I heard Moshe Safdie speak on TED and he concluded with this profound poem: He who seeks truth shall find beauty He who seeks beauty shall find vanity He who seeks order shall find gratification He who seeks gratification shall be disappointed He who considers himself the servant of his fellow beings shall find the joy of self-expression He who seeks self-expression shall fall into the pit of arrogance Arrogance is incompatible with nature Through nature, the nature of the universe and the nature of man, we shall seek truth If we seek truth we shall find beauty -Moshe Safdie, 1982
I just came across this video today and wanted to share it. 98.038% guaranteed to put a smile on your face. I recommend turning the sound up and viewing it fullscreen (which means you'll have to leave to see it on YouTube, but that's ok- I'll still be here when you get back).
See www.wherethehellismatt.com for his story and more videos.
The Rules: don't take too much time to think. Name 20 albums you've heard that you can't get out of your system. List the first 20 you can remember in 15 minutes. Tag 20 friends including me because I'm interested in my friends' choices. If you break this chain, you'll produce eight generations of Celine Dion, Michael Bolton, and Avril Lavigne fans.
This 50 sheqel note was in my wallet when I left Israel on August 15, 2001 and resided there until January 1, 2008. I had kept it for those 2,331 days in חוץ לארץ as a sign for myself, a comfort and palpable assurance that I would return to Israel to spend it. (To satisfy your curiosity, I spent those 50 sheqels on a bus ticket from Jerusalem to Eilat- a sojourn through the beautiful Negev must be a worthy expenditure for this worn, weighty bill to complete its own journey.)
Because of jet lag, I wasn't able to sleep our first night, in Jerusalem. So I arose at 4 AM and left the hotel (before the buses started running) to walk to the Kotel for prayers at sunrise (vatikin). The streets were empty, dark, and quiet. The world was so still, it felt like walking through a photograph. I had a decent memory of the 3.5 km route and set out with my old map in my backpack, for backup.
We in the Israeli and international Jewish communities are continually astounded by the extremes of the double standard to which terrorist Islamic extremists and the State of Israel are held. The world media, and of course the UN, condemn Israel and remain blind to the IDF's efforts to preserve all human life, at the cost of time, money, resources, security, and the lives of its own soldiers and citizens. The Arab terrorists seeking Israel's annihilation play dirty. In more formal terms, they violate international laws of warfare as a matter of tactic. Such repudiation of moral conduct alone should cause people to cease referring to them as "militants." They are not soldiers, they are not combatants, they are terrorists. Their priorities should be clear from their operations. They endanger their own civilians to protect their own lives and to provoke an Israeli response that can be vilified by the world.
The violence and deaths are tragic, the strife is saddening, but the absurd politics are frustrating and astounding. This goes beyond exclusion, selection, and confirmatory biases. This is distortion and self-delusion.
Here an IDF spokesperson shows some of the difference between Hamas and IDF tactics, and demonstrates how Hamas violates international and Islamic law.
I took a short walk outside today. It was the first time I'd stepped out of my building in seven days. I normally have a couple free days during the week, plus my assorted clinical responsibilities were suspended for the federal holiday, so I had a lot of days with nowhere to be. The beginning of the week, I was working on my Master's thesis, and I'm generally a homebody anyway, so I didn't feel the need to get out. I started coming down with a bad cold on Wednesday night and was sick the end of the week, so I didn't go out (I had externship on Friday, but called in sick).
By Shabbos morning, I was getting cabin fever and really needed to get out of my apartment, but I was still feeling sick and miserable. I'm feeling a lot better today, but less cooped up and still tired. However, I thought its probably not a good idea to be so homebound for so long, so I went for a short walk before dusk. It felt good to break the cycle, especially because this coming week bodes the same schedule for me- nowhere to be until Friday. I just have to make sure to get out again before then.
First told 3/5/05
There once was a purple frog. There are such things as other purple frogs, but he was the only purple frog in his town. The green frogs made fun of him and otherwise ignored him.
He also had a burgeoning gambling addiction. Every weekend he would go to the local froggy casino and spend his paycheck, distracting himself from his purple otherness.
One weekend at the casino, after losing a day’s pay at the blackjack table and not doing much better at roulette, he approached the poker table. The dealer, a cute chameleon, was having trouble dealing the cards because her hands were sticky, as all chameleons’ are (that's what makes them such great climbers).
He won the first hand and felt bad for her dealing troubles. She saw that he was empathic and decided she liked him.
“So how did you get purple?” she asked spunkily.
“That’s a personal question; I never tell on the first meeting.”
She turned purple and said, “So we’ll have to have another.”
“Really?!”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, “Really?’”
“Oh, I thought you said ‘Ribbit!’”
He went home excited, even though he usually would stay gambling into the night. He couldn’t sleep, he was so excited. He hadn’t seen her at the casino before and realized that he didn’t know her name or number, and they hadn’t set up a time or place to meet. He started worrying about how he would meet her again. Now, he was a worrier, but not a pessimist, so he thought things would just work out.
On Monday, he put on his froggy overalls and froggy hardhat and went to the construction site, where he worked helping put up a hi-rise office building. His construction buddies weren’t real friends, but they didn’t make fun of him. They saw how excited he was and asked what was up. Over a lunch of grilled cheese and flies, he told them what had happened, but they didn’t believe him.
Meanwhile, the chameleon was called into the manager’s office.
“Lindsay, we love you, you’ve got great energy and a great work ethic, but you’re obviously having some difficulties as a card dealer and your sticky hands didn’t help you much at the craps or roulette tables.”
“Mr. Toad, I love working here, I love the people and dealing with all the customers. Is there some way I could stay on?”
“Well, I have an idea. The main gambling hall has a high ceiling and whenever a light bulb burns out, we have to bring in a huge ladder to change it.”
“I know, people always get distracted and stop gambling.”
“Right, Lindsay, and when people stop gambling...”
“We lose money.”
“Exactly, so here’s my idea--can you climb?”
“Sure, Mr. Toad, I’m a chameleon!”
“So instead of bringing the big ladder onto the floor and disrupting the customers, you can go up and change the bulbs.”
“Well, that’s great Mr. Toad, but that doesn’t happen too often. You would pay me just for that?”
“Lindsay, that’s only half my idea. I know how great you are with the customers and how much you enjoy dealing with them. I’m going to keep you on the floor as a cocktail waitress. With your tacky hands, you’ll never drop a tray of drinks. What do you think?”
On Wednesday night, already early in the week, the purple frog went back to the casino to look for her. He went straight to the poker table, but she wasn’t there. He raced all around the casino looking for her but he didn’t recognize her because she was wearing her cocktail waitress uniform and her skin matched the plaid skirt. There were other chameleons working there too, so he couldn’t exactly ask after her in particular.
He left, dejected, and stopped at the ice cream parlor to temper his panic with a root beer float with flies on top. He’d never been able to afford such luxuries before because he always gambled his money away. At work his buddies asked him how things were going with his chick. “She’s not a chick, she’s a woman!”
On the weekend, he went back to the casino, hoping to see her, and for once pessimistic. He meandered around, not gambling, just searching for her. No luck. He went to the bar to drown his sorrows in a root beer float. The bartender saw how downtrodden he was and asked him what was going on.
“I can’t find this woman who actually seems to like me for who I am.”
“That’s tough buddy. How about I toss some sugared flies on top of your float, gratis?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever…”
Lindsay, still plaid, came up to the bar.
“Hey, Max, we need a Shirley Temple; a Reptile with Diet Dew; an Islay, neat; and a Red Frog."
Now that the chagim are over, I'd been hoping to get back in the saddle, but it's hard to get motivated, so T. offered to borrow her friend's bike and come along for a jaunt. It was my longest ride yet, all the way down to 120th St. and back up to Dyckman, and a great day on the river. We keep grabbing the nice-weather days because winter's coming and we think it'll be the last one for a while, but they keep coming. Go Global Warming!
So after consulting with my supervisor about a patient, he recommended administering the Criminogenic Thinking Profile, and he emailed me the test. Naturally, after printing the test, I took it myself and put my results in my Gmail status (40th percentile overall, if you care or if it means anything to you).
Because Gmail does not allow you to annotate emails, I often reply to myself and include relevant comments. Because the email from my supervisor only said CTP, and not the full name of the test, I posted my Gmail status message with the test's full name into a new reply to send to myself, so it would be included in the conversation and I could search for it in the future. Of course, as you'd so intuitively gathered by now, I sent my results to my supervisor. Lucky for me he's got a sense of humor and a natural curiosity. His response- "Not too bad. Any high [subscale] scores?"
See my original post on psychosis here.
I've been following the sad story that unfolded July 29th on a Greyhound bus traveling in western Canada. Without any apparent provocation, Vince Weiguang Li calmly and repeatedly stabbed Tim McLean to death before decapitating him, displaying his head to other passengers (who had fled the bus), and eating parts of his body.
When arrested on the bus, Mr. Li said "I have to stay on the bus forever." Since his arrest, Mr. Li has declined to speak; aside from acknowledging his guilt, he only spoke when asked by the judge if he wanted a lawyer. Mr. Li shook his head and quietly said, "please kill me." Mr. Li was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation and has since been admitted to a secure forensic psychiatric ward. Though he declines legal assistance, Legal Aid Manitoba stepped up to represent Mr. Li.
Following the case, I've encountered many comments on blogs and news sites condemning Mr. Li's actions and calling for Canada to reinstate the death penalty in his case. Many are dismissive of "this mental illness BS" and point to the fact that Mr. Li knew what he was doing. (Of course he knew what he was doing, but he was not doing it in the reality we experience- he acted according to the demands of another world entirely.) They think he should be thrown in a hole or deported back to China after revoking his Canadian citizenship. There are also those who recognize that Mr. Li cannot be considered fully (or at least criminally) responsible for his actions and that we should reserve judgment until more facts come to light.
In my last post on this topic, I expressed sadness at the horrors that can befall the mentally ill, their families, and bystanders. This time around, I'm saddened by the intolerance and misunderstanding still prevalent in many people's perceptions of mental illness.
Soon after starting off (without having checked the weather, of course), I saw heavy clouds and lightning over New Jersey, but I decided not to head back. I like to change my routes, because they're tracking me, I mean, to explore new areas of my neighborhood I couldn't (or wouldn't) on foot, and to get some variety. Here's today's ride:
It started to rain on the last leg of my trip, and I put my legs to work (uphill) to get home. I had my bike safely in the vestibule and sat in the rain on my stoop, guzzling water and waiting for my heart to slow down a little (and for my jelly muscles to get it together, man!). Tough workout, but good to get moving. Also nice to finally get inside and plop down listening to the thunder.
Today's word comes from the newest book on my wishlist, "Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages" by Ammon Shea.
acnestis (n.) The area of an animal's skin where it cannot reach to scratch itself.
From the Greek, using the negative prefix /a/, it literally means "unscratched." Consider yourself that much more enlightened for having clicked your way here
The other words in this series can always be found here.
I had to drop off the dry cleaning up the hill, so I thought I'd go into the park to practice mounting and dismounting my bike. See, with the saddle properly adjusted, the knee is only slightly bent when the pedal is at the 6 o'clock position. This maximizes pedaling efficiency and prevents injury. Problem is, that makes the saddle really high up, and your toes only graze the ground.
During my last ride, I realized I needed to figure out the proper way to get on and off if I don't look like a flailing platypus trying to get on and I don't end up unsafe and fraught each time I want to stop. I was headed to the park to get the hang of these basics on the grass so I could avoid showing up to my sister-in-law's wedding with embossed asphalt on my face (and having it preserved for posterity in her album). Turns out these techniques are really rather simple, and I got the hang of them by the time I got to the park, so I enjoyed my ride and got back in time to move back from alternate side parking.
So I bought a used bike on Craigslist. My last bike was stolen when I was in 11th grade and I've been wanting a new one more and more in recent years. I could use the exercise, and I could use the activity to help with the doldrums of an isolated summer at home trying to make progress on my Master's thesis (more on that another time, maybe).
When I want to buy something, I research it to death. On Craigslist, my options are more limited, but I ended up buying a really good used hybrid bike I wouldn't otherwise be able to afford new. Of course, I also had to research to death a helmet, multi-tool set, mirror, bell, kickstand, lock, cyclometer, etc.
There's a hole-in-the-wall bike shop down the street from me where I went to pick up some parts. My experience corroborated the refutation of the fallacy of of of of of... HELP! I'M MIXING UP ACADEMIA AND MY BLOG!
Well, what I was trying to say was that some people believe that abundant options are an indicator of happiness, or freedom, or fresh breath or something. We talk about "Freedom of Choice" and about not being constrained by limited options. In America, one can choose to do or be anything they want! In actuality, people are easily overwhelmend by an abundance of choice, it causes anxiety, panic, and uncertainty (a source of anxiety).
So I realized that though Amazon might make available 218 types of bike lubricant, I can be much happier and at ease deciding between the two brands in my local bike shop (LBS). What's more, I can be out on my way that much sooner.
Using the awesome videos at bicycletutor.com (including one on "How to Choose the Right Lubricants" - I guess that guy would be the Lube Guru, helping anxious, confused, unhappy people make the right choice), I quickly learned my way around the morphology (uh-oh, it's happening again!) and maintenance of my bike. I got my hands dirty and felt like a real bike mechanic. So, I was ready to ride. Today, after the thunderstorms cleared up, I climbed in the saddle and took off to the Hudson River Greenway. Here's the round-trip route I took:
I'm proud of myself, but also realized I have a lot yet to re-learn about biking.Well, I am guilty of profound cunctation in my philological series, so to make up for it, here's a doozy:
deipnosophist \dyp-NOS-uh-fist\ (n.): One who is skilled in table talk.
At the age of six his future as a deipnosophist seemed certain. Guzzling filched apples he loved to prattle. Hogging the pie he invariably piped up and rattled on.Deipnosophist comes from the title of a work written by the Greek Athenaeus in about 228 AD, Deipnosophistai, in which a number of wise men sit at a dinner table and discuss a wide range of topics. It is derived from deipnon (dinner) + sophistes (a wise or clever man).
- Ellis Sharp, 'The Bloating of Nellcock
Sometime after my earlier fire-safety post, I received an email with this video about how to properly extinguish a grease fire. I'm posting it here (and yes, I vet all email forwards on Snopes or similar) for further dissemination.
Here's what happens when you try to extinguish such a fire with water- the water, being denser than the oil, sinks to the bottom of the pot where it instantly becomes superheated and vaporized. This newly created steam rises up with intense pressure, blowing the burning oil up and out, filling an enclosed space with a fireball. Different but similar results occur when trying to use sugar or flour to extinguish the flames.
(courtesy of Lisa S.)
