off to...

Hose

The waves never stop.  We're five, spread out, singing, wading, head down seeking stones.  The beach is nearly empty but for us.  The water is cold.  Mid-July in Sheboygan, and it's enough to get within sight of the beach to cool off.  Mom carries three sets of shoes as we see whose ankles are hardiest for Lake Michigan's icy water.  The lake wins.  We're chattering soon, heading back to the car baking in the sun.  By the time we get home, we're warm, ready for dinner, just about to erupt into sibling snarls.  But our feet are still full of sand, and they're not allowed in the house until they're clean.  And that means the hose must be turned on and Dad has to spray them off.  No one likes this idea.  We use the towel, we wipe them in the grass, but no, the hose.  For some reason we forget this step.  We forget the requirement, the protests, and we forget, most importantly, that if we would just shut up, time it right, we could all get clean feet with warm water that's been sitting in the hose all day.  Dad reminds us of this every time, yet, inevitably, we all dawdle.  So what should be a simple, unmemorable task, has become a low trauma learning experience.  And the image that lingers is not one of us happily washing off and then heading in to change, it's of my Dad standing, the yard as his backdrop, holding the green garden hose, smiling goofily as all the warm water arcs, wasted, onto the bright green grass.

The Pan Hobby

I've learned lessons.  But mostly it's nice to have my shower back.

It's the Free Willy part that really finally breaks me

Artisan Bread

Like many, I've hopped on the No Knead Bread band wagon.  It is brilliant, tasty, and I love making it.  I won't go into how each loaf is different in neat ways, or how it crackles as it cools, or how the crust explodes when you cut into it.  Give it a go on your own.  You will not be disappointed.  What's interesting, is that I've started to bake more and more bread even as I read and teach a book on the dangers of carbohydrates.  It's been an interesting experience, to say the least.  And one day two weeks ago, I brought in a loaf and some of my sister's awesome strawberry jam, and the class and I made peace with the carbohydrate. 

I wasn't sure how teaching Gary Taubes's excellent Good Calories, Bad Calories would go.  Some of my friends were skeptical, and my younger sister, a dietician, won't even talk about it with me.  And going into class, I expected a lot of resistance, at least as much resistance as they showed to Postman's Technopoly.  But by the end of the book, the majority of the class seems to buy Taubes's argument (in brief: Taubes's argument is that the carbohydrate hypothesis is at least viable enough to warrant scientific experiments; they're haven't been any, and at the end of the book I think most people will be convinced, not that they should give up bread, but that some degree of scientific due dilligance is in order.)  Surprisingly, some of my students seemed to agree even more strongly with Taubes after we read a harsh review of the book by an expert in the journal Obesity. 

It's been an interesting journey with this text, and a longer discussion of it in my class is probably in order.  On the last day, however, I did tell them what I think are the major points to remember, and they aren't that they should stop eating bread.  Instead, they had to do with writing, research, argument, tone, style, and the effectiveness of treating a scientific topic in a sophisticated way.  Taubes's book is an exemplar for showing the public how science really works, and I hope that my students walk away with a sharper eye for how people can and should write effectively about issues in science and technology.  If they paid attention as they read, these lessons could not have missed them.

And the bread?  I plan on baking it for a long time to come.  Here's what you're missing:

Note to Self

Even amidst the dissertation and job market stress, keep this in mind: Enjoy the fall.   Enjoy the winter.  These are the last nine months you'll spend in the Twin Cities, and perhaps the last nine months you'll spend in the midwest.  Don't take them for granted.  The place you live next may not have seasons.  It may not have snow.  It may not have a metropolis.  It may not be this close to your parents or your sisters or your nephews.  New adventures await, surely, but pay attention as this adventure comes to a close. 

Taking a Student's Question Seriously

And I learned something in the process.

Come November

As my friends know, I've recently been all fired up about this Sarah Palin person, and I send them every gossip and gaffe that reinforces my frustration.  I'm just flummoxed that someone like her is on the ticket, and that people are able to rationalize her experience as presidential.  Clearly, I'm easily wound up by all these stories, videos, and op-eds. Essentially, I'm responding to everyone else's frustration.  I would like to reframe this post from yesterday in a way that is more psychologically accurate.  Who the hell was I talking to when I wrote it?  Honestly, I was talking to myself.  I think most of you already knew this, but I didn't.

Dear November Greg,

I don't really care who you vote for in November, but I do care why you vote in November: vote because you know, not because you heard something on television or your favorite partisan radio station oryour there was this great mashup on Digg the other day.

Instead, find out the candidates' positions and figure out what the they really stand for.  Look at their voting records, their service, and who they'll put in their cabinet.  Don't trust the words "maverick" or "change".  Do not believe what they tell you in their speeches or debates.  These are necessarily oversimplifications of complex positions.  That applies to all sides.  Palin's drastic oversimplification of her relationship to the "Bridge to No Where" is just one example indicating the problem across the political spectrum.  Obama's got his own problems.

Read.  Read other things.  Read the other side. 

And for goodness sake, November Greg, don't vote based on the single issue that gets you fired up, whether that issue is Palin, tax cuts, the war in Iraq, or whatever. If you're fired up by something *they* tell you to be upset about, then they're just pushing you around.  Think bigger.  Be upset because they use emotional appeals (like 9-11) to distract you from the big issues; be upset because they don't clarify themselves or speak about the details of their policies; be upset because they use snide and effective but off topic ad hominem attacks rather than engage serious policy criticisms; be upset that they're campaigns are funded by lobbyists; be upset that Fox News leans right and MSNBC leans left; be upset that the two major candidates positions are nearly identical and you do not have a real choice.  Think bigger.

off to,

September Greg

Not my signature

"My ethics?  I'd like to shed the strictures of adulthood and make maturity an optional result of a freely lived human life, not the necessary path to power and success, lorded over by depressed, overweight, unimaginative corpses." Ben Marcus "On Not Growing Up", Harpers 2008.

However, I'm not sure the sentiment characterizes me in the least.  It's more of a value I know I don't attend to, and the utter lack of it in my life makes a passage like this really stand out. 

Local Changes

Local man's car dies; he rides bike, changes life, pens op-ed.

Notes

The house doodle is critical to my process.