Shuttle bug
The shuttle that I take to and from work bounces from one campus to the medical campus, stopping at various points along the way. This means that I get to enjoy a higher concentration of med students than I might otherwise. Today the people behind me were talking about various medical studies and one of their comments got me to thinking.. Their insight was that there are certain considerations to take into account when dealing with various subsets of subject groups, for example African-American subjects. This strikes me as a well-meant, but clumsy attempt for medicine to practice sociology. I don’t want to dissuade multidisciplinary thinking, but there must be a better way than to haphazard these things…
At least this was less vile than the blond in shiny spandex pants who kept talking about working at “banana” and how she hasn’t seen people in 5000 years. Or am I the vile one for conflating a fashion faux paux with a more meaningful one?
Ah, the shuttle is an strange microcosm of something. As is the blog.
Better Living Through Vacationing
I came to Portland this weekend to visit my brother and his girlfriend. I decided to make this a real vacation, where we didn’t run around trying to do stuff and I didn’t do any work either.
It’s been awhile since I did something like that. What was the last relaxing vacation you took?
Taxidermy. Seriously… What’s the deal?
Sculpture by Daniel Firman for the exhibition Superdome at the Palais de Tokyo.
So, in recent days, taxidermy has come up in a few different venues. This fascination with the body, reinvested with a spirit (that is an aspect of the artist, miscreant) is both disturbing and amazing. Reminds me of Benjamin’s notion of aura in a photograph, but much more sloppy. What drives people to taxidermy? Why is there a resurgence? (See also the Bodies exhibition and both the clamor for and controversy cause by it).
I will break up with you via a text message
Honestly, questions like this one and this one make me wonder: how many times can we re-visit the re-definition of connection that comes with technology?
These instrospections never delve into the question of how differently we interact in varied media. Like, am I more likely to start a fight on the internet? Hell yes (seriously, check every message board and list-serv I’ve ever been on). Why? Because I feel less connected or more connected? I honestly don’t know. Is it because I feel safe? Do the insults people hurl at me feel less real?
And, is different necessarily bad?
Snap Judging Snap Judgment
Jezebel, which I love, had this Snap Judgment feature that I still feel ambivalent about. Mostly, it’s pretty innocuous. So why does it bug me?
I shouldn’t be allowed to think anymore
I’ve had lots of reason to think about commitment, love, freedom, and independence lately and haven’t come to any good conclusions. Do you have any?
When will I be a REAL New Yorker?
I just want to hate art and real estate brokers with equal vitriol. Then, and only then, will I qualify.
Choosers can be Beggers
The downturn in the economy has started many a wonderings aflutter, and I suppose this is just another one of those.
Recently I’ve become more sensitive to requests for my money on the street. I was struck by how similarly I reacted to a homeless person’s request as to a boyscout’s pestering outside of a local supermarket [note: I gave to the homeless person, but not to the boyscout — but I feel similarly guilty!]. While I haven’t determined my moral stance on giving (although I’m informed by my zadie’s prescient plea to remember those less fortunate and to look past my own hardship, especially when times are bleakest), I do think that school fundraisers are treading dangerous grounds by setting the students out to smile their cutest smiles and hold out their hands in need.
I understand that schools are woefully underfunded, but it broke my heart to walk past kids who are just trying to curry favor in the adults’ eyes — and favor translates into handouts or the sale of overpriced goods.
As the reprecussions of the economic crisis wind their way into our daily lives more and more, I wonder how to understand this relationship between giver and begger and how to understand the ways that our society frames that dynamic.
Great Quotes: Coolio
I know that Coolio’s cooking show isn’t news, nor is his book.. but, even if it’s not news, I thought this quotation was too good to pass up.
“I like Rachel Ray. I like Bobby Flay. I like all them cats. But they are not the Gourmet Ghetto, baby. My motto is, I cook better than your Shaka Zulu mama. And I wash my hands a lot.”
The Shanty Kingdom 
