Apologies in Advance

No new content here today. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I promise I won't keep doing this, but I really would like your comments and ideas here. So, give me your thoughts, please, and I promise, real new content next week.

Copenhagen!

Just got back from Copenhagen. Read about some of my thoughts here.

More tomorrow.

P.S. Lettuce in stir-fry rocks. Thanks guys.

For The Love Of Learning (Or It All Works Out In The End)

I realized the other day when I got a Facebook message from someone saying that they were sorry that 2009 wasn't going that well for me that I have been doing a little too much whining lately.

The truth is that as much as I might bitch and moan, I also wake up every day so thankful to be studying exactly what I want to study at the perfect university for me.

It's weird. When I applied to grad schools, I expected to get into one place ... maybe. After all, what did I have to offer? I had a BA in drama, and seven years of entertainment industry experience. I had nothing relevant to offer.

Instead, I ended up with multiple options, including options that I had thought I'd never have in a million years. And so began a month of agonizing between my current university and an equally good university in DC.

And boy did I agonize. And when I finally made my decision, I was still unsure it was the right one. Even a week before I started school, I had a moment of "Oh my God, why didn't I just move to DC?! At least I wouldn't have to set up a new bank account!" The day before classes started, I was still worried that this program wasn't going to be the right fit for me. That the classes weren't going to be what I wanted.

Well, they were. In fact, they are exactly what I wanted and more. My brain has been stretched in ways I didn't even know it was possible for my brain to stretch. I have learned so much, and what's more, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning. As much as I do think that what I'm learning will be important in whatever career I choose, I feel like right now I'm learning simply for the sake of gaining knowledge.

And it's pretty cool.

OMFG

Seriously? Automakers want 14 BILLION more dollars? So now the bail out will cost almost $40 billion? Seriously?

Now, look. I actually have immense sympathy for American car makers. They're under intense foreign competition, and frankly, other foreign car makers don't get stuck also having to finance their workers' health care. In my opinion, back in the 1990s when Hillary-care was on the table, GM and Chrysler should have gone to Washington and said, "Look. We don't know that this health-care plan is the best option. But we do know that the current system of health-care in the United States will bankrupt us. It is not fair to keep making us finance our workers' health care, when other companies with less unionized labor get to shirk their responsibilities. Let's come up with a system of health care of shared responsibility, and shared benefits."

But they didn't. Because, and this is where I stop having sympathy for American car makers, they have consistently been myopic. Why else would GM invest so much money and time into developing the EV1 and then throw it under the bus? Because they couldn't see a day when gas would hit $4.50 a gallon?

I know people are going to lose their jobs. I know that car companies provide good work for blue-collar labor.

But ... this isn't going to work. We can't keep throwing money at these failed companies.

Instead, we'd be much better off using that $40 billion to establish job re-training programs. Or let's spend $10 billion building the infrastructure so that we can get the country ready for a world of all plug-in hybrid vehicles.

But throwing money at the makers of gas-guzzling automobiles is kind of like throwing money at horse carriage makers at the advent of the Model T-era.

It's ain't gonna work.

Lettuce Overload

What do I do with all this lettuce, guys? I threw all the other vegetables into a delicious soup, but I have no idea what to do with all this lettuce.

Just sign me,

Not a big fan of salads

Rude Americans?

I never used to buy into the idea that American travelers were rude and obnoxious until I moved to another country for an extended period of time.

And then I realized something.

It's not that Americans are bad people, per se. But we are an "in your face" people. We are loud, we are obnoxious, and by global standards, we are rude.

It's just who we are as a people. We are louder and ruder than most. Sure, individual Americans can be quiet and/or polite (though not this individual American), but as a society, we are bred to be demanding and loud. Whereas the Brits are just ridiculously polite, as a people.

The great thing about living abroad, is that you are really able to learn about another culture in a way that you cannot begin to process in a couple of weeks.

And one of the things that I have learnt, living in Britain, is that life is pretty nice when everyone assumes a base level of politeness.

People actually SMILE at each other on the street here. In LONDON. (In the North, they carry your suitcase up a flight of stairs, and call you 'love.') And if you dawdle on the street, you're not going to get people angrily pushing past you the way you would in New York. If two people get to a seat at a crowded bar at the same time, they will both deferentially apologize and then you'll have two minutes of awkwardness as each insists the other take the chair.

Now maybe on the inside, the Brits are angry, angry people, and are just waiting to explode ... but I don't really think so. Instead, I find that my blood pressure rarely rises as high from every day aggravations.

And it makes me realize, that simple things like smiling, can really make a difference. It seems silly, doesn't it, to think that we can change the world, one smile at a time, but ... it couldn't hurt, could it?

What is Nature, Anyway?

I have a confession to make.


I am an environmentalist, but I don't care much about "nature."

I put "nature" in quotes, because I have to be honest, I'm not sure what "nature" is. According to this dictionary, nature is defined as the world "as it exists without human beings."

Which leads me to wonder ... where does this "nature" exist?


Obviously, none of us will have seen it, right? Because if someone had seen it, it wouldn't exist without human beings?

It's that old tree falls down in the forest thing. If no one has seen it, and no one can see it, do we know it exists?


The truth is, human beings constantly interact with the world around us, in ways that we don't even know about sometimes. We interact with the world when we use face wash with plastic in it, we interact with the world when we set aside area for conservation, we interact with the world when we cull one species to save another ... or when we don't.


"Nature," is thus, somewhat ironically, an artificial concept.

So today, instead of celebrating nature, I'd like to celebrate our world as a whole. Some of it green and filled with trees, some of it is made of tall concrete buildings. But it is all of it ... our world. And I love every bit of this world, and its delights and imperfections, dearly.

Check out the APLS Carnival on February 20th at Green Phone Booth!