There's not much more to say. See my previous posts: On throwing it all away and On how our stuff owns us and check out www.storyofstuff.com.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Saturday, December 8, 2007
On the progress of disease:
I came across an article in Time recently: “Why Breast Cancer is spreading Around the World,” by Kathleen Kingsbury (Time, October 15, 2007) “Plus: A Guide to the Latest Treatments,” the cover package promised.
From the data presented in the article, it is clear that breast cancer rates have risen along with the adoption of western lifestyles and diets in developing countries, yet with a bizarre sense of arrogance, the article focuses on the deprivation of the women of these countries because they don’t have access to modern medicine and equipment. Oh, those poor women who don’t have our advances! Ironically, they didn’t have cancer that needed treatment until they assumed our “advances”: processed food and high-stress but sedentary lives.
Though it supposedly sets out to reveal truths, science often has a dizzying ability to obscure them instead. The researchers who were consulted for this article apparently reported that the reason for the skyrocketing rates of breast cancer in developing countries is that improved public health allows women to live long enough to be susceptible to breast cancer. Several of the women described in the article are 40!
Aren’t the scientists, doctors and even journalists here missing something that is exceedingly obvious? If we could let go for just a minute of our manifest destiny to be the smartest and best, we might see the incredible opportunity here to turn back the clock on this modern disease. Rather than modern medicine for a disease brought on by modern life, isn’t it possible that the cure for all of us lies in a return to the traditional practices and diets that allowed people in undeveloped areas of the world good health before they began following our example?
From the data presented in the article, it is clear that breast cancer rates have risen along with the adoption of western lifestyles and diets in developing countries, yet with a bizarre sense of arrogance, the article focuses on the deprivation of the women of these countries because they don’t have access to modern medicine and equipment. Oh, those poor women who don’t have our advances! Ironically, they didn’t have cancer that needed treatment until they assumed our “advances”: processed food and high-stress but sedentary lives.
Though it supposedly sets out to reveal truths, science often has a dizzying ability to obscure them instead. The researchers who were consulted for this article apparently reported that the reason for the skyrocketing rates of breast cancer in developing countries is that improved public health allows women to live long enough to be susceptible to breast cancer. Several of the women described in the article are 40!
Aren’t the scientists, doctors and even journalists here missing something that is exceedingly obvious? If we could let go for just a minute of our manifest destiny to be the smartest and best, we might see the incredible opportunity here to turn back the clock on this modern disease. Rather than modern medicine for a disease brought on by modern life, isn’t it possible that the cure for all of us lies in a return to the traditional practices and diets that allowed people in undeveloped areas of the world good health before they began following our example?
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
On slowing down:
In a world where the U.S. mail is now compared to a snail rather than a pony, a dial up modem-- which can bring information from all over the world in a matter of minutes-- is considered intolerably slow, and where slow is defined unflatteringly as:
apathetic, crawling, creeping, dawdling, delaying, deliberate, dilatory, disinclined, dreamy, drowsy, easy, gradual, heavy, idle, imperceptible, inactive, indolent, inert, lackadaisical, laggard, lagging, lazy, leaden, leisurely, lethargic, listless, loitering, measured, moderate, negligent, passive, phlegmatic, plodding, ponderous, postponing, procrastinating, quiet, reluctant, remiss, slack, sleepy, slothful, slow-moving, sluggish, snaillike, stagnant, supine, tardy, torpid, tortoiselike,
it’s easy to forget what’s so good about slow.
All kinds of clichés and pop songs point out the wisdom of taking things slowly at least some of the time:
Take time to smell the flowers.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Slow down. You move to fast. Got to make the moment last…
Truth is:
Slow food tastes better and is usually better for you than fast food.
Hypermiling (coasting and slow acceleration) saves gas and the planet.
Relationships which have developed slowly often seem to last longer.
But if conventional wisdom and anecdotal evidence isn’t enough to convince you to slow down, maybe scientific evidence that slow is better for your health will do it.
According to the American Institute of Stress, 75 - 90 percent of doctor visits stem from stress. Though itself somewhat intangible, stress causes various undeniably real physical reactions:
• “heart rate and blood pressure soar to increase the flow of blood to the brain to improve decision making,
• blood sugar rises to furnish more fuel for energy as the result of the breakdown of glycogen, fat and protein stores,
• blood is shunted away from the gut, where it is not immediately needed for purposes of digestion, to the large muscles of the arms and legs to provide more strength in combat, or greater speed in getting away from a scene of potential peril,
• clotting occurs more quickly to prevent blood loss from lacerations or internal hemorrhage.
These and myriad other immediate and automatic responses have been exquisitely honed over the lengthy course of human evolution as life saving measures to facilitate primitive man's ability to deal with physical challenges. However, the nature of stress for modern man is not an occasional confrontation with a saber-toothed tiger or a hostile warrior but rather a host of emotional threats like getting stuck in traffic and fights with customers, co-workers, or family members, that often occur several times a day. Unfortunately, our bodies still react with these same, archaic fight or flight responses that are now not only not useful but potentially damaging and deadly. Repeatedly invoked, it is not hard to see how they can contribute to hypertension, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, ulcers, neck or low back pain and other "Diseases of Civilization".” American Institute of Stress http://www.stress.org/americas.htm
“In conditions of stress, our adrenal glands must work very hard to create numerous hormones that regulate the blood sugar and help the body heal.” What Causes Heart Attacks by Tom Cowan, Wise Traditions, Fall 2007. If the adrenal glands are worn out by chronic stress or repeated episodic stress, they can’t do this essential work.
Slow. Because the tortoise beat the hare (who had a stress-related heart attack). Best of all, the tortoise got to smell the flowers along the way.
www.slowdownnow.org
www.slowfoodusa.org
apathetic, crawling, creeping, dawdling, delaying, deliberate, dilatory, disinclined, dreamy, drowsy, easy, gradual, heavy, idle, imperceptible, inactive, indolent, inert, lackadaisical, laggard, lagging, lazy, leaden, leisurely, lethargic, listless, loitering, measured, moderate, negligent, passive, phlegmatic, plodding, ponderous, postponing, procrastinating, quiet, reluctant, remiss, slack, sleepy, slothful, slow-moving, sluggish, snaillike, stagnant, supine, tardy, torpid, tortoiselike,
it’s easy to forget what’s so good about slow.
All kinds of clichés and pop songs point out the wisdom of taking things slowly at least some of the time:
Take time to smell the flowers.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Slow down. You move to fast. Got to make the moment last…
Truth is:
Slow food tastes better and is usually better for you than fast food.
Hypermiling (coasting and slow acceleration) saves gas and the planet.
Relationships which have developed slowly often seem to last longer.
But if conventional wisdom and anecdotal evidence isn’t enough to convince you to slow down, maybe scientific evidence that slow is better for your health will do it.
According to the American Institute of Stress, 75 - 90 percent of doctor visits stem from stress. Though itself somewhat intangible, stress causes various undeniably real physical reactions:
• “heart rate and blood pressure soar to increase the flow of blood to the brain to improve decision making,
• blood sugar rises to furnish more fuel for energy as the result of the breakdown of glycogen, fat and protein stores,
• blood is shunted away from the gut, where it is not immediately needed for purposes of digestion, to the large muscles of the arms and legs to provide more strength in combat, or greater speed in getting away from a scene of potential peril,
• clotting occurs more quickly to prevent blood loss from lacerations or internal hemorrhage.
These and myriad other immediate and automatic responses have been exquisitely honed over the lengthy course of human evolution as life saving measures to facilitate primitive man's ability to deal with physical challenges. However, the nature of stress for modern man is not an occasional confrontation with a saber-toothed tiger or a hostile warrior but rather a host of emotional threats like getting stuck in traffic and fights with customers, co-workers, or family members, that often occur several times a day. Unfortunately, our bodies still react with these same, archaic fight or flight responses that are now not only not useful but potentially damaging and deadly. Repeatedly invoked, it is not hard to see how they can contribute to hypertension, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, ulcers, neck or low back pain and other "Diseases of Civilization".” American Institute of Stress http://www.stress.org/americas.htm
“In conditions of stress, our adrenal glands must work very hard to create numerous hormones that regulate the blood sugar and help the body heal.” What Causes Heart Attacks by Tom Cowan, Wise Traditions, Fall 2007. If the adrenal glands are worn out by chronic stress or repeated episodic stress, they can’t do this essential work.
Slow. Because the tortoise beat the hare (who had a stress-related heart attack). Best of all, the tortoise got to smell the flowers along the way.
www.slowdownnow.org
www.slowfoodusa.org
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
On election day:
It was quiet at my polling place tonight. No, city council elections aren’t all that sexy, but we Americans need to start exercising that voting muscle before it atrophies completely.
According to Naomi Wolf (The End of America) and some other non-crazy students of society, it’s entirely possible that our rights are being chipped away, so this is no time to stop using them.
Our founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, gave us the electoral college and a diluted democracy. It works pretty well when citizens do their duty and vote. When they don’t, a few people can exert disproportionate power over our national destiny.
Relatively few votes were coerced (by Fox News) in 2000 and (by post 9/11 fear mongering) in 2004 and even stolen (mostly from black Americans through what might be called voter profiling). These crimes were magnified through our (probably flawed) electoral process to change the results of an election and, yes, even the course of history.
Today members of our government are defying our Constitution and the Geneva Convention and Naomi Wolf (among others) says they’re starting to act like a fascist dictatorship. And Americans don’t vote. By shirking our civic responsibility we are tacitly allowing our democracy to be hijacked.
Through the institution of the electoral college, the founders were trying to protect their own aristocratic asses from the whims of the “riff raff” (aka the people). It’s ironic, but it turns out that the riff raff are the only ones who can save us now.
With respect, Riff Raff: get out and vote.
According to Naomi Wolf (The End of America) and some other non-crazy students of society, it’s entirely possible that our rights are being chipped away, so this is no time to stop using them.
Our founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, gave us the electoral college and a diluted democracy. It works pretty well when citizens do their duty and vote. When they don’t, a few people can exert disproportionate power over our national destiny.
Relatively few votes were coerced (by Fox News) in 2000 and (by post 9/11 fear mongering) in 2004 and even stolen (mostly from black Americans through what might be called voter profiling). These crimes were magnified through our (probably flawed) electoral process to change the results of an election and, yes, even the course of history.
Today members of our government are defying our Constitution and the Geneva Convention and Naomi Wolf (among others) says they’re starting to act like a fascist dictatorship. And Americans don’t vote. By shirking our civic responsibility we are tacitly allowing our democracy to be hijacked.
Through the institution of the electoral college, the founders were trying to protect their own aristocratic asses from the whims of the “riff raff” (aka the people). It’s ironic, but it turns out that the riff raff are the only ones who can save us now.
With respect, Riff Raff: get out and vote.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
On getting the lead out:
I’m looking for an apartment for myself and my 3 year-old son. In the great state of Massachusetts, we have a lead law that says if a landlord rents to a family with a child under 6 years old, s/he must delead the apartment. This seems like it can only be a good thing but turns out to be a double-edged sword. It’s expensive to delead, so landlords—being in business to make money, or at least to cover costs-- find ways to refuse renting to people with young kids if they don’t want to delead. This is discrimination and is technically illegal, but unenforceable since no one can say a landlord didn’t have another legitimate reason.
And realtors are complicit because they don’t even want to waste their time showing tenants with young children apartments that aren’t deleaded, making it that much easier for landlords to avoid facing the issue.
Some landlords seem to have plenty of money to do extensive renovations to make their units able to demand more rent, but they don’t go the extra mile to delead. So deleaded apartments are rare and in high demand. Having also cost a substantial sum to be deleaded, they are not surprisingly, more expensive than non deleaded apartments with the same features in the same areas.
A law that must have been intended to help families with young children ends up reducing drastically their choices in housing and increasing their costs.
There must be another way.
When we as a society realized that it was completely unfair that many buildings were inaccessible to the significant segment of the population with disabilities, we didn’t make a law that made it voluntary for building owners to add ramps and elevators. We made a law—the Americans with Disabilities Act-- that required that buildings be changed. It wasn’t overly onerous. Some buildings didn’t have to be changed right away, but when major renovations were to be done, they had to include measures to bring accessibility in accordance with the law. The effectiveness of the (decidedly non voluntary) ADA is apparent all over our built environment (lower light switches and door handles among other details). At my alma mater, venerable old buildings now have wheelchair ramps artfully designed to blend with 19th century architecture. Ramps have become an integral part of today’s new buildings and it’s a good thing.
There must be at least as many families with young children as there are people with disabilities, and the lead issue really is a matter of accessibility too.
We need a law that-- either now or over a reasonable period of time (maybe 15 years)-- actually solves the problem of toxic lead in homes and makes affordably-priced, safe apartments accessible for families like mine.
And realtors are complicit because they don’t even want to waste their time showing tenants with young children apartments that aren’t deleaded, making it that much easier for landlords to avoid facing the issue.
Some landlords seem to have plenty of money to do extensive renovations to make their units able to demand more rent, but they don’t go the extra mile to delead. So deleaded apartments are rare and in high demand. Having also cost a substantial sum to be deleaded, they are not surprisingly, more expensive than non deleaded apartments with the same features in the same areas.
A law that must have been intended to help families with young children ends up reducing drastically their choices in housing and increasing their costs.
There must be another way.
When we as a society realized that it was completely unfair that many buildings were inaccessible to the significant segment of the population with disabilities, we didn’t make a law that made it voluntary for building owners to add ramps and elevators. We made a law—the Americans with Disabilities Act-- that required that buildings be changed. It wasn’t overly onerous. Some buildings didn’t have to be changed right away, but when major renovations were to be done, they had to include measures to bring accessibility in accordance with the law. The effectiveness of the (decidedly non voluntary) ADA is apparent all over our built environment (lower light switches and door handles among other details). At my alma mater, venerable old buildings now have wheelchair ramps artfully designed to blend with 19th century architecture. Ramps have become an integral part of today’s new buildings and it’s a good thing.
There must be at least as many families with young children as there are people with disabilities, and the lead issue really is a matter of accessibility too.
We need a law that-- either now or over a reasonable period of time (maybe 15 years)-- actually solves the problem of toxic lead in homes and makes affordably-priced, safe apartments accessible for families like mine.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
On Blog Action Day: possible solutions to global climate change
Today is Blog Action Day! Thousands of bloggers around the world will blog today about the environment. Here’s my contribution:
The elevation of Al Gore to demigod status has got me thinking about the enormity of the global climate change problem. It’s so difficult, in large part, because by developing as we have with far flung suburbs dependent on urban jobs (and with the proliferation of office parks, the reverse) and hermetically sealed tall buildings, we’ve locked ourselves into driving long distances and using H, V or AC year-round. Many egregious carbon-generating luxuries have become needs. It’s too hard to unravel energy use from the lives and economy we’ve worked so hard to build and maintain, so we just don’t. Some Americans seem to be blithely unaware that there’s even a need to do things differently, but even those of us who think about it and work at it every day, find it nearly impossible to make significant change. (For an amazing example of someone who has, visit http://noimpactman.typepad.com/)
Even countries that have made a commitment to reduce emissions are coming up short. I was listening to national public radio the other day and heard a report about Japan’s failure to meet its emissions reduction goals set out in the Kyoto protocols. It is widely understood that even if the US were to reduce its emissions, increases in emissions by developing countries like China and India would more than cancel them out.
We are going to have to make dramatic changes quickly in the way we live and work if we want to keep Earth inhabitable for humans.
A Brave New World Wide Web
A friend of mine, I’ll call him P, floated an idea for a possible solution that I think has merit: technology. P’s not talking about new energy technologies, though I’m sure he’d agree we should continue to work on those. He’s suggested that internet technology and computers (which are being built to use less and less energy) could soon allow everyone to telecommute so that we wouldn’t have to drive in order to work. In fact, what he said was that we could live our entire lives on the net. He may have said it tongue in cheek but I think it’s an interesting idea.
During the last Congressional election, I participated in the Move On “Call for Change” campaign, which used nationwide conference calls and video teleconferences to bring all the volunteers together. Having experienced the power and the great sense of community during that campaign, and right here in the blogosphere (and the lack of community in my neighborhood), I wonder if eliminating the need for proximity and cultivating our ability to form affinity groups globally, wouldn’t be a very good thing.
Back to Our Agrarian Roots
That said, I’m a bit of a traditionalist and even though it’s been a long time since I’ve lived in one, I love the feel of a small town. The process of a town meeting is, at least in some ways, more satisfying than any web forum or national conference call. Despite technology, proximity still creates affinity (or at least interdependence).
I’m also a believer in Traditional Nutrition (see Weston A. Price Foundation link at right) and thinking about how to get better quality food (usually direct from farms) has led me to realize that our ancestors had a lot of things right.
A sort of purposeful regression as a society to a small town, agrarian model would cut down on our need to travel long distances regularly and eliminate the great quantity of emissions created in support of our current food distribution system (almost all of our food is trucked to market in tractor trailers and more and more is flown in from other countries). Returning to our agrarian roots would put people back in touch with the land and, very probably, would lead to the planting of more carbon neutralizing vegetation. As a bonus we’d likely have richer lives in close-knit communities. We could more effectively and more naturally provide social supports for young families, elders… for everyone really. We'd also eat better.
Perhaps the most feasible and livable solution would be some combination of these two. Picture yourself churning butter from fresh raw milk in the morning, attending a teleconference with other hedge fund managers on farms in the UK and Hong Kong in the afternoon, and, climate change having stabilized, blogging about humanity’s next great challenge (by the light of a solar-powered lamp) deep into the night.
The elevation of Al Gore to demigod status has got me thinking about the enormity of the global climate change problem. It’s so difficult, in large part, because by developing as we have with far flung suburbs dependent on urban jobs (and with the proliferation of office parks, the reverse) and hermetically sealed tall buildings, we’ve locked ourselves into driving long distances and using H, V or AC year-round. Many egregious carbon-generating luxuries have become needs. It’s too hard to unravel energy use from the lives and economy we’ve worked so hard to build and maintain, so we just don’t. Some Americans seem to be blithely unaware that there’s even a need to do things differently, but even those of us who think about it and work at it every day, find it nearly impossible to make significant change. (For an amazing example of someone who has, visit http://noimpactman.typepad.com/)
Even countries that have made a commitment to reduce emissions are coming up short. I was listening to national public radio the other day and heard a report about Japan’s failure to meet its emissions reduction goals set out in the Kyoto protocols. It is widely understood that even if the US were to reduce its emissions, increases in emissions by developing countries like China and India would more than cancel them out.
We are going to have to make dramatic changes quickly in the way we live and work if we want to keep Earth inhabitable for humans.
A Brave New World Wide Web
A friend of mine, I’ll call him P, floated an idea for a possible solution that I think has merit: technology. P’s not talking about new energy technologies, though I’m sure he’d agree we should continue to work on those. He’s suggested that internet technology and computers (which are being built to use less and less energy) could soon allow everyone to telecommute so that we wouldn’t have to drive in order to work. In fact, what he said was that we could live our entire lives on the net. He may have said it tongue in cheek but I think it’s an interesting idea.
During the last Congressional election, I participated in the Move On “Call for Change” campaign, which used nationwide conference calls and video teleconferences to bring all the volunteers together. Having experienced the power and the great sense of community during that campaign, and right here in the blogosphere (and the lack of community in my neighborhood), I wonder if eliminating the need for proximity and cultivating our ability to form affinity groups globally, wouldn’t be a very good thing.
Back to Our Agrarian Roots
That said, I’m a bit of a traditionalist and even though it’s been a long time since I’ve lived in one, I love the feel of a small town. The process of a town meeting is, at least in some ways, more satisfying than any web forum or national conference call. Despite technology, proximity still creates affinity (or at least interdependence).
I’m also a believer in Traditional Nutrition (see Weston A. Price Foundation link at right) and thinking about how to get better quality food (usually direct from farms) has led me to realize that our ancestors had a lot of things right.
A sort of purposeful regression as a society to a small town, agrarian model would cut down on our need to travel long distances regularly and eliminate the great quantity of emissions created in support of our current food distribution system (almost all of our food is trucked to market in tractor trailers and more and more is flown in from other countries). Returning to our agrarian roots would put people back in touch with the land and, very probably, would lead to the planting of more carbon neutralizing vegetation. As a bonus we’d likely have richer lives in close-knit communities. We could more effectively and more naturally provide social supports for young families, elders… for everyone really. We'd also eat better.
Perhaps the most feasible and livable solution would be some combination of these two. Picture yourself churning butter from fresh raw milk in the morning, attending a teleconference with other hedge fund managers on farms in the UK and Hong Kong in the afternoon, and, climate change having stabilized, blogging about humanity’s next great challenge (by the light of a solar-powered lamp) deep into the night.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
On offensive policy:
I’ve been too busy to blog lately (though not too busy to fume silently!) so this will have to go under the heading of better late than never.
A few weeks back, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad visited the U.S. and requested that he be allowed to pay his respects at Ground Zero. He was refused by U.S. officials and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why.
As a human being, the man deserved the basic decency it would have taken to honor this request. As the president of another nation, he deserves the shiny black car, the cadre of press and the respect granted to any visiting dignitary. As president of the nation that’s been framed as our arch enemy of the moment, he deserves handling with kid gloves too.
I know some people can’t believe a Muslim can feel compassion for Americans regarding 9/11. I know some people are incensed that someone from one of the countries that perpetrated the atrocities of that day would show up and try to set foot on that sacred ground. But wait a minute—Iran wasn’t involved in 9/11! Iraq wasn’t involved. Real Muslims believe murder is wrong just like Christians do!
I think what Ahmadinejad really wants is for Iran to be taken seriously as a player on the world stage and he’s willing to be pretty belligerent to make sure he isn’t ignored. If that is the case, then why piss him off for no particular reason? Why not give him lots of respect when he’s trying to do the right thing? Why not bank some diplomatic points for when the going gets tougher? Like when we’re trying to convince him not to build a bomb, for example.
But maybe his motives weren’t pure. A more cynical view is that he was looking for PR or to make the U.S. look bad. So what if he got some positive press? How would it have hurt us to let him look good? We’d have ended up looking good too. And if he was trying to make us look like the bad guy, we ended up playing right into his hands.
Another offensive policy decision from the administration that brought you preemptive war.
A few weeks back, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad visited the U.S. and requested that he be allowed to pay his respects at Ground Zero. He was refused by U.S. officials and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why.
As a human being, the man deserved the basic decency it would have taken to honor this request. As the president of another nation, he deserves the shiny black car, the cadre of press and the respect granted to any visiting dignitary. As president of the nation that’s been framed as our arch enemy of the moment, he deserves handling with kid gloves too.
I know some people can’t believe a Muslim can feel compassion for Americans regarding 9/11. I know some people are incensed that someone from one of the countries that perpetrated the atrocities of that day would show up and try to set foot on that sacred ground. But wait a minute—Iran wasn’t involved in 9/11! Iraq wasn’t involved. Real Muslims believe murder is wrong just like Christians do!
I think what Ahmadinejad really wants is for Iran to be taken seriously as a player on the world stage and he’s willing to be pretty belligerent to make sure he isn’t ignored. If that is the case, then why piss him off for no particular reason? Why not give him lots of respect when he’s trying to do the right thing? Why not bank some diplomatic points for when the going gets tougher? Like when we’re trying to convince him not to build a bomb, for example.
But maybe his motives weren’t pure. A more cynical view is that he was looking for PR or to make the U.S. look bad. So what if he got some positive press? How would it have hurt us to let him look good? We’d have ended up looking good too. And if he was trying to make us look like the bad guy, we ended up playing right into his hands.
Another offensive policy decision from the administration that brought you preemptive war.
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