superman and lois could tango, lone wild horse, parenting not the gateway to wonderland
June 29, 2008 at 2:43 pm | In culture, news, photography, photoshop, sociology | Leave a Comment
Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex
Thirty-one years is a long time. For Superman it has been even longer. He has X-ray vision; he knows just what he’s missing. (*One should not think of Superman as a Peeping Tom. A biological ability must be used. As a child Superman may never have known that things had surfaces, until he learned to suppress his X-ray vision. If millions of people tend shamelessly to wear clothing with no lead in the weave, that is hardly Superman’s fault.*)
The problem is this. Electroencephalograms taken of men and women during sexual intercourse show that orgasm resembles “a kind of pleasurable epileptic attack.” One loses control over one’s muscles.
Superman has been known to leave his fingerprints in steel and in hardened concrete, accidentally. What would he do to the woman in his arms during what amounts to an epileptic fit?
If you took a physiology class in college you might have done the tooth pick experiment where you and your lab partner poke around each others faces moving eventually to the lips. In between giggling like five year olds we learned that there are a high concentration of nerve cells around the soft tissue of the human mouth – one of the reasons that kissing remains such a popular indoor sport. I’ve read Superman comics, seen the movies from eighties, the TV series with Teri Hatcher as Lois and the recent one with Brandon Routh as Superman. In all of them Superman and Lois kiss. Superman’s lips give way to pressure. Lois never has bruised lips or knocked out teeth after kissing lips of steel. That being the case its not stretching our Super logic too far to assume that Superman’s other parts also possess similar physical properties.
In Daniel Gilbert’s 2006 book “Stumbling on Happiness,” the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008’s “Gross National Happiness” author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.
I didn’t realize the issue of choosing to have children or not was such a hot button issue until I read a post over at pandagon some time ago about some woman who decided not to have children. One Florida State University researcher got hate mail in regards to her research that showed generally couples with children are less happy then couples without. The FSU researcher said, “It’s such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they’re not.” You do some studies. You find out that many parents are a little stressed out by parenthood and isn’t the golden gate to bliss that cultures the world over say. That is not remotely anti-children or anti-parents. Maybe it means that parenthood isn’t for everyone. Or that some people should have one rather then multiple children or they should wait until later in life to have them. Should the haters have the authority to force childless couples to have children so that they’ll be happy happy happy. Should childless couples be thrown in jail or perhaps a nice scarlet letter C branded on their forehead. The author of this Newsweek article probably half in anticipation of the backlash ends by saying,
Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who’ve never had kids. And there are other rewarding aspects of parenting that are impossible to quantify. For example, I never thought it possible to love someone as deeply as I love my son.
Crisis grows in Iraq over U.S. raid that killed Maliki relative
“We are afraid now of signing the long-term pact between Iraq and America because of such unjustified violations by the troops. Handing over security in provinces doesn’t mean anything to the American troops,” said Mohamed Hussein al Musawi, a senior Najaf-based member of the prime minister’s Dawa Party. “We condemn these barbaric actions not only when they target a relative of Maliki’s, but when any Iraqi is targeted in the same way.”
Do you ever get the feeling that at the end of the day Bush and Cheney pull down a zipper on the back of their heads, peel off their masks and underneath they’re really the two dopes from Dumb and Dumber.
ironman uses green products, rail yard three, know your state
June 28, 2008 at 1:07 pm | In culture, environmental, literature, photography, photoshop, progressive | Leave a Comment
Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Richard Gere and Robert Downey Jr. are among the celebrities who have publicly extolled Dr. Hauschka’s skin care products. While the stars may not express themselves like 19th-century German philosophers, their devotion has helped to win Dr. Hauschka a cultlike following from Beverly Hills to the Upper East Side.
I guess wearing all that hardware takes a toll on the skin. Other then the kind of new agey philsophy around the edges Dr. Hauschk is a genuine old school “green” company that has been around since 1935 when it inroduced some herbal medicines. It statred making all natural cosmetics in 1967.
Harpers has a full essay from Leonard Michaels called My Father
Once we spent a week in Miami and he tried to enjoy himself, wading into the ocean, being brave, stepping inch by inch into the warm blue unpredictable immensity.
Michaels has that rare ability to use sparse prose that has a deceptive amount of depth.
Louisiana Governor Jindal Unaware Katrina Caused ‘Major’ Oil Spills In His Own State
Jindal is clueless about the reality in his own state. As noted in the Wonk Room, the Hurricanes caused offshore oil spills so large that they could be seen from space. The Minerals Management Service reported that 113 oil platforms were “totally destroyed” — a total of 124 offshore spills.
In fact, oil seeped onshore into southeast Louisiana, which saw 44 onshore and offshore oil spills. The EPA called the spills “worse than the worst-case scenario.”
Jindal also has a rare ability. To make the mediocre former Governor Blanco look damn good.
costco and the intangibles, blue sky grass, split tongued ethanol
June 27, 2008 at 2:15 pm | In economic, graphic art, photography, photoshop, progressive, working life | Leave a CommentIf Costco’s worker generosity is so great, why doesn’t Wal-Mart imitate it?
In the subsequent two years, the discrepancy has only deepened, tending to confirm Galanti’s argument that in the long term, higher wages are “a great model.” Indeed, analysts’ consensus on Costco’s long-term growth expectations is better than their consensus on Wal-Mart: 13.3 percent as opposed to 11.7 percent, respectively. That’s intriguing because Wal-Mart is more profitable and has demonstrated better earnings growth (12.47 percent five-year earnings-per-share growth as opposed to 9.8 percent for Costco). Employee relations may be part of the picture, but Galanti points out there are many other reasons for analysts’ confidence in Costco. “Seventy percent of our earnings come from membership fees,” he says. “We’d really have to screw up to lose that!”
Most of us have heard this before. Costco pays more, has better health care, attracts better educated workers and has a lower turn over in employees. Wal-Mart growth is better, but Costco and its investors are perfectly happy with the company’s performance. Liza Featherstone certainly nails down the numbers, but if you’re an obsessed bean counter while Costco sounds like a better deal for workers and people that take their bulk shopping seriously, Wal-Mart should still come out at least even in terms of bean counting anyway. Then toward the end Featherstone pints toward that thing ot those intangibles that are diffcult to quantify. All of which come under the umbrella of coporate culture. Costco has a good one and Wal-mart doesn’t. Even better Costco doesn’t see business and a few more cents on the bottom line as an end itself. CEO Jim Sinegal seems to understand that a job isn’t something that people do to kill time during their working lifetime, their work has to mean something and for that to happen they have to feel appreciated.
CNN Money asks, Food price spike: Is ethanol to blame?
Prices have increased 5% since last year, and it could get worse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that food prices will bump up another 5.5% in 2008.
One of the reasons is that the price of corn – a staple ingredient in a variety of foods from cereals to cola and the main ingredient in animal feed – is selling above $7.50 a bushel, about 119% above the price from a year ago.
Some bad weather and recent floods have been contributing factors, but processing ethanol for fuel is a major contributor. Many gas stations are currently selling petrol that is 10% ethanol. Whatever people are saving at the pump they’re losing at the grocery store.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell
leda and her two sons, crushed impressions, your brain on net
June 26, 2008 at 3:21 pm | In art, news, photoshop, sociology, tech culture | Leave a Comment
Leda and Her Two Sons Caster and Pollux by Leonardo da Vinci currently on display with some other fine art at the Borghese Gallery, Rome, Italy
Photo crackdown hits parents’ proud moments
ACCORDING to recent reports, parents have been forced to ask for permission to photograph their kids at some children’s sporting clubs.
Other clubs have prohibited the taking of snapshots altogether. Many parents are understandably distressed at the idea that they cannot provide themselves or their children with permanent and special images of their offspring’s athletic accomplishments.
[ ]…Suddenly, any adult with a camera within range of a child is looked at askance, and their motives are not only under suspicion but also their entire character is assassinated.
Many adults with cameras at playing fields on weekends have reported being verbally abused, to the point where threats were made against them and accusations screamed, often in front of their own, shaken and confused, children.
This is a report from an Australian news paper. I don’t think things have gotten this bad in the U.S. yet. The author makes an important point about sexual predators and about images. Short of a ban on taking photographs and displaying them there is little that can be done about people finding some images stimulating. The artists or photographers intentions – including parents – don’t matter, the bent mind will take any image from any context and mentally twist it for their gratification.
What the Internet is doing to our brains
I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.
While I can relate to this. I could have written it myself if I was as good a writer as Mr. Carr, but at the end of the day I own my brain and I am responsible for my reading habits, not Google or the net. If I wanted to start reading books as much as I used to I would. That said there is a trend at work. Many of us have at least a mild addiction to the net and are not doing much to correct that addyction. That being the case there will probably be less depth of knowledge about speclilzed information – the kind one gets after reading a few books on the history of art for example. Then there is the real possibility that even if you took the net out of the picture we’re doomed anyway. We have 24/7 cable news and people know less about cultural and political issues then they did nineteen years ago.
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