new perspectives

Working receiving in Tucson's BN, we listened to music. Sometimes it was low-key, sometimes it was a party, and sometimes it helped vent frustration. Always, though, it really set the mood for the day.
Working receiving in Issaquah's BN, we've got one mood, and it's set by NPR. We're not so sociable in this store (not anti-social, mind you; just not as social as in Tucson). Bryan and I hardly speak a word back there all day. I'm always listening, and always given a lot to think about. And since I've gotten the internet back, I use it mostly to re-listen to interviews I've heard or caught parts of.

Here are a few, and what I thought of them.

Gene Robinson
Gene Robinson is an openly gay Episcopalian bishop. His whole talk is quite good, and he's an entertaining speaker. The bit that I caught on the radio, though, and the part that really clicked with me was toward the end, about the last twenty minutes.
At this point he speaks of discrimination: "You know what an '-ism' is: it's a set of prejudices and values and judgments, backed up with the power to enforce those prejudices in society. So you have a prejudice against people of color, and if you're white, you have the power to enforce those prejudices and set the society up to benefit white people at the expense of people of color. So, as a white man, I never have to say anything bad about a person of color, I never have to use a racial slur, I never have to tell a bad joke... all I have to do is get out of bed in the morning and I benefit from being white in this culture. So tolerance is simply not enough. I can be tolerant and let things go along the way they always have, benefiting me because I'm white. So unless I am working to dismantle that kind of racist society, then I'm reaping its rewards."
And this is part of why I feel guilty, very often. Why I hate to be lazy or self-indulgent. Because whenever I am not working toward becoming the person I desire to be, I am benefiting from, and therefore enforcing, the world I desire not to live in.

I also appreciate his perspective on his faith, which I share: "I don't argue that you should 'do this' or 'vote that way' because God says so. That's a Theocracy. What I do is use my own religion. I use the values that I understand as a religious person to understand what it is that I long for, and I hope for. [...] I'm all the time saying, 'For me this is true,' and never saying what needs to be true for you."
I believe the nature of true love is understanding, and I find that for me to express that requires that it is clear that I want to understand you. I want you to know that I believe what I believe, but do not use it as a lens to look at you through.

Ken Robinson
This interview kept me glued to the radio. I thought it was just amazing. As with a lot of things I read / hear people say, I see the world changing in ways I'd personally hope for, or at least prefer to what we've got now. I think the understanding of reality that Sir Robinson portrays in this interview (and in his talk at the 2006 TED conference, and in his book, "The Element") reflects the concerns of many people (after listening to this interview several times, Katie and I discussed the declining esteem of medication in psychology). In addition to having interesting things to say, he's also an effective storyteller.

Malcolm Gladwell
Which of these do not belong: [ Billy Corgan / Buddy Holly / Tom Waits / Barack Obama ] ?
The answer is Buddy Holly. Because there's not an "A" in it. The obvious answer, though, is Obama, for not being a musician. And the answer isn't incorrect.
This is how I feel about Malcolm Gladwell. He points out something so basically obvious, draws the lines to explain how these simpler ideas point to different answers, while the majority of people simply beat their heads against walls for decades, trying to understand why Obama belongs, and Holly does not.
In his new book, Outliers, Gladwell argues that circumstances that lead us to class distinctions and racism have simpler explanations. I don't know that he's 100% correct, but I believe more in what he says than I believe that black people run faster, and rich people learn better.

Within that interview, Gladwell points out that the people who do best in school are the ones told they do best in school. As soon as he said that, I was struck dumb with the instant realization that this applied to me.
When I moved to Tennessee an 1986 I lived next door to Maitreya Dunham, who is an amazing mind indeed. (When I house-sat for her a few months ago, Nathan asked if the house began discussing complex theories with me when I walked in.) Before, when I lived in Texas, I did quite well in school. After moving, I became (and remained, even into my latest stab at college) a C-average student. Mom and dad were concerned at the drop, and wondered about it. Maitreya and I were so alike, and yet she made As, and I made Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs. "You're very smart," they'd say. "You're a good student."
When I heard Malcolm Gladwell give state his observation, I realized that Maitreya, at the top of the class, understood she was at the top of the class, while I always heard that I wasn't as good as she.

This is just a story about the revelations I have while listening to some of these people talk, by the way. I'm not unhappy about it, and in fact at this point I'm exceptionally glad for it, for reasons that would take so long to explain. I feel I need to say this, though, since I understand how that story could be something to be bitter over. Nope, I'm a happy person, and I think it's wicked cool that Maitreya and I live close again. We're way overdue for another game night, though.
I should call.

Reason #1 why Court can maybe live on his own after all.

Once upon a time, I tried to cook rice: 22mar2003

I know Katie has memories of me being some kind of romantic guy, but really I'm not. I'm really quite dopey when it comes to impressing the ladies. So when I realized, about halfway through the week, that Valentine's Day was on its way (and it was a one-month anniversary, too), I felt the pressure. I had no idea what to do. When it came down to within twenty-four hours, I planned the only thing I could think of.

I decided to cook her dinner.

Recalling that day, nearly six years ago, I expected it to go wrong all along. Jenny said she'd make something, too, and when she asked what I'd like, I suggested she make whatever she'd like to eat once I failed to make anything edible at all.

I had Mark send me his famous fettuccine Alfredo recipe from J140. He always made it look easy, at least, (and Jenny is a picky eater, but I know she loves fettuccine) so I thought I'd try it.

My car's dead (I suppose I haven't mentioned it, but yeah, the Blue MF is dead), so I'm taking the bus to & from work. If I'd left at 6:30, as scheduled, then I would have gotten back in time to walk to the store, buy the ingredients, and walk home before Jenny got here. Of course, there was some kind of plumbing leak that resulted in water from the Cafe coming into the receiving room, so I didn't leave at 6:30. And if I'd caught the next bus, I'd've gotten home half an hour after Jenny got here. So I waited at work. I'd been wanting to make a CD for her (goodness knows, I can make a mix CD or two, or a thousand), but I've been out of blank CDs. After waiting in the break room for half an hour, I realized there was an Office Depot nearby, so I bought blank CDs and then wandered around the parking lot, talking to Leslie on the phone. It wasn't until t was time for Jenny to leave work did it occur to me that I'd been standing outside a Trader Joe's for half an hour. I could have had the ingredients ready to go.
Ah well.

We left, we went grocery shopping, we came home, and I got to work. And...
It went well.

Considering I didn't know my way around a kitchen, and of course we don't have the pots I required (I'd forgotten this since the last time we tried to make food in Jenn's kitchen, January of last year), it took a while. but it went well. Finally it was as ready as I was going to get it, and I sampled the sauce.
Way salty, way cheesey. Damn and blast! However, once applied to pasta, it was actually pretty damn good.

I don't really have a clever way to wrap up this story. We ate, we watched "The Office" (the first episodes from season 4, when Pam & Jim are dating, so it was all romanticky), and I fell asleep on the couch.

Anyway, I can cook, now.

not enough on adventures OR God

I've just spent the past hour giving this blog some attention:
http://thereisabluebird.blogspot.com/

It motivated me to finally set up a new module over there to the right, for the blogs of people I've met who are also looking for something on the road. I hope to expand that into some collaborative project, but I've not yet found the right one...

It also motivated me to finally blog. I've had the internet here for three weeks, and I haven't really done so.
So here we go!
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(approx 45 minutes in)
"A Biologist Questions Evolution" was the lead-in.
That's news? I like to think that's the job, at least in part, of a biologist.
Anyway, I want to blog about this, but can't get my head into it (probably because I have the interview playing, so I just want to listen to it).
Anyway, she, this biologist, is amazing me by speaking my views and ideas.
One question from the interviewer asks: "Aren't we just quibbling over what you think God is, then?"
Well yes, yes, that is what we are doing within this conversation. Because, in the traditional Evolution vs Creationism debate, isn't science quibbling over what God is not? This biologist, Elisabet Sahtouris, is saying "you've got it all wrong!" Which is exciting, because I think that's the case: Saying 'God does not exist,' is to say 'what I understand God to be does not exist.'
The God I know cannot be denied. But if you think I mean some old beardy man, if you think I mean a sentient being conjured up the world and the stars, if you think I mean Divine Intervention means an invisible hand politely moving something aside like a chess piece, the you're not understanding me.

Elisabet Sahtouris, in this interview, touches on the God I know.

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Anyway, reading Justine's blog made me want to blog (and blog well) about my adventures, but that will have to wait. Now I'm going to watch last night's lost, and then I've got to catch the bus to work.