Hi Owl,
As you said in your last post, our roommate Crow is moving out this week. I'm very excited for him, but I'll also be sad to have him gone. Unlike you, I haven't known Crow for quite as long, and never got particularly close with him in college. It wasn't until this past year, when we all moved in together, that we've gotten close, and I now consider him one of my closest friends. I'll miss him when he leaves, but it's been great to get to know him better.
Crow, if you read this when you're settled, I hope you like your new home. Thanks for everything, buddy.
This week, we're all helping Crow pack and hanging out together. We've had a bunch of friends crashing on our couch for awhile for Crow's last week in town, and it's been a lot of fun. Almost like being back in college for a week, when we were all living together in the same dorm. It's really nice to have so many friends in close proximity.
I don't have anything deep and insightful to say today, not like Owl's post yesterday about facing the future and setting down roots. I just wanted to post something for Crow to have to let him know we're thinking of him. Sentimental, I know, but there you go.
-Raven
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
On Tree Roots and Crow's Nests
Hey Raven,
So I loved telling you a story the other day, but today I wanted to take a quick break from writing to say something a bit less fictional.
In 4 days our roommate Crow is moving to Seattle to pursue his dream of not shoveling snow every winter. And probably some other dreams too. It's been a really rough week for me and for a lot of reasons it is a difficult transition to face. Crow has been a good friend to me since very early in my college life and a big part of my life since. He's been my roommate for 2 years post college and we lived in the same dorm for most of my 4 years of college as well. It's going to be very difficult losing someone who has been a friend and a constant presence in my life for so long.
It's also, I think the beginning of the end of an era. The era of post college, pre-Adult life. I've lived with friends a lot in the last few years. I've worked odd jobs. I've puttered around trying to find a place that I wanted to be. To settle. I'm not sure I've found the place, but I have found the profession and am taking more aggressive, permanent steps towards work in that profession. The next 2 to 4 years will be spent pursuing my future profession, living where I must to do that and living with friends who can help me shoulder the economic burden of schooling, work, and living a life that doesn't drive me mad or to exhaustion. After that will come settling and finding a place to sink some roots. The idea, while exciting and appealing, is also terrifying because it means big changes, bigger decisions, and a level of Adultness that I don't feel myself ready for just yet.
I hope the next few years will bring me to a point where I am ready, but I think most changes push themselves on us before we really feel prepared for them. I know I didn't feel prepared to live far away from home for college. I didn't feel prepared to live abroad in country where I would rarely use my native language. I didn't feel ready to graduate or to find a way to life on my own. I certainly didn't feel ready for my first or second job (or a few of the jobs that came in between and after). But I also know that all those experiences were (for the most part) very good ones. I loved my life at college. I loved living abroad. I loved speaking only Spanish for days and months on end. I loved living independently and working hard at jobs that challenged me. I know, when the time comes, I'll love planting some roots and settling into a life that will challenge me in new ways.
I am also really, really looking forward to not moving once a year. Every. Single. Year.
Goodbye Crow. I hope you read this when you've gotten to Portland (like you promised you would) and I hope you know that both Raven and I miss you and have loved living with you. You're pretty much one of a kind. And if you don't keep in touch I will hunt you down.
It's a hard emptiness to face, we are all moving forward to great things. And less snow.
~ Owl
So I loved telling you a story the other day, but today I wanted to take a quick break from writing to say something a bit less fictional.
In 4 days our roommate Crow is moving to Seattle to pursue his dream of not shoveling snow every winter. And probably some other dreams too. It's been a really rough week for me and for a lot of reasons it is a difficult transition to face. Crow has been a good friend to me since very early in my college life and a big part of my life since. He's been my roommate for 2 years post college and we lived in the same dorm for most of my 4 years of college as well. It's going to be very difficult losing someone who has been a friend and a constant presence in my life for so long.
It's also, I think the beginning of the end of an era. The era of post college, pre-Adult life. I've lived with friends a lot in the last few years. I've worked odd jobs. I've puttered around trying to find a place that I wanted to be. To settle. I'm not sure I've found the place, but I have found the profession and am taking more aggressive, permanent steps towards work in that profession. The next 2 to 4 years will be spent pursuing my future profession, living where I must to do that and living with friends who can help me shoulder the economic burden of schooling, work, and living a life that doesn't drive me mad or to exhaustion. After that will come settling and finding a place to sink some roots. The idea, while exciting and appealing, is also terrifying because it means big changes, bigger decisions, and a level of Adultness that I don't feel myself ready for just yet.
I hope the next few years will bring me to a point where I am ready, but I think most changes push themselves on us before we really feel prepared for them. I know I didn't feel prepared to live far away from home for college. I didn't feel prepared to live abroad in country where I would rarely use my native language. I didn't feel ready to graduate or to find a way to life on my own. I certainly didn't feel ready for my first or second job (or a few of the jobs that came in between and after). But I also know that all those experiences were (for the most part) very good ones. I loved my life at college. I loved living abroad. I loved speaking only Spanish for days and months on end. I loved living independently and working hard at jobs that challenged me. I know, when the time comes, I'll love planting some roots and settling into a life that will challenge me in new ways.
I am also really, really looking forward to not moving once a year. Every. Single. Year.
Goodbye Crow. I hope you read this when you've gotten to Portland (like you promised you would) and I hope you know that both Raven and I miss you and have loved living with you. You're pretty much one of a kind. And if you don't keep in touch I will hunt you down.
It's a hard emptiness to face, we are all moving forward to great things. And less snow.
~ Owl
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Fern Entry One
Hey Raven,
Sorry I'm the worst and haven't updated in a while. You know the reasons. I'm going to start a story on here. My first sci-fi attempt. Be kind. And feel free to add suggestions and play in the world yourself.
Here goes...
I'm still not sure what this is exactly. My dad says it's a computer. An external processing entertainment machine that dates back from the time of Earth. He says it's a miracle the old piece of junk still works. Not that it did when a customer from uptown dropped it off at the store today. She said she found it still packed away in her family's things in the basement of their house. She didn't know what it was. Neither did I when I first looked at it. But Dad sure did! He gave her more credits than she (and I) thought it was worth and she left, very confused. Maybe it'll sell at the store for more than I think, but sometimes I wonder because Dad has a habit of buying a lot of junk that never sells. But he did manage to fix the thing. I think. It's hard to tell if it's really working right or not.
So now I'm sitting here with something that probably won't even sell and my Dad told me to write. About myself. To test it, he says. Since he's staring at me like I'm a science experiment I guess I'll do what he says. Hi computer! My name is Fern. I'm 16 years old. I live in Chicago. That's in the Northern Alliance Fleet. We're docked at the Teros Space Station Hub at the moment. That's where we get resupplied from the terraformed planets in the Teros system. It's mostly luxury stuff though. We grow and raise all the basics on the ship after all.
I live in what is usually called the Garden. It's near the bottom of the ship and inhabited almost entirely by traditionalists. People who try to live as unplugged from the network as possible. No cybernetics. Few implants. Minimal technological interference. You could probably tell all that from my name though. Most people give their kids normal names. Like Sara or John. Not weird extinct plant names like Fern. Or Heather. That's my younger sister. She's 13. My mom's name is Lavender (the extinct plant names come from her side of the family) and my dad's name is James. He was part of the Engineer Corps until he met my mom and unplugged. He's still got a cybernetic hand though. I think it's pretty cool, though it basically just does hand stuff at this point.
We, my family that is, runs a junk shop that specializes in old Earth-style technology, trinkets, and other treasures. My mom takes in most of the merchandise and my dad and I fix it up. When we can.
I've got school in the morning so Dad says that's all for tonight, but he also says I'll be doing more testing tomorrow. Whatever that means. So I guess I'll write more then. Machine off.
Apparently it doesn't respond to typed or thought commands. I'll have to get my Dad to show me how to turn it off.
Well. I hope that was okay. I had fun writing it and imagining the world. Write more soon. I promise.
Sorry I'm the worst and haven't updated in a while. You know the reasons. I'm going to start a story on here. My first sci-fi attempt. Be kind. And feel free to add suggestions and play in the world yourself.
Here goes...
7.12.5383
22:36
Muir St
Starship Chicago
Northern Alliance Fleet
Teros System
I'm still not sure what this is exactly. My dad says it's a computer. An external processing entertainment machine that dates back from the time of Earth. He says it's a miracle the old piece of junk still works. Not that it did when a customer from uptown dropped it off at the store today. She said she found it still packed away in her family's things in the basement of their house. She didn't know what it was. Neither did I when I first looked at it. But Dad sure did! He gave her more credits than she (and I) thought it was worth and she left, very confused. Maybe it'll sell at the store for more than I think, but sometimes I wonder because Dad has a habit of buying a lot of junk that never sells. But he did manage to fix the thing. I think. It's hard to tell if it's really working right or not.
So now I'm sitting here with something that probably won't even sell and my Dad told me to write. About myself. To test it, he says. Since he's staring at me like I'm a science experiment I guess I'll do what he says. Hi computer! My name is Fern. I'm 16 years old. I live in Chicago. That's in the Northern Alliance Fleet. We're docked at the Teros Space Station Hub at the moment. That's where we get resupplied from the terraformed planets in the Teros system. It's mostly luxury stuff though. We grow and raise all the basics on the ship after all.
I live in what is usually called the Garden. It's near the bottom of the ship and inhabited almost entirely by traditionalists. People who try to live as unplugged from the network as possible. No cybernetics. Few implants. Minimal technological interference. You could probably tell all that from my name though. Most people give their kids normal names. Like Sara or John. Not weird extinct plant names like Fern. Or Heather. That's my younger sister. She's 13. My mom's name is Lavender (the extinct plant names come from her side of the family) and my dad's name is James. He was part of the Engineer Corps until he met my mom and unplugged. He's still got a cybernetic hand though. I think it's pretty cool, though it basically just does hand stuff at this point.
We, my family that is, runs a junk shop that specializes in old Earth-style technology, trinkets, and other treasures. My mom takes in most of the merchandise and my dad and I fix it up. When we can.
I've got school in the morning so Dad says that's all for tonight, but he also says I'll be doing more testing tomorrow. Whatever that means. So I guess I'll write more then. Machine off.
Apparently it doesn't respond to typed or thought commands. I'll have to get my Dad to show me how to turn it off.
Well. I hope that was okay. I had fun writing it and imagining the world. Write more soon. I promise.
Friday, March 20, 2015
The Perfect Day
Every now and then, generally when we need them the most, perfect days materialize out of thin air and surprise us with their persistant delightfulness. Today was one such day.
First, today's news: the elimination diet has been unsuccessful, as I was sort of anticipating it would be. Fortunately, we have another lead to follow on the illness front, and not being allergic to foods I love is, while diagnostically unhelpful, not the worst news I could get. That means that I get to start reintroducing foods into my diet, starting TODAY! To celebrate, I tried a bit of the (soy-laden) chocolates I got for Owl as a thank you gift for her patience in dealing with a sick and grumpy me. So far, so good.
Today Owl and I were able to sleep in, which was an absolute blessing for me, as I've been sleeping terribly all week. Insomnia is super fun, kids! Owl was planning on taking the kids she nannies for to the zoo yesterday, and I was jealous because the zoo is wonderful. She did not end up taking the kids, but today, she and I went to the zoo together, and it was every bit as wonderful as I was hoping it would be.
The local zoo is free and subsists mostly off of donations, so it is understandably small. However, for a free zoo in a small city, it is still rather impressive. It is home to a fully grown Amur tiger who is constantly pacing his domain and stopping occasionally to stare down small children, two giraffes who always try desperately to reach the leaves of the trees just outside of their enclosure, a small pool of harbor seals, two delightful capybaras, an orangutan who likes to use the small plastic pool in his enclosure as a shield so that he can hide when he gets too shy, and a whole host of other creatures. We spent several hours there enjoying the gorgeous spring weather (and the sunshine!) and OwL let me drag her back to the tiger enclosure at the end of the day because big cats are basically my favorite thing ever.
The area around the zoo is one of the most interesting parts of our city. It's in one of the nicer neighborhoods, so some of the stuff there is out of our price range, but that doesn't make browsing around any less fun. We stopped by an oilery, which dealt in olive oils and vinegars, so we could window shop for some tasty fusion oils to taste when I add olive oil back in to my diet. (Soon!) After that we poked around through some of the more ecclectic shops on the street, including a gift shop full of African art run by a sweet older British woman, and an artsy shop next door that specilized in recycled materials, where we picked up some going-away cards for Crow, who is moving soon, but still hasn't read any of this blog so won't have the surprise spoiled. (He says he's waiting to read the blog until he moves, so he has a backlog of our writing to remind him of us, or something equally saccharine. If you're reading this from the future, Crow, we miss you!)
Next we visited my very favorite comic book shop. Our city has several, and I am fond of them all, but this partiuclar shop I like more than any other I've frequented, and I've found comic shops in dozens of cities on two continents and counting, so that is pretty high praise. It's one of those hole-in-the-wall comic shops, which tend to be the best, by my estimation. The owner is an older gentlemen who is incredibly friendly and helpful, and, I'm convinced, knows everything about everything. He knows all the big Marvel and DC comics, of course, but can also talk at length not only about indie comics and obscure manga, but also about video games, TV shows, history, religion, and art. And those are just the topics that have come up whilst discussing the newest issues of our favorite comics. Owl bought a Daredevil comic and a gift for a friend of ours who we haven't seen in several years, and I picked up the first volume of a Mouse Guard anthology, along with a Deadpool pin for my backpack. We chatted with the owner about our comics, he recommended several more, and he handed us each a piece of wrapped candy that he says he has become addicted to. Apparently it's pomegranate and mint flavored, and very refreshing. He's an incredibly nice guy, and his shop is one of the reasons I almost never buy comics online or at big chain retailers. There's not much I can do to stop the inevitable march of progress that will eventually deal the killing blow, first to small comic book shops like his and, in all probability, ultimatley to print comics as a whole, but I intend to do what I can to keep them around for as long as possible.
Owl had to work tonight, but we had time to sit down in the mall for awhile and read our comics. We got coffee from the small stand in the mall, from the friendly guy who works there bascially every day. He recognized me, since I come there often to get coffee for Owl during her shift, and recommended that I try the strawberry bubble tea next time I was there, which, diet allowing, I intend to! I often have trouble talking to strangers, since a combination of my speech impediment and general awkwardness leave me fumbling over my words when I get shy or flustered, but days like today make me grateful that I have encouraged myself to become more outgoing. We live in a world that is becoming increasingly fast-paced and dependent on technology, and human interaction is becoming less a necessity and more an inconvenience day by day. There was a time when I would have given anything to never have to talk to a stranger, even to order coffee, but increasingly, I have come to enjoy the small, simple conversations with store clerks, baristas, people waiting with me for the bus, and folks I would never have had the courage to so much as make eye contact with when I was younger.
After I dropped Owl off at work I went to the Barnes and Noble outside the mall, where I was stopped short by a display on the end of the science fiction and fantasy section. "A Lifetime Remembered", read the plaque, and on the display were a dozen Terry Pratchett books. A Blink of the Screen, a collection of his short fiction, was featured prominantly, and below it, The Folklore of Discworld, the series he cowrote with Stephen Baxter, Carpe Jugulum, Small Gods, The Night Watch, The Truth, and several other of my favorite books. I am not easily driven to tears, but standing there looking at the display I could feel my eyes welling up, not out of sadness, but out of this simple and yet touching memorial to an incredible life. I picked up The Folklore of Discworld, which I have been wanting for a while, and a copy of Good Omens, which despite being one of my very favorite books, I somehow don't own. On a whim I paid a visit to the children's section, the only place in this particular store that I have never yet been, and found a small selection of Pratchett's children's books. I picked up The Carpet People, his very first novel (which he started at seventeen), and have been sitting in the cafe reading it all night.
Soon I will go pay Owl a visit at the store, as Friday nights in a toy store tend to be fairly quiet. But I couldn't bring myself to leave without sharing a part of this perfect day with you, dear friends. Forgive me if I was poetic, or sentimental, but it has been a fairly rough week (or perhaps month, or perhaps even year) for me, and a day like today was exactly what I needed. It has been easy to fall into the habit of feeling badly, pitying myself, bemoaning all the things that are going wrong. But really, I am extraordinarily fortunate. I have an amazing family (I would be remiss if I didn't mention the phone call from my mother, which, even though it was about doctor appointments and medications, brightened my day like it always does), a wonderful and patient partner, a beautiful city to explore, and of course, all of you reading this now.
If you frequent this blog chances are I am terribly fond of you (if you're visiting this because you're a friend of Owl's or because you somehow found it in the recesses of the Internet and don't actually know either of us, that's okay, I'd probably like you too if I knew you) and am grateful to have you in my life. There. I said it! It's sappy and silly and I'm not taking it back. Thank you for reading. I promise I'll go back to talking about anthropology and food allergies and webcomics soon. (The combination of those three caters to a very niche audience, doesn't it?)
-Raven
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
A Lesson in Food Labeling
Hi Owl,
Okay, yeah, so. I haven't been great about writing, have I? I second your proposal for optional weekend updates, because apparently I can't even handle five days a week, let alone seven.
I am almost done with my latest (and hopefully last) elimination diet, so I will soon be back to eating normally. This means not obsessively checking every label to see if a product contains soy (protip: it probably does) and turning down any and all invitations to go out to eat pretty much anywhere. That's pretty exciting, since I haven't been able to find bread that I can eat that lasts longer than two days before molding, and I really miss toast. (And have not had the patience to make my own bread, though my wonderful mother did bake me some whole wheat challah that has been seeing me through my otherwise breadless trial.)
This diet (and all of the diets that have come before this) has been quite a learning experience. A lot of the lessons are obvious (guys, Americans really like putting additives in their food) but some of them have been less obvious (turns out that olive oil is a terrible cooking oil and there are SO MANY better options. Save your olive oil for dressings and dipping bread into, and you'll be happy.)
I wanted to share some of these lessons with you, since I'm sitting in the Starbucks cafe at Barnes and Noble and food is on my mind. (At least I can have coffee still. Thank goodness.)
Lesson 1: Allergen information is surprisingly hard to find
According to FDA regulations, most food sold in the US must be properly labelled. Generally speaking, any packaged food must come clearly labelled with the following, according to 21 CFR 101.3(a): the common name of the food, or if no common name is available, or "an appropriately descriptive term, or when the nature of the food is obvious, a fanciful name commonly used by the public for such food"; what form it comes in if applicable (whole, diced, chopped); whether or not the food is an "imitation" of another food; an information panel with nutritional information, including serving sizes, caloric content, and content and percentage of daily values for fat, sodium, carbohydrates, proteins, etc; a complete list of ingredients, with allergens clearly labelled. The whole list of rules and regulations is muuuuuuch longer and more complicated than this, of course, and includes provisions for where the labels must be placed, when to include preparation instructions, exemptions for fresh meats and dairy products, and so on.
Of course, this just covers prepackaged food. There are separate provisions for food served at restaurants, sold in vending machines, or prepared at grocery stores. Broadly speaking, the rule is that all food should be properly labeled and when a label is not applicable, such as at a restaurant, such information must be otherwise made available.
In reality, however, this is not always the case. For instance, according to the FDA website's page on the Small Business Nutrition Labeling Exemption, "one exemption, for low-volume products, applies if the person claiming the exemption employs fewer than an average of 100 full-time equivalent employees and fewer than 100,000 units of that product are sold in the United States in a 12-month period." So, if I wanted to order a pizza from Bob's Pizza Palace*, for instance, and Bob's Pizza Palace is a small, locally-owned restaurant with twenty employees, plus Bob, that delivers to a 2-mile radius in Nowhere, Indiana, Bob could apply for an exemption through the FDA and would not be obligated to provide nutritional information for his food. Moreover, the provision for restaurants that stipulates that all waitstaff must provide nutritional information when asked assumes that we live in a world where everybody a) takes their job seriously and b) realizes that terms like "vegetable oil" or "flour" are not necessarily as descriptive as they think. If I ask a waiter what my chicken is cooked in and they tell me vegetable oil, I may assume that they mean canola or rapeseed oil, which is generally the default cooking oil in the US, when in reality the chef used a mixture of sunflower oil and soybean oil. I could ask, and they might go back and check, but the potential for misinformation is still high, and if you're a shy and unassuming Midwesterner like I tend to be around strangers the chances of you even asking in the first place are, let's face it, relatively slim.
So, despite the best efforts of the FDA, it's not a foolproof system. And keep in mind, this is one area in which the US is actually doing pretty well for itself. In many other countries, the requirements for food labeling are much less stringent.
In a perfect world, every food vendor would supply a full list of ingredients for every food product they sell. This means making readily available information for every component of every item, including condiments, beverages, dairy products, flours and spices, baked goods, and prepared foods. Preferably this information would be available with little to no human interaction to minimize the possibility for miscommunication or misinformation.
There are some places that are already doing this, and they might not be the places that you expect. Oddly enough, two of the places that I have found (pretty much by accident) to be particularly accommodating are Taco Bell and McDonald's. While I don't generally look to fast food giants for health information, I was pleasantly surprised to find that both companies had information on their products readily available online. This discovery came while wandering around the mall waiting for Owl to get off of work. Finding myself incredibly hungry and without any "allowed" food in easy access, I took out my phone and began Googling allergen information for the restaurants in the food court. To my surprise, Taco Bell's website went out of their way to provide a handy chart of common allergens and a list of every item on their menu, so that consumers could easily see which of their foods had what allergens in them. This list included a legend that had symbols to demarcate the gradient of contact each menu item had with each allergen, from "contains allergen" to "prepared in common equipment", with a separate symbol for foods which contain soybean oil and a stipulation that soybean oil is not considered an allergen (though for the purposes of my particular diet it is, so I was overjoyed to see this additional note). Of course, there were virtually no menu items that were allowed on my diet available, but the list made it a lot easier to say for sure, and helped me to feel a lot less alone. In a similar vein, a little bit of Googling will get you a searchable .pdf of virtually all of McDonald's menu items with every single ingredient in them, including what they were cooked or fried in and what all sauces, condiments, and dressings contain, with common allergens listed in boldface.
I would love to see either or both of these approaches taken up by other restaurants. I don't necessarily expect this of Bob's Pizza Palace, but it's aggravating to go to Starbucks (which lists ingredients for bakery items made specifically by Starbucks, but has no information available on their beverages and stocks a great variety of non-Starbucks baked goods, such as a chocolate mousse from the Cheesecake Factory, which is known for not providing any ingredient information whatsoever) and not know what I can eat without bothering a barista who is already juggling eight other customers.
Lesson one took a lot longer to discuss than I anticipated, but it is by far the most important, and most in need of addressing. Check back next time for some more Food Knowledge, brought to you by The Hungry Raven. Next week's episode: Learning About Food Substitutes.
*This name is made up (as far as I know), but I would totally order pizza from a pizza palace.
Okay, yeah, so. I haven't been great about writing, have I? I second your proposal for optional weekend updates, because apparently I can't even handle five days a week, let alone seven.
I am almost done with my latest (and hopefully last) elimination diet, so I will soon be back to eating normally. This means not obsessively checking every label to see if a product contains soy (protip: it probably does) and turning down any and all invitations to go out to eat pretty much anywhere. That's pretty exciting, since I haven't been able to find bread that I can eat that lasts longer than two days before molding, and I really miss toast. (And have not had the patience to make my own bread, though my wonderful mother did bake me some whole wheat challah that has been seeing me through my otherwise breadless trial.)
This diet (and all of the diets that have come before this) has been quite a learning experience. A lot of the lessons are obvious (guys, Americans really like putting additives in their food) but some of them have been less obvious (turns out that olive oil is a terrible cooking oil and there are SO MANY better options. Save your olive oil for dressings and dipping bread into, and you'll be happy.)
I wanted to share some of these lessons with you, since I'm sitting in the Starbucks cafe at Barnes and Noble and food is on my mind. (At least I can have coffee still. Thank goodness.)
Lesson 1: Allergen information is surprisingly hard to find
According to FDA regulations, most food sold in the US must be properly labelled. Generally speaking, any packaged food must come clearly labelled with the following, according to 21 CFR 101.3(a): the common name of the food, or if no common name is available, or "an appropriately descriptive term, or when the nature of the food is obvious, a fanciful name commonly used by the public for such food"; what form it comes in if applicable (whole, diced, chopped); whether or not the food is an "imitation" of another food; an information panel with nutritional information, including serving sizes, caloric content, and content and percentage of daily values for fat, sodium, carbohydrates, proteins, etc; a complete list of ingredients, with allergens clearly labelled. The whole list of rules and regulations is muuuuuuch longer and more complicated than this, of course, and includes provisions for where the labels must be placed, when to include preparation instructions, exemptions for fresh meats and dairy products, and so on.
Of course, this just covers prepackaged food. There are separate provisions for food served at restaurants, sold in vending machines, or prepared at grocery stores. Broadly speaking, the rule is that all food should be properly labeled and when a label is not applicable, such as at a restaurant, such information must be otherwise made available.
In reality, however, this is not always the case. For instance, according to the FDA website's page on the Small Business Nutrition Labeling Exemption, "one exemption, for low-volume products, applies if the person claiming the exemption employs fewer than an average of 100 full-time equivalent employees and fewer than 100,000 units of that product are sold in the United States in a 12-month period." So, if I wanted to order a pizza from Bob's Pizza Palace*, for instance, and Bob's Pizza Palace is a small, locally-owned restaurant with twenty employees, plus Bob, that delivers to a 2-mile radius in Nowhere, Indiana, Bob could apply for an exemption through the FDA and would not be obligated to provide nutritional information for his food. Moreover, the provision for restaurants that stipulates that all waitstaff must provide nutritional information when asked assumes that we live in a world where everybody a) takes their job seriously and b) realizes that terms like "vegetable oil" or "flour" are not necessarily as descriptive as they think. If I ask a waiter what my chicken is cooked in and they tell me vegetable oil, I may assume that they mean canola or rapeseed oil, which is generally the default cooking oil in the US, when in reality the chef used a mixture of sunflower oil and soybean oil. I could ask, and they might go back and check, but the potential for misinformation is still high, and if you're a shy and unassuming Midwesterner like I tend to be around strangers the chances of you even asking in the first place are, let's face it, relatively slim.
So, despite the best efforts of the FDA, it's not a foolproof system. And keep in mind, this is one area in which the US is actually doing pretty well for itself. In many other countries, the requirements for food labeling are much less stringent.
In a perfect world, every food vendor would supply a full list of ingredients for every food product they sell. This means making readily available information for every component of every item, including condiments, beverages, dairy products, flours and spices, baked goods, and prepared foods. Preferably this information would be available with little to no human interaction to minimize the possibility for miscommunication or misinformation.
There are some places that are already doing this, and they might not be the places that you expect. Oddly enough, two of the places that I have found (pretty much by accident) to be particularly accommodating are Taco Bell and McDonald's. While I don't generally look to fast food giants for health information, I was pleasantly surprised to find that both companies had information on their products readily available online. This discovery came while wandering around the mall waiting for Owl to get off of work. Finding myself incredibly hungry and without any "allowed" food in easy access, I took out my phone and began Googling allergen information for the restaurants in the food court. To my surprise, Taco Bell's website went out of their way to provide a handy chart of common allergens and a list of every item on their menu, so that consumers could easily see which of their foods had what allergens in them. This list included a legend that had symbols to demarcate the gradient of contact each menu item had with each allergen, from "contains allergen" to "prepared in common equipment", with a separate symbol for foods which contain soybean oil and a stipulation that soybean oil is not considered an allergen (though for the purposes of my particular diet it is, so I was overjoyed to see this additional note). Of course, there were virtually no menu items that were allowed on my diet available, but the list made it a lot easier to say for sure, and helped me to feel a lot less alone. In a similar vein, a little bit of Googling will get you a searchable .pdf of virtually all of McDonald's menu items with every single ingredient in them, including what they were cooked or fried in and what all sauces, condiments, and dressings contain, with common allergens listed in boldface.
I would love to see either or both of these approaches taken up by other restaurants. I don't necessarily expect this of Bob's Pizza Palace, but it's aggravating to go to Starbucks (which lists ingredients for bakery items made specifically by Starbucks, but has no information available on their beverages and stocks a great variety of non-Starbucks baked goods, such as a chocolate mousse from the Cheesecake Factory, which is known for not providing any ingredient information whatsoever) and not know what I can eat without bothering a barista who is already juggling eight other customers.
Lesson one took a lot longer to discuss than I anticipated, but it is by far the most important, and most in need of addressing. Check back next time for some more Food Knowledge, brought to you by The Hungry Raven. Next week's episode: Learning About Food Substitutes.
*This name is made up (as far as I know), but I would totally order pizza from a pizza palace.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Among the Very Young At Heart
Hey Raven,
I think the writing may be on the wall. Our lives may be too busy for weekend updates. What do you say to optional weekend updates? Yes/No?
But it's Monday - time to begin another week. This week has started out on a good note! I have tons of work this week, but it's all pretty fun, cool stuff so I can't complain too much. Today was one of the best days I have had in a while. I spent the day at my toy store job, which was pretty uneventful but I got to talk to some nice folk. The day was one of the nicest we've had for a while. It finally started to feel like spring so I bought a frisbee, some bubbles the met my friends and spent the afternoon out at a coffee shop and then a park playing frisbee, blowing bubbles and making terrible puns and math jokes (the math jokes were inaccurate because let's face it I'm terrible at math). Then we came home, made delicious grown up dinner (salmon, broccoli, and spinach), played a card game I haven't played since my childhood, and watched cartoons.
Today reminded me that you are never too old to be a kid. It's never too late to play with toys, goof around, and play make believe. Some of the things that made me happiest as a kid still make me happy today. I often feel like I should be ashamed of how much I enjoy doing kid things still, but days like this remind me that frivolity is more than just okay. It's sometimes exactly what every life needs.
So Raven, don't grow old with me. Just grow with me. Hopefully even when we're 90 we'll still be kids at heart.
Best wishes,
Owl
I think the writing may be on the wall. Our lives may be too busy for weekend updates. What do you say to optional weekend updates? Yes/No?
But it's Monday - time to begin another week. This week has started out on a good note! I have tons of work this week, but it's all pretty fun, cool stuff so I can't complain too much. Today was one of the best days I have had in a while. I spent the day at my toy store job, which was pretty uneventful but I got to talk to some nice folk. The day was one of the nicest we've had for a while. It finally started to feel like spring so I bought a frisbee, some bubbles the met my friends and spent the afternoon out at a coffee shop and then a park playing frisbee, blowing bubbles and making terrible puns and math jokes (the math jokes were inaccurate because let's face it I'm terrible at math). Then we came home, made delicious grown up dinner (salmon, broccoli, and spinach), played a card game I haven't played since my childhood, and watched cartoons.
Today reminded me that you are never too old to be a kid. It's never too late to play with toys, goof around, and play make believe. Some of the things that made me happiest as a kid still make me happy today. I often feel like I should be ashamed of how much I enjoy doing kid things still, but days like this remind me that frivolity is more than just okay. It's sometimes exactly what every life needs.
So Raven, don't grow old with me. Just grow with me. Hopefully even when we're 90 we'll still be kids at heart.
Best wishes,
Owl
Friday, March 13, 2015
Sir Terry Pratchett
Floating through space, gently drifting
towards horizons unknown, is a giant turtle. And on his back rest four* elephants.
And atop of their backs in turn rests a large disc, dropping off suddenly into
a giant waterfall that cascades out into space. The turtle is the Great A’Tuin,
the elephants are Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon, and Jerakeen, and the world is
Discworld.
It is on the Disc that Terry Pratchett set
his forty Discworld novels, and it is
his most wondrous gift to our (rounder but only slightly less improbable)
world. It is on the Disc that gods play dice and laugh at the fates of mortals
atop Cori Celesti, the guilds of Ankh-Morpork turn chaos into
slightly-more-orderly chaos, the witches of the Ramtops and the wizards of
Unseen University (and its brother in Fourecks) play havoc with the
forces of magic, and Death, who is really quite a pleasant fellow once you get
to know him, stalks through his domain.
When I was twelve, my brother lent me his
copy of The Colour of Magic on a
family vacation to Florida. From the very second I first stepped foot onto the
Disc, it felt like home. And the man who created it all, though I never met
him, felt like family.
I do not use the word “hero” lightly but
Sir Terry Pratchett was my hero. He was sharp of mind and brave of spirit, and
one could do much worse than to aspire to be like him. As a writer and as a
human being, I hold Sir Terry in the highest regard, and in his passing, I feel
that I have lost an old friend.
To get to know a stranger through the words
they write on a page, the characters they birth and the worlds they build, the
stories they weave and the jokes they tell**, is a beautiful thing. In his most
beloved characters, I have found friends, role models, kindred spirits.
As a general rule I tend to avoid
definitive statements, especially regarding people I have not met. In this
case, however, I am willing to make an exception: The world was a better place
for having Terry Pratchett in it, and it will feel emptier with him gone. My
world certainly was a better place
because of Pratchett and his creations.
I could cite a list of Pratchett’s numerous
accomplishments, or tell tales of the beautiful yarns he spun, or talk at great
length about the profound personal impact his books had on me. I am confident
that I will write more about Pratchett soon, especially as I expand my already
vast library of his books. But there is time for that later. Now is a time for saying
goodbye to a beloved man, and though I do so with a heavy heart I am glad that
he died peacefully and am eternally grateful for all he gave us.
Sir Terry Pratchett, you were a god among
men. You were an astonishing example of humanity at its finest, and certainly
at its wittiest. You will be missed dearly and desperately. It will be hard to
let you go, but you will live on forever in your creations, in the minds of
your fans, and in those who loved you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
To Lyn and Rhianna Pratchett, and to who
knew and loved him, I am so sorry for your loss. May his memory be for a blessing.
On one final note, I would like to second Neil Gaiman in urging you all to consider donating to Alzheimer’s research in honour of Pratchett and everybody else who suffers or has suffered from this devastating disease.
On one final note, I would like to second Neil Gaiman in urging you all to consider donating to Alzheimer’s research in honour of Pratchett and everybody else who suffers or has suffered from this devastating disease.
Sir Pratchett's official coat of arms. The Latin translates to "Don't
fear the reaper"
*Or possibly five, if you’re into that sort
of controversial thinking...
**And to get to know a person through their
footnotes is a whole new kind of wonderful.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
An Apology To a Man I Never Knew
Hey Raven,
It's been a rough day for you (a rough week) so I'm going to take posting tonight. But not just because you need the break. I need the space. I need the space to write what I've been feeling lately and give voice to some of the rage that has been burning for a long time. Sometimes quietly, unnoticed, while other stresses took priority. Sometimes like a wildfire out of control.
This post is going to be about race in the United States, but specifically about black Americans and the way our system treats them. And the way that affected how others treat them. I'm going to start with some disclaimers because this post is going to be very much about perspective. And it's important to know where mine is coming from.
Here goes: I am a white woman. I grew up in a wealthy suburb (though in the "poor" section of that suburb) going to one of the best high schools in the country. I was in the racial majority in school from kindergarten to graduation. My town was mostly white. I went to a college that was predominantly white. I live in a city that is mostly white, where blacks are not treated with equal dignity. And I live in a state that is among the worst in the country for blacks. And I don't mean top 10. I'm talking top 5. I don't say this because I am either proud or ashamed of myself - I say it because this is the world I have lived in and it is this life and these experiences that inform my opinions.
I could give you facts and research here about white privilege, the achievement gap, incarceration rates, and other symptoms of the prolonged institutionalized racism in this country, but I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do it for two reasons. First, because a good friend of mine has done a better job explaining it than I ever could*. And second, because I can't today. I can't spit out facts and numbers like that's all this issue is and all it can be boiled down to. I know numbers are important and some people will never believe anecdotal or common sense arguments, but emotions aren't logical. They don't feel quelled by a satisfying study or neat columns of statistics. And emotions are important here.
Today I am still angry. And hurt. And disappointed. And ashamed. And a whole host of other emotions that make my hands shake and stomach turn. Another life is gone and another conversation looms before us about the relationship between police officers and the black community, especially young black men. I don't know all the facts of Tony Robinson's death. Just like I don't know exactly what happened when Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, or Sean Bell (and many, many, many others) died unarmed at the hands of police officers. We will never know all the facts because we weren't there and any investigation, however thorough, will only reveal so much. We may never know the facts, but we should all know that prejudice certainly played a role. Every cop, no matter the color of their skin, internalizes the systemic racist image of the black man as a dangerous criminal. It is ingrained in us early and stays even when we don't realize its presence. Or its power.
I want to illustrate that image with an experience from my childhood that haunts me to this day. And marks the moment when I finally realized how much I had internalized a pervasive racism I never even noticed before that day. When I was 14 I was finally allowed to stay home on my own. I could walk home from high school, find the key in our mailbox, slip in the back door (the front door never opened even with a key), and hide the key back in the mailbox. Going through that routine one day I swung open the door to put the key back in the mailbox and there was a man standing there, hand raised, about to knock on the door. We were both surprised and the surprise already had my heart racing (and probably his, too). He couldn't have been older than 25 and I think I remember he was holding a clipboard. I know now he was obviously going around the neighborhood doing a poll or collecting data of some kind. But at 14 I was skittish, easily scared, and still nervous about staying home alone. I was also, as I discovered that day, pretty damn racist**, though I had never thought I was.
The man asked if my parents were home (I remember not wanting to answer the question because... I don't honestly remember) so I told him I'd just gotten home. I don't remember what he said in return, but I do remember he took a very, very slight step forward and I remember taking a step back and jerking the door a noticeable amount towards closed, as if preparing to flee. I don't remember much of the conversation before this point, but I still remember with shocking clarity his next words. "Not all black guys are that bad." I can still hear the words as he spoke them, full of indignation, disappointment, anger, and a lot of other emotions I can't put a name to now any more than I could then. Then he turned and left and I closed the door and sagged against it feeling equal parts insulted and terrified.
I told myself with indignation that I would have reacted the same way if it had been a white man. Though I had to admit even in the heat of the moment I probably wouldn't have reacted that way if it had been a woman. I didn't want to think of myself as someone who was racist. I don't think anyone (at least anyone sane) wants to see themselves that way. But I had to admit that the color of his skin had played a role in how I reacted. When I looked back at the encounter later I realized I had handled it very poorly. And probably hurt someone very badly in the process.
The larger point is that we both knew why we I reacted the way I did. I knew, at least eventually, that I reacted to him because I was used to seeing black men portrayed primarily as violent, criminal people. I also realized that I saw men as a bigger physical threat than women in general. He was both. As his rebuke clearly showed, he knew both of my reasons. It took a very, very long time before I forgave myself for that encounter. I often wonder what its effects were on him or if he was just used to meeting with that level of distrust on a regular basis.
I realize now that even though the memory still causes me pain and discomfort to relive I am glad I had it. Many white people go through their whole lives never realizing they hold these prejudices. Never realizing that even though they say and firmly believe they aren't racist, they will still act instinctively when they feel threatened. And our subconscious, ruling over our instincts, has been taught from an early age that black and male is doubly dangerous. So we act and react that way, often causing an overreaction to a simple situation.
Now on the flip side of that encounter the black man I insulted had certainly gotten that reaction before. It was pretty clear even to 14 year old me. He was used to people not trusting him on sight. And now that I have lived a little and actually gotten to know more about black culture and black history I understand that black people learn different lessons in their childhoods than I did in mine. One of those lessons is that the police can't be trusted. And historically that belief is not unfounded. The 50 year anniversary of the march in Selma is illustration enough of that lasting cultural legacy.
None of this subconscious maneuvering in any way excuses my behavior. Or the behavior of the cops who have taken the lives of unarmed black men. Or the man who killed Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. Or the people responsible for the shooting of two cops in Ferguson. It doesn't excuse it, but it gives us insight and I hope it will help us stop more incidents in the future. It is disappointing that we don't teach every kid who passes through the public education system about racial injustice, internalized racism, and institutional racism. But it is, to me, unpardonable that we don't do this for cops. It should be mandatory that every single cop on the streets or behind a desk get trained and educated on the cultures they will be serving. They should know, before they pull the trigger, that they may be pulling it for all the wrong reasons.
Raven. I hope you feel better. Sorry for the feelings post on a day that has already been pretty feelings-full for you. Sorry the post is a bit late! Work got in the way of a timely update tonight. I hope to hear from you tomorrow - I know you have your own sad post to write. Maybe I'll update tomorrow with some kittens or something just so we can have a happy moment on here this week!
*If you like knowing things about the world you should read her blog. If you don't like knowing things about the world you should still read her blog because it's brilliant and everyone should read her blog.
**Racism here = Power + Prejudice (I, being white, have more systemic power than someone who is black)
It's been a rough day for you (a rough week) so I'm going to take posting tonight. But not just because you need the break. I need the space. I need the space to write what I've been feeling lately and give voice to some of the rage that has been burning for a long time. Sometimes quietly, unnoticed, while other stresses took priority. Sometimes like a wildfire out of control.
This post is going to be about race in the United States, but specifically about black Americans and the way our system treats them. And the way that affected how others treat them. I'm going to start with some disclaimers because this post is going to be very much about perspective. And it's important to know where mine is coming from.
Here goes: I am a white woman. I grew up in a wealthy suburb (though in the "poor" section of that suburb) going to one of the best high schools in the country. I was in the racial majority in school from kindergarten to graduation. My town was mostly white. I went to a college that was predominantly white. I live in a city that is mostly white, where blacks are not treated with equal dignity. And I live in a state that is among the worst in the country for blacks. And I don't mean top 10. I'm talking top 5. I don't say this because I am either proud or ashamed of myself - I say it because this is the world I have lived in and it is this life and these experiences that inform my opinions.
I could give you facts and research here about white privilege, the achievement gap, incarceration rates, and other symptoms of the prolonged institutionalized racism in this country, but I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do it for two reasons. First, because a good friend of mine has done a better job explaining it than I ever could*. And second, because I can't today. I can't spit out facts and numbers like that's all this issue is and all it can be boiled down to. I know numbers are important and some people will never believe anecdotal or common sense arguments, but emotions aren't logical. They don't feel quelled by a satisfying study or neat columns of statistics. And emotions are important here.
Today I am still angry. And hurt. And disappointed. And ashamed. And a whole host of other emotions that make my hands shake and stomach turn. Another life is gone and another conversation looms before us about the relationship between police officers and the black community, especially young black men. I don't know all the facts of Tony Robinson's death. Just like I don't know exactly what happened when Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, or Sean Bell (and many, many, many others) died unarmed at the hands of police officers. We will never know all the facts because we weren't there and any investigation, however thorough, will only reveal so much. We may never know the facts, but we should all know that prejudice certainly played a role. Every cop, no matter the color of their skin, internalizes the systemic racist image of the black man as a dangerous criminal. It is ingrained in us early and stays even when we don't realize its presence. Or its power.
I want to illustrate that image with an experience from my childhood that haunts me to this day. And marks the moment when I finally realized how much I had internalized a pervasive racism I never even noticed before that day. When I was 14 I was finally allowed to stay home on my own. I could walk home from high school, find the key in our mailbox, slip in the back door (the front door never opened even with a key), and hide the key back in the mailbox. Going through that routine one day I swung open the door to put the key back in the mailbox and there was a man standing there, hand raised, about to knock on the door. We were both surprised and the surprise already had my heart racing (and probably his, too). He couldn't have been older than 25 and I think I remember he was holding a clipboard. I know now he was obviously going around the neighborhood doing a poll or collecting data of some kind. But at 14 I was skittish, easily scared, and still nervous about staying home alone. I was also, as I discovered that day, pretty damn racist**, though I had never thought I was.
The man asked if my parents were home (I remember not wanting to answer the question because... I don't honestly remember) so I told him I'd just gotten home. I don't remember what he said in return, but I do remember he took a very, very slight step forward and I remember taking a step back and jerking the door a noticeable amount towards closed, as if preparing to flee. I don't remember much of the conversation before this point, but I still remember with shocking clarity his next words. "Not all black guys are that bad." I can still hear the words as he spoke them, full of indignation, disappointment, anger, and a lot of other emotions I can't put a name to now any more than I could then. Then he turned and left and I closed the door and sagged against it feeling equal parts insulted and terrified.
I told myself with indignation that I would have reacted the same way if it had been a white man. Though I had to admit even in the heat of the moment I probably wouldn't have reacted that way if it had been a woman. I didn't want to think of myself as someone who was racist. I don't think anyone (at least anyone sane) wants to see themselves that way. But I had to admit that the color of his skin had played a role in how I reacted. When I looked back at the encounter later I realized I had handled it very poorly. And probably hurt someone very badly in the process.
The larger point is that we both knew why we I reacted the way I did. I knew, at least eventually, that I reacted to him because I was used to seeing black men portrayed primarily as violent, criminal people. I also realized that I saw men as a bigger physical threat than women in general. He was both. As his rebuke clearly showed, he knew both of my reasons. It took a very, very long time before I forgave myself for that encounter. I often wonder what its effects were on him or if he was just used to meeting with that level of distrust on a regular basis.
I realize now that even though the memory still causes me pain and discomfort to relive I am glad I had it. Many white people go through their whole lives never realizing they hold these prejudices. Never realizing that even though they say and firmly believe they aren't racist, they will still act instinctively when they feel threatened. And our subconscious, ruling over our instincts, has been taught from an early age that black and male is doubly dangerous. So we act and react that way, often causing an overreaction to a simple situation.
Now on the flip side of that encounter the black man I insulted had certainly gotten that reaction before. It was pretty clear even to 14 year old me. He was used to people not trusting him on sight. And now that I have lived a little and actually gotten to know more about black culture and black history I understand that black people learn different lessons in their childhoods than I did in mine. One of those lessons is that the police can't be trusted. And historically that belief is not unfounded. The 50 year anniversary of the march in Selma is illustration enough of that lasting cultural legacy.
None of this subconscious maneuvering in any way excuses my behavior. Or the behavior of the cops who have taken the lives of unarmed black men. Or the man who killed Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. Or the people responsible for the shooting of two cops in Ferguson. It doesn't excuse it, but it gives us insight and I hope it will help us stop more incidents in the future. It is disappointing that we don't teach every kid who passes through the public education system about racial injustice, internalized racism, and institutional racism. But it is, to me, unpardonable that we don't do this for cops. It should be mandatory that every single cop on the streets or behind a desk get trained and educated on the cultures they will be serving. They should know, before they pull the trigger, that they may be pulling it for all the wrong reasons.
Raven. I hope you feel better. Sorry for the feelings post on a day that has already been pretty feelings-full for you. Sorry the post is a bit late! Work got in the way of a timely update tonight. I hope to hear from you tomorrow - I know you have your own sad post to write. Maybe I'll update tomorrow with some kittens or something just so we can have a happy moment on here this week!
*If you like knowing things about the world you should read her blog. If you don't like knowing things about the world you should still read her blog because it's brilliant and everyone should read her blog.
**Racism here = Power + Prejudice (I, being white, have more systemic power than someone who is black)
Gutted
I know I've been dreadful about posting reliably this week. I apologize. Sometimes Life gets in the way, the nosy bugger.
Today has been...not a good day, for a number of reasons that I will not bore you with, but suffice it to say...I will once again not be giving you a full post. Owl is taking over my post for tonight, but I couldn't leave you without a brief word.
Those of you who have ever talked to me about literature likely know this: Terry Pratchett holds a very special place in my heart, right at the top of the pedestal of brilliant authors. I have long admired him both as a storyteller and a craftsmen, and though I know him only through his writing and his public persona, I have admired him greatly as a person.
In light of his passing today I find myself desperately sad that we have lost such a great man and a great mind, and incredibly blessed to have shared Discworld with him and with millions of other, incredible fans.
To say that Pratchett deserves a full post from me would be drastically understating the matter. He deserves several full-length books in my mind. But at the very least he shall get a full post, just not this one.
To all of you who have borne this sad news with me: Thank you for being there along side me.
Sir Terry, I hope that your journey across the endless plains is half as good a journey as the ones you've taken us on over the years.
Today has been...not a good day, for a number of reasons that I will not bore you with, but suffice it to say...I will once again not be giving you a full post. Owl is taking over my post for tonight, but I couldn't leave you without a brief word.
Those of you who have ever talked to me about literature likely know this: Terry Pratchett holds a very special place in my heart, right at the top of the pedestal of brilliant authors. I have long admired him both as a storyteller and a craftsmen, and though I know him only through his writing and his public persona, I have admired him greatly as a person.
In light of his passing today I find myself desperately sad that we have lost such a great man and a great mind, and incredibly blessed to have shared Discworld with him and with millions of other, incredible fans.
To say that Pratchett deserves a full post from me would be drastically understating the matter. He deserves several full-length books in my mind. But at the very least he shall get a full post, just not this one.
To all of you who have borne this sad news with me: Thank you for being there along side me.
Sir Terry, I hope that your journey across the endless plains is half as good a journey as the ones you've taken us on over the years.
If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story. –Sir Terry Pratchett, from The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (2001)
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
An Introduction to Rage
Hey Raven,
So it turns out I just do not have enough energy to rage properly tonight. And raging is exactly what I want (and I think need) to do this week.
Unless you have been living under a rock the last year you know that there have been a lot of cops shooting unarmed black men and boys. This past weekend there was another. I have a lot of feelings and concerns around this issue that I am currently too tired/worked up to talk about. So I wanted to post a few links today instead. I'm hoping I will be up to talking about it in my next post.
First: Here's a link to what happened last weekend in case you didn't know/haven't heard yet. The cliff notes is that an unarmed black teenager named Tony Robinson was shot and fatally wounded by a Madison police officer. Read more here.
Second: There has been a lot of talk about the differences between this shooting and some of the others during 2014, and I'll admit there are some big differences. But that it still happens and many people are intent on dismissing the issue makes me pretty furious. This piece gives a good quick read on my feelings about people downplaying the issue. Read here.
Last for tonight: Here and here and here and here are some articles I think are worth reading and thinking about in terms of race. Reading all of Kristof's articles on race I think is very worthwhile. He has some very good points to make and some very good resources to back him up.
That's all I've got tonight. More next time!
Best wishes,
Owl
So it turns out I just do not have enough energy to rage properly tonight. And raging is exactly what I want (and I think need) to do this week.
Unless you have been living under a rock the last year you know that there have been a lot of cops shooting unarmed black men and boys. This past weekend there was another. I have a lot of feelings and concerns around this issue that I am currently too tired/worked up to talk about. So I wanted to post a few links today instead. I'm hoping I will be up to talking about it in my next post.
First: Here's a link to what happened last weekend in case you didn't know/haven't heard yet. The cliff notes is that an unarmed black teenager named Tony Robinson was shot and fatally wounded by a Madison police officer. Read more here.
Second: There has been a lot of talk about the differences between this shooting and some of the others during 2014, and I'll admit there are some big differences. But that it still happens and many people are intent on dismissing the issue makes me pretty furious. This piece gives a good quick read on my feelings about people downplaying the issue. Read here.
Last for tonight: Here and here and here and here are some articles I think are worth reading and thinking about in terms of race. Reading all of Kristof's articles on race I think is very worthwhile. He has some very good points to make and some very good resources to back him up.
That's all I've got tonight. More next time!
Best wishes,
Owl
Monday, March 9, 2015
The Business of Nation Building
Hey Raven,
I really enjoyed your post about the changing landscape of human evolution. Or I guess, our discovery of a different landscape than expected. I find it endlessly interesting when science changes and evolves. We sometimes forget that we don't make the truth or shape the past - we just discover the way it was. And often, we get it wrong.
There are some contemporary issues I would like to talk about today, but I woke up mega early and worked all day then had unexpected (but wonderful) company drop in. So my next post will be about the contemporary issue that has been on my mind since Saturday night. But tonight, it's a bit too serious for me to get into. So instead I'm going to talk about Eloy Alfaro, as I earlier promised. Because the story of a man who helped to shape modern day Ecuador and was viciously murdered for his efforts is more uplifting... I guess.
So, yeah. Spoiler alert, this story doesn't end happily for our protagonist, but he does have a pretty incredible life that is important to understand if you want to understand Ecuadorian politics (which I did and still do).
Eloy Alfaro is known for many things in Ecuadorian history, primarily as a great liberal voice for a secular society, He was president of Ecuador twice, though both times he initially took power by force rather than by a vote. Though he was never brought to power by popular vote his name still looms large in the country; the nation's military college, a famous battleship, and Quito's airport all bear his name.
Alfaro struggled for most of his life against the dominant conservative powers in Ecuador. His struggle (and Ecuador's as a whole at that time) mirrored the struggle many other Latin American countries were waging between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives held strong Catholic beliefs and wanted the Church to have a strong, guiding position in the running and educating of the country. Liberals felt there should be a strong separation between the two powers and that of the two, the state should be dominant over the Church. They also fought for freedom of religion rather than a national state religion. Conservatives also generally favored conserving voting rights for those that had them and denying them to new segments of the population. Liberals supported universal suffrage for all men.
Alfaro was a liberal from early in his life. He spent the first 50 years of his life struggling against conservatives, almost dying several times in the process. One of the most important things he did early in his life was marry a Panamanian heiress who helped him fund his literal battles against the establishment conservatives. Alfaro suffered a number of defeats and exiles before taking power in 1895 at the age of 53.
Among his most notable achievements was a great railroad that connected Quito, the capital city, with Guayaquil, the great industrial powerhouse on the Pacific. It was difficult mountainous terrain, but building it helped unify a country that geography had kept very divided for years. The railroad was completed in 1908 and made it much easier for people and goods to travel between the two major cities.
Toward the end of his life Alfaro grew distrustful even of other liberals, even going so far as to tamper with the elections of 1910 to get his chosen successor elected. Then he asked the man to step aside and let him rule again. By then the conservative factions already hated Alfaro (for obvious reasons), but by strong-arming his own political base Alfaro burned many of the bridges he had earlier helped to build. He was not to rule again and was exiled from the country again.
In 1912 Alfaro returned and attempted another coup attempt, this one unsuccessful. He was imprisoned, but before he could be dealt with by any authorities an angry mob dealt him their own brand of justice. He was shot, tied to a wagon, dragged through the streets of the capital, and eventually his body was burned where the Parque El Ejido stands in Quito today.
Despite a checkered history that included dictatorial rule, tampering with free elections, coups d'etat, and general political repression Alfaro is well remembered today as one of the founding members of modern Ecuador. And in fact, he did a great deal to bring Ecuador into the modern age. He stripped away much of the Church's power and gave the issues of education, marriages, and deaths over to the state to run. This move, and others like it, forced the people of Ecuador to think of themselves in terms of their nationality as well as their religion. Alfaro was also an ally to the poor. He did away with debtors prisons and freed many hacienda workers (many of whom were native Ecuadorians). Alfaro made a major push for industrialization and with a newly mobile work force he was able to start, and eventually see completed, one of the great unifying structures of country - the railway from Quito to Guayaquil.
It is perhaps no great surprise that he is a particular role model of the current president Rafael Correa. After all Correa shares many of Alfaro's liberal principles and strives for a free, independent, strong Ecuador. He has also been very successful in negotiating Ecuador's large debt, lowering unemployment as well as lowering the high poverty level in the country. However, Correa shares his some of his role model's less appealing traits as well. Correa has been accused of nepotism, general corruption, limiting free speech, and taking too much of a government role in the private sector (especially where education is concerned). He has been president since 2007 (for 8 years now) and shows no signs of passing the reigns of power. Only time will tell if Correa is interested in building a political dynasty, his own dictatorship (in the style of Hugo Chavez), or only interested in building as strong a country as he can manage by any means necessary.
There are all kinds of ways to build a country. Though his methods may be questioned by modern (and likely his contemporary) politicians and scholars there can be no doubt that Alfaro did move the country forward in terms of modernization during his time in power. There can also be no doubt that Alfaro's name and legacy still loom large in the country's present and future, for good or ill.
Hope you learned something today!
Best wishes,
Owl
I really enjoyed your post about the changing landscape of human evolution. Or I guess, our discovery of a different landscape than expected. I find it endlessly interesting when science changes and evolves. We sometimes forget that we don't make the truth or shape the past - we just discover the way it was. And often, we get it wrong.
There are some contemporary issues I would like to talk about today, but I woke up mega early and worked all day then had unexpected (but wonderful) company drop in. So my next post will be about the contemporary issue that has been on my mind since Saturday night. But tonight, it's a bit too serious for me to get into. So instead I'm going to talk about Eloy Alfaro, as I earlier promised. Because the story of a man who helped to shape modern day Ecuador and was viciously murdered for his efforts is more uplifting... I guess.
So, yeah. Spoiler alert, this story doesn't end happily for our protagonist, but he does have a pretty incredible life that is important to understand if you want to understand Ecuadorian politics (which I did and still do).
Eloy Alfaro is known for many things in Ecuadorian history, primarily as a great liberal voice for a secular society, He was president of Ecuador twice, though both times he initially took power by force rather than by a vote. Though he was never brought to power by popular vote his name still looms large in the country; the nation's military college, a famous battleship, and Quito's airport all bear his name.
 |
| And one hopes his face, too. That is a good face for currency! |
Alfaro was a liberal from early in his life. He spent the first 50 years of his life struggling against conservatives, almost dying several times in the process. One of the most important things he did early in his life was marry a Panamanian heiress who helped him fund his literal battles against the establishment conservatives. Alfaro suffered a number of defeats and exiles before taking power in 1895 at the age of 53.
Among his most notable achievements was a great railroad that connected Quito, the capital city, with Guayaquil, the great industrial powerhouse on the Pacific. It was difficult mountainous terrain, but building it helped unify a country that geography had kept very divided for years. The railroad was completed in 1908 and made it much easier for people and goods to travel between the two major cities.
 |
| "I connected a whole country and all I got was my face on this lousy 50 cent piece!" |
Toward the end of his life Alfaro grew distrustful even of other liberals, even going so far as to tamper with the elections of 1910 to get his chosen successor elected. Then he asked the man to step aside and let him rule again. By then the conservative factions already hated Alfaro (for obvious reasons), but by strong-arming his own political base Alfaro burned many of the bridges he had earlier helped to build. He was not to rule again and was exiled from the country again.
In 1912 Alfaro returned and attempted another coup attempt, this one unsuccessful. He was imprisoned, but before he could be dealt with by any authorities an angry mob dealt him their own brand of justice. He was shot, tied to a wagon, dragged through the streets of the capital, and eventually his body was burned where the Parque El Ejido stands in Quito today.
Despite a checkered history that included dictatorial rule, tampering with free elections, coups d'etat, and general political repression Alfaro is well remembered today as one of the founding members of modern Ecuador. And in fact, he did a great deal to bring Ecuador into the modern age. He stripped away much of the Church's power and gave the issues of education, marriages, and deaths over to the state to run. This move, and others like it, forced the people of Ecuador to think of themselves in terms of their nationality as well as their religion. Alfaro was also an ally to the poor. He did away with debtors prisons and freed many hacienda workers (many of whom were native Ecuadorians). Alfaro made a major push for industrialization and with a newly mobile work force he was able to start, and eventually see completed, one of the great unifying structures of country - the railway from Quito to Guayaquil.
It is perhaps no great surprise that he is a particular role model of the current president Rafael Correa. After all Correa shares many of Alfaro's liberal principles and strives for a free, independent, strong Ecuador. He has also been very successful in negotiating Ecuador's large debt, lowering unemployment as well as lowering the high poverty level in the country. However, Correa shares his some of his role model's less appealing traits as well. Correa has been accused of nepotism, general corruption, limiting free speech, and taking too much of a government role in the private sector (especially where education is concerned). He has been president since 2007 (for 8 years now) and shows no signs of passing the reigns of power. Only time will tell if Correa is interested in building a political dynasty, his own dictatorship (in the style of Hugo Chavez), or only interested in building as strong a country as he can manage by any means necessary.
There are all kinds of ways to build a country. Though his methods may be questioned by modern (and likely his contemporary) politicians and scholars there can be no doubt that Alfaro did move the country forward in terms of modernization during his time in power. There can also be no doubt that Alfaro's name and legacy still loom large in the country's present and future, for good or ill.
Hope you learned something today!
Best wishes,
Owl
Saturday, March 7, 2015
The Ledi-Geraru Jaw, Part 1
Hi Owl,
On Tuesday I mentioned that Donald Johanson hinted to some exciting news that would be released on Wednesday. I had planned to talk about this (very) exciting news on Thursday, but was quite ill
and was not feeling up to doing such an important topic justice. I will try to tackle it tonight.
On Wednesday, it was announced that researchers in Ethiopia had found remains of a Homo habilis mandible that dated back to 2.8 million years ago. They are calling this the Ledi-Geraru jaw as it was found at the Ledi-Geraru research area in the Afar Regional State of Ethiopia, and scientists prefer descriptiveness over creativity when it comes to nomenclature. The bone was found by Chalachew Seyoum, an Ethiopian paleoanthropological student studying at Arizona State University, who first spotted a premolar during a walkover survey, and found that it was attached to a piece of a mandible. Other fragments of the lower jaw were found, along with four other teeth. The jawbone matched most closely that of Homo habilis. H. habilis is considered to be the oldest known member of the genus Homo, though there has been controversy over its categorization as Homo instead of Australopithecus, the genus to which Lucy belongs. The first H. habilis specimens dated from between 1.7-1.9 million years ago. Though older specimens have been found since then, this newest specimen, at 2.8 million years old, pushes the fossil record back considerably, and reshapes
the earliest views of our lineage as a genus.
This is incredibly big news, and its significance is multifaceted. I cannot do it justice in the twelve minutes I have until my deadline, but I will resume this topic on Monday for a more complete overview of this discovery.
For tonight, here is an overview of the five biggest implications to come out of this finding.
1.) This fossil is 400,000 years older than any previously discovered fossil belonging to the genus Homo.
2.) It is possible that Homo habilis represents a split in the Homo genus to represent two separate evolutionary lines, one ultimately evolving into H. sapiens and the other dying out at some point but representing an entirely distinct evolution of the genus Homo.
3.) This further suggests that climate change may have driven to the adaptations that led eventually to early species of Homo.
4.) The origins of Homo in East Africa are now even more firmly supported by the fossil record.
5.) It has become clear that three distinct species of Homo existed, not necessarily simultaneously but in very close chronological proximity, between 2.1 and 1.6 million years ago: H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, and H. erectus.
This complicates the previously-understood landscape of human evolution, and could have significant implications for how we evolved. I am excited to learn more about this fascinating discovery, and I hope that you will keep reading on Monday for a deeper look at what this discovery means.
-Raven
On Tuesday I mentioned that Donald Johanson hinted to some exciting news that would be released on Wednesday. I had planned to talk about this (very) exciting news on Thursday, but was quite ill
and was not feeling up to doing such an important topic justice. I will try to tackle it tonight.
On Wednesday, it was announced that researchers in Ethiopia had found remains of a Homo habilis mandible that dated back to 2.8 million years ago. They are calling this the Ledi-Geraru jaw as it was found at the Ledi-Geraru research area in the Afar Regional State of Ethiopia, and scientists prefer descriptiveness over creativity when it comes to nomenclature. The bone was found by Chalachew Seyoum, an Ethiopian paleoanthropological student studying at Arizona State University, who first spotted a premolar during a walkover survey, and found that it was attached to a piece of a mandible. Other fragments of the lower jaw were found, along with four other teeth. The jawbone matched most closely that of Homo habilis. H. habilis is considered to be the oldest known member of the genus Homo, though there has been controversy over its categorization as Homo instead of Australopithecus, the genus to which Lucy belongs. The first H. habilis specimens dated from between 1.7-1.9 million years ago. Though older specimens have been found since then, this newest specimen, at 2.8 million years old, pushes the fossil record back considerably, and reshapesthe earliest views of our lineage as a genus.
 |
| Chalachew Seyoum holding his discovery |
For tonight, here is an overview of the five biggest implications to come out of this finding.
1.) This fossil is 400,000 years older than any previously discovered fossil belonging to the genus Homo.
2.) It is possible that Homo habilis represents a split in the Homo genus to represent two separate evolutionary lines, one ultimately evolving into H. sapiens and the other dying out at some point but representing an entirely distinct evolution of the genus Homo.
3.) This further suggests that climate change may have driven to the adaptations that led eventually to early species of Homo.
4.) The origins of Homo in East Africa are now even more firmly supported by the fossil record.
5.) It has become clear that three distinct species of Homo existed, not necessarily simultaneously but in very close chronological proximity, between 2.1 and 1.6 million years ago: H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, and H. erectus.
 | ||||
| The Ledi-Geraru jaw |
This complicates the previously-understood landscape of human evolution, and could have significant implications for how we evolved. I am excited to learn more about this fascinating discovery, and I hope that you will keep reading on Monday for a deeper look at what this discovery means.
-Raven
An Early Lesson From My Mom
Hey Raven,
Sorry for the days of radio silence. We have been on vacation (you were super sick so I forgive you for missing a blog post!)
Tonight we watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and it got me thinking. About a lot of things. Mostly how our society deals (or more frequently doesn't deal) with its oldest members. In the US and in many other similarly "modern" countries we can easily forget the elderly or pidgeon-hole them into a comfortable role. An older woman is a grandmother, an older man is a grandfather - nothing more. They are no longer autonomous beings. They belong to a younger member of society in the same way a very young child belongs to its parents. We, as a society, forget that they aren't just that and sometimes they aren't that at all (not all older people are grandparents, after all). We forget that they are a unique individual. We forget that they are still adults with their own desires, traditions, rituals, experiences, and desires. They are not living for us, nor are they waiting around to die. I have my mother to thank for teaching me this early in my life. My mother is an extraordinarily talented therapist who has worked for more than 20 years with elderly. Her stories and her understanding of her patients as people first and patients second gave me my first view of the elderly as they truly are, not as they are so often seen.
Hollywood often deals poorly with this reality. Most older actors and actresses are sent off to the kindly grandmother, wise grandfather, or society recluse as soon as a sufficient portion of hair has turned gray.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel resists this temptation and instead builds a rich story centered around an almost entirely older cast. The youngest member of the main cast is 59 at the movie's shooting time (hardly what I would consider the "Golden Years" though Hollywood's perception of age is very skewed to say the least). I'm not sure how old they are all meant to be, but clearly of retirement age and beyond. They are at the point where society is starting to see them as a burden: a point made clear early in the movie when Judi Dench's character Evelyn is trying to decide how to proceed with her life after her husband's death. There is little conversation - only her son telling her how things will be. Even after she decides she will not move in with him and will instead head to India he doubts her all the way - assuming she can't do it. Dev Patel's character makes it even clearer later in the movie when he is arguing with his mother about where he will get clients from and he tells her there are plenty of countries where they hate the elderly. And while I don't think hate is precisely the right term, I do think the elderly make many of us uncomfortable or unsure how to act. We tend to ignore them, infantilize them, or fear them.
The movie does an excellent job setting up the way these characters are seen and then does an equally splendid job of challenging our first impressions (and society's view) of these characters throughout. There are many lovely plot lines including one of a gay man returning to India to seek out the lover he feels he wronged many years ago. There is a woman searching for her next rich husband. A woman learning how to be independent after her husband's death. And a particularly unlikable character, at first glance, who works to get over some severe racism and bigotry throughout the movie. The plots are rife with adult (not elderly) content. There is love, sex, discovery, forgiveness, loss, and yes a few very wise words. No character is forgotten or pushed aside and though there are no shortage of jokes on the subject of age they are all made in good taste, but the characters themselves. A notable one comes when one of the men is going out on a date that will clearly end in sex and he is warned of the dangers of having sex at his age. His response? "If she dies, she dies." This one joke is a great summation of how the movie gives viewers the familiar picture of the elderly and then turns it on its ear.
We are people at any age is the take away message of the movie. And it is never too late to live a full life. As a young person I think it is important to remember that and remember that everyone will one day grow old. No one wants to be condescended to, ignored, or seen as a burden after a life of self reliance. In other words we all want to grow old with a little dignity and respect. To get there ourselves we have to start giving dignity and respect now. Seeing each person we meet as an individual with a past and a future.
Best wishes,
Owl
Sorry for the days of radio silence. We have been on vacation (you were super sick so I forgive you for missing a blog post!)
Tonight we watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and it got me thinking. About a lot of things. Mostly how our society deals (or more frequently doesn't deal) with its oldest members. In the US and in many other similarly "modern" countries we can easily forget the elderly or pidgeon-hole them into a comfortable role. An older woman is a grandmother, an older man is a grandfather - nothing more. They are no longer autonomous beings. They belong to a younger member of society in the same way a very young child belongs to its parents. We, as a society, forget that they aren't just that and sometimes they aren't that at all (not all older people are grandparents, after all). We forget that they are a unique individual. We forget that they are still adults with their own desires, traditions, rituals, experiences, and desires. They are not living for us, nor are they waiting around to die. I have my mother to thank for teaching me this early in my life. My mother is an extraordinarily talented therapist who has worked for more than 20 years with elderly. Her stories and her understanding of her patients as people first and patients second gave me my first view of the elderly as they truly are, not as they are so often seen.
Hollywood often deals poorly with this reality. Most older actors and actresses are sent off to the kindly grandmother, wise grandfather, or society recluse as soon as a sufficient portion of hair has turned gray.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel resists this temptation and instead builds a rich story centered around an almost entirely older cast. The youngest member of the main cast is 59 at the movie's shooting time (hardly what I would consider the "Golden Years" though Hollywood's perception of age is very skewed to say the least). I'm not sure how old they are all meant to be, but clearly of retirement age and beyond. They are at the point where society is starting to see them as a burden: a point made clear early in the movie when Judi Dench's character Evelyn is trying to decide how to proceed with her life after her husband's death. There is little conversation - only her son telling her how things will be. Even after she decides she will not move in with him and will instead head to India he doubts her all the way - assuming she can't do it. Dev Patel's character makes it even clearer later in the movie when he is arguing with his mother about where he will get clients from and he tells her there are plenty of countries where they hate the elderly. And while I don't think hate is precisely the right term, I do think the elderly make many of us uncomfortable or unsure how to act. We tend to ignore them, infantilize them, or fear them.
The movie does an excellent job setting up the way these characters are seen and then does an equally splendid job of challenging our first impressions (and society's view) of these characters throughout. There are many lovely plot lines including one of a gay man returning to India to seek out the lover he feels he wronged many years ago. There is a woman searching for her next rich husband. A woman learning how to be independent after her husband's death. And a particularly unlikable character, at first glance, who works to get over some severe racism and bigotry throughout the movie. The plots are rife with adult (not elderly) content. There is love, sex, discovery, forgiveness, loss, and yes a few very wise words. No character is forgotten or pushed aside and though there are no shortage of jokes on the subject of age they are all made in good taste, but the characters themselves. A notable one comes when one of the men is going out on a date that will clearly end in sex and he is warned of the dangers of having sex at his age. His response? "If she dies, she dies." This one joke is a great summation of how the movie gives viewers the familiar picture of the elderly and then turns it on its ear.
We are people at any age is the take away message of the movie. And it is never too late to live a full life. As a young person I think it is important to remember that and remember that everyone will one day grow old. No one wants to be condescended to, ignored, or seen as a burden after a life of self reliance. In other words we all want to grow old with a little dignity and respect. To get there ourselves we have to start giving dignity and respect now. Seeing each person we meet as an individual with a past and a future.
Best wishes,
Owl
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Happy Purim!
Happy Purim Raven!
For those following at home who don't know. Today is Purim, a Jewish holiday commemorating a time when we Jews were almost wiped out, but then we weren't. And there was much rejoicing. It is a very fun, festive holiday. We (that is Raven and I) went to Raven's childhood synagogue to celebrate. We dressed up as Flame Princess and Fiona from Adventure Time (it's customary to go to Purim celebrations in costume because... reasons?) It's like a second Halloween and I do love Halloween!
Purim happens every year in late winter or early spring (14th of Adar for the Jewish calendar) and focuses on Esther and Mordecai's efforts and eventual foiling of Haman's plot to wipe out Jews everywhere (specifically the Jews of Shushan). The short story is this: King Ahasueres (of Shushan) commanded his wife and queen Vashti to come before him and she disobeyed the king basically nullifies their marriage and sends Vashti away. Nice guy, right
Meanwhile there is some fighting between Ahasueres' leading advisor, Haman, and Mordecai, a well-known Jew and respected councilor to the king. Haman does not like that Mordecai will bow only before his God and not before Haman so he decides he wants to destroy not only Mordecai, but his people as well. Not an overreaction at all.
Ahasueres is pretty oblivious to this and mostly just misses having a wife. So he calls the women of his kingdom before him and chooses a new bride from among them. He chooses Esther, unbeknownst to him the niece of Mordecai and also a Jew.
Mordecai and Esther get wind of Haman's evil plot and Mordecai urges Esther to go before the king and reveal her identity and win the king over so she and her people will live. But even a queen must be called before the king. To do otherwise would risk death. But Esther does just that and the king, impressed with her bravery, pardons her barging in without his say so. She gathers the king and Haman and tells the king both of Haman's plot and her Jewish ancestry. Since Mordecai earlier saved the king's life and the king loves his new wife he's pretty annoyed to find out that his trusted advisor is trying to kill them both and also wipe out their people. So he hangs Haman, honors Mordecai, and keeps Esther as his queen. A very happy ending as far as most Jewish holidays are concerned.
So, pardon the late post as Raven and I are still in her first nest (that is, her childhood hometown) and will be for the rest of the week, ostensibly to watch her parents kittens, who are just such adorable troublemakers. They are half of the reason for my late and hasty post. The other half is a fascinating anthropological discovery that may change the way we see ourselves in the great chain of evolution. However, I will let Raven share that discovery with you tomorrow as she is much more an expert than I.
I hope you are as excited by it as we were!
Best wishes,
Owl
For those following at home who don't know. Today is Purim, a Jewish holiday commemorating a time when we Jews were almost wiped out, but then we weren't. And there was much rejoicing. It is a very fun, festive holiday. We (that is Raven and I) went to Raven's childhood synagogue to celebrate. We dressed up as Flame Princess and Fiona from Adventure Time (it's customary to go to Purim celebrations in costume because... reasons?) It's like a second Halloween and I do love Halloween!
Purim happens every year in late winter or early spring (14th of Adar for the Jewish calendar) and focuses on Esther and Mordecai's efforts and eventual foiling of Haman's plot to wipe out Jews everywhere (specifically the Jews of Shushan). The short story is this: King Ahasueres (of Shushan) commanded his wife and queen Vashti to come before him and she disobeyed the king basically nullifies their marriage and sends Vashti away. Nice guy, right
Meanwhile there is some fighting between Ahasueres' leading advisor, Haman, and Mordecai, a well-known Jew and respected councilor to the king. Haman does not like that Mordecai will bow only before his God and not before Haman so he decides he wants to destroy not only Mordecai, but his people as well. Not an overreaction at all.
Ahasueres is pretty oblivious to this and mostly just misses having a wife. So he calls the women of his kingdom before him and chooses a new bride from among them. He chooses Esther, unbeknownst to him the niece of Mordecai and also a Jew.
Mordecai and Esther get wind of Haman's evil plot and Mordecai urges Esther to go before the king and reveal her identity and win the king over so she and her people will live. But even a queen must be called before the king. To do otherwise would risk death. But Esther does just that and the king, impressed with her bravery, pardons her barging in without his say so. She gathers the king and Haman and tells the king both of Haman's plot and her Jewish ancestry. Since Mordecai earlier saved the king's life and the king loves his new wife he's pretty annoyed to find out that his trusted advisor is trying to kill them both and also wipe out their people. So he hangs Haman, honors Mordecai, and keeps Esther as his queen. A very happy ending as far as most Jewish holidays are concerned.
So, pardon the late post as Raven and I are still in her first nest (that is, her childhood hometown) and will be for the rest of the week, ostensibly to watch her parents kittens, who are just such adorable troublemakers. They are half of the reason for my late and hasty post. The other half is a fascinating anthropological discovery that may change the way we see ourselves in the great chain of evolution. However, I will let Raven share that discovery with you tomorrow as she is much more an expert than I.
I hope you are as excited by it as we were!
Best wishes,
Owl
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
I Love Lucy
Think back. Remember your childhood heroes? I do. I had plenty. Writers, activists, scientists, even fictional characters. Over the years I have had a few opportunities to meet some of these heroes, or at least to hear them speak. Tonight I had one such opportunity, and it was incredible.
My mother was kind enough to buy tickets for Owl and I to go to an event hosted by National Geographic. Donald Johanson*, the paleoanthropologist who discovered Lucy, came to our city, where he gave an hour-and-a-half presentation on "Becoming Human". His presentation was amazing; he is a wonderful public speaker, and an absolutely brilliant scientist. He is also incredibly funny, and the audience was laughing hard enough that a passer-by might assume Johanson to be a stand-up comedian, only his jokes were actually funny**. The highlight for me was when he explained that sapiens "supposedly means sentient, but I read the same newspapers you do." He then went on to suggest that any species that might let Scott Walker run for President was not, perhaps, as wise as the species name suggested. (At another dig to Scott Walker later on, he also marveled at how Kentucky funneled $25,000 into building the Creation Museum, while certain states were taking money away from education.)
As an undergraduate I studied anthropology with a focus on archaeology, and since childhood I have also cultivated a fascination with geology and paleontology. Basically, if I can dig for it and then poke it in a lab, I'm interested. As a child I was in awe of people like Donald Johanson, people who help to piece together the puzzle of human origin and our common ancestry.
Tonight's talk was part an explanation of Johanson's research, part an explanation of broader paleoanthropological principals, and part a call to global consciousness. In other words, while the science was important, what Johanson was ultimately stressing was that in studying early hominids like Lucy, we should be made aware a) that all of humankind is very closely related and we should treat each other accordingly, and that b) we are as much a part of nature as any other animal and it is our duty as well as our imperative to preserve the world.
Johanson also mentioned something that has kept me on the edge of my seat with excitement (even while walking back to the car, which was impressive, since I had no seat!): Tomorrow, March 4th, a major discovery will be revealed. Johanson would not say much about it, only that it would affect some of what he was talking about tonight. He gave a few more small hints, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for you any, dear readers. He urged us to check the news tomorrow night, and I will urge you to do the same. In light of this announcement, I will wait until my post on Thursday to talk in any detail about Lucy herself and what her discovery means for the scientific community. Though I went to the lecture primarily to hear Johanson speak about his discovery and the science behind it, his social messages also left a deep impression, and that is what I wanted to talk about tonight.
"We are united by our past...we share more than many of us are willing to expect."
We all share common ancestry. This is scientific fact. And if you (along with Johanson and the majority of the anthropological community) ascribe to the "Out of Africa" (OOA) theory, that anatomically modern humans evolved as a whole species in what is now Africa, and later began to migrate outwards, then not only do we all have a common ancestry, but a common origin as well.
For homo sapiens, alienation is unnatural. We evolved as a cooperative species; this is part of what differentiates us from other animals. No other species has the same level of codependency and familiarity that the modern human has. We are designed to live in social units, develop tight bonds with one another, and protect our kin. While competition for land and resources might drive homo sapiens to violence against one another as it would any other animal, there is nothing natural about the way modern human society isolates and ostracizes members of the species, how social groups are segregated to the point of baseless violence, or how we have developed cultures of hate based around artificial or superficial dichotomies. Johanson urged us to remember our shared past, the uniting factor that, quite simply, makes us all human.
"We are a part of the natural world."
Johanson also urged us to remember that we are a part of nature. Homo sapiens might be the most universally successful, the most creative, the most dominant species on Earth, but we are also the most destructive. No other species has single-handedly done as much damage to the Earth as we have, and in the towers of glass and steel we have built it is easy to distance ourselves from the natural world. We are very much dependent on it, however, and no matter how much we try to bend nature to our will we will never truly be outside of its control. Nor should we be. Lucy is a reminder that having opposable thumbs, bipedalism, and larger cranial cavities does not mean that we get a "Get Out of Extinction Free Card". If we like living on this wonderful little sphere quietly orbiting the sun, we had better stop ruining it, was his ultimate message, though I may be paraphrasing slightly.
*That's right, linking to Wikipedia! Ahh, the beauty of non-academic writing.
**Sorry, Owl! I swear, I don't dislike all stand-up comedy. Just most of the parts where there's talking.
My mother was kind enough to buy tickets for Owl and I to go to an event hosted by National Geographic. Donald Johanson*, the paleoanthropologist who discovered Lucy, came to our city, where he gave an hour-and-a-half presentation on "Becoming Human". His presentation was amazing; he is a wonderful public speaker, and an absolutely brilliant scientist. He is also incredibly funny, and the audience was laughing hard enough that a passer-by might assume Johanson to be a stand-up comedian, only his jokes were actually funny**. The highlight for me was when he explained that sapiens "supposedly means sentient, but I read the same newspapers you do." He then went on to suggest that any species that might let Scott Walker run for President was not, perhaps, as wise as the species name suggested. (At another dig to Scott Walker later on, he also marveled at how Kentucky funneled $25,000 into building the Creation Museum, while certain states were taking money away from education.)
As an undergraduate I studied anthropology with a focus on archaeology, and since childhood I have also cultivated a fascination with geology and paleontology. Basically, if I can dig for it and then poke it in a lab, I'm interested. As a child I was in awe of people like Donald Johanson, people who help to piece together the puzzle of human origin and our common ancestry.
Tonight's talk was part an explanation of Johanson's research, part an explanation of broader paleoanthropological principals, and part a call to global consciousness. In other words, while the science was important, what Johanson was ultimately stressing was that in studying early hominids like Lucy, we should be made aware a) that all of humankind is very closely related and we should treat each other accordingly, and that b) we are as much a part of nature as any other animal and it is our duty as well as our imperative to preserve the world.
Johanson also mentioned something that has kept me on the edge of my seat with excitement (even while walking back to the car, which was impressive, since I had no seat!): Tomorrow, March 4th, a major discovery will be revealed. Johanson would not say much about it, only that it would affect some of what he was talking about tonight. He gave a few more small hints, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for you any, dear readers. He urged us to check the news tomorrow night, and I will urge you to do the same. In light of this announcement, I will wait until my post on Thursday to talk in any detail about Lucy herself and what her discovery means for the scientific community. Though I went to the lecture primarily to hear Johanson speak about his discovery and the science behind it, his social messages also left a deep impression, and that is what I wanted to talk about tonight.
"We are united by our past...we share more than many of us are willing to expect."
We all share common ancestry. This is scientific fact. And if you (along with Johanson and the majority of the anthropological community) ascribe to the "Out of Africa" (OOA) theory, that anatomically modern humans evolved as a whole species in what is now Africa, and later began to migrate outwards, then not only do we all have a common ancestry, but a common origin as well.
For homo sapiens, alienation is unnatural. We evolved as a cooperative species; this is part of what differentiates us from other animals. No other species has the same level of codependency and familiarity that the modern human has. We are designed to live in social units, develop tight bonds with one another, and protect our kin. While competition for land and resources might drive homo sapiens to violence against one another as it would any other animal, there is nothing natural about the way modern human society isolates and ostracizes members of the species, how social groups are segregated to the point of baseless violence, or how we have developed cultures of hate based around artificial or superficial dichotomies. Johanson urged us to remember our shared past, the uniting factor that, quite simply, makes us all human.
"We are a part of the natural world."
Johanson also urged us to remember that we are a part of nature. Homo sapiens might be the most universally successful, the most creative, the most dominant species on Earth, but we are also the most destructive. No other species has single-handedly done as much damage to the Earth as we have, and in the towers of glass and steel we have built it is easy to distance ourselves from the natural world. We are very much dependent on it, however, and no matter how much we try to bend nature to our will we will never truly be outside of its control. Nor should we be. Lucy is a reminder that having opposable thumbs, bipedalism, and larger cranial cavities does not mean that we get a "Get Out of Extinction Free Card". If we like living on this wonderful little sphere quietly orbiting the sun, we had better stop ruining it, was his ultimate message, though I may be paraphrasing slightly.
*That's right, linking to Wikipedia! Ahh, the beauty of non-academic writing.
**Sorry, Owl! I swear, I don't dislike all stand-up comedy. Just most of the parts where there's talking.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Dinner for Breakfast and Other Perks of Being a "Grown Up"
Hey Raven,
I'm looking forward to memorizing some of your favorite poems. And thanks for going easy on me and not making me memorize your namesake poem!
It's going to be a short update tonight because I am exhausted and I have more work early tomorrow. Raven and I (together) will post more on this later, but something we both share and enjoy doing when we have the time is cooking (or baking). This weekend and this evening were excellent cooking days. On Sunday Raven, Magpie, Pidge, and I went for a walk across a frozen lake near our house. It's been below freezing for a while so we figured it was pretty safe (also there were tons of other people out there and the local ice report estimated a car could drive across the lake with no difficulty). It was a glorious walk. We found a half-built ice igloo, frozen waves, and a very funny gentleman kite skiing. Pidge also found the water under the ice. With her foot. On literally the last step she took on the ice. Worst luck!
Then we all rushed home to warm Pidge's ice foot, drink hot cocoa, eat breakfast for dinner, and play MarioKart. I got to make pancakes and waffles for everyone and those are two of my favorite things to make. It reminds me of special Saturday breakfasts with my mother and sister. Pancakes were almost an event in my house. For a while I thought they were hard to make and that's why we never had them. I was surprised to find out later in life that they were simple to make (my sister's diabetes was probably the real reason we had them so seldom). Anyways, I made a new recipe to satisfy Raven's new dietary needs and I may not go back to my old recipe. It was so delicious.
Tonight, though I was exhausted and basically just wanted to sit in front of my computer and play Dragon Age (I'm a bit obsessed with Origins at the moment) I finally made a recipe I have been wanting to make all week (all of last week that is). Raven and I will post about it later, but suffice to say I feel full, happy, and accomplished this evening.
I've always thought of cooking full meals and sitting at an actual set table to eat with another human being while you chat about your day was the true sign of adulthood. Well world, for this week I was an adult. And it was actually pretty great. Let's see if it continues...
Best wishes,
Owl
I'm looking forward to memorizing some of your favorite poems. And thanks for going easy on me and not making me memorize your namesake poem!
It's going to be a short update tonight because I am exhausted and I have more work early tomorrow. Raven and I (together) will post more on this later, but something we both share and enjoy doing when we have the time is cooking (or baking). This weekend and this evening were excellent cooking days. On Sunday Raven, Magpie, Pidge, and I went for a walk across a frozen lake near our house. It's been below freezing for a while so we figured it was pretty safe (also there were tons of other people out there and the local ice report estimated a car could drive across the lake with no difficulty). It was a glorious walk. We found a half-built ice igloo, frozen waves, and a very funny gentleman kite skiing. Pidge also found the water under the ice. With her foot. On literally the last step she took on the ice. Worst luck!
Then we all rushed home to warm Pidge's ice foot, drink hot cocoa, eat breakfast for dinner, and play MarioKart. I got to make pancakes and waffles for everyone and those are two of my favorite things to make. It reminds me of special Saturday breakfasts with my mother and sister. Pancakes were almost an event in my house. For a while I thought they were hard to make and that's why we never had them. I was surprised to find out later in life that they were simple to make (my sister's diabetes was probably the real reason we had them so seldom). Anyways, I made a new recipe to satisfy Raven's new dietary needs and I may not go back to my old recipe. It was so delicious.
Tonight, though I was exhausted and basically just wanted to sit in front of my computer and play Dragon Age (I'm a bit obsessed with Origins at the moment) I finally made a recipe I have been wanting to make all week (all of last week that is). Raven and I will post about it later, but suffice to say I feel full, happy, and accomplished this evening.
I've always thought of cooking full meals and sitting at an actual set table to eat with another human being while you chat about your day was the true sign of adulthood. Well world, for this week I was an adult. And it was actually pretty great. Let's see if it continues...
Best wishes,
Owl
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair
Hi Owl,
Yesterday you took some time to write about one of my very favorite topics: poetry. I could talk for hours upon hours about poetry, and I often do. (Our three-hour discussion that went late into the night a few nights ago was what inspired your blog post, after all.)
I would struggle greatly were I to try to fit all that I wanted to say about poetry into one blog post, so I won't endeavor to do so. This will be a topic that I will come back to time and again I am sure. I am embarrassed to admit, however, that tonight I find myself quite worn down from writing already. Friday's post was surprisingly draining for me to write, and on top of that I have been struggling to put together a short story that refuses to coalesce into something meaningful, and just today finally finished the latest rounds of edits (!!!) for the project I have been working on for over a year now. And while I am relieved beyond measure to be done for the time being, the process was grueling and has left me with little energy left tonight for being a coherent person.
Excuses, excuses, I know. Do not think, dear friends, that I am scorning you. I will muster my energy to speak more eloquently about poetry soon, but for tonight, I will give Owl the homework she requested. (So industrious of her!) Memorizing and reciting poetry is one of my very favorite past-times. I find it incredibly calming and meditative, and it helps me to better understand the piece that I am reading when I take the time to learn it by heart. So getting to help somebody else pick out some poems to memorize is incredibly exciting for me!
Yesterday you took some time to write about one of my very favorite topics: poetry. I could talk for hours upon hours about poetry, and I often do. (Our three-hour discussion that went late into the night a few nights ago was what inspired your blog post, after all.)
I would struggle greatly were I to try to fit all that I wanted to say about poetry into one blog post, so I won't endeavor to do so. This will be a topic that I will come back to time and again I am sure. I am embarrassed to admit, however, that tonight I find myself quite worn down from writing already. Friday's post was surprisingly draining for me to write, and on top of that I have been struggling to put together a short story that refuses to coalesce into something meaningful, and just today finally finished the latest rounds of edits (!!!) for the project I have been working on for over a year now. And while I am relieved beyond measure to be done for the time being, the process was grueling and has left me with little energy left tonight for being a coherent person.
Excuses, excuses, I know. Do not think, dear friends, that I am scorning you. I will muster my energy to speak more eloquently about poetry soon, but for tonight, I will give Owl the homework she requested. (So industrious of her!) Memorizing and reciting poetry is one of my very favorite past-times. I find it incredibly calming and meditative, and it helps me to better understand the piece that I am reading when I take the time to learn it by heart. So getting to help somebody else pick out some poems to memorize is incredibly exciting for me!
5 Poems for Owl to Memorize
1. "When I have fears that I may cease to be" - John Keats
2. "Ozymandias" - Percy Bysshe Shelley
3. "Poem on the Wandering Immortal" - Kuo P'u
4. "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" - Dylan Thomas
5. "Readers" - Jose Luis Borges
Hope you enjoy these, Owl. I look forward to hearing you recite some of these poems soon!
-Raven
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