt to overcome his own demons that have tormented him since that terrible tragedy. It is a controversial book, as Krakauer readily admits by including an angry letter from a family member of a deceased expedition member. As a "civilian" observer, I appreciated the author's honesty, and his effort seems sincere. Regardless of one's opinion about the sensitivity surrounding the topic of Krakauer's recollection of the tragic events and his own actions, the revealing glimpse into the domain of mountain climbing offers sufficient reward for the vast majority of the readers who are not privy to the inner workings of that small society.<br />
While reading "Into Thin Air", I felt a sense of guarded admiration for those brave and crazy enough to risk their lives to climb the world's most daunting peak. On one hand, those who decide to summit Everest despite the gravest risks epitomize the very principles of drive and resolve that spearhead human progress and represent humanity's unyielding spirit. On the other hand, there is no way under any circumstances that I would be willing to subject myself to the experience of climbing Everest. I am not kidding - if you were to offer me my own island, like Madagascar or Tazmania if I attempted a summit just once, I would politely refuse. Then again, it is undeniable that each one has the call of the wild in us. Every child dreams of adventure, travel, and exotic lands. Over time, of course, the overwhelming majority of those boys and girls grow up, get an office job, and diligently settle into their daily routine as their dreams go by the wayside (the dissipation of dreams is remarkably gradual - <span style="background-color: white;">see Figure 1</span>). So it is with respect and admiration that we look at that small fraction of us who refuse to lose that sense of wanderlust and restlessness and instead become adventurers, field scientists, or elite soldiers.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN522yuYh4nJ0jwMS4RJ0sGAyxAUmZ2ZmUKAInH-39SI_7-pPHySMmNd_eKUbtBhmVnzY-5y8YbIog9R03vgFx9BaWtfuEZxfjmkt7Jvt5dv7F_iiMZKT02JwWQW65Zn4QJYB7o67GCKo/s1600/Realization+of+dreams+over+time.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN522yuYh4nJ0jwMS4RJ0sGAyxAUmZ2ZmUKAInH-39SI_7-pPHySMmNd_eKUbtBhmVnzY-5y8YbIog9R03vgFx9BaWtfuEZxfjmkt7Jvt5dv7F_iiMZKT02JwWQW65Zn4QJYB7o67GCKo/s1600/Realization+of+dreams+over+time.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graph 1 - Hmm, strangely specific.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The trajectory plotted in Graph 1 can be avoided, of course, by asking what your Everest is and planning and executing your ascent. I will tell you one thing however - my "Everest" is not the actual Everest.<br />
<br />
The end.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-77456423245003464472012-10-07T13:52:00.003-07:002012-10-07T13:52:31.147-07:00First Milestone!<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
The blog
has reached an important milestone today - it now contains five entries! My
emotions oscillate between the joy and relief of receiving a prematurely-born
infant into my arms after being discharged from the hospital, and the feeling
that I am over-hyping a rather mediocre accomplishment, like a college freshman
triumphantly waving his index finger during a basketball game and screaming
"we are number one!" despite the fact that his team is not even ranked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br />
Regardless, this occasion feels like an appropriate point in time to articulate
what it is exactly that I am hoping to accomplish with this blog.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b>1. Produce and not just
consume.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><br />
</b>I like to read and learn new things, and
the process of writing out thoughts and impressions helps to synthesize and to process information as well as to develop and to refine my own thoughts. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br />
<b>2. Keep focus on reading.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><br />
</b>Ideally, I want to always be in the
process of reading a new book. In reality, my reading habits go in spurts of
intense bouts with books followed by prolonged periods of idleness. In a sense,
this blog is my own way of keeping myself responsible for staying on course
with my reading goals. I hope my manager-me is a total hard-ass.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br />
<b>3. Improve my writing.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><br />
</b>There is no better way to gain a new level
of appreciation for beautiful writing than to attempt to write something
yourself. I have forgotten, or perhaps I never truly knew, just how difficult
writing is. What sounds like a Churchillian sonnet in my head inevitably comes
out as barely discernible drivel on paper. Let's see if I can at
least get to a level where I can publish a trashy romance novel. Not saying I
would, but I want to at least have the capability to carry out the threat.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b>4. Create a “safe place”
for creativity.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b></b><br />
<b>
</b>When you are a child, the adults spend a
great amount of time making sure you develop your critical thinking through
creative endeavors and gain an appreciation for delayed gratification by
ruthlessly rejecting your pleas for urgently needed toys. When you become an
adult yourself, you immediately dispense with those lessons, and daily buy
yourself the latest iteration of Apple toys while slowly sinking into the
dullness of the daily grind. This blog is my attempt to reverse that pattern in
my adult life. This is a momentum shift. The buck stops here. Right after I buy
a retina-display everything. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7c/1stGen-iPad-HomeScreen.jpg/220px-1stGen-iPad-HomeScreen.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="250" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">You</span>r marketing psychology PhD thesis: I dread being an early adapter, but after two months, I balk at making the purchase because I am now waiting for the next new thing. What to do?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<b>5. Capture
memories and create a method for self-assessment.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Do you remember
when, back in your younger days, you met your friend for brunch after a
particularly heavy night out? Your friend would pull out her cellphone and play
the voicemail that you left her the night before. As you listened to the
message, your eyes widened in shock: “I can’t believe what a moron I am!”.
Or perhaps, after the initial tense moments, you thought in relief: “That was
actually pretty funny even though I do not fully recall leaving that message”.
In that vein, I started this blog because I want to find out what my future
self will think of my past self. Of course, this is a two-way conversation, so
listen up, future old me - please do not end up spending your retirement in
front of your television in your under-garments, overweight, and with body hair
entwining your back and arms like a shedding werewolf. Also, don't be that
old guy at dance clubs. That's really weird. You are better than that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b>6. Entertain my friends.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Although this blog
is my own project for my own purposes (die rich or live trying), there is no
greater pleasure than to hear a friend* send a note of a blog post
well-received. One "I enjoyed that!" or "well said, I
concur", or even a "please take me off this distribution" warms
my heart to no end and validates the effort I pour into the blog.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
*Friend - actual friends from all four tiers, acquaintances, Facebook
"friends", Twitter followers, whoever has enough patience to maintain
both a Facebook and a Google+ account, the one person who happens to Google
search for "Ayn Rand" and "Karate Kid" in the same query,
and all the Russian spam bots.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3173/2715589938_4eeefe0c5e.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="262" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Daniel Craig gets an immediate Tier 1 friend status because he is so freaking cool. It takes a man to rock a Speedo. Like a boss. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-83666723934566280592012-10-02T23:46:00.000-07:002012-11-25T16:42:50.220-08:00Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, and the Karate Kid: Review of "Atlas Shrugged"<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Why I read this book:</b></div>
</div>
<br />
In the aftermath of the financial crisis (aka the Great Recession), Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", published in 1957, became a popular read among those concerned about the increasing role of government in the handling of the crisis. The book redoubled in prominence recently with the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential choice - rumor has it that Ryan makes all his staffers and interns read "Atlas Shrugged" which is said to be Ryan's favorite book.<br />
<br />
<b>My rating for this book:</b><br />
<b><br />
</b>1. "I hate you, you ruined my life"<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2. "I can't believe we ever dated"</b></span><br />
3. "It's not you, it's me"<br />
4. "Can I call you again?"<br />
5. "You had me at hello"<br />
<br />
"Atlas shrugged" is not a book you will feel neutral about: you will love it, or you will hate it. As for me, it was simply completely, totally, unacceptably too long. This is one of those books that ruins your reading streak. You know the pattern: you slowly get yourself into a reading groove and feel like a productive, enriched person. Inevitably, you get overconfident and decide to tackle something deep and profound, like Tolstoy or Aristotle. Thirty pages in, you decide you have had enough and spend the next four months catching up on "Glee". "Atlas Shrugged" very nearly did that to me, and for that reason I give it a 2 rating.<br />
<b><br />
</b><b>The aftershocks:</b><br />
<br />
"Atlas Shrugged" is both a novel and a expose for Rand's philosophy - Objectivism. Let's discuss the merits and the shortcomings of the book from both perspectives.<br />
<br />
<b>The novel:</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><b>Pro:</b><br />
<b><br />
</b>The fiction form is certainly a better vehicle for conveying the moral case for individualism and free enterprise, which is ultimately Rand's goal, than <a href="http://thisbloghasnegativemass.blogspot.com/2012/08/whats-eating-arthur-brooks-thoughts-on.html" target="_blank">Arthur Brooks' "The battle"</a>. At certain parts of the book, you will admire Dagny Taggart, the heroine, for her indomitable spirit and relentless drive. The story lends itself nicely for reminding us that earned success is to be admired and not to be ashamed of. You quickly recognize in the pages that you are reading the thoughts of a deeply intelligent, analytical mind. The central element of the plot: "What if the productive leaders of the country suddenly quit the parasitic world?" is a clever framing of the author's philosophical perspective.<br />
<br />
<b>Con:</b><br />
<b><br />
</b>The book is entirely too long. It is a total trap - the thin trappings of a "novel" such as plot, setting, and character development, are minimal and crude and serve only a fig leaf for the long, repetitive, abstract, philosophical rants. It reminds me of my Grandpa's favorite tactic - to pose a rhetorical question as an opening salvo for a 20 minute monologue on the most pressing issues of the day according to him.<br />
<br />
Grandpa: "So, what do you think is going to happen to the Euro?"<br />
Me: "Great question, Grandpa, I think..."<br />
Grandpa: "Europe sucks. This country is going down the toilet as well. Everyone in DC is a terrible driver...(fast forward 20 minutes)...why aren't you married yet?"<br />
<br />
Character development exists only so far as to create caricature representations of good and evil. Thus, Dagny Taggart is a driven and resolute executive, while her brother James Taggart is an indecisive hater of Truth and Reason, and Wesley Mouch is a slimy, corrupt politician. The dialogue between characters and description of events are equally awkward. At one point, an ex-employee of a closed-down factory describes to Dagny Taggart how the factory went out of business. At first, the exchange convincingly conveys the gradual decline that stemmed from the abandonment of capitalistic principles. Then, suddenly, the guy exclaims that a man "died..in a knife fight with somebody in a saloon, a fight over nothing in particular - such fights were beginning to happen among us all the time". The book is riddled with such sudden jumps and unrealistic portrayals of human interaction and behavior.<br />
<br />
In this sense, reading "Atlas Shrugged" feels like you are watching "300" or "Sin City", but without the gratuitous shots of bearded men with six packs in loincloth.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="http://anewdayoutreach.com/leonidas/29026.gif.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="225" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leonidas was a proponent of laissez-faire capitalism.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
What I am saying is - lay off Paul Ryan, please. He is too intelligent to subjugate his minions to the torturous experience of reading this "novel" for no reason. Reading this book is a test, a right of passage - if you have the dedication and grit to complete this assignment, you can clearly be trusted with the rigors of serving the Congressman's constituency. Remember the Karate Kid? Did Ralph Macchio learn the "Crane" style in the first week of his training with Mr. Miyagi? No, first he had to learn the virtues of humbleness and patience. Then, once he established a strong moral base, he went on to defeat Kobra Kai, get the girl, and win the hearts of a generation. Wax on, wax off. Paul Ryan is simply applying the same lessons to the way he selects his staff.<br />
<br />
(by the way, another great trick for you if you have to manage people: invite your employee into your office and ask them to close the door. Sit silently for one minute and thirty seconds, staring directly into the employee's eyes and saying nothing. After the aforementioned period of silence, slowly say: "Is there anything you want to tell me?" and watch the employee confess to taking donuts from the lounge without paying for them or admit that she's been selling documents that contain the location of our nuclear submarines to the Chinese. )<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The philosophy:</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><b>Pro:</b><br />
<b><br />
</b>It is easy to admire the idea of motive power, the resolute drive of the human mind and spirit that conquers, invents, and moves forward, and the values that result from honest competition - the purity that results from the pursuit of a goal, like an asymptote that shoots up towards Truth and Reason. You can see these qualities in masters of a craft, where even perfect adversaries have great respect and understanding for each other. Many values that Rand advocates - reason, thrift, taking no less <i>as well as no more </i>than you deserve - would deserve praise from people on all sides of the political spectrum.<br />
<br />
The essence of dissecting "Atlas Shrugged" is understanding the motivations behind the ideology that deifies extreme individualism. It is difficult to digest Rand's proposition of naked self-interest when you grow up in a country that protects private property and guards against government interference in men's private affairs. In order to understand Rand's motivations, you have to consider her background and the context within which her writing took place. Rand <a href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_ayn_rand_aynrand_biography" target="_blank">was born in Russia in 1905</a> and fled to the United States at the age of 21 after the Communists came to power. A stranger in a new land, she worked for every bit of the success that she eventually found. An admirer of the United States' democratic and capitalistic principles, Rand was more familiar than most with the savagery of the Communists and the dangerous allure of the counterfeit promise of utopia. When you look at the provocative, excruciatingly simplistic view of human existence that Rand's philosophy offers as a daring declaration of rebellion against the onslaught of Communism, her convictions become much more palatable.<br />
Basically, think of that wild-eyed, scruffy-beard dude on the metro sitting next to you who screams: "We are all going to die! Mark Levin and Sean Hannity are the only ones who get it.", and you are about to start debating the pros and cons of cable talk shows when it occurs to you that the dude's hot (lets give him the benefit of doubt) wife probably just left him. In other words, the source of his anger is not the loss of transparency in campaign contributions caused by Citizens United, but rather his shitty life and the slow accumulation of frustrations and arguments over taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, and leaving the cupboard drawers open. Suddenly, you realize that the situation calls for empathy and understanding rather than an argument. Also, you do not feel like getting stabbed today.<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
In a perverse way, Rand's philosophy gains your respect precisely because the limits of its appeal to our natural instincts are so obvious. It is easy to see the shortcomings of a selfish, hyper-materialistic existence; it is much more difficult to resist the siren song of a selfless, collectivist promise. This call to our moral sense of brotherhood and equality was used as a veil for atrocities throughout history, from the French Revolutionaries to the Soviet Communists to Mao's China. It is as a stark reminder of our propensity to let our sense of morality get ahead of practical realism that Rand's vision gains its shining moment. It is a reminder of the essential conservative principles - that private property is an inviolable right and that tyranny of government has been a rule in history rather than an exception, and thus must guarded against.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Con:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Rand's philosophy is an incorrect, or rather, an incomplete, assessment of human nature. Her version of idealized human being elevates reason at the cost of total suppression and elimination of passion as a driver for human behavior.<br />
<br />
How extreme is her case? She picks on Robin Hood as the greatest moral criminal of the common lore! After reading that, I half expected to find a blistering critique of puppies as useless moochers. Talk about a losing definition of morality! For better or for worse, human beings are fundamentally emotional creatures. Observe a hawk swooping down on a bunny. Both are simply trying to survive, yet our instinct is to chase the hawk away. Why do we feel empathy for the weak and defenseless, even if they are solely responsible for their own condition? <span style="background-color: white;">Perhaps that instinct is a </span>necessary adaptation that allowed our unusually frail predecessors to survive as a species.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="280" src="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0133ef68dff5970b-600wi" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wolf puppies have almost no impact on the nation's GDP, but the are SO freaking cute!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Either way, we can observe that we are both rational creatures as well as passionate ones. A robust philosophy cannot ignore that both of these drivers co-exist within each of us. Ayn Rand understood and despised the ugliness of the mysticism of the Czarist Russia and the threat to individual freedom posed by Communism under the veil of the collective good. What Ayn Rand failed to consider is that passion underlies even our most rational thoughts. Thus, at the zenith of the triumph of the school of rationality and the economic boom brought on by the Industrial advances, the unchecked growth of the school of rational thought led to attitudes of racial superiority and eugenics in advanced countries. While Rand's celebration of the human drive is admirable, it is incomplete without humility and temperance in the knowledge that we are prone to stray from the path of reason - even by an unyielding belief in reason (what!?).<br />
<br />
Ayn Rand's downfall is evident by the adaptation of her ideals by unworthy proponents who are guilty of the same flaws against which she so passionately rails. Her philosophy, a one-dimensional view of human nature, is subjugated by those who bear the same negative traits as the villains in her novel instead of people who transcend above the petty elements of human nature.<br />
<br />
If you are seeking literature to serve as the standard for the church of individualism, let me recommend "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is a much shorter read, although the dude's writing is quite saturated. Let's just say that if it were a wine, it would be a port. If you are more into fiction, read anything by Jack London. His stories of exploration, competition, and survival first captured my imagination when I was a child. His writing offers a far more captivating case for the church of life than "Atlas Shrugged".<br />
<br />
The end.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-83733966170273318372012-08-21T19:50:00.000-07:002012-11-25T16:44:51.911-08:00My introduction to David Foster Wallace: Thoughts on "The Pale King"<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Why I read this book:</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
After a heavy dose of biographies and dry non-fiction books about boring stuff, I was ready for an injection of human creativity, drama, and passion; I was ready to re-discover the world of fiction. Then I read this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/opinion/and-the-winner-of-the-pulitzer-isnt.html?_r=1" target="_blank">article</a>, and my decision was made for me. You see, if you browse through enough random news articles and magazines, you will hear the name of David Foster Wallace sprinkled with some implicit reverence here and there, and you will, without knowing anything about the man, subconsciously associate that name with an aura of mystical importance.</div>
</div>
<br />
"The Pale King" by David Foster Wallace - a finalist for the Pulitzer prize. What a perfect way to re-introduce myself to fiction.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>My rating for this book:</b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. I lost my ability to love after reading this book</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2. I cut off my pinkie after reading this book
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3. I am exactly as I was before as a human being, but older and a little sadder</span><br />
<b>4. That was different. Like, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7Ge7Sogrk#t=0m44s" target="_blank">I-just-saw-an-elephant-paint-and-I-somehow-feel-enriched</a> different.</b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">5. This book unlocked the secrets of the universe for me</span><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The aftershocks:</b><br />
<br />
There must be something to the fact that my friend told me that David Foster Wallace committed suicide one day before I finished reading this book on my Kindle - a brilliant writer, dead at 46, before he ever finished "The Pale King". The day after, I finished the book, or more precisely, the collection of thoughts, characters, and outlines of story lines that constitute this unfinished work.<br />
Without that explanation, I might have tossed my Kindle into the trash, sat in the corner of my apartment, window shades drawn, a Snuggie covering my listless body, my face unshaven, and dishes piling up slowly in the sink, and declared a moratorium on reading for a year. Note to the publisher - please add a preface to explain that David Foster was a talent of rare proportions; that he took his own life at such a young age, and that he was in the middle of writing "The Pale King"; that this book, while giving us a glimpse into expressions of a brilliant mind and a remarkable writer, is an unfinished work. Don't just assume that everyone who reads "The Pale King" knows the background; and man, is the background ever important before you commit to these pages. This book is not exactly like flipping through the pages of "People" magazine.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b2/People_cover_chace_.jpg/220px-People_cover_chace_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;"><i>David Foster Wallace never wrote for "People" magazine, but that does not diminish its relevance - how else would you learn about the Kirsten Stewart scandal?</i></span>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Had I not discovered that this is an unfinished book, my reaction might have been similar to what I witnessed at the premier of the first installment of "Lord of the Rings" where the audience was clearly not familiar with Tolkien's trilogy. When the movie abruptly ended, the audience, clearly unaware that there were two more glorious movies upcoming with dragons, the guy who played Rudy, and New Zealand scenery, went wild with pain, anger, and confusion. The scene was one of utter chaos: there was laughter, lots of profanity, and tears. Strangers were united in a feeling of indignation, confusion, and disbelief. It is the feeling that can only arise when you make an investment of emotion into a familiar setting, a safe investment, like depositing a paycheck into the bank account, knowing full well that the money will be there tomorrow, only to find out that the money is suddenly gone the next day. Such was the feeling in that theater - an investment of amusement, the expectation of safe entertainment you expect when you settle into the seat in a theater and let go of your daily concerns, was made upfront; now, people discovered that they had been robbed of the entertainment. More importantly, they were robbed of the investment of expectations they deposited by walking into the theater. The feeling that some basic societal contract was broken hung heavy in the air; people's glances darted from face to face of the other members audience seeking to find comfort and understanding over the events that had just wrecked havoc on their lives. Strangers held each other tight. Some men looked around and laughed uneasily with a slight shrug, a defensive gesture meant to reassert some control over the situation. No one was fooled. Surely, this must be some sort of a joke, people thought. There must be a reason, some sort of explanation; movies cannot just end like that. They just can't. Because if this happens - if we allow ourselves to sit in a theater for three long hours; if we let it stand - only to see a boat of little hobgoblin elves, or whatever the hell they are, float down a river to end the movie, then what happens next? Will Hugh Grant not get the girl in the next movie? Will we be forced to accept Tatum Channing as a serious actor?<br />
<br />
This scene in the movie theater, of course, could have been avoided if only there had been an explanation in the credits about the fact that Lord of the Rings is a trilogy, and that Peter Jackson and company were not going to disappoint the masses, slay the next two release, and consequently win a whole bunch of Academy awards. Instead, people slowly filed out of the theater, filled with a dreadful, anxious feeling that things were never going to be the same. Ten years later, the financial crisis happened.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.hotmen.ws/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Channing-Tatum-06.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;"><i>Tatum Channing - oh, so handsome. Nothing else matters.</i></span>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Where were we? Oh right, The Pale King. While overall the book is kind of heavy - really, just a random assortment of thoughts and disjointed paragraphs with no plot to speak of, there are moments where David Foster Wallace shows how he earned his reputation. His ability to describe the innermost thoughts and put into words the intimate dynamics and the smallest details of everyday encounters is unparalleled. There are moments in The Pale King where you find yourself completely enthralled in the words in the page, in that precious moment of discovery and complete understanding that is the greatest reward that reading can offer: a chance to connect to the thoughts of a complete stranger through the written word, a connection that slices through time and space like a physics equation. The Pale King certainly makes you labor for those precious passages, but that effort makes the reward of discovery that much more special. This is the same feeling that, I imagine, the scout who first witnessed Lionel Messi play in a neighborhood game experienced - the instant knowledge that you have just witnessed greatness.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://totalfootballmadness.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Lionel-Messi-21.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">As far as I know, Messi does not read David Foster Wallace.</span> </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
David Foster Wallace is gone, but his work continues to have an impact on his readers. I am always amazed by how our most inconsequential actions can have a lasting effect on others. Just think how many people have played a positive role in your life without even knowing it, and you probably never had a chance to tell them. There is something comforting and powerful in the knowledge that, even if you are not a genius or a celebrity, you can make impact on other people's lives, and, in essence, be a part of something bigger than yourself.<br />
<br />
Now, of course, that also works in the opposition direction: if you just generally suck, you are going to decrease the quality of life for others around you. Even indirectly - like, if you are siphoning off gas from a random vehicle or something crappy like that, and a child sees you, that child could become a recluse or a dictator instead of a promising anesthesiologist.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-28384415358935875012012-08-05T21:35:00.002-07:002012-11-25T16:43:12.620-08:00What's eating Arthur Brooks? Thoughts on The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px;">Why I read this book:</span></b></div>
</div>
<b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px;">The majority of my sources of news and opinions are major newspapers and publications such The New York Times or The Atlantic magazine. These newspapers and magazines are often accused of being liberal and biased. Given these accusations, and the popularity of Tea Party-style hardliners in our politics, I wanted to understand the intellectual basis of this populist conservatism. You do not have to be a Republican to understand that "Get your government hands off my Medicare" is not the underlying philosophy behind the rigid strain of Republican opposition to President Obama. </span><br />
<b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px;">I saw Arthur Brooks on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:</span><br />
<b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-1-2010/arthur-brooks" target="_blank">http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-1-2010/arthur-brooks</a>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He wore a nice suit with a salmon shirt and spoke eloquently about free enterprise, opinion polls, his book, and other sexy topics. "Perfect", I thought. This is just the man and the book that I was looking for: "I will read this book. I will understand. No one will accuse me of liberal bias; for I am just and even."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, understand that this is only a transcription of my thoughts onto paper. No coherent sentences formulated in my brain at the time that I was watching that interview. Rather, some fuzzy synapses fired some neurological seed that later sprouted into these thoughts. Looking at me sprawled out on the couch in the shape that a lifeless body assumes after a fall from ten stories high, you could not discern any sign of life other than the plate of beets, resting on my chest, rising and falling slowly in rhythm with my feeble breathing. A typical Wednesday night, really; not too different from yours, I imagine.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/jmomblogs/Foods/fresh-pickled-beets.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Beets are highly nutritious.</span>
</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="http://www.republicain-lorrain.fr/fr/images/03943932-FAE4-4213-80B2-1E5C653C1180/LRL_03/vasily-alekseyev.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="236" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Russians eat a lot of beets. Russians are good at weightlifting. Do you want to lift heavy weights with ease? You know what you have to do.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<div>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">My rating for this book:</span></b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1. I still have nightmares about this book</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2. I would give this book to a 5-year old after promising him an Ipad</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<b>3. I am somewhat cold and a little hungry, but I do not regret my decision to read this book</b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">4. Enlightenment</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">5. Transcendence</span></div>
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Thoughts, Reflections, and Take-aways:</b>
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The premise of the book is that the new culture war revolves around economic issues rather than social ones; specifically, the war centers on the role of government in the economy. Now, you have to remember that Arthur Brooks wrote this book in April of 2010. The U.S government had recently spent an unprecedented amount of money on bailouts for AIG, the banking industry, and the auto-industry; placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship; there was even talk of nationalizing the banks! It was pretty intense. On top of all that, Obama sailed into office making no secret of his vision for a lively, assertive government; and, if you recall, we were not yet 100% certain that he was not actually a Somali pirate. The timing was perfect for a conservative vision that outlined the opposing view.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall, however, the book was disappointing. Brooks leaves an impression of someone with deep convictions trying to construct a poorly-run experiment to objectively prove his beliefs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The objective of Brooks' study is to make the moral case for free enterprise. In other words, he wants to change the perception that conservatives are cold-hearted materialists who hate feelings and laughter ("why laugh when I can be doing something that earns compound interest?")</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"But I love free enterprise!", you are thinking: "It is one of my top three favorite things, directly behind the bald eagle and Anne Hathaway".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, apparently, not everyone shares your views. Using the results and surveys, Brooks determines that 30% of the country actually hates capitalism and wants us to become Belgium. Who are these awful people, you ask? The 30% coalition is a consortium of the usual suspects: college professors. Pasty urbanites. Residents of Portland, Oregon and Burlington, Vermont. Everyone who likes indie rock.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="http://hddesktopwallpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Anne-Hathaway-030.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even the 30% coalition loves Anne Hathaway.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sarcasm aside, I understand what Brooks wants to accomplish. The majority of people's political preferences are directly related to their opinion on the hot-button issues: when you think of assistance to the poor, do you think of someone in great need who is grateful for the help and is trying to improve their life, or do you see institutionally lazy parasitic leeches? When you think of raising taxes on the rich, do you see it as a predatory practice by a hostile entity, or do you think of it as a fair move? Brooks wants to give you the ammunition necessary to change that core judgement that people make from the gut.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The problem with Brooks' narrative is that his premise is wrong, and his arguments are sloppy and unconvincing. At best, his definition of the "30% coalition" is grossly over-simplistic and a recipe for long-term electoral disaster. At worst, that definition is a bit dehumanizing and sinister. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think we can safely presume that Americans, as a people, love free enterprise. We know that Adam Smith got it right: the market is one of the greatest economic and political advances of human civilization. We love the market, and it loves us back (sort of). But as Brooks engaged in his "defense" of the free market, I could not help but to feel disenchanted. I was hoping for for a technical dissection of data that demonstrated that government is growing too big or too powerful: How has the size of government changed under Obama as measured by the number of federal workers or the size and scope of regulations? How does the amount that we pay in taxes compare to other historical periods? What is the long-term outlook and plan for the entitlement programs and defense spending? Such framing of the discussion would not only have helped build a better argument, but it would also properly bound the continuous conversation about the role of government. Instead, I received a childish lecture (private property is good; man should keep the fruit of his labor; innovation is good; wealth redistribution is bad) and over-stretched rhetoric. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizC_Kpz5GlSN5RZiTiaTfMGf-aps7b9jX2AX4CBHPMB0NQ-Qb60gN8BXynNuwssHjXrnLoR5cGVa25lTeFA0EQYg8Wgg07qpv8e-gQyS-W8pVMDsVZ39nBaP8ZXKqcM_bzll1oRj_x7Ts/s1600/Statist2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizC_Kpz5GlSN5RZiTiaTfMGf-aps7b9jX2AX4CBHPMB0NQ-Qb60gN8BXynNuwssHjXrnLoR5cGVa25lTeFA0EQYg8Wgg07qpv8e-gQyS-W8pVMDsVZ39nBaP8ZXKqcM_bzll1oRj_x7Ts/s640/Statist2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pink shirt, blue tie - daring, yet sensible. Great choice.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At the end of the day, the battle of ideas plays out directly at the ballot box. The GOP has been facing an identity crisis in the aftermath of the 2008 election. The shifting demographics, the lasting effects of the economic crisis, and the fiscal math facing our country require a new approach from both parties, and especially the GOP. Caught between uncompromising Tea Party populism and the stale party establishment, the GOP finds itself on the defensive and behind the times. In this year's Presidential election, the Republican party's greatest accomplishment has been to put out a nominee whose biggest strength is that he is not one of the other fringe candidates. The GOP will have much more exciting faces in the 2016 election. I hope they realize that the factors that play into electoral success, like the problems facing the country, are much more complex and much less black and white than Arthur Brooks makes them out to be. </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-19746435164845599992012-07-22T18:51:00.000-07:002012-07-22T18:51:16.754-07:00Colin Powell - why are you such a beast!?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Thoughts on “My American Journey”<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
The auto-biography of Colin Powell<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
(Joseph E. Persico
and Colin L. Powell)<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Why I read this book:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A friend recommended this book to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>My rating for this book:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. Not worth the paper on which it is written</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2. Better than any sleeping pill</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3. I guess it is better than watching Jersey Shore</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>4. I am a richer person because of this book</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">5. This book changed my life</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Thoughts, Reflections, and Take-aways:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Colin’s Powell auto-biography is a quintessential “American
dream” story: a child of Jamaican immigrant parents raised in a (relatively) poor
Bronx neighborhood rises to the top of the American military and government power
structure, at a time when blacks were largely treated as second-class citizens
(insert your own thoughts about race relations in today’s age here).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am not going to spend much time here analyzing Powell’s
success in the face of racial discrimination – I am sure there is an army of
writers, historians, and reporters who have that covered. Nor am I interested
in discussing the odds of someone from Powell’s socio-economic background
rising out of the type of neighborhood that seems to trap so many of its
inhabitants. Serious people working for serious institutions spend their
careers writing serious publications about the “macro” factors such as social
and economic opportunities and race relations that shape our society.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No, what fascinates me about General Powell’s life and
career is the “micro” story of the individual. What stands out in “My American
Journey” is a man’s success despite the lack of scholarly accomplishments and
the triumph of a noble character. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clearly, Colin Powell is a gifted, intelligent man; he would
not have gone as far as he has otherwise. At the same time, Powell is not
ashamed to admit that he was a very mediocre student. He very plainly describes
his lack of motivation for his studies and his lack of aptitude for math.
Powell’s life story should be motivational for the vast majority of us who did
not get straight A’s through school and will most likely not become Nobel
laureates (I am still holding out hope). Success is clearly an outcome of
multiple factors of which intelligence is but one. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think, on some crude, basic level, most successful people
can be divided into “thinkers” and “doers”. A stereotypical “thinker”
can typically be spotted by her plethora of PhDs, lack of social acumen, and
clothes from whatever era they attended high school. A “doer” gets things done.
She loves checklists, organization, and results. Powell is very much a “doer”. For
example, his ability to lead and execute a mission is what first landed him his
NSC position; his boss, Frank Carlucci, was “…looking for someone who knows how
to make things work…. someone who can impose order and procedure on the NSC.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I say Powell is a “doer” and not a “thinker”, my
intention is not to diminish the man’s intelligence. He is considered one of the most influential
Sec. of Defense because he was able to push through forward-thinking ideas. Rather,
the “doer” label is a tribute to his ability to carry out the execution of his
ideas, a task more challenging in the vast bureaucracy of competing powerful
interests than the formulation of those ideas. Some people have “theoretical”
intelligence, backed by years of formal study, brilliance of mind, and thick
books. Others have the intelligence that comes from experience. Best leaders
combine both. Powell’s success stems from the intelligence of character, a
trait that seems to be in short supply these days. Just listen to this Meet the
Press interview:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs43RR7IiNU">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs43RR7IiNU</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How refreshing – a public figure can lay out criteria that
is based on the biggest problems facing the country (the economic crisis) as
well as on reason and fairness (No, Barack Obama is not a Muslim; but, while we
are on the topic, what if he were?) and then make a decision that is sure to
cost him some friends by endorsing someone from the other party.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So why is it so rare
nowadays to hear voices of reason among today’s political leaders? Certainly,
to be fair, Powell is not running for office so he can express his opinion more
freely, but that does not change the fact that some of things you <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkjbJOSwq3A">hear</a> from today’s
“leaders” make you think you are taking <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC8y0HoopVE">crazy</a> pills. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What then allows Colin Powell to have this “intelligence of
character”? Here are the qualities that stand out to me from reading the book:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><b>A strong
moral foundation</b> – a deep sense of right and wrong. Is this an innate
quality? Is this something that one gets from the family, friends, or
institutions like church or ROTC?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><b>Sense of
humility</b> – knowing where you came from, understanding that the mission is
bigger than individual, patriotism without excessive chest thumping. Ability to
stay grounded during his rise to prominence and power.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span> <b>Commitment to Reason and Truth</b> –
Identifying what the right thing to do is and driving towards accomplishing
towards that goal, be it unit discipline or drastic reduction in the size of
the Armed Forces. Granted, as a career professional, Powell can focus on a
given mission. He does not have to pander to the base and worry about his
political growth or re-election. Perhaps we should look at more non-career
politicians as candidates for high office. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><b>Reliance
on experience and intuition</b> – Powell often looks back on his experiences in
the jungles of Vietnam and the disconnect between objectives and strategy
coming out of Washington and realities on the ground and uses this memory to
inform his decisions when he reaches the top. Powell spent a lot of time in the
National Security establishment, picked up the pulse of it, and absorbed
lessons from his peers and superiors. This allowed him to make intuitive
decisions in uncertain situations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><b>Pragmatism</b>
– A pre-eminent “doer” quality, a commitment to getting things done even if his
personal feelings get bruised. An ability to compromise for the sake of the
mission.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
The end.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1861044451987117760.post-78947526929069715772012-07-06T15:29:00.002-07:002012-07-12T05:11:11.521-07:00The “Self” Trap: Thoughts on The “Busy” Trap<br />
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<b>The “Self” Trap: Thoughts on The “Busy” Trap<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Over the last week, Tim Kreider’s essay, “<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/">The ‘busy’
trap</a>”, has been all the rage. It was the most emailed article on the New
York Times digital outlets, and I have seen multiple links to the essay on that
most accurate gauge of what is important in the world, Facebook. The essence of
Tim’s message is the age-old adage that no one says they wish they had worked more on
their death bed. In other words, slow down, put down the Blackberry (not that
it matters, RIM is probably going to go bankrupt with or without you anyway),
go visit grandma, hang out with your friends, save otters, etc. Reactions to
the essay have been mostly of the heartfelt “Amen!” variety, with, I imagine,
vigorous head nods and promises to reassess our sleep-deprived lifestyles and to
go visit the National Parks (we really have to get out to Yellowstone, I hear
it is simply majestic! Although I have heard terrifying stories of bears
chopping people’s heads off, and someone told me there are no showers at
campsites?!) By now, you are probably familiar with this pattern in the news
world: a story comes out about the work/life balance, diet, or exercise, and we
vigorously discuss it and pay lip service to living in greater harmony before
reverting back to our old routine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Just so you know, I
do not care to discuss the work/life balance here; it is totally up to you what
you do with your life. If you want to make a gazillion dollars and buy your own
island, knock yourself out. Don’t buy the Maldives though – it is disappearing
into the ocean. Actually, at this rate, most islands are probably going to
disappear into the ocean. I would probably wait until California splits off and
buy low in the resulting panic. On the other hand, if you want to quit your job
and go live on a <a href="http://summercommune.tumblr.com/"><span style="color: windowtext;">commune in Idaho</span></a>, more power to you. All I
care about is that you reflect on your existence once in a while and affirm
that you are happy with the choices you are making. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: windowtext;"><br /></span><br />
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: windowtext;"><br /></span></i><br />
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: windowtext;">Figure </span><span style="background-color: white; color: windowtext;">1</span><span style="background-color: white; color: windowtext;"> - Russell Westbrook is happy with his fashion choices
now, but he is going to regret them in a couple of years.</span></i></div>
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With that said, I do have a bone to pick with this article.
I say this because Tim’s essay indirectly touches on a problem with our popular
culture: it is individualistic to the point of being selfish. The common
perception goes something like this: You turn eighteen. You leave your parents’
house. You start working the soil. You go to college. You go West. You teach
English in Korea. You fall into the heart of the “busy” trap that is Manhattan.
You sell all your possessions and move to Portland. Throughout it all, you go
it alone, making and losing friends, and falling in and out of love. It is the
American story; it is what separates us from those weak-spirited Europeans who
live with their parents until marriage, then move out to tiny Fiats and
socialized medicine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Figure
<span style="color: windowtext;">2</span></i><span style="color: windowtext;"><i> -
FALSE. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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So what is missing from this American story? Well, how about
family – you know, the people who brought you into this world? The role of family
in our lives according to the common narrative is like sex on TV: completely unreflective
of reality. In this common narrative, you visit your folks once a year, maybe
Thanksgiving, maybe Christmas. You call your Mother once in a while. Notice
that I refer to “popular culture” and “the common narrative”, and not “us”
because in reality, most people’s lives are tightly interwoven with their
families. They get a “loan” from their parents for a down payment on a house;
they drop the kids off at Grandma’s for a weekend; they care for their elderly
parents. <o:p></o:p></div>
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With that family relationship comes a set of obligations and
responsibilities. You must make your own way, but you also have to realize that
you carry the weight and traditions of your past with you….<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tim Kreider: “<i>Excuse me, but what does this have to do with
my essay? I was just trying to point out that our over-committed lifestyle is
largely self-imposed. Most of the things that most of us do are just not that
important at the end of day, you know? Also, I kind of dig Russell Westbrook’s
style, so lay off</i>.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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You are right, Tim. Let’s get to the point. <o:p></o:p></div>
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First, few people I know have the luxury of living for themselves.
Whether a factor of money, time, or having loved ones close by, most of us choose
(or cannot avoid) to have our parents, children, and siblings be a big part of
our lives, and that tends to really eat away at the idle time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-sCx4aCqlxoL8rYKxpk_wHxWaOLZ8XA327mOB33JQsUmGjaN64FpLYZdz_IjGhCmNGYz0XW37ApyoD5AYsXvAjUpz6iWm6U95v7kkm5h6UkaT2Ox9ylj7H8HBViBLasWpKg2ayqSRmGg/s1600/Middle+Ages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-sCx4aCqlxoL8rYKxpk_wHxWaOLZ8XA327mOB33JQsUmGjaN64FpLYZdz_IjGhCmNGYz0XW37ApyoD5AYsXvAjUpz6iWm6U95v7kkm5h6UkaT2Ox9ylj7H8HBViBLasWpKg2ayqSRmGg/s320/Middle+Ages.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Figure 3 - It must have really sucked to live in the Middle
Ages.</i><span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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My second point deals more directly with Tim’s underlying theme -
ultimately, he, like everyone else, is looking for meaning and trying to find his
place in the universe. And he is spot on when he says that “<span style="background-color: white;">Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance,
a hedge against emptiness</span>”. Too often, we put our heads down and take
our turns at the hamster wheel without even considering that you may not have
to be in the cage in the first place. But a reactionary move to live without
responsibility and expectations may leave you floating in a nihilistic vacuum,
with nothing to measure your life against. I would suggest that a healthy
amount of family participation and tradition can serve as an anchor that will
provide a safety line in your lifelong search for whatever it is that makes you
tick.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2