Krugman on Political-Economic Ignorance

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/worse-is-better/

Absolutely Devastating

This really gives you an idea of the scope of damage incurred in Japan, satellite images before and after. Whole homes ripped from the ground like loose debris. Beyond that, they are estimating 10,000 deaths and climbing, radiation sickness from overheating and exploding nuclear plants, and it is being called the country's worst disaster since World War II. In the whole scheme of things, looking out over geological time, this is a hiccup. The Earth has made no promises to us about our survival. We are just another animal, susceptible to extinction. This shows that no matter how advanced we become, no matter the supposed strength of our structures and the robustness of our technology, it can all come down in minutes. Be thankful for this moment, for those that surround you, the food and drink you get to enjoy and the comings and goings of the sun. The present is the only thing that we can be sure of and revel in. Enjoy it.


In other news, Libya's revolutionary spirit isn't ebbing a bit, with some youth turning it towards rebel violence (interactive map of the clashes). And the protests are spreading across the Arab world, from Yemen to Bahrain to Tunisia and of course, Egypt. Things are happening. The people are realizing that they outnumber the ruling class. This should be infectious and empowering. Hopefully some beneficial outcome will sprout from this unrest. Hopefully this can be an example to us as well. We should be the ones who dictate our existences, not power-hungry and greedy politicians. They are often in it for themselves, as we have seen countless times globally and in our own country.

Thanks to the New York Times and their wonderful resources, which I linked like crazy.

Ridiculousness, Starring Bottled Water

Most bottled water is just bottled tap water anyway. A lot of petroleum for a little bit of convenience.



Let's talk about the supposed cleanliness of bottled water vs. tap water:



How about we pull out those metal bottles and stop adding to this pointless waste.

ZUPPA!

So, I have had some people (for whom I've made soup of varying shades and flavors) ask that I give them a recipe for vegetable soups, to which I say, there is no recipe for my soups. The way in which I make soup is to first check the fridge and pantry, extricating the vegetables that most urgently need cooking or that I most would like to use (as decided by the interface between those numerous taste nubs and my sensitive head organ). There are some things I always do, such as sauté copious onion and garlic. Mostly from there it is intuition. Today, though, I happened upon another Mark Bittman article, which much more eloquently (and with prettier pictures) illustrates the simplicity of this intuitive kitchen maneuver. He splits it into four categories: creamy, brothy, earthy and hearty. Here are the corresponding pictures for those categories (three soups per):

 
Hungry anyone?
Check out the article.

Why Save PBS?

How To Make Oatmeal Unhealthy (Brought To You By McDonald's)

This is just unbelievable. Eating healthy is as difficult as one's ability to discern ingredients. Oatmeal is oatmeal. Fruit is fruit. Honey, anyone? Read this article by Mark Bittman called, "How to Make Oatmeal...Wrong". And here is a small snippet:

The aspect one cannot argue is nutrition: Incredibly, the McDonald’s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin. (Even without the brown sugar it has more calories than a McDonald’s hamburger.)

Obesity is not a wonder. Diabetes (type two, that is) can be a result of decisions, bad ones, made time after time. Look at the ingredients. Or, better, buy things that are the ingredients (i.e. oats, tomatoes, cherries, potatoes, etc.). That's it.

Oh, How I Love Books

Wonderful...



Yeah?

Arguing For A Robust Public Media

There's been much threatening from the political right in Senate on cutting everything they can (save, of course, for the massive and unrivaled amount set aside for wars, secret and reported, reasoned and industrially motivated). They would love to cut anything too high brow, say education and the arts, and while they are at it, PBS and NPR. This comparably small sum given over to these organizations (in relation to the aforementioned sum for sanctioned murder) should not be taken away. Who wants to live in a world without Sesame Street or All Things Considered? NPR is a bright light in the increasingly dim world of news. They have journalists all over the world, reporting on events as they happen, without surrounding each item in a cultural and political aura based on any particular bias. This cannot be said for many other sources, and one in particular. Read this article out of The Atlantic concerning this very issue. Here is a segment:

There are jobs where people are mainly motivated by the hope of big money. (Finance in general.) There are jobs where the main motivation is job-security. And there is a category of jobs where, as absolutely everyone recognizes, it makes a tremendous difference that "employees" care about something beyond pay, hours, and security. Teachers. Soldiers. Doctors and nurses. Judges and police. Political leaders, if they want to be more than hacks. And, people in news organizations.

Comment away.

Unhealthy, Unsafe and Unsustainable

Our food system in America. What do we do about it? Well, Mark Bittman writing for the New York Times has a few good ideas. Here are a couple:

• Tax the marketing and sale of unhealthful foods. Another budget booster. This isn’t nanny-state paternalism but an accepted role of government: public health. If you support seat-belt, tobacco and alcohol laws, sewer systems and traffic lights, you should support legislation curbing the relentless marketing of soda and other foods that are hazardous to our health — including the sacred cheeseburger and fries.

• Mandate truth in labeling. Nearly everything labeled “healthy” or “natural” is not. It’s probably too much to ask that “vitamin water” be called “sugar water with vitamins,” but that’s precisely what real truth in labeling would mean.

Now, go read the rest.

Bread, Sans Gluten

I made some gluten-free bread today. I used garbanzo bean flour, brown rice flour, buckwheat (not related to wheat) flour and cornstarch, among other various things (xanthan gum, for one). It turned out pretty well. Dense, not crumbly. I used banana instead of egg, so it was vegan. I have some work to do to make it perfect, but it's pretty good.

Things I Saw Today After Sleeping Only Five Hours

Awning for American Artificial Limb Company

Moss near Madison Market (also known as Central Co-op)

More moss

I like moss

Sunchokes, Who Knew?

So, I have done this twice now. Sunchokes, AKA Jerusalem artichoke, AKA Helianthus tuberosus. It looks like if tumors and babies were combined, then dug up from the ground, but much more delicious. It is a tuber, a root. Specifically, it is the root of a certain species of sunflower. And, as the Israel-themed nomination indicates, it tastes like its above-ground namesake, the artichoke. If you like artichokes, but hate the dedicated defense system, I would defer to this ugly cousin (they are actually unrelated).

What do I do with it? Well, wash them first. Then slice them up a little and put them in a bowl. Olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic. And mix.

Put it all on a baking sheet and spread them out. We want to roast them, not steam them. If they are bunched up they will steam and not get crunchy and beautiful. Then, at 375 degrees, cook for some time. Maybe twenty minutes or longer. Check it every once in awhile and take them out when they look ready, soft and caramelized. 







What you end up with will be great. You can thank me later.

A New Website...

I found a new website. It is called typetrigger.

So, every six hours a new trigger word or phrase is given (say "dog collar" or "remaining nameless") and then you (or someone else) write up to 300 words from it. This can be shared with no-one, only members or everyone. You pick.

I have done two so far. It's nice to be able to just write a little, without any express impressive purpose. Try it out yourself or tell someone about it.

You Have To Watch This...

I just watched the short documentary Stress: Portrait of a Killer, and I loved it. Was supremely engaged. Best of all, it had to do with life as you live it and how it seriously affects your health. Seriously.

So, if you have Netflix, wonderful. Watch it here. If you don't, watch it on YouTube.

Motivation, Animated

This is an extremely interesting lecture about motivating creativity and innovation. It is animated and fun and the answer is not what you would expect.



Pretty cool.

Looking Back to Look Forward

Currently, like as I type, I am watching the film The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. It is engrossing and disturbing and illuminating. To understand the past you have to have a relatively trusty barometer of the present. Turn this around and it is equally true. Daniel Ellsberg with his release of the Pentagon Papers illustrates the incredible importance of governmental leaks. It is proof of the enduring moral spirit of humanity. We are not yet robots, though it seems more and more that this is the goal. The government -- as it is, as it was, as it will continue to be -- functions as a business does and would benefit greatly from the demoralization of those in their employ and those which would be in the position to point the big finger (namely the media). We, as thinking and feeling humans with a sense of right and wrong, should be proud, existentially, of those who leak. This should never be criminalized.

The Pentagon Papers was a top-secret study on the history of U.S.-Vietnamese relations, prepared by the Department of Defense. It was commissioned by then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, seemingly in order to understand why it was that, opposite all public knowledge, things were going badly in Vietnam. The study was operated without the knowledge of President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Daniel Ellsberg photocopied the 7,000 pages and in the middle of 1971 the New York Times began to publish. This was swiftly met by resistance on the part of the Nixon administration, who had continued the failing war despite his campaign pledges to find a way to end it. Many Nixon tapes are evidence of his extreme anger at the release, with conversations between the foul-mouthed president and Henry Kissinger (who had dubbed Ellsberg at the time, "the most dangerous man in America") or Alexander Haig. The government went to work prohibiting the papers from printing and Daniel Ellsberg being indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917. A precedent was set when the Supreme Court ruled that the leak and its publication were not illegal in the case of The United States vs. Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo (Russo being his fellow RAND employee, researcher and accomplice). Papers resumed publication and Ellsberg and Russo were freed from their possible 30 and 115 year stay in prison, respectively.

There are many facets of this historical event that could be discussed which I won't here. The leak, among many other things, illustrated that the U.S. was involved in a wrongful war for reasons divergent from their public statements and that these lies spread across three decades, being spewed from the mouths of five presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon). Not even America's fallen golden boy, Kennedy, could be trusted on this front. That, in itself, should give pause to anyone who overly praises and trusts any politician or leader. This country was built on the idea of a questioning citizenry and that shouldn't be given over under any circumstance. The Supreme Court at that time set an important precedent for the exercise of the First Amendment. Yes, that one about free speech.

Now, 40 years later, that precedent must be respected. Wikileaks are in the frying pan now, just as was Ellsberg at that time. The U.S. government is as rabid as it was then, although they muffle it publicly just the same. They are again attempting to massage the Espionage Act into this issue. Beware. Our right to know and a leaker's right to bravely exercise his/her morality should be protected absolutely. The releases of the current leak, that of the diplomatic cables, are not being controlled by Wikileaks (i.e. redactions and editing) but rather by the publications they gave the responsibility. This is exactly the same as any type of leak, just on a much grander scale. Although many so-called "journalists" (a great deal of whom are from the American media and whose overlords gleefully collude with massive corporations and government) are happy to through Assange and Wikileaks under the bus on this, it says more about those journalists than it does about Wikileaks.

I have to say, repeat, that this is important, so very important. We can't lose our morals and ethics to programmed autonomy or ambivalence. We need to support, as Ellsberg himself is now doing, the actions of organizations like Wikileaks and all the others that are beginning to pop up. Truth is a worthy goal.

So, watch the movie. Get a perspective. Don't get your news from a single source. Shop around. Assume everyone is biased and figure it out yourself. And, your politicians are most likely lying to you.

An Unfortunate Journey

I am beginning a trial-run of a gluten-free diet today, to resume for three months' time. I am not very energetic about this. Nor do I enjoy the amount of research it is taking to do it right. If it is that I have Celiac's (which given my Irish and German roots, is a good genetic possibility) then, I am told, even a thimble-full of something containing that special protein would set me back 6-8 weeks. It is a sparse possibility in my case that I do have this, but a possibility all the same. I won't see a change for at least 4 to 8 weeks apparently, if there is no accidental hiccups in my ingestion schedule. Damnit.

If anyone has any tips, give them to me. I want them. I love bread and beer and they can't have me for at least three months. I am looking towards sake and wine for respite. Maybe brown rice pasta, corn and potato chips and corn tortillas. That's all I got for now. Thanks for your ear.

Seattle's Got A Superhero!

Up in the Northwest, along with the comic book nerds comes heroic vigilantism. I love it.



Yep.

That Button Just Makes You Feel Better

Ever wonder why the elevator doors don't close right away when you push that "Close Door" button? Because it does nothing. Here is a great post about this and other non-functioning buttons in your life:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/10/placebo-buttons/

Enjoy!

Shifting Educational Paradigms or Are Our Kids Learned Much?

So, Western education. How is that going for us? Well, the U.S. consistently falls way behind in tests given internationally. And, generally, many parents must rely on expensive private schooling. That shouldn't be. Maybe, instead of enacting legislation that assumes all kids are the same and patting oneself on the back for that crippling maneuver, we should change the way in which we teach. Maybe we should spend less on war and more on arts and education. I know, it sounds crazy. Check out this video. It is not only entertaining but informative.



Feel free to leave comments.