Current fave from recent surfing:
Speed-Googling:
The stories were just excessive enough to carry a faint Wodehousian aroma if read in sequence, but not quite excessive enough to arouse suspicion in a newspaper writer on a jag of pre-deadline speed-Googling (Brian Phillips, Fictional Moldovan Soccer Phenom Tells All Slate, 23 Jan 09).
Read More......
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Half-Ton New Years
I celebrated the holiday by redoing my World History syllabus and writing quizzes for next quarter. Woo Hoo. I simplified the assignment structure-- no attendance, no participation, weekly Desire2Learn quizzes on the readings worth 25% of the final grade, a long-answer 'primary source worksheet' which I've set up so that they will fill out via Desire2Learn, a midterm and final. I just need to get all the quizzes up on the D2L course site, then all I'll have to worry about is tweaking the lectures and writing the essay questions for the exams.
I had the TLC Morbidly Obese Marathon running in the background while I worked all day (and night). It's a mix of schadenfreude and cringing horror. And terror. For ourselves. The announcer reiterates over and over that obesity is a rapidly growing epidemic that is lowering life expectancy for the first time in generations (30% of children overweight or obese; 80% of adults over 25 overweight).
Repeated views of these patients are maddening. It becomes clear that these people are essentially addicted to food--and junk
food at that. They are consuming somewhere between 4,000 to 30,000 calories a day. Their parents and partners are classic 'enablers', and the lying, rationalizing and self-deluding behaviors are identical to that of drug and alcohol addicts.
But as much as you want to shake them and their families and say 'CUT IT THE F*&K OUT',it's much like the way meth has destroyed so many communities. Addiction is a disease. It's a disease whose treatment requires personal change and commitment, but it is a disease. And it's a disease that stems from a social environment. For the latest wave of drug addiction it's been the rise of meth. With obesity, it's the shift to a sedentary service economy and proliferation of fast food. I don't know how you watch these programs and not realize that this is a national emergency (as if we needed another one) that required nationwide social intervention. The question is what and how?
I think the solution could take many lessons from the fight against tobacco: a mix of regulating the industry that is promoting the addiction and creating a social atmosphere that discourages the addictive behavior. Restricting fast food advertising--especially to kids; McDonald's basically does the equivalent of ruthlessly marketing crack to small children--would help. As would the 'fat bastard' tax that New York is instituting (an amazing amount of weight gain stems from the consumption of high calorie soda) and requiring all restaurants to list nutritional contents on ALL menus, akin to what they're doing in California.
And then I think we as a society need to get disapproving. Not of fat people; every individual has their own story of how they got there and all the already existing social prejudice against the overweight clearly isn't doing a thing to help. But we need to get moral about inactivity--about able-bodied people taking the elevator when they can take the stairs. And about super-sizing. Smokers are experiencing so much isolation, so much inconvenience, they're essentially being socially pressured into quitting. And it's working; the numbers of smokers in the US is dropping.
And we need to promote education and the middle class. Obesity, like smoking, is a low-income disease. We live in crazy world where fresh vegetables are unaffordable and Big Macs are cheap. The more education you have, the more likely you are to know how to eat healthily; the more income you have, the more likely you are to be able to afford healthy food.
And thus spaketh the Starving Adjunct. And now, back to early agricultural societies... Read More......
I had the TLC Morbidly Obese Marathon running in the background while I worked all day (and night). It's a mix of schadenfreude and cringing horror. And terror. For ourselves. The announcer reiterates over and over that obesity is a rapidly growing epidemic that is lowering life expectancy for the first time in generations (30% of children overweight or obese; 80% of adults over 25 overweight).
Repeated views of these patients are maddening. It becomes clear that these people are essentially addicted to food--and junk
food at that. They are consuming somewhere between 4,000 to 30,000 calories a day. Their parents and partners are classic 'enablers', and the lying, rationalizing and self-deluding behaviors are identical to that of drug and alcohol addicts.
But as much as you want to shake them and their families and say 'CUT IT THE F*&K OUT',it's much like the way meth has destroyed so many communities. Addiction is a disease. It's a disease whose treatment requires personal change and commitment, but it is a disease. And it's a disease that stems from a social environment. For the latest wave of drug addiction it's been the rise of meth. With obesity, it's the shift to a sedentary service economy and proliferation of fast food. I don't know how you watch these programs and not realize that this is a national emergency (as if we needed another one) that required nationwide social intervention. The question is what and how?
I think the solution could take many lessons from the fight against tobacco: a mix of regulating the industry that is promoting the addiction and creating a social atmosphere that discourages the addictive behavior. Restricting fast food advertising--especially to kids; McDonald's basically does the equivalent of ruthlessly marketing crack to small children--would help. As would the 'fat bastard' tax that New York is instituting (an amazing amount of weight gain stems from the consumption of high calorie soda) and requiring all restaurants to list nutritional contents on ALL menus, akin to what they're doing in California.
And then I think we as a society need to get disapproving. Not of fat people; every individual has their own story of how they got there and all the already existing social prejudice against the overweight clearly isn't doing a thing to help. But we need to get moral about inactivity--about able-bodied people taking the elevator when they can take the stairs. And about super-sizing. Smokers are experiencing so much isolation, so much inconvenience, they're essentially being socially pressured into quitting. And it's working; the numbers of smokers in the US is dropping.
And we need to promote education and the middle class. Obesity, like smoking, is a low-income disease. We live in crazy world where fresh vegetables are unaffordable and Big Macs are cheap. The more education you have, the more likely you are to know how to eat healthily; the more income you have, the more likely you are to be able to afford healthy food.
And thus spaketh the Starving Adjunct. And now, back to early agricultural societies... Read More......
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
A Gas Tax for Guzzlers
Thomas L. Friedman, one of my four favorite NYT columnists, begged Obama to brave public opinion and institute a gas tax. It's needed, he argued, because Americans are idiots when it comes to historically based reasoning. No matter how many gas crises they endure, as soon as gas prices fall, they trade in their Hondas for Hummers. And conveniently forget that a few months before, they were taking the bus because they could no longer afford the gas to drive to work in their SUVs (or as a dear friend once christened them: 'the mommy cars of the apocalypse'). And never mind that the funds they're dumping at the tank are going to nations that fund Islamic terrorism.
But it's a recession. Or maybe the word that rhymes with 'recession' but starts with a different consonant. And drastically raising the price of something that is a basic necessity for most Americans is not going to be popular. (This is the one drawback of democracy--and is also why you need an FDR to get on the radio once a week and convince us to suck it up).
Friedman suggests breaking Americans in gently, raising the tax per gallon by $0.10/month.
But I have another idea. Most gas-efficient cars have smaller tanks. So how about a tax that increases, or kicks in, with the tenth gallon? Start out taxing the first 10 gallons at five cents, and every gallon after that at twenty cents. Then gradually increase the tax on the first 10 by five cents more each month, and the tax on every gallon after that by ten. That will double the motivation to buy and keep those fuel-efficient cars--both to save funds at the pump *and* to benefit from the tax break. Read More......
But it's a recession. Or maybe the word that rhymes with 'recession' but starts with a different consonant. And drastically raising the price of something that is a basic necessity for most Americans is not going to be popular. (This is the one drawback of democracy--and is also why you need an FDR to get on the radio once a week and convince us to suck it up).
Friedman suggests breaking Americans in gently, raising the tax per gallon by $0.10/month.
But I have another idea. Most gas-efficient cars have smaller tanks. So how about a tax that increases, or kicks in, with the tenth gallon? Start out taxing the first 10 gallons at five cents, and every gallon after that at twenty cents. Then gradually increase the tax on the first 10 by five cents more each month, and the tax on every gallon after that by ten. That will double the motivation to buy and keep those fuel-efficient cars--both to save funds at the pump *and* to benefit from the tax break. Read More......
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
File Under: Ancient People Were F&@king Smart
Granted, it's lacking binary code, but still...
Ancient Greek Computer Recreated (New Scientist).
Read More......
Friday, December 5, 2008
It's Official
The last job on my 'academic dream job' list (Research-1, 2-2 teaching load, good institutional culture, great faculty you'd love to be colleagues with) asked other candidates for more materials. So I'm out of the running. Some places are starting to send rejection letters out as soon as they decide their short list, instead of stringing you along for months until the campus interviews are finished.
It's a little harsh, getting dinged during holiday season. But I'm starting to think that's more humane.
Sigh. Read More......
It's a little harsh, getting dinged during holiday season. But I'm starting to think that's more humane.
Sigh. Read More......
Monday, March 10, 2008
Superficia
I find myself singularly unable to get behind one of the latest fashion trends: vast, billowy pinafore-like tunics, frequently designed with empire waists, fluffy sleeves and loose pleating.
I've been searching myself as to why. Why do they always look blowsy and unattractive to me, no matter what airbrushed, stick-thin model is wearing one on TV?
I am just too old? It does seem that somewhere in my thirties, I unknowingly crossed the line between 'young and hip' and 'old and clueless'. Or does the tunic and tight pants style generally trigger too many dark flashbacks to the eighties? Honestly, I think my feelings about Pat Benetar are mostly positive.
I probed my associations with the style. There wasn't much, other than sexual infantilism and creepy Alice in Wonderland nightmares. Then it hit me: they're like especially shapeless maternity smocks, but without the bump to fill them, and without the glowing (or puking) aura of pregnancy to make them make aesthetic sense. And they're being marketed to--and modeled on--teenaged girls and young women who have no business (not to mention body fat) being pregnant.
Ah, mystery solved. I really feel we've made a breakthrough in this session...
Read More......
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