Things that go bump

Our annual pumpkin tradition - a pico inspired jack-o-lantern

First off, Happy Halloween! I can't believe it's already the end of October. I feel like a slacker who has been avoiding writing. Truth is, big changes are afoot.

By this time next week the election will finally be over. It has felt like this has drug on for the past year and a half at least, so it will be just grand to get it done and over with - no matter what the outcome. I'm hopeful that my preferences will have a winning shot, but you never know until  all the ballots are counted, so I'll resist predictions and analysis until afterwards. There are bound to be road bumps from both sides on multiple issues. I fully suspect at least one legal challenge to some election decision.

Secondly, the other thing thing that goes bump is my belly as Bryant and I are bound to be parents this coming spring. I'm just barely beginning to show and finally not so nauseated. The vomitting has subsided to only once ever 3-4 days instead of almost daily, which is a vast improvement. I'll be happier still when it leaves me for good, or at least once a month or more instead of weekly. We are both excited and a bit nervous (who wouldn't be?) and are slowly beginning to prepare for the incoming change. We have a tour of the hospital labor and delivery ward next week and will probably start looking at our living arrangement options pretty seriously in the coming weeks. We can last where we currently are until mystery baby is maybe six months old, but seeing as how our lease is up the month we're due, some decision will need to be made well before then. That launches us back into the rent vs try to buy scenario yet again.

It has felt for so long like progress has been put on hold, and now yet again everything is happening at once. I suppose slow and steady is not the way that life will be for us.  Grad school has been pushed off another year or two, depending on time, money, and energy; it's a good thing though, as the new health laws won't be finalized until 2014, so I've got a little time for things to smooth out on that front.

Seeing as how I don't really have details on anything at this point, I'll just have to leave it at this. I promise not to wait so long next time, if for no other reason than my own intellectual stimulation.

Cold War

It's election season and I can't stand it. It is if the country plunges into a political cold war between two disparate ideologies. There are so many things wrong with the way politics are carried out in this country, despite our lauding of the system and exportation of it to other countries. It helps to purpetuate some of the great lies in American culture (of which all cultures have, just to be clear).

Cannon left over from the US Civil War

What lies might those be? There is the great white washing of history, where we are told everyone came here of their own free will in pursuit of freedom and success. Well, sort of, except for all of those slaves that were imported, and all of the political exiles over the years, and what about the native populations that were already here... We are told that the country was found for religious freedoms, when in reality that was only a small segment of the early settlers, the rest were looking for economic gain both for themselves and their crown. We are told that the US has never lost a war, but what about the war of 1812, where we invaded Canada for not real reason other than our own expansionist ideals and were beaten back by the Canadians and the local Amerindians. That one has been expunged from our memory so much  that even if you read the Wikipedia entry about the war it tells of US victory, although not as triumphantly as other wars, when the reality is more complicated.  If Jefferson hadn't stated that the conquest of Canada would be a mere matter of marching, do we really think that just 40 years after our own independence we would feel competent enough to invade someone else? And these are just the historical fallicies that we pass down generation to generation as a matter of building patriotism. I find it sickening.

The worst of all the American cultural lies is the idea of supremecy over every other people on the planet. "We're #1" is the rallying cry of the brainwashed in this society, and it only gets worse during election season. How do the political parties try to make the opposition loose favor with the general populace? By showing them as making us less than the greatest by their standards of course. This politician is making us too european, and you don't want that because who would want to be like them? That politician will let all of the untrained, hapless rubbish from other countries that somehow managed to make it here citizens, which will dilute our greatness. The scapegoating of minorities gets to an all time high, whether it be ethnic or social minority makes no difference - if you are not part of mainstream consumerist USA you had better watch out or during election season the problems of the country will be placed squarely on your shoulders; by the way which is why we should limit your freedoms to preserve those of the mainstream. Or at least that is what the attack adds would have you believe.

This is the time of year that I avoid watching television because all you see during every commercial break is hatred and fearmongering. You rarely, if ever, see a positive  add for a candidate that does not denegrate the opposition. It speaks a lot to the depravity of the political parties that they refuse to admit that there are multiple good people for the job, or even multiple viable solutions to our problems. No one person and no one ideology will save us from self destructions, which is essentially the problem we are having right now. The economy is sluggish right now because we believe in the power of capitalism, but if the masses don't have the resources to buy things, capitalism can't keep surging our GDP upwards. The solution? Give people more money to buy things, either through tax cuts (which just makes our federal cash flow problem worse) or by raising minimum wages (which makes those with the money mad because they feel like they earned their millions and don't need to share it with the workers who helped them make their millions) or through incentives (buy this new car and receive tax credits for the purchase).

All this reminds me of my favorite Sting song, "Russians", and in particular, a certain line that floats about my head each time I hear political banter: "There is no monopoly of common sense on either side of the political fence." While written about the historical Cold War between Russia and the West, particularly the US, I find the sentiment applies to any political stalemate. If only the mass populace would see it, or be allowed to even broach the idea, it could have a lot of good. At the very least we may be able to have a rational, educated debate about our problems instead of resorting to hysteria and gut reactions. The rash of gun violence in this country? Maybe that means we need to reexamine our gun laws to see if there is something we are actively doing that is making the situation worse. The unemployment rates? Maybe cutting all of the education funding wasn't such a good idea as we now don't have enough training centers to get people retooled for the jobs available, and the ones we do have are overbooked and overpriced to the point that the unemployed can't afford to retrain. Immigration? Maybe if we started seeing those coming here as human beings instead of "illegals" we might take a different approach. That doesn't mean no punishment for breaking the law, but it also doesn't mean treating them less than human which is part of our current practice along the desert borders. Social security nets, such as medicaid and welfare? If would be nice if both sides would agree that being poor is not a crime - they are not leeches on society that need to be treated with the same reproach as parolees from prison with constant drug testing and supervision. They are people that have not being able to acheive the American ideal due to a variety of factors, including being born into poverty with no social ladders to get out of it.

As a nation and as a culture, we have real problems that need attention. It would be nice if we could stop infighting and admit that our diversity makes us stronger instead of being a liability. The more entrenched we become, the more rigid the battle lines, the more we will be torn apart. That is how nations fall - they get stuck in rigid programs with rigid decision making models that do not allow for change and adaptation. You fail to adapt you fail to survive. Simple evolution.

Swelter and Swoon

Hello August! This is supposed to be the warmest day of the year so far and I am on bunny patrol, ie making sure that our furry friend Pico doesn't succomb to the heat. Rabbits apparently can't get warmer than 85 degrees, and the forecast edging close to 90 today means that all the blinds and curtains are drawn, the lights and electronics off, and I spend the day in the dark all for the protection of Pico.

Desert wildflowers from Tucson this past March. They do much better in the heat than I.

I also have a high likelihood of swooning from the heat today as well. My health has taken another turn the past few weeks, and when I'm coming off of a symptomatic flare, everything seems heightened: I get vertigo again, my balance gets off, I'm more fatigued, etc. Some gelato or  frozen yogurt or something will be called for today, as well as salad for dinner to avoid turning on the oven. It makes me feel like a wuss. I've lived in the desert for crying out loud and now 90 is causing me to worry.

This is the first morning in two weeks where I actually awoke energized, as if all the steroids are finally working their way out of my system. There are bound to be more of them in the coming weeks, but it's nice to feel a modicum of normalcy again even for a little while. We have the unfortunate task of deciding what to do about my "treatment" in the coming days, as it looks like being on nothing is not working. I just wish there were options that didn't involve needles. Well, I exaggerate, there is one on the market, but it is generally agreed upon within the MS community that it wasn't really ready - they were just desperate to have an oral medication option. It can cause dramatically lowered heart rate and apparently some people have died on it. That doesn't leave me feeling too much in a hurry to get on it. There are some more promising meds in the pipeline, but clinical trials are always sooo slow, especially when you are one of the ones waiting for the benefits. Once they start getting better treatments out, maybe the prices can start to come down. As it is, even with insurance, medication costs are in the thousands for most patients. The sticker shock of it all is enough to swoon over.

Last week after my last neuro appointment, the hubby and I were talking under a tree outside of my work before I went back, and this man came over relating his sob story about not qualifing for care from a free clinic because he is on disability, but not having enough money to go to a regular clinic, and needing a few bucks to get a prescription filled. When we told him that we couldn't help because were we just discussing how expensive our own medical costs are, his entire countenance changed. He went from trying to sell is on helping him out to offering help to us on how to get DSHS and Social Security help. He was lost in the quagmire of technicalities of an inefficient system and we are standing at the brink of an equally inefficient system just run by different entities.

Health care as a fee-for-use system doesn't work. No research gets funded unless you have someone with resources get sick. Where are the advocates for the voiceless sick, those without the resources to mobilize the masses with charity drives? Where is my therapeutic Olympic horse? Oh wait, you mean that I have to drop everything to go to any appointment during the work week because in order to maintain the health insurance to pay for said appointments I have to be at work instead, so that's not feasible if you want to get paid. Fee-for-use works great for spot maintenance, such as when you broke your arm roller skating and need acute care. Everybody has a body, therefore everybody needs to pay into and be involved in the system. That way, when your child develops a high fever at 4 am on a saturday morning there are systems in place for you to be able to get treatment instead of waiting for it to get higher and be forced to go the ER (which is supposed to be a last resort, not your primary access point).

Bleh, I hate this issue. I just seems so clearly simple to me, but I never feel like it is articulated well and people are always arguing over it. Upfront costs vs delayed costs. I'll take upfront monthly payments to have something covered later over not paying anything now and being stuck with tens of thousands of dollars out of the blue. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if those who refuse to pay into the system through insurance actually put the money into a dedicated medical only spending account so that they have something when the unexpected arises. Instead they just spend it on other things and then beg the hospitals to lower their bills because they didn't plan for mishaps. It's irresponsible. You don't go to a restaurant and eat a large meal because you didn't eat earlier and then ask the restaurant to forgive the debt, and yet we think it's ok to act this way for medical care.

Time Marchs On

Oh wow, it's already mid July. As it always seems to go, once the good weather hits you loose track of time and then it is gone before you know it. It gets me thinking about all that I have yet to do, which leads me back to grad school... It's been 5.5 years since undergrad and I don't feel like I've accomplished much intellectually, which for someone whose identity has been wrapped around my intellectual persuits is pretty depressing. Life keeps feeling like it is putting up various detours, forcing the scenic route. Generally I prefer the scenic route as the journey is usually the point in life, but I'm getting impatient.

Pico trying to hide in the garden

It is almost like trying to herd a rabbit, or the more famility analogy of trying the herd cats - it doesn't ever seem to work out the way that you would think, no matter how much planning and forethought you invest. For instance, I keep scouting out jobs at all the Global Health (GH) companies in the area, since Seattle is a GH center, and I keep finding entry level jobs, but I just don't have enough experience to progress in the application process. I've looked for various volunteer oppurtunities around the city, but surprisingly most of them happen during the work week instead of the week end, making it impossible with my current work schedule. I've been trying to keep up on the latest anthropological and socially aware research, but without access to the industry publications I am reliant on whatever makes it mainstream. (On that front, there was an interesting story in Friday's Seattle Times about the peopling the the america's and the confirmation of there being multiple contemporaneous groups through coprolite dating in Oregon, but the hubby just found it funny how excited I got over fossilized poop...) These are all reminders about the work to be done and the knowledge yet to be elucidated.

On the more positive note, I have managed to be fairly busy the past month and a half: went to the wedding of my cousin Kyle, had a large father's day dinner with too much food at Perche No in Wallingford, had a girls reunion trip to Austin and San Antonio, Texas with some friends from college, donated my old bike, investigated other Seattle neighborhoods that would be in our price range were we to stay in Seattle for grad school. See, it's not like I haven't had things to do, it just hasn't been what I was hoping for, and that is the stickler. Our own assumptions and expections should not be allowed to get us down, but that is the very basis of why the stock market is so volatile - investor concerns vs investor confidence.

 If only there was a way to take the reigns or helm our own ship so that the waves of uncertainty cease to toss us to and fro. The other option I suppose would be for someone to figure out how to slow down time without it slowing our progess down as well.  Good luck on that...

In Defense of Darwin

There are a few contentious ideas that come out of anthropology that can make people uncomfortable. The most well known are the result of a man named Charles Darwin. When we think of anthropology and Darwin, we instantly think evolution and the descendent from apes, and survival of the fittest. In general, what you know about them would be wrong. Here's why:

 1) Our current understanding of evolution has been much more influenced by the newer science of genetics than of Darwin.  In the 1830s, the only inkling of heredity came from simple mendelian genetics that I'm sure most of us have done in high school biology. He set out looking for evidence, for fact not myth. There is a lot of mythology in creation stories from around the world with small kernals of truth buried deep within. He did not set out to disprove the establish religiously based view of creation - in fact he held off on publishing "On the Origin of Species" for a solid twenty years after his expedition on the Beagle while he tried to reconcile his orthodox  views with the evidence he had amassed, which ultimately led to his transition from orthodoxy to agnosticism.

Descendence from apes is a tricky concept for many people because of our ingrained belief that human are elevated about all other life forms. The idea that we are not as different from the animals as we would like to think can be quite unsettling. When you look at the physical evidence (anatomy) it makes sense. As I am no where near as eloquent, here is the last paragraph from "Origin of Species" (of which you can find the entire text online):

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

2) Survival of the fittest is not what we have been led to believe it is. It does not mean that the biggest, strongest, most aggressive survives, but that the one who can adapt the best will outlast all the rest. Our notions about social darwinism, a dog-eat-dog world, all came later and would have been considered deplorable by Darwin. Evolutionary fitness is defined by who has the most offspring survive. This is in direct conflict with social hierarchy stating that those at the top of the pyramid are the "fittest" and therefore deserving of our power and esteem. The octomom is evolutionarily more fit than Bill Gates. Shocking, and yet it makes sense. While not all of her children will survive and thrive to produce multiple children of their own by sheer statistics, her traits - both genetic and cultural - will have a much greater chance of conquering the world than Gates' three kids.

The public's understanding of the time-scale for evolution is all wrong. For those who don't know, evolution happens on a species level over many generations. Adaptation happens at the individual level. You cannot watch evolution happen, unless you are watching fruit flies or some other species with a super short rate of generational turnover.  At the time of Darwin, he posited that natural selection was just one of a variety of mechanisms leading the evolution. With the rise of genetics, it has been shown as the only viable means of evolution.

Change over time to adapt to pressure. That's it, the whole controversial concept. It's a very simple idea, one that to this day still gets people's feathers ruffled. Look no further than the continuing debates in schools about the teaching of evolution versus creationism. Science and religion are not antithetical by nature, they only become that way when people in power on either side feel threatened. In other words, they feel the need to fight for their ideology's survival, which is ideological survival of the fittest. It all comes full circle.

Darwin was a great naturalist of his time, who had made many important observations. For instance, it is because of Darwin that we understand how coral atolls form or how barnacles work. He wrote many books and some of his more interesting and innovative work is found in "The Descent of Man", which talks about sexual selection, and "The Expresssion of the Emotions", which is one of the founding works of psychology and hugely influential on Freud. His work has revolutionized science, indeed it helped lead to the development of scientists - as distinct from the more clerically trained naturalists. He was seen as both heretic and herald. You cannot have a complete understanding of how Homo sapiens are now without understanding the thought process that led us to start looking for clues about the world around us.

Anthropowhat now?

Lately it has come to my attention that unless you are trained in the social sciences you generally feel that they are worthless, especially in the country. The result of this short-sightedness is the collapse of our civilization. You are probably thinking that I'm exaggerating but alas I am not. Let me explain:

People snicker when you say you are going for a BA instead of a BS at university; they assume that you will either try to become a professor at some academic insitution (of which very few jobs actually exist), or will live with your parents until you are in your 30s because you can't get a "real job," and that your entire scholastic endeavour was a monumental waste of time and money. Little do these people know that the social sciences are training people to analyze people, social structures, all things that we take as innate aspects of functioning in a human world.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the social science trifecta consists of psychology (the study of the individual), sociology (the study of societal systems and structures, eg the education system), and my personal favorite anthropology (the study of people past, present, and future). In the US, only psychology has achieved a mild level of mainstream acceptance, primarily due to the national superiority complex and obsession with the individual. Sociology and anthopology have been largely ignored because of our cultural aversion to the idea that something other than our own agency affects our decision making processes. Some people argue that geography, economics and philosophy are also social sciences, but would argue that they fit under the aforementioned three.

As I was trained in anthropology, I will really only focus on it as that is where my experience lies. Most people really have no idea what an anthropologist does; some poor ignorant fools even think they study dinosaurs... It is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities. To get a BA in anth, you receive one of the most interdisciplinary trainings out there - other than someone who triple majors or takes BIS (bachelor's in integerated studies, which is basically two minors with some classes to help you make them coalesce). Economics, agriculture, biology, geology, history, art, physiology and anatomy. Decision making models, natural resource management, political science, medicine, folklore, architecture and design. You name it and it applies to anth because anth studies all things human. Anthropology also instills a sense of scale to time, in that a decision today affects others for generations, as anthropologists study humans in the past and present to gain a perspective on the future.

Fasilidas' Bath, circa 17th century, Ethiopia

What makes people really unconfortable about anthropology is two-fold: Darwin's natural selection, and the implications of the concept of the other. As I've already covered Darwin thoroughly in another post, I will focus on the other, the us vs them that asks the difficult questions about our cultural biases.

The all scary OTHER, also known as orientalism. Briefly, anyone not of your culture is weird and different and wrong and therefore most often considered inferior. This is also known as "the west versus the rest" mentality.  As these others are so clearly different from you and your way of thinking, and since you are generally right because your way of thinking has worked so well for your people for a long time, then the others clearly must be wrong. This is a very dangerous concept for many reasons, not the least of which is the rise of "my way or the highway" autocrats. Part of what makes this concept so difficult for people to understand is that it forces us to acknowledge our own culture, something that Americans seem loathed to do. We pride ourselves on our heritage of immigrants and our tenacity, but the reality is that we give new immigrants a cold shoulder unless they are the best and brightest. This battle between us and them has been going on for centuries. It has driven us to wars, to eugenics, to genocides, to colonialism, but also to knowledge exchange, food exchange, learning and growth. The other affects how people react to conflict in that it forces is to behave in a way that maintains our difference but allows us to change as needed.


Lately it has come to my attention that unless you are trained in the social sciences you generally feel that they are worthless, especially in the country. The result of this short-sightedness is the collapse of our civilization. You are probably thinking that I'm exaggerating but alas I am not. Let me explain:

People snicker when you say you are going for a BA instead of a BS at university; they assume that you will either try to become a professor at some academic insitution (of which very few jobs actually exist), or will live with your parents until you are in your 30s because you can't get a "real job," and that your entire scholastic endeavour was a monumental waste of time and money. Little do these people know that the social sciences are training people to analyze people, social structures, all things that we take as innate aspects of functioning in a human world.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the social science trifecta consists of psychology (the study of the individual), sociology (the study of societal systems and structures, eg the education system), and my personal favorite anthropology (the study of people past, present, and future). In the US, only psychology has achieved a mild level of mainstream acceptance, primarily due to the national superiority complex and obsession with the individual. Sociology and anthopology have been largely ignored due to our cultural aversion to the idea that something other than our own agency affects our decision making processes.

As I was trained in anthropology, I will really only focus on it as that is where my experience lies. Most people really have no idea what an anthropologist does; some poor ignorant fools even think they study dinosaurs... To get a BA in anth, you receive one of the most interdisciplinary trainings out there - other than someone who takes BIS (bachelor's in integerated studies, which is basically two minors with some classes to help you make them coalesce). Economics, agriculture, biology, geology, history, art, physiology and anatomy. Decision making models, natural resource management, political science, medicine, folklore, architecture and design. You name it and it applies to anth because anth studies all things human.


Now, how does lack of recognition for all of this lead to the collapse of our civilization? By refusing the legitimize the social sciences and how they allow us to analyze ourselves and the people from other cultures that we interact with and how we interact with them, we refuse to admit the plethora of learning oppurtunities that surround us - such as from history, from the other, from prehistory. This leads to tunnelvision, which in turn leads to short sighted decisions. Once you've made too many short sighted decisions it becomes too hard to change or adapt with emerging problems. When you fail to adapt, you fail to survive. Simple.



Broken heiroglyics from a fallen civilization

The solution? Hire more social scientists. Value them, as they hold the mirror up for self/systemic/cultural reflection.

Wascally Wabbit

So, this was supposed to be a blog about philosophical musings of the current happenings in my life. Other than some things that make me really furious about american society and culture (which are two seperate and distinct beasts) there has not been that much preoccupying my mind. Well, except for the mystery of how the rabbit keeps escaping his hutch... I swear that I'm locking it at night and yet he has now twice broken free...

I can only see a few possible scenarios:
1) I'm getting really absent minded and routinely forgetting to lock his hutch.
2) He's getting smarter and has figured out how to undo the latch from within his hutch without the benefits of opposible thumbs.
3) The apartment is haunted, by Harvey - the giant imaginary rabbit, who desires that all other rabbits to be free like him.

As much as I hate to admit it, I think that the most probable answer is #1 - I'm loosing it. Maybe I'm working too much. Do you think that they'd give me time off for rabbit sanity? Probably not, especially with the baby boom that is about to explode this summer. It must be my disease addled brain rebelling. Alas, that too seems an improbable answer.

Maybe he is escaping due to the humiliation that I impose upon him whilst shnuggling...

Looks like this will be a question similar to the tootsie pop dilemma: the world may never know.