Category: personal AnGoL

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Elink Video :: Tim Wise: On White Privilege (Clip)

Watch this video.

http://www.MediaEd.org From the DVD: The Pathology of Privilege Racism, White Denial & the Costs of Inequality For years, acclaimed author and speaker Tim Wise has been electrifying audiences on…
http://www.MediaEd.org
From the DVD:
The Pathology of Privilege
Racism, White Denial & the Costs of Inequality

from Experimental Theology

For years, acclaimed author and speaker Tim Wise has been electrifying audiences on the college lecture circuit with his deeply personal take on whiteness and white privilege. In this spellbinding lecture, the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son offers a unique, inside-out view of race and racism in America. Expertly overcoming the defensiveness that often surrounds these issues, Wise provides a non-confrontational explanation of white privilege and the damage it does not only to people of color, but to white people as well. This is an invaluable classroom resource: an ideal introduction to the social construction of racial identities, and a critical new tool for exploring the often invoked – but seldom explained – concept of white privilege.

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rePost:Coffee Heart Risk Gene???: Orszag Budgets for Caffeine Genetic Marker – ScienceInsider

Wish I’m negative for this gene. I consume about 1-3L of coffee a day, and I measure coffee by the table spoon not teaspoon so this would be ncie to know!!!!

The Office of Managament and Budget said that Orszag was traveling today and couldn’t provide additional details-including whether he’d learned anything about his genetic predisposition to other diseases. But ScienceInsider guesses that he was referring to a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) called rs762551 that modulates a caffeine metabolizing enzyme in the liver. Those with a “slow” metabolizing version who drink a few cups of coffee a day are at a higher risk of heart attacks.
via The Latest Buzz: Orszag Budgets for Caffeine Genetic Marker – ScienceInsider.

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rePost::How Paul Krugman found politics : The New Yorker

Reading this I was hit by a desire to do something. We are in the midst of what probably is the few times we can do great and original work. It is as if FB and other distractions are the ways we are being controlled to not do useful stuff. sorry for the minor rant.  It’s just that we must able to look at each day in the context of a lifetime and the context of birth to that day is the lifetime.

But it’s been a long time—years now—since he did any serious research. Could he, still? “I’d like to get back to it,” he says. “I’m craving the chance to do some deep thinking, and I haven’t been doing a lot of that. I guess doing the really creative academic work does require a state of mind that’s hard to maintain throughout your whole life. Even Paul Samuelson—the bulk of the stuff you read from him is before he was fifty. There was an intensity of focus that I had when I was twenty-six that I won’t be able to recapture at fifty-six. You develop your habits of mind, and to a point that’s a good thing, because you learn ways to work, but it does mean that you’re less likely to come up with something really innovative. Even if I weren’t doing all this other stuff, I don’t think I’d be producing a lot of breakthrough papers. There’s crude stuff: if I do have some brilliant academic insight, what are they going to do, give me a Nobel Prize? . . . When I was younger, when I figured something out there was this sense of the heavens parting and the choirs singing that I don’t get now. And that’s life.”
For someone else, this loss might be a devastation, but even though for thirty years thinking deeply about economics was all Krugman really cared about, he has let it pass out of his life without regret. “I think he’s happy,” his friend Craig Murphy says. “A much happier person now than when we first met him. He feels like he’s done good things, and they’re greater than what he expected when he was young. If there is sadness in him at all, I think it is a tiny core of profound sadness of the kind that the Buddha understood—that we probably can’t use human rationality to make the world all better, and it would be really nice if we were able to.” ♦
via How Paul Krugman found politics : The New Yorker.

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rePost::Life With Food Stamps as Your Only Income : Casaubon's Book

This was a reaction to this article: Alternet, a good piece on what it really means to be one of the six million Americans with no income at all save food stamps:
Hope you can read both the linked sites.

We are teetering on a basic question, I think – what is government for? In the present situation, we don’t have the luxury of doing everything we’d like – of funding every project, of engaging in every kind of research or investing in every area of life that we’d like. We have to make choices. So we come to the question – as more and more citizens are impoverished and desperate, and we invest more and more money in propping up an economy that is still failing, still falling, what should governments do? What choices should we make? Is the mission of our society to preserve an economy at all costs? To preserve an imperialist enterprise? Or to preserve the people?via Life With Food Stamps as Your Only Income : Casaubon’s Book.

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rePost::Don't Call Us, We’ll Call … Well, No, Actually We Probably Won’t… | Psychology Today

My introvert side is really affected by phone calls. I really don’t like it most of the time. I especially don’t like how the phone intrudes when you least want it.

But I hate the phone. Hate it. Hate. It.
I can let the phone ring without picking up. I own a cell phone but don't give out the number. The only people I willingly talk with on the phone are far-flung friends, and only because I know it's necessary to keep those friendships healthy. Even so, as these friends can tell you, I can be difficult to reach, and return their phone calls in my own sweet time, when I feel up to the exertion the phone requires for me.
via Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call … Well, No, Actually We Probably Won’t… | Psychology Today.

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rePost::New law lets Coast Guard stop ships from sailing – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

This new law is washed from the blood of all those who have died to the GREED of ship operators and the carelessness/greed of officials. In some ways I have a feeling that laws are not enough for people can and will still be bribed. This is a small but important step for the transportation industry of an archipelago of 7100 islands.

New law lets Coast Guard stop ships from sailing

By Jerry E. Esplanada
Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 22:08:00 02/22/2010
MANILA, Philippines — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has signed a new law giving the Philippine Coast Guard increased law enforcement powers, including the authority to detain and prevent from sailing substandard passenger and cargo vessels plying the country’s waters.
Known as the “Philippine Coast Guard Act of 2009” or Republic Act 9993, the new law aims to further enhance maritime safety and prevent sea tragedies.
Investigations into some of the worst disasters in maritime history that occurred in Philippine waters showed there was need to pinpoint clearer responsibility for the enforcement of maritime safety regulations.
Eight years in the legislative mill, the new law strengthens the arm of the Coast Guard to issue and enforce rules and regulations covering the “promotion of safety of life and property at sea on all maritime-related activities,” as well as promote marine environmental protection.
Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza called the Philippine Coast Guard Act of 2009 a measure that “has long been awaited by the maritime industry and the riding public.”
via New law lets Coast Guard stop ships from sailing – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

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rePost::Writers describe the positive impact of D&D on their lives Boing Boing

I playd D&D when I was younger (note the younger not young part , we’re still young as bryan l. commented in facebook) and I can vote!!!  Read the D&D players coming to the defense of something I loved to do when I was younger (and still if only someone would organize a D&D weekend, the fun that would be!!!!).

Writers describe the positive impact of D&D on their lives

By Cory Doctorow at 11:29 PM February 19, 2010

via Writers describe the positive impact of D&D on their lives Boing Boing.

Matt sez, “With that rocks-for-brains reporter in Boston trying to link campus shooter Amy Bishop’s crimes to Dungeons & Dragons, I thought I’d take an opportunity to look at the good D&D has done for several writers I know. This is that article. By the way, I’ve been a D&D player for almost thirty years now, and have been a happier, more productive person for it.”
I haven’t played since my early 20s (late teens?) but D&D was an enormously positive influence on my life and imagination.

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rePost::Bitterness « Paulo Coelho’s Blog

I know I’m getting bitter on one facet of my life, I pray that other facets are saved from this bitterness. I’m pretty much sure they are.

The main target of Bitterness (or Vitriol, as the doctor of my book preferred) is desire. People attacked by this evil begin losing their desire for everything and in a few years are unable to go outside their world – because they have used up enormous energy reserves building high walls for the reality to be what they wanted it to be.
When avoiding outside attack, they also limit internal growth. They continue going to work, watching television, complaining about the traffic and having children, but all that happens automatically, without really understanding why they are behaving like that – after all, everything is under control.
The great problem of poisoning by Bitterness lies in the fact that passions – hate, love, despair, enthusiasm and curiosity – also don’t appear any more. After some time, the bitter person has no more desire. They had no more will even to live, or to die; that was the problem.
via Bitterness « Paulo Coelho’s Blog.

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rePost::RP, other Asian countries told: Protect seas – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

When you go to beautiful tourist places in the Philippines, beauty of the natural sort, if you keep your ears open you might just hear mutter the words “enjoy this while you can in a few years this would be gone”. I have nothing against people who have have seen decades of change, environmental degradation and similar things. What I rail about is this attitude that we cannot do anything about this. The sense of inevitability we ascribe to losing these natural wonders to the pictures or even the description of people. We cannot accept this, we must not accept this. We as a people have an implicit obligation to the future generations to keep these places intact , beautiful and functioning.

UN REPORT SAYS

RP, other Asian countries told: Protect seas


INQUIRER.net First Posted 12:03:00 02/22/2010 Filed Under: Environmental Issues, Poverty, Asia Australia – North Asia
MANILA, Philippines—East Asia’s economically viable coastal habitats and ecosystems, including those of the Philippines, are under threat from pollution, alien invasive species, and other factors which could impact the region’s poverty levels unless urgent action is taken, the United Nations Environment Program (Unep) said in a new report.
“With nearly three quarters of the region’s population depending directly or indirectly on coastal areas, and with 80 percent of the region’s GDP linked to the coastal natural resources, the time must be right for factoring the marine environment into the center of economic planning,” said Unep executive director Achim Steiner.
The East Asian Seas State of the Marine Environment report said economically important coastal habitats and ecosystems are under pressure as 40 percent of coral reefs and half of all mangroves have already been lost. Coral reefs generate an estimated $112.5 billion and mangroves $5.1 billion annually.
The East Asian Seas—which includes the region between China, the Republic of Korea, and Australia—have some of the world’s highest concentrations of shipping and fishing vessel activity. They account for 50 percent of global fisheries production and 80 percent of global aquaculture production.
via RP, other Asian countries told: Protect seas – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

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rePost::Why Most People are Happier Working than in Their Free Time « Scott H Young

Interesting read, and something I believe is applicable to a lot of my friends. This is because I don’t have free time. Poor Me.

Are you happier when you’re working, or when you have time off?
Easy answer right? We work in order to have free time. Everything from basic economics to our deepest intuitions tells us that we must be happiest during our free time.
Turns out we were wrong.
Flow, Flipped Intuitions and A Scientist’s Name You Can’t Pronounce
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi did careful research that discovered that some of our deepest intuitions about work, play and what makes us happy were completely backwards.
He discovered that most people were, in fact, happier at work than at rest. More, he found that people tended to think they were happier in their free time, and would choose to have more free time than work, even though it made them unhappier.
How did Csíkszentmihályi find this?
He did it by having study participants keep pagers (then a new technology) that would go off at random intervals of the day. During those intervals, study participants would not only record what they were doing, but also their emotional state in the current moment.
By adding up this data, he reached the surprising conclusion: people were happier at work, even though they didn’t realize it.

Why You’re Happier at Work
Csíkszentmihályi’s answer to this question was based on the concept of flow. In his research, this is the optimal state of human experience. It is attained when working towards a challenge that perfectly meets our skill level, engaging every mental faculty without overwhelming us.
This state of flow, because it requires both challenge and the application of skill, is more commonly attained at work than during relaxation. As a result, people report higher levels of well-being at work.
via Why Most People are Happier Working than in Their Free Time « Scott H Young.