U.S. Sending Pandas Back to China:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/04/pandas/index.html?iref=allsearch
For the complete history of my panda antipathy, see: http://arockinmypocket.blogspot.com/2009/10/panda-has-no-clothes.html
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Voltaire vs. Steve Jobs
So. The iPad has been unveiled at last. It will be on the market in a few months. That is just great.
Soon legions of us will be toting these around. We’ll have portable access to books, magazines, databases, credit scores, great works of literature. Anything you like. You don’t have to miss a thing. EVER.
You know what I miss? I miss the days when no one knew what the hell was going on. These kind of technologies have ruined ignorance and guessing forever.
Already a new category of Know-It-All has arisen: the iPhone-It-All. You know someone like this, I’ll bet. You’re standing around, chatting and conjecturing about this or that. Next thing you know, there’s somebody whipping out the iPhone to look something up, either to make a point or in answer to a rhetorical question that has come up through the normal course of conversation.
The thing is, I truly don’t mind situations fraught with wondering. For example, thinking out loud along these lines, “I wonder if it’s going to be cold next week?” or “If I turn here, I wonder if that will get me to Route 1?” or even “I wonder what’ll happen if I add this entire box of Mentos to this 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke?”
I can wait to find out the answer to a lot of these questions in due time or maybe even through trial and error, but the iPhone-it-all has to ruin such contemplations by using his iPhone to tell you exactly what the barometric pressure will be next Thursday at 4 pm or for the previous forty years if you’re interested (No, really, that’s OK), or that you could cut your travel time by four minutes if you took the highlighted route. Or worse, the iPhone-It-All will explain the science behind the Diet Coke/Mentos fizz explosions instead of focusing on what really matters, which is that Diet Coke mixed with Mentos results in standing around for hours going, “Heh. That’s cool.”
Excess access to information does not make you more interesting. As Voltaire once wisely said, “The surest way to be a bore is to tell everything.” The iPhone is well on its way to making bores of a whole generation of users. Fortunately Voltaire had the good sense to die two hundred years ago. If he hadn't, Steve Jobs would have done him in.
Sadly, knowing everything does not make you more appealing, and that little fact really annoys nerds. They think it should work that way. In their estimation, he who knows the most should win. Maybe even get the girl. Don’t forget, the iPhone was invented by nerds, and nerds love data. They collect it, analyze it, rearrange it, argue about it, and smear it all over their bodies. Of course they think iPhones and iPads are what all of America wants. Who doesn't want to be RIGHT all the time, right? Right makes might, doesn’t it?
Now, I love me some nerds as much as the next gal -- I mean we live in the golden age of nerds after all so I'd better -- but is data exchange really the point of conversation? Of small talk? Of drunken postulations about the nature of our existence? No. It is not. To be human is to err. In other words, to guess and get it wrong and then guess again.
I’m no Luddite, and eventually I may even get one those iPad doo-hickeys, but if I do, I will keep it to myself. I figure if keep quiet about what I know and also keep wondering aloud, eventually I may become the most interesting person on earth. Or at the very least, I’ll become a darling of the iPhone-It-Alls. Who else are they going to show off to?
Soon legions of us will be toting these around. We’ll have portable access to books, magazines, databases, credit scores, great works of literature. Anything you like. You don’t have to miss a thing. EVER.
You know what I miss? I miss the days when no one knew what the hell was going on. These kind of technologies have ruined ignorance and guessing forever.
Already a new category of Know-It-All has arisen: the iPhone-It-All. You know someone like this, I’ll bet. You’re standing around, chatting and conjecturing about this or that. Next thing you know, there’s somebody whipping out the iPhone to look something up, either to make a point or in answer to a rhetorical question that has come up through the normal course of conversation.
The thing is, I truly don’t mind situations fraught with wondering. For example, thinking out loud along these lines, “I wonder if it’s going to be cold next week?” or “If I turn here, I wonder if that will get me to Route 1?” or even “I wonder what’ll happen if I add this entire box of Mentos to this 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke?”
I can wait to find out the answer to a lot of these questions in due time or maybe even through trial and error, but the iPhone-it-all has to ruin such contemplations by using his iPhone to tell you exactly what the barometric pressure will be next Thursday at 4 pm or for the previous forty years if you’re interested (No, really, that’s OK), or that you could cut your travel time by four minutes if you took the highlighted route. Or worse, the iPhone-It-All will explain the science behind the Diet Coke/Mentos fizz explosions instead of focusing on what really matters, which is that Diet Coke mixed with Mentos results in standing around for hours going, “Heh. That’s cool.”
Excess access to information does not make you more interesting. As Voltaire once wisely said, “The surest way to be a bore is to tell everything.” The iPhone is well on its way to making bores of a whole generation of users. Fortunately Voltaire had the good sense to die two hundred years ago. If he hadn't, Steve Jobs would have done him in.
Sadly, knowing everything does not make you more appealing, and that little fact really annoys nerds. They think it should work that way. In their estimation, he who knows the most should win. Maybe even get the girl. Don’t forget, the iPhone was invented by nerds, and nerds love data. They collect it, analyze it, rearrange it, argue about it, and smear it all over their bodies. Of course they think iPhones and iPads are what all of America wants. Who doesn't want to be RIGHT all the time, right? Right makes might, doesn’t it?
Now, I love me some nerds as much as the next gal -- I mean we live in the golden age of nerds after all so I'd better -- but is data exchange really the point of conversation? Of small talk? Of drunken postulations about the nature of our existence? No. It is not. To be human is to err. In other words, to guess and get it wrong and then guess again.
I’m no Luddite, and eventually I may even get one those iPad doo-hickeys, but if I do, I will keep it to myself. I figure if keep quiet about what I know and also keep wondering aloud, eventually I may become the most interesting person on earth. Or at the very least, I’ll become a darling of the iPhone-It-Alls. Who else are they going to show off to?
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Right to Write
Today, in honor of Virginia Woolf’s birthday, I would like to pay tribute to a woman who had the courage to point out the special burden that women continue to bear by encouraging all you women writers out there to…
MOM!!! MOOOOMMM!
--What? What is it?
Uh, nothing I was just wonderin’ where you were…
--OK, you’ve found me, now shoo away. I’m in the middle of something.
Where was I? OK, yes, a tribute to something or other. Oh, yes, of course. I was going to talk about Virginia Woolf and her famous essay "A Room of One’s Own." I remember reading it in my twenties, and I didn’t understand that what Virginia was talking about was the fact that even if you are lucky enough to have an office and time on your hands – neither of which women of her era ever had -- the one thing you find it hard to achieve is….
MOOOOOMMM!
--WHAAAT?!
I need help!
--With what?
I can’t find my other shoe.
--Well, you found one of them, the other one can’t be far away. Just keep looking….
(Fourteen seconds pass)
I’VE LOOKED AND LOOKED AND I STILL CAN’T FIND IT!
--Oh, for God’s sake (stomp, stomp, stomp). Here it is. Right here. It was UNDER your jacket, which is on the floor, where it shouldn’t be. Now go downstairs with your sister and do something non-destructive. I just need ten minutes to concentrate.
All right then, back to the Woolf thing… uuuhhh...imperturbability! Yes, that’s the word I was looking for. Imperturbability is more than having a room of your own. With a door. That can be closed. What’s most important is that that door should not be knocked upon. After all, there’s no point in having an office if just anyone can walk into it, ask you for fruit chewies, and stare at you even as they promise they won’t talk at all.
Imperturbability is hard to come by. And it’s not just the outside world intruding on us. It’s our own sense of guilt that undermines us, too. How do you get to the point where you feel you have the right to not be interrupted? I guess the truth is: maybe you never do.
Of course, it might just be the case that any writer at an early stage of his/her career will experience this. Unless and until you’re earning your keep through your writing, you can’t be considered professional, and therefore you’re not deserving of imperturbability. This is probably why I have evolved a sense that I must “earn my office” by getting published. Right now my “office” is a corner of a spare bedroom with a laptop perched atop a rickety, folding bridge table from the 60s that was left behind by the previous owner of our house. It’s easily broken down and packed away in the event that we have a guest who needs the room. (My desk is so temporary, sometimes I feel like I’m perpetually camping.) In other words, I must give way at a moment’s notice to someone else’s needs. This, of course, was Ms. Woolf’s whole point. Women always had to give way to the needs of others. In her time, women didn’t have the opportunity to slink off and work on their own unless every other job, duty, and social responsibility had been fulfilled. And when did that ever happen? Exactly. Never.
Of course, I realize that times are different, and I choose to give way to others. No doubt there has been progress, but I still feel guilty about my writing time because I haven’t earned my office yet. The simple answer to this problem is, unfortunately, to be selfish. To just declare your Right to Write. To pick a day or a few hours here and there and guard it against all intrusion and interruption, foreign and domestic, no matter how cute or cuddly. It’s hard. It’s darn near impossible, especially when those intruders have the sniffles, but…
Mom!
--WHAT NOW??!!!
EW! The cat just threw up on the stairs!
--Fine. Just step around it. I’ll be there in a minute.
It’s what you must do if you ever want to get anything done. Guilt is an inescapable part of the deal, and you're just going to have to endure it. I’m telling you, it's the only way…
Hey, Mom! Good news.
--Oh, yeah?
You don’t have to clean up the cat barf.
--Why's that?
The dog ate it.
There. You see? Sometimes problems take care of themselves while you’re working. Perhaps Virginia is looking out for us all.
MOM!!! MOOOOMMM!
--What? What is it?
Uh, nothing I was just wonderin’ where you were…
--OK, you’ve found me, now shoo away. I’m in the middle of something.
Where was I? OK, yes, a tribute to something or other. Oh, yes, of course. I was going to talk about Virginia Woolf and her famous essay "A Room of One’s Own." I remember reading it in my twenties, and I didn’t understand that what Virginia was talking about was the fact that even if you are lucky enough to have an office and time on your hands – neither of which women of her era ever had -- the one thing you find it hard to achieve is….
MOOOOOMMM!
--WHAAAT?!
I need help!
--With what?
I can’t find my other shoe.
--Well, you found one of them, the other one can’t be far away. Just keep looking….
(Fourteen seconds pass)
I’VE LOOKED AND LOOKED AND I STILL CAN’T FIND IT!
--Oh, for God’s sake (stomp, stomp, stomp). Here it is. Right here. It was UNDER your jacket, which is on the floor, where it shouldn’t be. Now go downstairs with your sister and do something non-destructive. I just need ten minutes to concentrate.
All right then, back to the Woolf thing… uuuhhh...imperturbability! Yes, that’s the word I was looking for. Imperturbability is more than having a room of your own. With a door. That can be closed. What’s most important is that that door should not be knocked upon. After all, there’s no point in having an office if just anyone can walk into it, ask you for fruit chewies, and stare at you even as they promise they won’t talk at all.
Imperturbability is hard to come by. And it’s not just the outside world intruding on us. It’s our own sense of guilt that undermines us, too. How do you get to the point where you feel you have the right to not be interrupted? I guess the truth is: maybe you never do.
Of course, it might just be the case that any writer at an early stage of his/her career will experience this. Unless and until you’re earning your keep through your writing, you can’t be considered professional, and therefore you’re not deserving of imperturbability. This is probably why I have evolved a sense that I must “earn my office” by getting published. Right now my “office” is a corner of a spare bedroom with a laptop perched atop a rickety, folding bridge table from the 60s that was left behind by the previous owner of our house. It’s easily broken down and packed away in the event that we have a guest who needs the room. (My desk is so temporary, sometimes I feel like I’m perpetually camping.) In other words, I must give way at a moment’s notice to someone else’s needs. This, of course, was Ms. Woolf’s whole point. Women always had to give way to the needs of others. In her time, women didn’t have the opportunity to slink off and work on their own unless every other job, duty, and social responsibility had been fulfilled. And when did that ever happen? Exactly. Never.
Of course, I realize that times are different, and I choose to give way to others. No doubt there has been progress, but I still feel guilty about my writing time because I haven’t earned my office yet. The simple answer to this problem is, unfortunately, to be selfish. To just declare your Right to Write. To pick a day or a few hours here and there and guard it against all intrusion and interruption, foreign and domestic, no matter how cute or cuddly. It’s hard. It’s darn near impossible, especially when those intruders have the sniffles, but…
Mom!
--WHAT NOW??!!!
EW! The cat just threw up on the stairs!
--Fine. Just step around it. I’ll be there in a minute.
It’s what you must do if you ever want to get anything done. Guilt is an inescapable part of the deal, and you're just going to have to endure it. I’m telling you, it's the only way…
Hey, Mom! Good news.
--Oh, yeah?
You don’t have to clean up the cat barf.
--Why's that?
The dog ate it.
There. You see? Sometimes problems take care of themselves while you’re working. Perhaps Virginia is looking out for us all.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Queen of Saline
Do you know how much sodium you’re supposed to be taking in on a daily basis?
I don’t, and I don’t want to find out.
I already know that I’m coming in waaaaay over the limit. Like, way beyond whatever is way beyond the limit. You know how people get busted for DUI, and the police report says that their blood-alcohol level was two-times the legal limit? I’d probably be like that except that I’d be about four basquillion times higher than the legal limit. Lab technicians would throw off their goggles and insist, no, this cannot be. No one could live who ate this much salt. Or to put it another way, I’m sure that if salt were radioactive, they’d rope off my grave like portions of the Nevada desert.
I am a salt fiend. I wash down pretzels with shots of soy sauce. When I cook, I try to tone it down for others, but it’s hard. Never have I eaten anything that I would characterize as too salty, so I don’t really understand what that term means to normal people. "Too salty"? I ... don’t … understand.
I guess I first realized I had a salt thing when I was a kid and saw that episode of “Star Trek” where Bones thinks that blond lady who married his old friend is so nice, but then it turns out she’s this salt-sucking monster that keeps draining all the red shirts of their bodily salts. They keep finding bodies on the ship with weird, red circles on their faces where her sucker-fingers had attached to extract their salt. Totally identified with her. In fact, I used to chase my brother around and try to put my fingers on his face while I made this slurping noise. This usually resulted in his pounding me but good for being super annoying, but this did not lead to a modification in my behavior. Nor did it make a dent in my love of salt.
If you like sweets,there's Christmas and Halloween and Valentine's Day when you can indulge your sweet tooth, but there are no holidays that celebrate the joy of salt. I’m thinking of starting one and calling it Saline-o-ween. It would be in March, of course, because there’s nothing good going on in March anyway, which is why people think that March Madness is an actual, real, month-long holiday like, say, Ramadan. Anyway…anyone so inclined -- grown-ups included -- could go door-to-door and collect things like jerky, bouillon cubes, individual packets of soy sauce, pretzels, and Feta cheese.
So what do you think? Are you with me?
No?
Yeah, it’s all right. I realize massive salt intake is not for everyone, and at times, even I have cut back out of necessity. Once, when I was pregnant, I made the mistake of eating some microwave popcorn (Some? Who am I kidding, I ate the whole bag), and wow, did I ever regret that. After a whole bag of microwave popcorn, it was like I was wearing hip waders that had filled with river water.
Fortunately I have very low blood pressure, but I tell you, if that ever changes and I have to give up salt… Man, they’re gonna pry that box of Kosher salt out my cold dead fingers. Of course at that point I probably won’t need embalming, just a little pepper to make sure I’m well seasoned for the great beyond.
I don’t, and I don’t want to find out.
I already know that I’m coming in waaaaay over the limit. Like, way beyond whatever is way beyond the limit. You know how people get busted for DUI, and the police report says that their blood-alcohol level was two-times the legal limit? I’d probably be like that except that I’d be about four basquillion times higher than the legal limit. Lab technicians would throw off their goggles and insist, no, this cannot be. No one could live who ate this much salt. Or to put it another way, I’m sure that if salt were radioactive, they’d rope off my grave like portions of the Nevada desert.
I am a salt fiend. I wash down pretzels with shots of soy sauce. When I cook, I try to tone it down for others, but it’s hard. Never have I eaten anything that I would characterize as too salty, so I don’t really understand what that term means to normal people. "Too salty"? I ... don’t … understand.
I guess I first realized I had a salt thing when I was a kid and saw that episode of “Star Trek” where Bones thinks that blond lady who married his old friend is so nice, but then it turns out she’s this salt-sucking monster that keeps draining all the red shirts of their bodily salts. They keep finding bodies on the ship with weird, red circles on their faces where her sucker-fingers had attached to extract their salt. Totally identified with her. In fact, I used to chase my brother around and try to put my fingers on his face while I made this slurping noise. This usually resulted in his pounding me but good for being super annoying, but this did not lead to a modification in my behavior. Nor did it make a dent in my love of salt.
If you like sweets,there's Christmas and Halloween and Valentine's Day when you can indulge your sweet tooth, but there are no holidays that celebrate the joy of salt. I’m thinking of starting one and calling it Saline-o-ween. It would be in March, of course, because there’s nothing good going on in March anyway, which is why people think that March Madness is an actual, real, month-long holiday like, say, Ramadan. Anyway…anyone so inclined -- grown-ups included -- could go door-to-door and collect things like jerky, bouillon cubes, individual packets of soy sauce, pretzels, and Feta cheese.
So what do you think? Are you with me?
No?
Yeah, it’s all right. I realize massive salt intake is not for everyone, and at times, even I have cut back out of necessity. Once, when I was pregnant, I made the mistake of eating some microwave popcorn (Some? Who am I kidding, I ate the whole bag), and wow, did I ever regret that. After a whole bag of microwave popcorn, it was like I was wearing hip waders that had filled with river water.
Fortunately I have very low blood pressure, but I tell you, if that ever changes and I have to give up salt… Man, they’re gonna pry that box of Kosher salt out my cold dead fingers. Of course at that point I probably won’t need embalming, just a little pepper to make sure I’m well seasoned for the great beyond.
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