Thank goodness for the Miami Dade Public Library system! With all the background reading I like to do, and a wicked case of bibliographic ADHD, I could never afford every single book that I wanted to read.
I would not go so far as to be an anti-Keating, the teacher in Dead Poets Society (Robin Williams), plotting poetry on an x and y axis. Even I know that lacks sex appeal, and hey what else is poetry meant to be, if not sexy.
But I feel unfinished somehow when I read poetry, like I need more. Or maybe I need to learn how to read poetry. Especially the abstract sort.
As for trying to write poetry, I like the constraint of form. Of course, this is anathema to Romantic notions of genius, an artist sitting in a sun dappled scene, hand moving across the page, words magically flowing, she knoweth not from whence they came.
Harold Bloom seems a good place to start, but my goodness, what an intimidating bibliography!
I waver between a need for constraint and a rebellion against it, intuitively knowing that literary criticism can be a tool for control that maintains privilege, stifles creativity and limits experimentation.
But no need to jump in the deep end, into a big wide ocean of words. I could drown.
October 31, 2007
October 29, 2007
West Coconut Grove
Driving west on Grand Avenue toward US-1, away from the waterfront, the marinas, the multimillion dollar homes and the boutiques, Grand Avenue changes in less than a mile, from the Ritz to Inner City Anywhere.
West Coconut Grove is the historically black section of town, it was first settled by Bahamians.
Today the dingy yellow apartment complexes are pretty depressing, but I think part of the issue at hand is that we don't share space. Especially in a car-dependent culture. Driving everywhere is extremely isolating.
How many people, even those who frequent the shops at Cocowalk (the mall on Grand Avenue) have ever set foot on the pavement in the West Grove? As Dave Chappelle put it, he knew he was in the ghetto when he looked out the window and saw liquor store, liquor store, gun store...
Coconut Grove is not at all like the more dangerous inner cities, of Jon Singleton movie lore. But you sure can tell when you're not at the marina anymore.
When Bill O’Reilly expressed surprise that Sylvia’s in Harlem was a well appointed place, where black people behaved like, well, people, that's the same sort of ignorance that this physical separation fosters. I hold him completely responsible for that ignorance, mind you, but I understand where it comes from.
I really think that a car based culture has something to do with it.
Driving through the West Grove, it is indeed a scary place, full of drug dealing boogie men on bicycles, as images from CSI Miami play in the imagination. (Never mind that UM students are, according to received wisdom, the bread and butter for local drug dealers)
What if more people walked on the streets of West Coconut Grove?
Now, don't get me wrong, I do not romanticize the inner city, there is a Bill Cosby in me too. I wish that people would keep their damn neighborhoods clean. "Just because you're poor doesn't mean you're dirty" echoes my mother's voice. And I certainly would not date any of the young men on their bicycles in sagging pants.
Of course, I am not naive, I would not walk through that neighborhood alone at night. But as the wealthy drive by the dingy yellow apartment blocks huddled on this end of Grand Avenue, the psychological separation is an even greater barrier than the income gap. Those people over there are the undesirables, the bad ones. And that's the most upsetting thing about middle class appropriation of inner city culture, the "blackface" of so-called ghetto parties on college campuses. It's like something out of the late Roman Empire, or pre-Revolution France, making comedic sport out of others' despair. Again, possible if you're separate from it, if these are caricatures from tv, not real people.
What if it weren't so obvious that the decrepit neighborhood was the black neighborhood? As a visibly growing black middle class is the changing norm, poverty is not necessarily synonymous with skin color.
But you wouldn't know that, driving up Grand Avenue.
West Coconut Grove is the historically black section of town, it was first settled by Bahamians.
Today the dingy yellow apartment complexes are pretty depressing, but I think part of the issue at hand is that we don't share space. Especially in a car-dependent culture. Driving everywhere is extremely isolating.
How many people, even those who frequent the shops at Cocowalk (the mall on Grand Avenue) have ever set foot on the pavement in the West Grove? As Dave Chappelle put it, he knew he was in the ghetto when he looked out the window and saw liquor store, liquor store, gun store...
Coconut Grove is not at all like the more dangerous inner cities, of Jon Singleton movie lore. But you sure can tell when you're not at the marina anymore.
When Bill O’Reilly expressed surprise that Sylvia’s in Harlem was a well appointed place, where black people behaved like, well, people, that's the same sort of ignorance that this physical separation fosters. I hold him completely responsible for that ignorance, mind you, but I understand where it comes from.
I really think that a car based culture has something to do with it.
Driving through the West Grove, it is indeed a scary place, full of drug dealing boogie men on bicycles, as images from CSI Miami play in the imagination. (Never mind that UM students are, according to received wisdom, the bread and butter for local drug dealers)
What if more people walked on the streets of West Coconut Grove?
Now, don't get me wrong, I do not romanticize the inner city, there is a Bill Cosby in me too. I wish that people would keep their damn neighborhoods clean. "Just because you're poor doesn't mean you're dirty" echoes my mother's voice. And I certainly would not date any of the young men on their bicycles in sagging pants.
Of course, I am not naive, I would not walk through that neighborhood alone at night. But as the wealthy drive by the dingy yellow apartment blocks huddled on this end of Grand Avenue, the psychological separation is an even greater barrier than the income gap. Those people over there are the undesirables, the bad ones. And that's the most upsetting thing about middle class appropriation of inner city culture, the "blackface" of so-called ghetto parties on college campuses. It's like something out of the late Roman Empire, or pre-Revolution France, making comedic sport out of others' despair. Again, possible if you're separate from it, if these are caricatures from tv, not real people.
What if it weren't so obvious that the decrepit neighborhood was the black neighborhood? As a visibly growing black middle class is the changing norm, poverty is not necessarily synonymous with skin color.
But you wouldn't know that, driving up Grand Avenue.
Open Mic Night at Rustic Treasures
Rustic Treasures
At Rustic Treasures, Bona and her husband operate a little café and antique shop, opening their store as a community meeting place. Laurie, who I met a few weeks ago at Mosaic, lives nearby and invited me along to an open mic night, to read some poetry.
I was intimidated, because seriously, it was like Def Poetry Jam up in there. Dennis, a dance teacher and graduate of the College of the Arts in Philadelphia, flowed like nobody’s business! Off the top of his head, he came up with one piece, sung and spoken, on the false constructs of whiteness. After that one, the audience echoed the chorus he sings to the children in his dance class, to make them pay attention: ‘one, two/zip your lips’ ‘three four/sit up straight’ and he riffed on Saturday morning cartoons.
Su, fiftyish, did his thing on the drums, accompanying the performers.
Laurie has a beautiful voice, her melodies had rich undertones and soulful vibrato, that played around the notes like an expert
And then there was me.
I like to paint pictures with sound, or try to take readers on a journey in images. I play with words, but I don’t know that I have the rhythm and warmth of these performers. I’m still experimenting, trying to find my own voice, but it definitely felt lukewarm, intellectual and abstract. Like Yeats at the Apollo
Still, I’m trying not to make too much of it, maybe stultified, strangulated, twisted self expression is interesting too. I don’t have the quick wit of Jenae (her stage name), who read a piece about ‘niggas who won't stop to give her a ride, unless they want something from her'
That does not translate well onto paper. And my words did not translate well into spoken word.
This is one of the poems I read last night:
I do not speak of love at all
Words do not cross dysthymic silences
I stand at the sink wash dishes eat
Through one pleasant day
To the next
Live as well as I can
I volunteer sometimes, I recycle
This is not a question upon which the universe turns
I live well enough, more than, in fact.
Filled up with throbbing nameless sad
A good enough life
Should be sufficient
Wanting more is selfishness
Shame on me for this discontent
I do not speak of love
Say nothing that tells of this skin this body
This want of touch warm holding arms skin
On skin breathing hot
Quench melancholy with more wine, movies, music
I do not speak of love at all.
Whatever, it was incredibly life giving to read, and to listen, and to enjoy the rhythm and sound and people. Rustic Treasures will be seeing a lot more of me, I plan to see a lot more of it. I do need to be more fun, I'll try to read something more upbeat next time.
At Rustic Treasures, Bona and her husband operate a little café and antique shop, opening their store as a community meeting place. Laurie, who I met a few weeks ago at Mosaic, lives nearby and invited me along to an open mic night, to read some poetry.
I was intimidated, because seriously, it was like Def Poetry Jam up in there. Dennis, a dance teacher and graduate of the College of the Arts in Philadelphia, flowed like nobody’s business! Off the top of his head, he came up with one piece, sung and spoken, on the false constructs of whiteness. After that one, the audience echoed the chorus he sings to the children in his dance class, to make them pay attention: ‘one, two/zip your lips’ ‘three four/sit up straight’ and he riffed on Saturday morning cartoons.
Su, fiftyish, did his thing on the drums, accompanying the performers.
Laurie has a beautiful voice, her melodies had rich undertones and soulful vibrato, that played around the notes like an expert
And then there was me.
I like to paint pictures with sound, or try to take readers on a journey in images. I play with words, but I don’t know that I have the rhythm and warmth of these performers. I’m still experimenting, trying to find my own voice, but it definitely felt lukewarm, intellectual and abstract. Like Yeats at the Apollo
Still, I’m trying not to make too much of it, maybe stultified, strangulated, twisted self expression is interesting too. I don’t have the quick wit of Jenae (her stage name), who read a piece about ‘niggas who won't stop to give her a ride, unless they want something from her'
That does not translate well onto paper. And my words did not translate well into spoken word.
This is one of the poems I read last night:
I do not speak of love at all
Words do not cross dysthymic silences
I stand at the sink wash dishes eat
Through one pleasant day
To the next
Live as well as I can
I volunteer sometimes, I recycle
This is not a question upon which the universe turns
I live well enough, more than, in fact.
Filled up with throbbing nameless sad
A good enough life
Should be sufficient
Wanting more is selfishness
Shame on me for this discontent
I do not speak of love
Say nothing that tells of this skin this body
This want of touch warm holding arms skin
On skin breathing hot
Quench melancholy with more wine, movies, music
I do not speak of love at all.
Whatever, it was incredibly life giving to read, and to listen, and to enjoy the rhythm and sound and people. Rustic Treasures will be seeing a lot more of me, I plan to see a lot more of it. I do need to be more fun, I'll try to read something more upbeat next time.
October 25, 2007
Ontology Lesson
On the way home from the library with my nephew, we talked about one of the books he had checked out, Franklin the Turtle Wants a Pet.
Franklin had a blue stuffed dog, and he fed it and played with it, it was his pet. Jay looked at the pictures, enjoying the story, and we talked about it on the drive home.
How's that for a lesson in ontology, taught by a four year old?
I had my Platonic defense ready, of forms and essences, instances of universal definitions. And maybe even a study of language, reflecting on the connoted meaning of the word 'real.'
But it was time to get a popsicle and hang out with his Mommy who had just come home from work. If there had been enough time before bed, we could have played with his dinosaurs. Real dinosaurs.
Franklin had a blue stuffed dog, and he fed it and played with it, it was his pet. Jay looked at the pictures, enjoying the story, and we talked about it on the drive home.
Me: What's Franklin playing with in the story
J: A blue stuffed dog
Me: And is it a real dog?
J: Yes
Me: No, it isn't
J: (thinking for a few seconds) you're right, but it's a picture of a real dog. Blue stuffed dogs are real.
How's that for a lesson in ontology, taught by a four year old?
I had my Platonic defense ready, of forms and essences, instances of universal definitions. And maybe even a study of language, reflecting on the connoted meaning of the word 'real.'
But it was time to get a popsicle and hang out with his Mommy who had just come home from work. If there had been enough time before bed, we could have played with his dinosaurs. Real dinosaurs.
Funny Black Women
A question posed on Philosopher's Playground:
My uncle was singing in the shower once, when my mother and her siblings were all teenagers, and my great grandmother Effie Jones told my uncle he sang so bad he could break the heart of a broomstick. This from the same woman who said she liked her coffee like she likes her men - strong, black and sweet.
Black women do fall outside of Hitchens' observations about women and comedy. Narratives about Black women do not hinge on meekness or a penchant for silence, that's for sure. The image of the sharp tongued man-eviscerating Sapphire, the woman who talks too loud is a staple of every B movie that features a minority sidekick, from Boomerang to Bring it On.
Having said that, I'm not exactly complaining. Growing up around women who cultivated the give in give and take, I have a hard time with the cult of femininity that expects meekness, silence, and sweet docility from women.
It's a troubling stereotype though, because another layer to this is the context of Black women's wit, a narrow definition of femininity (upper class white women) that poses a choice. The surrounding culture is a zero sum game; speaking your mind equals ghetto mama, fishwife, not respectable, outside of femininity. And therefore unworthy of the protection that patriarchal society affords the "good girls."
Hopefully that's changing, as beautiful funny women like Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman are doing their thing.
But that raises another question, should attractiveness enter the question at all? Well, we all want to be desirable I suppose. Surely funny can be attractive, these two qualities are not mutually exclusive. But, judging from the showbiz side of comedy, the people who make it as professionals, they certainly are.
Can Women Be Funny?
This one's a sociological question and surely one that varies widely. I'm wondering if Hitchen's observations hold true for upper-class white society. I grew up around a bunch of smart, funny middle-class Jews where a zinger could come from any direction. But then there is a culture of having strong women who speak their minds. I wonder about contemporary African-American culture. Wouldn't surprise me if the norms relating to gender and comedy are different. This one, I'd love to hear anecdotal thoughts on.
My uncle was singing in the shower once, when my mother and her siblings were all teenagers, and my great grandmother Effie Jones told my uncle he sang so bad he could break the heart of a broomstick. This from the same woman who said she liked her coffee like she likes her men - strong, black and sweet.
Black women do fall outside of Hitchens' observations about women and comedy. Narratives about Black women do not hinge on meekness or a penchant for silence, that's for sure. The image of the sharp tongued man-eviscerating Sapphire, the woman who talks too loud is a staple of every B movie that features a minority sidekick, from Boomerang to Bring it On.
Having said that, I'm not exactly complaining. Growing up around women who cultivated the give in give and take, I have a hard time with the cult of femininity that expects meekness, silence, and sweet docility from women.
It's a troubling stereotype though, because another layer to this is the context of Black women's wit, a narrow definition of femininity (upper class white women) that poses a choice. The surrounding culture is a zero sum game; speaking your mind equals ghetto mama, fishwife, not respectable, outside of femininity. And therefore unworthy of the protection that patriarchal society affords the "good girls."
Hopefully that's changing, as beautiful funny women like Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman are doing their thing.
But that raises another question, should attractiveness enter the question at all? Well, we all want to be desirable I suppose. Surely funny can be attractive, these two qualities are not mutually exclusive. But, judging from the showbiz side of comedy, the people who make it as professionals, they certainly are.
October 24, 2007
MRSA concern subsided
Like many other families in the area, today we were swept up in the tide of the MRSA scare. Vans perched on Sunset Drive opposite the school, reporters stuck their microphones in parents' faces, memos from the school office were quickly printed up and sent home with the children. Fearfulness surged and ebbed, as we experienced a few worried moments, creating anxious scenarios; superbugs and outbreaks are the stuff of which apocalyptic movies are made, after all.
Now, within a day, it's over.
I am not sure of the exact details of the ill woman at this point, but I am interested in following this story, as it unfolds. What will the aftermath look like, will it lead to significant policy changes, as with meningitis vaccines?
Now, within a day, it's over.
I am not sure of the exact details of the ill woman at this point, but I am interested in following this story, as it unfolds. What will the aftermath look like, will it lead to significant policy changes, as with meningitis vaccines?
October 23, 2007
MRSA worry
1:15pm
Since this morning, the MRSA issue has turned upside down, the case has been confirmed, and a teacher is seriously ill. The case in my nephew's school was confirmed, and as news is breaking, my thoughts and opinions on the issue are changing. First of all, worry and concern for my nephew's safety has entered the picture.
This morning I wrote dispassionately about MRSA, comparing the US media hype in Miami to the British public health scare.
Since then, I have joined the ranks of the anxious onlookers, handwashers and symptom checkers, because the ill teacher is in intensive care as I write, with a confirmed case of the so-called 'superbug'.
Of course, worry will help no one, and I hope I didn't come across as flippant before, when the prospects of infection seemed distant. I do still think that hyped up media reporting does more harm than help.
But, now that we know this teacher is seriously ill, that changes my perspective, and emotion - concern and anxiety - has entered the picture. So, I'm postponing a trip to the West Coast, staying home for a few days, now that the school is closed and he has to stay home for a bit.
Since this morning, the MRSA issue has turned upside down, the case has been confirmed, and a teacher is seriously ill. The case in my nephew's school was confirmed, and as news is breaking, my thoughts and opinions on the issue are changing. First of all, worry and concern for my nephew's safety has entered the picture.
This morning I wrote dispassionately about MRSA, comparing the US media hype in Miami to the British public health scare.
Since then, I have joined the ranks of the anxious onlookers, handwashers and symptom checkers, because the ill teacher is in intensive care as I write, with a confirmed case of the so-called 'superbug'.
Of course, worry will help no one, and I hope I didn't come across as flippant before, when the prospects of infection seemed distant. I do still think that hyped up media reporting does more harm than help.
But, now that we know this teacher is seriously ill, that changes my perspective, and emotion - concern and anxiety - has entered the picture. So, I'm postponing a trip to the West Coast, staying home for a few days, now that the school is closed and he has to stay home for a bit.
Stephen Colbert's allegory of the cave
From last night's Colbert Report:
"There are all these people in chains....and that's it."
"There are all these people in chains....and that's it."
MRSA: hyped up health scare?
Today there was a feeding frenzy of reporters at my nephew's elementary school, because a suspected case of the superbug MRSA was discovered a few days ago. His school was on the news last night, as a location where a suspected case was possibly found.
I exaggerate only a little, the evening news' penchant for blowing things out of proportion is well known. However, real questions of the common good do arise in this case.
It is a noble self defense, on the part of the media, to cite the common good and the public's right to know. But at what point does reporting that incites panic betray the public good?
Is it irresponsible of the evening news to report the case this way? I think so. My sister thought it better to know in advance, that being aware of a possible disease will keep it in check, as people will be more careful.
The media's responsibility to inform the public is not straightforward, as other competing claims
Had a good conversation with my sister about this issue this morning, she thought that the school was wrong for not advising parents preemptively. She took a straightforward utilitarian perspective, that it is better to risk public hysteria, even to betray the sick individual's privacy, in case it does turn out to
But utilitarian arguments don't work that way, do they? This argument might hold if the infection had been confirmed, but where it is a suspected case, the good of the one versus the many does not hold. This becomes a case of crying wolf, increasing vigilance and anxiety at a moment that may not be the right one.
Withholding information is not an offense in this case, because the infection was not yet confirmed.
The question at hand is the risk of public hysteria, the epidemic of misinformation.
Taking the ways of this world into account, media leaks and all, my sister might be right, but not from a utilitarian perspective. In hindsight, it would have been better to hear it from the school, rather than on the evening news.
I understand my sister's concern. Now that it was on the evening news, parents feel betrayed, because they did not know before. "I would not have been angry, if I had just been told." Classic parry, this counterfactual move, but it doesn't work on my loved ones, and I don't think it works here either.
I suspect that the school was following the impulse to avoid panic, keeping the illness quiet and waiting to release information until a diagnosis was made (self protection as much as concern for the common good, I imagine). It would have been irresponsible to release news of a suspected case before any diagnosis.
What is the right response of an institution, with information about a communicable disease on their hands? Especially given the style and tone of news reporting today, that easily lends itself to hysteria.
This 'superbug' is highly contagious, and so it is well worth knowing about. But it is most deadly to weakened patients in ICUs, or people with otherwise compromised immune systems.
Is the media acting in the public's best interest, raising anxiety about the presence of a possible contagion? Is the school acting in the community's best interest, when it sits on this kind of information?
I'm thinking about this question without even considering the individual's right to privacy, that's a thorny issue in itself - on the issue of a communicable disease, the person's right to privacy comes into conflict with the common good, doesn't it?
In another train of thought, I also started wondering how this scare might play out in the news.
A couple years ago, living in Brussels, the BBC was my main source of news in English. MRSA was all over the place! There, questions of responsibility and the common good are more in the forefront, I suppose, since healthcare is nationalised and the BBC is a state sponsored news outlet. However, privately owned media are the tides that toss public opinion this way and that, so there may be some similarities.
In the UK, MRSA scares a couple years ago caused doctors and nurses to be more careful about hand washing. Interestingly enough, this led to a change in dress code, discouraging doctors from wearing ties, as they are not washed as often, therefore carrying more infectious agents.
Here, the currents of public opinion and mainstream news media's appetite for hysteria will toss this story around for a bit. It'll be interesting to see where it lands, if it does (instead of just fading).
In the UK, this health scare put the national health service in the spotlight, raising a broad array of questions about its efficiency and quality (and, of course, Conservative accusation that healthcare should be privatised). Generally, as I see it, this led to more attention to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, more attention to practical ways that we can keeping the contagion in check, more hand washing stations, for example. But, in hindsight, over the two or three years that MRSA was in the news, it did draw attention to serious issues in the NHS (National Health Service) and spur helpful changes.
Having watched the MRSA scare unfold on the British news, I am curious to see what will happen here.
Who are the actors in this story, who stands to gain? I'm having a Malcolm Gladwell moment, wondering if this issue might cause attention to healthcare to reach a tipping point. Healthcare has been in the news lately after all, and it is election season or, as the Daily Show calls it, a "clusterf**k to the White House."
Will public opinion, and the electorate, follow where bacteria lead?
I exaggerate only a little, the evening news' penchant for blowing things out of proportion is well known. However, real questions of the common good do arise in this case.
It is a noble self defense, on the part of the media, to cite the common good and the public's right to know. But at what point does reporting that incites panic betray the public good?
Is it irresponsible of the evening news to report the case this way? I think so. My sister thought it better to know in advance, that being aware of a possible disease will keep it in check, as people will be more careful.
The media's responsibility to inform the public is not straightforward, as other competing claims
Had a good conversation with my sister about this issue this morning, she thought that the school was wrong for not advising parents preemptively. She took a straightforward utilitarian perspective, that it is better to risk public hysteria, even to betray the sick individual's privacy, in case it does turn out to
But utilitarian arguments don't work that way, do they? This argument might hold if the infection had been confirmed, but where it is a suspected case, the good of the one versus the many does not hold. This becomes a case of crying wolf, increasing vigilance and anxiety at a moment that may not be the right one.
Withholding information is not an offense in this case, because the infection was not yet confirmed.
The question at hand is the risk of public hysteria, the epidemic of misinformation.
Taking the ways of this world into account, media leaks and all, my sister might be right, but not from a utilitarian perspective. In hindsight, it would have been better to hear it from the school, rather than on the evening news.
I understand my sister's concern. Now that it was on the evening news, parents feel betrayed, because they did not know before. "I would not have been angry, if I had just been told." Classic parry, this counterfactual move, but it doesn't work on my loved ones, and I don't think it works here either.
I suspect that the school was following the impulse to avoid panic, keeping the illness quiet and waiting to release information until a diagnosis was made (self protection as much as concern for the common good, I imagine). It would have been irresponsible to release news of a suspected case before any diagnosis.
What is the right response of an institution, with information about a communicable disease on their hands? Especially given the style and tone of news reporting today, that easily lends itself to hysteria.
This 'superbug' is highly contagious, and so it is well worth knowing about. But it is most deadly to weakened patients in ICUs, or people with otherwise compromised immune systems.
Is the media acting in the public's best interest, raising anxiety about the presence of a possible contagion? Is the school acting in the community's best interest, when it sits on this kind of information?
I'm thinking about this question without even considering the individual's right to privacy, that's a thorny issue in itself - on the issue of a communicable disease, the person's right to privacy comes into conflict with the common good, doesn't it?
In another train of thought, I also started wondering how this scare might play out in the news.
A couple years ago, living in Brussels, the BBC was my main source of news in English. MRSA was all over the place! There, questions of responsibility and the common good are more in the forefront, I suppose, since healthcare is nationalised and the BBC is a state sponsored news outlet. However, privately owned media are the tides that toss public opinion this way and that, so there may be some similarities.
In the UK, MRSA scares a couple years ago caused doctors and nurses to be more careful about hand washing. Interestingly enough, this led to a change in dress code, discouraging doctors from wearing ties, as they are not washed as often, therefore carrying more infectious agents.
Here, the currents of public opinion and mainstream news media's appetite for hysteria will toss this story around for a bit. It'll be interesting to see where it lands, if it does (instead of just fading).
In the UK, this health scare put the national health service in the spotlight, raising a broad array of questions about its efficiency and quality (and, of course, Conservative accusation that healthcare should be privatised). Generally, as I see it, this led to more attention to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, more attention to practical ways that we can keeping the contagion in check, more hand washing stations, for example. But, in hindsight, over the two or three years that MRSA was in the news, it did draw attention to serious issues in the NHS (National Health Service) and spur helpful changes.
Having watched the MRSA scare unfold on the British news, I am curious to see what will happen here.
Who are the actors in this story, who stands to gain? I'm having a Malcolm Gladwell moment, wondering if this issue might cause attention to healthcare to reach a tipping point. Healthcare has been in the news lately after all, and it is election season or, as the Daily Show calls it, a "clusterf**k to the White House."
Will public opinion, and the electorate, follow where bacteria lead?
October 17, 2007
Art Walk
Esperando el Enemigo, by Glexis Novoa
Graphite on marble. I saw this artist's exhibit at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery. I don't know anything about art markets, trends, or who's who. I walked into that place like a child. Bernice was pure New York, vibrant and energetic, she has been doing this for years so she is rather well established in Miami. Bernice looked me in the eye and said "my gosh aren't you pretty!" Seems to be the kind of person who says exactly what pops into her head, and given the above comment, she is of course now my favourite person in the world.
At other galleries, the usual suspects in contemporary art adorned the gallery walls, even a bent 1 x 8 plank of wood.
Who am I to argue? I've learned that contemporary art does not take itself too seriously, so I don't bother to pretend I understand, or disdain it. I just watch, letting the visual experience watch over me. I'm a detached art Buddhist, it seems.
Contemporary art is difficult, because it is unnerving. I lack the vocabulary to speak of it, to explain why I like or dislike what I'm looking at. This is a new language, one that I have not mastered. I'm like a three year old: I like/I don't like. That's about it. Which is probably good.
It is unnerving for a control freak, not to know why I think what I do, what attracts me to some colors, shapes, textures while I find others repellent? What is the history, background, social and political context of this assemblage in front of me?
Nope, none of that, just open eyes.
This was an experience in releasing the need to fully understand, to be aware of what I'm thinking, narrating thoughts as I think them. Narration and living are inversely proportional to each other, so the unfamiliar predicament of lacking words might not be all that bad for me, less thinking about living, more living.
This was my first time out in downtown Miami at night. So I saw the city with wide open eyes. New acquaintances, a new skyline. In Brussels I would stop at Avenue Louise to watch the Atomium on the skyline, to the northeast.
It was good to be a pedestrian again, on a comfortably warm night. People in conversation on city blocks of open gallery doors, some of which beckoned, and some forbiddingly minimalist - I like. Suburban sprawl, where life is impossible without a car - I don't like.
Little Haiti used to be a battlezone, and it does give reason for pause, to think about how expensive this neighborhood is becoming, as it gentrifies.
I thought about that as I walked past empty lots, I thought about that in the galleries and back toward downtown on the streets where the artists haven't moved in yet.
This is a city full of sharp contrasts, where the edges still show.
October 16, 2007
Women in Comedy
Aspazia over at Mad Melancholic Feminista wrote yesterday on women in comedy. Fixation might be the right word for me, on this subject.
In this post, she considered Sarah Silverman, whose Comedy Central show falls flat (the opposite of her stand up performances, which were wickedly funny).
This is not disdain for crudeness, I do not fear the four letter word and comedians can bring on the loud, brash, racially insensitive jokes - as long as they deliver the funny.
And there's the heart of the question.
Along with Aspazia, I think that the right question is not concern over whether or not Silverman is funny. Rather, are women judged differently from men, especially with the 'orifice humor' as Aspazia calls it, typically the reserve of men, and therefore not funny out of the mouth of a woman named Sarah? Is potty humor funny from a male comedian, but disgusting from a woman?
Of course, there is no way to test this. Placing comedians on two stages, one male and one female, to gauge each audience's response, would be misleading. The person of a stand up comic is so much a part of the joke that facial expressions, voice inflections, even skin color and gender all set up the punchline.
So there is little ground for comparing funniness, male and female. The dearth of successful women comics is not an accurate indication of how funny women are, as mainstream success has little to do with funny(I'm hating on Carlos Mencia here, his show is a pallid Chappelle Show knockoff.)
Aspazia's reflections on sexism and double standards in comedy recall the 'Zen koan' of an earlier post on this subject. If a woman tells a joke and no one laughs, is that because the joke wasn't funny, or because the audience already thinks this woman is not going to be funny?
Incidentally, Judy Gold spent last summer promoting a documentary called Making Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women, on Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Wendy Wasserstein and Gilda Radner.
Which brings to mind Hitchens' observation that funny women are fat, dykey, or Jewish (forgetting that funny men are not former prom kings either). If this is the case, might this be nothing more than a gendered slant on the development of humor in socially awkward people? If Nathan Lane were thin, who would he have become?
John Belushi famously thought that women were not funny, disdaining Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and his other female counterparts. When he had some pretty unfunny skits himself. But this did not count as evidence for universal claims. And that's the difference, for those who hold the view that women are not funny. It is haste, to judge women comedians in general, each one as a representative for all.
In this post, she considered Sarah Silverman, whose Comedy Central show falls flat (the opposite of her stand up performances, which were wickedly funny).
This is not disdain for crudeness, I do not fear the four letter word and comedians can bring on the loud, brash, racially insensitive jokes - as long as they deliver the funny.
And there's the heart of the question.
Along with Aspazia, I think that the right question is not concern over whether or not Silverman is funny. Rather, are women judged differently from men, especially with the 'orifice humor' as Aspazia calls it, typically the reserve of men, and therefore not funny out of the mouth of a woman named Sarah? Is potty humor funny from a male comedian, but disgusting from a woman?
Of course, there is no way to test this. Placing comedians on two stages, one male and one female, to gauge each audience's response, would be misleading. The person of a stand up comic is so much a part of the joke that facial expressions, voice inflections, even skin color and gender all set up the punchline.
So there is little ground for comparing funniness, male and female. The dearth of successful women comics is not an accurate indication of how funny women are, as mainstream success has little to do with funny(I'm hating on Carlos Mencia here, his show is a pallid Chappelle Show knockoff.)
Aspazia's reflections on sexism and double standards in comedy recall the 'Zen koan' of an earlier post on this subject. If a woman tells a joke and no one laughs, is that because the joke wasn't funny, or because the audience already thinks this woman is not going to be funny?
Incidentally, Judy Gold spent last summer promoting a documentary called Making Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women, on Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Wendy Wasserstein and Gilda Radner.
Which brings to mind Hitchens' observation that funny women are fat, dykey, or Jewish (forgetting that funny men are not former prom kings either). If this is the case, might this be nothing more than a gendered slant on the development of humor in socially awkward people? If Nathan Lane were thin, who would he have become?
John Belushi famously thought that women were not funny, disdaining Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and his other female counterparts. When he had some pretty unfunny skits himself. But this did not count as evidence for universal claims. And that's the difference, for those who hold the view that women are not funny. It is haste, to judge women comedians in general, each one as a representative for all.
October 15, 2007
Lap Dancers and Evolutionary Biology
In a recent study, Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico published a study in Evolution and Human Behavior that correlates the amount of money strippers earn with their fertility. In other words, strippers earn more when they are most fertile.
And cue the joke: how did pervy Larry get a research grant? (SNL Weekend Update, last Saturday).
The Economist summarized the Miller's research this way:
He considered strippers' earnings, comparing those who were on the Pill and those who weren't.
In other words, men were able to detect fertile women, who were more attractive, as measured by their greater earnings.
This brings me to wonder whether evolutionary psychology makes meaningful statements. This sort of research brings out the logical positivist in me, it seems.
How can hypothetical statements about human behavior have meaningful content if there is no way to prove these claims false, if the observed data comes from human behavior in the present and is retrofitted to suit human precursors on the African savanna?
Evolutionary psychology considers human behavior in the possible world of the distant human past, drawing conclusions based on behavior observed in this one. In these possible worlds, possible ancient humans behaved in ways that maximized survival.
My first instinct is an appeal to falsifiability because the correlation of fertility with lap dancers' earnings is likely, and plausible, but how can it be proven false? It's a good explanation, but is it the right one?
How are these explanations more than just so stories?
How can it be tested, without dismissing counter-evidence as anomalies? How many anomalies (i.e. fertile dancers who do not earn significantly more) can be tolerated, until Miller agrees that maybe his theory is not right?
Unlike the study of how species change over time, evolutionary psychology observes human behavior, and physiology, in the present. And uses this as evidence for statements about the way humans may have been in the distant past (and by extension, explain the ways our brains and .
I am unaware of a scientific controversy that makes a good case for evolutionary psychology.
Given that it is most suited to the study of mating behavior, the conclusions about gender that can be made, based on such evidence, are the most troubling concern. When evolutionary accounts for gendered behavior creep in to social and political theory, from the pay gap to the humor gap (in this article, Christopher Hitchens claims that women are not funny, and it all comes down to the uterus.)
Evolutionary behaviorism proposes explanations, fair enough. But where dubious scientific evidence creeps into the broader social consciousness it stands in as a naturalist account of the way things are, and ever more shall be, unequal pay without end, amen.
"Because academics may be unfamiliar with the gentlemen's club sub-culture, some background may be helpful to understand why this is an ideal setting for understanding real-world attractiveness effects of human female oestrus."
And cue the joke: how did pervy Larry get a research grant? (SNL Weekend Update, last Saturday).
The Economist summarized the Miller's research this way:
"[strip] clubs are a field site as revealing of human biology as the Serengeti is of the biology of lions and antelopes. Dr. Miller is an evolutionary psychologist - and the author of the theory that the large brains of humans evolved to attract the opposite sex in much the same way that a peacock's tail does. His latest foray, into the flesh-pots of Albuquerque, is intended to investigate an orthodoxy of human mating theory."
He considered strippers' earnings, comparing those who were on the Pill and those who weren't.
"The results support the idea that if evolution has favoured concealed ovulation in women, it has also favoured ovulation-detection in men. The average earnings per shift of women who were ovulating was $335. During menstruation (when they were infertile) that dropped to $185 - about what women on the Pill made throughout the month. The lessons are clear. A woman is sexier when she is most fertile."
In other words, men were able to detect fertile women, who were more attractive, as measured by their greater earnings.
This brings me to wonder whether evolutionary psychology makes meaningful statements. This sort of research brings out the logical positivist in me, it seems.
How can hypothetical statements about human behavior have meaningful content if there is no way to prove these claims false, if the observed data comes from human behavior in the present and is retrofitted to suit human precursors on the African savanna?
Evolutionary psychology considers human behavior in the possible world of the distant human past, drawing conclusions based on behavior observed in this one. In these possible worlds, possible ancient humans behaved in ways that maximized survival.
My first instinct is an appeal to falsifiability because the correlation of fertility with lap dancers' earnings is likely, and plausible, but how can it be proven false? It's a good explanation, but is it the right one?
How are these explanations more than just so stories?
How can it be tested, without dismissing counter-evidence as anomalies? How many anomalies (i.e. fertile dancers who do not earn significantly more) can be tolerated, until Miller agrees that maybe his theory is not right?
Unlike the study of how species change over time, evolutionary psychology observes human behavior, and physiology, in the present. And uses this as evidence for statements about the way humans may have been in the distant past (and by extension, explain the ways our brains and .
I am unaware of a scientific controversy that makes a good case for evolutionary psychology.
Given that it is most suited to the study of mating behavior, the conclusions about gender that can be made, based on such evidence, are the most troubling concern. When evolutionary accounts for gendered behavior creep in to social and political theory, from the pay gap to the humor gap (in this article, Christopher Hitchens claims that women are not funny, and it all comes down to the uterus.)
Evolutionary behaviorism proposes explanations, fair enough. But where dubious scientific evidence creeps into the broader social consciousness it stands in as a naturalist account of the way things are, and ever more shall be, unequal pay without end, amen.
October 10, 2007
What is national identity
Last night, watching the Top Chef finale a week after it aired (managed not to know the result either!) something the judges said to Hung set me thinking. Hung was technically the best chef on the show, and because of his training in haute cuisine, his creations sometimes lacked personality, in the judges' opinions.
One of the judges said, in this conversation: 'you're Vietnamese, aren't you?' (as if he didn't know). 'Why don't we see more of that in your cooking?'
Now, I don't know Hung's personal circumstances, or how connected he feels to Vietnamese heritage. Perhaps he was raised in a culturally Vietnamese setting, where he learned to cook the food his family did. Perhaps he did not. The specifics of this situation are neither here nor there.
What does bug me about that question is the judge's insistence that because Hung is visibly Vietnamese, that he should cook that way.
In other words, you are ethnic, therefore you must cook ethnic.
Whether Hung chooses to reflect his family's heritage in his cooking should be up to him, not up to commentators who expect Asianness because of his appearance.
Of course, cooking is an intimate enterprise, reflecting home and heritage in more ways perhaps than other creative arenas. I imagine that most people who love cooking do so because of an elder family member, or other formative experiences.
However, I am reluctant to impose expectations, because of visible ethnic characteristics. Naive views of heritage imply that skin or language is unifying, such as the odd characterization of 'Hispanic' people in America. People who speak Spanish represent so many cultures, that are effaced under a bland terminological convenience.
The political purpose of such alliances are clear. However, there has always been a deep and wide variety within these cultural and ethnic groupings. Political boundaries do seem to differ from creative and cultural modes of self expression.
Is it damaging to others in the group that mainstream culture identifies you with, when you choose to approach your skin, background etc. tangentially?
What are the limits of identification with a national or ethnic heritage? How much is optional?
Is the person who prefers not to be ethnically pigeonholed identifying with whiteness? Surely this is not a zero sum game, where failing to choose one automatically means the other.
I presume that Hung's technical expertise comes from European training. As he experiments with that, to come up with his own style, is it unfair to expect that it will be somehow Asian, because he is?
One of the judges said, in this conversation: 'you're Vietnamese, aren't you?' (as if he didn't know). 'Why don't we see more of that in your cooking?'
Now, I don't know Hung's personal circumstances, or how connected he feels to Vietnamese heritage. Perhaps he was raised in a culturally Vietnamese setting, where he learned to cook the food his family did. Perhaps he did not. The specifics of this situation are neither here nor there.
What does bug me about that question is the judge's insistence that because Hung is visibly Vietnamese, that he should cook that way.
In other words, you are ethnic, therefore you must cook ethnic.
Whether Hung chooses to reflect his family's heritage in his cooking should be up to him, not up to commentators who expect Asianness because of his appearance.
Of course, cooking is an intimate enterprise, reflecting home and heritage in more ways perhaps than other creative arenas. I imagine that most people who love cooking do so because of an elder family member, or other formative experiences.
However, I am reluctant to impose expectations, because of visible ethnic characteristics. Naive views of heritage imply that skin or language is unifying, such as the odd characterization of 'Hispanic' people in America. People who speak Spanish represent so many cultures, that are effaced under a bland terminological convenience.
The political purpose of such alliances are clear. However, there has always been a deep and wide variety within these cultural and ethnic groupings. Political boundaries do seem to differ from creative and cultural modes of self expression.
Is it damaging to others in the group that mainstream culture identifies you with, when you choose to approach your skin, background etc. tangentially?
What are the limits of identification with a national or ethnic heritage? How much is optional?
Is the person who prefers not to be ethnically pigeonholed identifying with whiteness? Surely this is not a zero sum game, where failing to choose one automatically means the other.
I presume that Hung's technical expertise comes from European training. As he experiments with that, to come up with his own style, is it unfair to expect that it will be somehow Asian, because he is?
October 8, 2007
How do moral frameworks change?
Last Friday at FIU, two scholars presented papers for the 9th annual Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture. Joseph Inikori and Verene Shepherd presented papers for the evening, which was entitled "Emancipation, the African Atlantic and the Long Road to Freedom."
Joseph Inikori's spoke on "Morality vs. The Political Economy of Slavery.” It was very thought provoking, and left me wondering how moral frameworks change. In this particular case, what factors were present, for the complete and irreversible change of today, where slavery is illegal and immoral.
Today, no one in their right mind would argue that slavery is morally permissible. Inikori pointed out that slavery was not benign before capitalism, that this is a pastoral myth. Mutilation was a common form of punishment in ancient Greece and Rome, and certainly in Europe enslaved people's lives had no value.
Slavery was considered evil, but a necessary one, justified by various moral arguments, whether a hierarchy of being or plain old might makes right.
While human traffickers and slaveowners, on every continent (not just Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia) do trade in human beings today, they need secrecy. International legal structures are in place and enslavement is a punishable crime, regardless of culture. The vast majority of people around the world, certainly in the West world, consider slavery wrong. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights views every person, by virtue of their humanity, as equal.
Has there been such absolute and irreversible change on any other moral question?
What circumstances aligned for this sea change in moral thinking to occur? If moral wrong is permissible where it is economically viable, does economics lead the way, where moral reasoning follows?
In the case of enslaved Africans, the demand of increased output made working conditions more brutal, more visible, and on a larger scale.
In this broadly Marxist view, which Inikori seemed to take, economic circumstances are the axis upon which morality turns. Capitalism changed the material circumstances of enslaved people; the Industrial Revolution meant that lower classes lived and worked in empirically more miserable and brutal conditions. Because of the Industrial Revolution, this pressure to produce more violated the boundaries of humanity, and on a larger scale (and with more visibility) than in previous times. You can't make people work faster, with less investment, as you can do a machine. The downward spiral of human behavior, from widespread rape and murder with impunity brought African slavery to a crisis point.
Injustice, even when it is acknowledged as such, is permissible where it is economically beneficial. However, increasingly elaborate moral justifications, from the denial of the victim's humanity to eugenics, are used to justify the action that, in some part of the perpetrator's being, is acknowledged as wrong.
Thinking this through after the lecture, I realize that I do not take a blank slate view of human morality; as long as slavery has been present, justifications (such as profitability) have allowed it to continue.
This is certainly observable in the case of child prostitution, in places like Thailand where it happens openly. Moral wrong continues more or less unimpeded, with a shrug and a fatalistic "well, what can you do about it" from the public when business is thriving. And the perpetrators, people who commit unjust acts, engage in self deception or numb themselves, to allow it.
This is a rather optimistic view of human nature, I realize. However, economics does not seem to drive moral reasoning, although it is certainly a major factor that causes change, when an issue reaches its tipping point. Economic pressure finally broke the apartheid system, after all.
Activism and involvement from other segments of society converged with the decreased profitability of the slave trade. Might this have been a response to the degrading and brutal behavior that became part of the everyday?
I am not asking which comes first, economic change or moral turnaround. Rather, what conditions are the stars that align, so to speak.
Perhaps I can ask it this way: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a changed moral framework?
Joseph Inikori's spoke on "Morality vs. The Political Economy of Slavery.” It was very thought provoking, and left me wondering how moral frameworks change. In this particular case, what factors were present, for the complete and irreversible change of today, where slavery is illegal and immoral.
Today, no one in their right mind would argue that slavery is morally permissible. Inikori pointed out that slavery was not benign before capitalism, that this is a pastoral myth. Mutilation was a common form of punishment in ancient Greece and Rome, and certainly in Europe enslaved people's lives had no value.
Slavery was considered evil, but a necessary one, justified by various moral arguments, whether a hierarchy of being or plain old might makes right.
While human traffickers and slaveowners, on every continent (not just Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia) do trade in human beings today, they need secrecy. International legal structures are in place and enslavement is a punishable crime, regardless of culture. The vast majority of people around the world, certainly in the West world, consider slavery wrong. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights views every person, by virtue of their humanity, as equal.
Has there been such absolute and irreversible change on any other moral question?
What circumstances aligned for this sea change in moral thinking to occur? If moral wrong is permissible where it is economically viable, does economics lead the way, where moral reasoning follows?
In the case of enslaved Africans, the demand of increased output made working conditions more brutal, more visible, and on a larger scale.
In this broadly Marxist view, which Inikori seemed to take, economic circumstances are the axis upon which morality turns. Capitalism changed the material circumstances of enslaved people; the Industrial Revolution meant that lower classes lived and worked in empirically more miserable and brutal conditions. Because of the Industrial Revolution, this pressure to produce more violated the boundaries of humanity, and on a larger scale (and with more visibility) than in previous times. You can't make people work faster, with less investment, as you can do a machine. The downward spiral of human behavior, from widespread rape and murder with impunity brought African slavery to a crisis point.
Injustice, even when it is acknowledged as such, is permissible where it is economically beneficial. However, increasingly elaborate moral justifications, from the denial of the victim's humanity to eugenics, are used to justify the action that, in some part of the perpetrator's being, is acknowledged as wrong.
Thinking this through after the lecture, I realize that I do not take a blank slate view of human morality; as long as slavery has been present, justifications (such as profitability) have allowed it to continue.
This is certainly observable in the case of child prostitution, in places like Thailand where it happens openly. Moral wrong continues more or less unimpeded, with a shrug and a fatalistic "well, what can you do about it" from the public when business is thriving. And the perpetrators, people who commit unjust acts, engage in self deception or numb themselves, to allow it.
This is a rather optimistic view of human nature, I realize. However, economics does not seem to drive moral reasoning, although it is certainly a major factor that causes change, when an issue reaches its tipping point. Economic pressure finally broke the apartheid system, after all.
Activism and involvement from other segments of society converged with the decreased profitability of the slave trade. Might this have been a response to the degrading and brutal behavior that became part of the everyday?
I am not asking which comes first, economic change or moral turnaround. Rather, what conditions are the stars that align, so to speak.
Perhaps I can ask it this way: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a changed moral framework?
October 7, 2007
Leave Mother Hubbard Alone!
Today I caught the dastardly butchering of a nursery rhyme, on a children's channel. In a little storytime interlude between shows, a young mother read her son's favorite nursery rhyme. It went:
What the hell? Honestly, that makes me want to go on a Lewis Black apoplectic vituperative, making sure I say 'fuck!' enough times to restore the balance of things.
I understand that telling gentler versions of old stories is nothing new. In the Red Riding Hood tale that we know, huntsman hero swoops in, takes wolf down and frees little Red. However, in earlier versions there is no happy ending, and the wolf bests the people. It is a rather grisly cautionary tale, that involves Grandma's blood in some versions, according to a quick Wikipedia search. Generally speaking, fairy tales that we know are tamer, full of people eating and big bad creatures who weren't always slain in the end.
But, are children to be so coddled that a bare cupboard is too much? The horror of a bare cupboard must be effaced, for fear that it might bruise a child's precious, crystal thin sensibility. 'She thought the cupboard was bare' - seriously.
Ordinarily, I would keep my annoyance on this point to myself, except that in my role as aunt I have been privy to some of the intense, anxious detail magnification of parenting. Privileged parenting, to be exact. A pathologizing stance, it's an intense hyper-vigilance that ups the ante on every little detail. I suspect that this sanitized nursery rhyme has something to do with the tendency to overpraise and coddle children, and pressure on parents to be perfect. Anything less than perfection, anything like real life, will scar their children forever, is the fear.
A bone in Mother Hubbard's cupboard, to allay fears in an age of overanxious parenting.
Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone
And when she got there she thought the cupboard was bare
But then on the top shelf she found one
What the hell? Honestly, that makes me want to go on a Lewis Black apoplectic vituperative, making sure I say 'fuck!' enough times to restore the balance of things.
I understand that telling gentler versions of old stories is nothing new. In the Red Riding Hood tale that we know, huntsman hero swoops in, takes wolf down and frees little Red. However, in earlier versions there is no happy ending, and the wolf bests the people. It is a rather grisly cautionary tale, that involves Grandma's blood in some versions, according to a quick Wikipedia search. Generally speaking, fairy tales that we know are tamer, full of people eating and big bad creatures who weren't always slain in the end.
But, are children to be so coddled that a bare cupboard is too much? The horror of a bare cupboard must be effaced, for fear that it might bruise a child's precious, crystal thin sensibility. 'She thought the cupboard was bare' - seriously.
Ordinarily, I would keep my annoyance on this point to myself, except that in my role as aunt I have been privy to some of the intense, anxious detail magnification of parenting. Privileged parenting, to be exact. A pathologizing stance, it's an intense hyper-vigilance that ups the ante on every little detail. I suspect that this sanitized nursery rhyme has something to do with the tendency to overpraise and coddle children, and pressure on parents to be perfect. Anything less than perfection, anything like real life, will scar their children forever, is the fear.
A bone in Mother Hubbard's cupboard, to allay fears in an age of overanxious parenting.
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