Listing Between the Lines

Comic courtesy of A Softer World

I brought up two things while talking to Dylan yesterday that I want to share with everyone here.

1.) If a girl is using abortion as birth control should she really have a child? The level of irresponsibility, and perhaps to a certain degree, callousness, that having the procedure many time would imply suggests that the potential mother, at least at this point in her life, should not be involved in child-rearing. Not to mention that abortion is never free, whereas condoms can be.

2.) I never understand why people are worried about the population in first world countries falling. Not only would a reduction in population be beneficial to the earth and perhaps imply less cost for these countries it has been proven many times in history that a small elite is still very effective at controlling money and power as far as nationalism is a concern.

Other thoughts:

1.)
As gay rights gain further acceptance the gay community will have to face one of the sectors of American society most biased towards heterosexuals: the sports community. I wonder how integration will occur. Will there be gay sports teams? Who would these sports teams play against? Men and women do have biological differences which mean that the elite in sports are competing against different elements. It would not be fair to put lesbians against a male sports team, but it would also not be fair, in a way, to pit them against a woman's sports team. I would not, in the heat of competition with all of the grabbing and touching involved, want to face the possibility that my opponent is sexually attracted to me. However, it would be as unfair to characterize gay people as sexually attracted to the other team as it would be to say that women are attracted to all men. Basically, I see no reason that gay members should not be integrated onto existing teams if the rules in place now are followed during the game. However, I have a disgusting feeling that the sports community will disagree with me.
I wonder how many of its members are already gay?

2.)
I think it would be a great idea to combine the modern three-d graphics and plot lines of RPGs with the elements of games like Mario and Metroid. Imagine somersaulting, dodging, and powering around a 3-D map using different zooms with an actual story element involved. I believe Super Mario Galaxy incorporates some of the elements I am discussing here but cloaked in the Mario universe, which leaves a *few* things unclear. Obviously a fantasy element would be the easiest to incorporate which, for example, would explain why the monsters are trapped within a certain range or you grow after eating the mushroom. There could also be lots of weapons and spells. A certain cartoonish element could also be used. There is lots of possibility here.

3.)
Very tenuous theoretical question: What if we could generate power using atmospheric heat? Heat is entropy, of course, but what if we found a certain metal or bacteria that had a "switch" at a certain temperature and somehow used that to generate electricity?

4.)
"Even though President Obama was in Russia, he couldn't escape questions about Michael Jackson. He said, "You know, this is part of American culture," said Obama. "Michael Jackson, like Elvis, like Sinatra, when somebody whose captivated the imagination of the country for that long passes away, people pay attention. And I assume at some point people will start focusing again on things like nuclear weapons.""Source

I agree with Obama. As much as Micheal Jackson's death matters the Iranian elections, Chinese riots, and North Korean crazy are extremely important and involve millions of living people. Please give them more air time.

This is an interesting article on public health care.

So apparently there are twelve million people in Jakarta and half of them are homeless. My mind is sufficiently boggled.

More awesome Cracked articles:
7 Ways the Zombie apocalypse could actually happen
What happened to Television?
6 Kickass Animals Ruined by Evolution

Sexy

"He lured her downstairs into the Crypts; she led him from altar to altar in the Church of St Nikolai."
-From The Call of the Toad by Gunther Grass

I want to save this quote because I feel that it has high metaphorical value. Did you know that the name Pomeranian originally applied to a group of Slavic tribes?

What are your thoughts on this condom packaging? It's from China, which is why there is no Mao on there. I honestly find it to be twisted but humorous. Please don't think that I find the millions of people these men killed and oppressed to be funny; rather, it honestly feels good to see them ridiculed. Besides George Bush, humor at their expense would most likely have been the ultimate insult for many of them. They wanted people to fear them even after they died. So I think that while remembering and learning from these dictators's regimes (again sans Bush) is of the utmost importance, let's laugh at their images and tear down the legacies they wanted to create.

The Call of the Toad is a good book. I generally don't like to write down full reviews or thoughts about novels I read, and I won't be in this case.

I want that dress really badly.

Memories of England

Notice: You may note a proliferation of tags in the sidebar. I am attempting to make these more specific, but stopped labeling posts on April 27th's "I in the Me" entry.

I remember going through the British Museum for the first time. I was young, still in elementary school, and I hated the place. I disliked dark and dreary England, and I hated the British Museum. My aunt Roseabelle had been kind enough to let us use her apartment for the duration of our stay, but the cramped quarters with the laundry mat a block away and little food were less than cheery. For one person the house was perfect, but for the three people staying there it was far from. I had a nightmare involving Colombo which terrified me, and my circadian rhythms had been all but destroyed by the time change.

The huge museum scared me. At first I was intrigued by the Egyptian collection, but as we passed by mummy after mummy the reality that these were actually dead bodies sunk in and made me uncomfortable. I felt as though these people and animals should be beneath the ground, not on gratuitous display. The value of the culture and artifacts present around me had not become apparent yet, and I wanted to go back to the natural history museum, which we had already visited twice. Thinking about it even now, I want to go back to that place with its towering fully grown T-Rex and other fossils in its lobby. It was that skeleton which taught me how impressive a T-Rex actually was. The only highlight was seeing the Rosetta stone, which made me quiver with excitement. I couldn't help myself and brushed my finger against it, knowing while I did that if everyone were to do that it would crumble into dust much sooner than it should. Apparently the same thought crossed the curator's mind, and the Stone is now in a glass case. I feel strangely lucky to have done what I did, though also ashamed.

The food in the museum was horrible, which still hasn't changed.

I felt a bit better in the gift shop, where everything was horribly expensive except for a small, black cat that now resides in the teen room. The gift shop is different now, as I surmised from the thirty seconds I spent in there on my last visit before it closed.

I kept throwing up on the plane long after my stomach was empty and when we got back was sick for two weeks. When I finally woke up it was in the middle of the night craving Dorritos, which my dad gave to me.

The second time I went to England I noted all the ways it was better than America; the extremely efficent public transportation throughout London, the proliferation of cheap bookshops and plays, the healthy snacks readily available as an alternative to chips, and the focus on green energy. That sentence is short and simplified in comparison to the cultural imbibation which took place. I got Jane, then several other people, hooked on these smoothies that are only available in Europe and were one of my few good memories from my first time in England. A LOT of things happened and a lot of things were done while we were there, but overall the experience was very positive. Except for that play which gave me nightmares.

The third time I went to England was right in the middle of a xenophobic scare. People were discussing "the Muslim problem". According the the journalists, the fact that the Muslim community preferred to keep themselves separate from mainstream society encouraged radical and anti-British thinking. It seems like half of London is Indian, so this reaction puzzled me. But, of course, much of LA is Latino, and there is rampant racism against them. The things which impressed me were there, but cracks in the image that had formed before showed. And, of course, if you listen to citizens and the newspaper, there is a large amount of discontent there. England always has been a country of freer speech; Mary would not have survived well even if Elizabeth had not been around. So, in part, this simply is the way of the culture, but it also was reflective of the realities in the country at the time. And England is not an intellectual haven. There are plenty of ribald and other such folks there. I also didn't particularly like the fashions at the time, which were very girly.

I still want to at least visit England for a prolonged period of time. I felt and feel more in tune with their culture than the one I grew up in. This isn't a general overview, more my writing about selected memories which are rising in my mind.

PS: This site any good?

Foreign

I want to scream and jump up and down due to stress and pain. Instead of doing that I'm eating cheese popcorn and watching Colbert, which is actually much more affective due to this conversation:

"I overheard your conversation with General Odinero..."-President Obama(yes, the actual president of the USA)
"Wait, you overheard? Are your spy satellites really that good?"-Colbert
"No, my ears are really that big."- Obama

I came out of this episode with increased respect for everyone.

One thing I noticed was that Colbert got a lot more applause than the general. Poor Colbert is obviously loosing his voice in Tuesday's episode, on which he interviewed an Arab-America
soldier who chose to go into combat after 9-11 because of his hatred of how Osama bin Laden affected the portrayal of Arabs in America.

My physical therapist did an act of kindness for me, which is the main reason I felt better for the rest of the day. I think she knew how much a difference she made.

Did Hugo Chavez mistake Coke Zero for the other kind? Or is he afraid that Coke causes spontaneous support for the US government and culture?

I wonder if people will have nostalgia for this era as a time when people could make a brand out of being an individual. It's a novel concept, yet we have not seen anyone use their fickle power in a constructive manner; it's all about the money, fame, and staying in the spotlight. I wonder if it would even be possible to market yourself as a brand without a certain type of personality? People will forget what truly took place in this era-people celebrated for excessive decadence, and heiresses dancing in clubs.

The guy who shot the guard at the holocaust museum was a WWII veteran and white supremacist? That is horribly disturbing to me. I can't imagine what it's like to feel these people hating and degrading your belief system and heritage for no good reason. This man would have hurt people I know and love, perhaps even hurt me.

I don't think I have ever felt discriminated against, except for the time an old lady shouted to our bus driver "Be careful, there's a terrorist on this bus!" before stepping off. In fact, it's usually the opposite-people tend to believe I'm smarter because I'm Indian or something. It honestly makes me feel very uncomfortable when things along this line come up, and I either launch into a rebuttal or sort of cringe and wait for an opportunity to escape. I've never felt like a minority, except when very flirtatious men call me exotic. Nobody ever treated me any differently in school. In fact, most of the time I get let in through security checkpoints without a second glance. I remember going into the Tower of London after shopping in a market square. I had two bags full of cheap books on my arms, but I don't think they even looked to confirm that was all there was in them. I just waltzed through security while my companion ahead of me was stopped. Also on that trip, one of my classmates, James, who is Korean, was mistaken for my father at the airport. That was priceless.

The only place which I have experience discrimination is Trinidad, but let's not talk about that here.

It makes me scared and hurt for my friends when something like this happens. It doesn't feel like the place I grew up in, even though I really grew up in a time when things were worse(and I'm still growing up). Stay away from my loved ones, hatred-mongers.

Calm Before the Storm

This article on Jezebel is horrific.

"Female infanticide in countries like China has widely been considered one of the causes behind the gender discrepancies in population growth. However, Baute points out a study by Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray that shows that while infanticide is certainly an issue, the majority of "excess female deaths" comes much later in life. As Anderson notes: "Previously, people had thought that they (the missing women) were all at the very early stages of life, prenatal or just after, so before four years old. But what we found is that the majority are actually later." Those "later" deaths can be attributed to a number of factors: poor access to health care for women, high suicide rates, HIV and AIDS, and dowry-related murders (which, Burke notes, are marked as "injuries.") "

Even worse are some of the comments:

"When we go back to visit India, and people meet my father and find out he has three daughters and no sons, they say, "I'm so sorry."

It's really insulting of course, but it is honestly how people think. In a culture like that, how can you not have a dwindling female population?

I have to say, it does affect me when I'm there. It's hard to hear people lament about how unlucky your parents are and not consider yourself devalued. I could see how someone who's lived it their whole lives would turn to suicide."

-momentsofabsurdity

"Is this really all the fault of men? My mom, who grew up in India, doesn't trust any men, since she grew up in an exceeding crappy home, in which her father didn't care for her and her brother was valued above her and her 4 sisters. But she puts a lot of blame on other women for perpetuating this kind of vicious, misogynistic behavior that keeps other women down. After all, it was her own mother and my aunts who taunted her for having 2 daughters and no sons, and for marrying my father, who isn't the best-looking guy ever, but is really forward-thinking, and more importantly was the only one to move his family to the US (all other sisters are living in traditional families in India). In my mom's family, there are also rumors that an aunt murdered her son's young wife (with the rest of the uncles, who were city bigwigs, covering it up) because the wife was poor and the son was a drunkard who couldn't support the family...."

-JeromeCabaret

In a different time and place, I could have been one of these women. In fact, I'm only three generations removed from this world.

My family's story is fascinating and caught up in the politics and threads of the world. My grandparents on my mom's side were indentured servants, and my mom was alive when Trinidad gained independence as a country after being a colony of Britain. World war II is much too close historically when I think about these things. I don't like to think about how recent it was. It's terrifying to reach through the sepia and black and white to bring that horror into the real light of day.

I was thinking about art history last night when lying in bed, about how, really, it shows how history created art. The problem is that studying something like that from books is something of an exercise in futility, because many times it is necessary to see the art in person to fully appreciate it. So much is lost in photographic translation, from the brushstrokes to the size to some sort of magic which I can't explain but makes the experience in person very different when looking at a masterpiece. This is true of sculpture, also-Winged Victory is breathtaking in person. I mean this literally, as remembering it is taking my breath away. That's why I decided to include it in this blog entry.

It's hard in museums, sometimes, to appreciate what is on display, with one masterpiece after another and time as a constraint. Only afterward, when context is created, do I sometimes appreciate what I've seen.

Of course, I believe the futile effort is definitely still worth undertaking.

With Chris gone, I also have to research film and (more) music independently. I'm hesitant to say when I will do this, but I will. Also, I should research photography. So much to learn, so little time.

Tomorrow marks the four week anniversary of Chris and I splitting up. At first I was surprised at how well things were going. Now I really wish they would go faster.

Quantum Physics final tomorrow! So sorry if this seems especially hastily written or edited.

Judge Not, Lest....

The second image is a scene from President Obama's visit to Merkel(credit to MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images) , the first persists from the beginning of the Iraq war to when I last visited England and was photographed by me(credit to me). I hope that when I visit England this time, it's gone. These are the signs that surrounded Parliment. It was jarring and disturbing to witness this protest first-hand, which has been there for a long time but goes nearly unreported in the USA. The uploaded picture is too small to see the signs saying "baby killers" and "Stop the genocide in Iraq" unless you click on it.

I am the strongest physically right now that I have ever been in my life. It's a good feeling to be able to do small things like carry groceries and bottles of juice home without relying on another person.

Astronomy, how I loved you and how I've neglected you. One day I will return, but for now I have to explore other subjects. Wouldn't that make a great nerdy metaphor? "Explore other subjects."

Is it just me, or has Livescience gone downhill?

The dream I woke up from(I know some of you may not enjoy these, and feel free to skip) was about moving to a video-gamish Albania, to the supposed house where Dracula still lived. A girl had survived for the entire day by staying silent, and it was my family's turn, for some reason. We tried to stay still and not create noise, but some of us were less disciplined than others. But even after all the ruckus, the bat had yet to show itself, though there was no daylight through the clouds to dust it if it did. Then for some reason it was Alaska and this was actually an appartment. Giles was there and we were trying to figure out a curse that had kidnapped Snuggles. We had four dogs and three cats, all besides Snuggles being left over from the previous owner, who stated that if she didn't know better the native bats would scare the bejesus out of her. Also, there was an aside about..turning docks into stables. I woke up before things could make more sense.

I am too tired to really do much tonight.

I live in fear of people to whom I'm just an expression of an opinion. I remember a friend of mine who is now openly bi asking me in high school what I thought about bi people. I said "Well, gay people are fine, but bi people are a little excessive". No mention of sexual fluidity and the fact that it is quite common, no mention of a scale, nothing. Just "bi people are a little excessive". Unfamiliar with what caused people to love in that way, I attributed it to wantoness, hedonism of spirit.

But some people don't come to understand how wrong judgments like this are. One characteristic can define one person to another. One attribute callously dashed off in a ten second judgment with no real understanding can lead to a lack of understanding, a lack of cause, a lack of acceptance.

I fear these people, the ones who say that gays choose, mental illnesses don't exist, and other wonderful things. They are so horribly close to touching me.

"Judge not, lest ye be judged..." But we're all judging each other and being judged. All of us hate it.

Writing this helps me remember that these people must be treated like people in themselves, and dealt with one at a time. That a life should not be lived in fear. These people will not win by being a great weight I carry along my back all the time that harries me constantly. I am not even in battle with them, because the air I breathe, the earth, the mind, space, are at least for now beyond their ultimate reach.

That was sort of cryptic, but it made me feel better!

"Yes, you like spatial disorientation, don't you?"

I wonder what the future would be like if instead of nations, we had organizations. Would these organizations be able to share the world in a heterogeneous population distribution, perhaps with capitals(headquarters) in certain areas? Or would they inevitably carve out a territory, creating new nations most likely inhibited from expanding by natural boundaries like in olden times? Keep in mind my definition of organization is coming from just reading articles on Al-Quaeda. I would imagine the culture surrounding the organization would obviously influence its choices while it was developing.

I am very happy that we are trying to rebuild ties with Russia and that the new stress-tests were released, although if Obama were Stalin he would be calming public fears while manipulating things behind the scenes. Of course, he's not Stalin and I don't believe all of these conspiracy theories. The poor guy has already aged from his short time in office.

Lavoisier died yesterday :(. But the German troops also officially ceased action in WWII.

So last night, despite taking the muscle relaxant, which is a sedative, I fell asleep around 2:00am and woke up at 7:00am. I stayed in bed until around 7:50am, at which point I got up and shuffled down to the lab meeting. Many of the talks were interesting to listen to, although during a couple of them I wandered off into space. Ilya got an award which is really cool and everybody was happy for him. Anyways, after almost everybody was distracted during the last talk lunch break was announced, after which we would meet again at 2:00pm. At first I strolled off on my own, met Dr. Kleinfeld on the elevator and proceeded to give him the rundown on my status in 30 seconds. I was planning on being anti-social, but when I looked back I saw Andrew, Jeff, and Ilya strolling behind me and decided to join them. I'm glad I did, I had a really nice time and was invited to hang out with the grad students more often. Not to give the impression that the grad students are like a club and this was means I'm a cool kid, just that us undergrads usually hang out in one room and the grads hang out in another. Anyways, we all come back at 2:00pm and Dr. Kleinfeld is not there. Ilya comes back from class and Dr. Kleinfeld is still not there. We start playing Jamoraquai and Jazz in the lab and Dr Kleinfeld is MIA. I've run out of things to do, the computer screen is hurting my eyes and Dr. Kleinfeld has not arrived. I joke about watching a movie and Dr. Kleinfeld is still absent, though by this point we had learned he was on a conference call. Ilya busted out Netflix and put on "The Matrix: Reloaded" . He then had a great time attempting to get the movie to show on his 30'' screen. We ended up watching it on his laptop, at which point he realized that it's actually "The Matrix: Revolutions" he hasn't seen. We got to the part where people dress in leather and talk like stoners(aka I don't remember right now...right, the Oracle was just about to die via Agent Smith) then, after checking back, realize the lab meeting has been going on without us. After the last presentation finished it was 6:00pm and I went home to do math and watch "Bones". Brennan's wanting a baby is completely inconsistent, people! Also, I had to deal with some unexpected banking problems which got resolved.

I hope you had a good day!

Doctors are Fun! End: Review, 2nd Castle Episode

From Getty Images

So today I awoke from bed, showered, dressed, and went to the doctor's appointment I mentioned yesterday. I thought that it would only take an hour in my silly, silly brain. Oh Marisa, it has been too long since you've been to a general practitioner. Even though I pre-filled out the paperwork and this was a small clinic, it took about forty-five minutes for me to be seen. In the mean time I browsed through magazines of various shape and informativeness. I attempted to give the New Yorker a chance even though it has always managed to annoy me in some way, but after the first sentence of extremely pretentious writing I put the magazine down and fumed temporarily for all the unemployed authors in the country. Then I tried the Atlantic, which had an interesting article on the fact that we need to mine or export the minerals in environmentally-friendly electronics, etc from somewhere, and, while in the United States there are many environmental regulations, in places like China where it is cheaper to obtain them from there are not. The details were new although the premise was not, as it probably isn't to anyone else reading this. I'm hoping the next phase of environmentalism focuses on ecologically friendly usage of our natural resources, which has taken a backseat for the moment. The problem was that the article focused on Neodymium, which has large usage outside of "environmentally friendly products". For those who don't know, Neodymium is used to create the strongest magnets which have many industrial and technological applications. I used to be really into magnets for a little while. Don't ask.

After finding out that I weigh 78 pounds and am still five feet tall, which took away some of my guilt for eating candy with my morning chocolate milk(Breakfast. I ate candy for breakfast.) two days in a row, I got to browse through National Geographic for a while. This magazine incorrectly identified mosquito fish as environmentally friendly which they are not since they are aggressive and breed rapidly. I started reading an article on reducing energy usage and thought about my own environmental footprint. Naturally, I try and make this as low as possible: all the bulbs in regular use in my house are CFLs(These contain mercury, in case you didn't know. Fun fact. Recycle, don't throw them out!), I've been taking shorter showers, don't run the dishwasher without a full load, etc. Basically, the worst thing I do is run my space heater because my feet are always cold and the heater is the only thing which helps them. My parents brought out the heater that kept me warm when I was a baby one winter when I was wearing a sweater and socks but still shivering. I've been hooked on them ever since, but my electricity bill still dropped $20 last month, so I must be doing something right. Anyways, the doctor was a nice man who prescribed me a muscle relaxant to help increase the effectiveness of the physical therapy.

I walked to Ralph's and bought some food and a bunch of soup, some of which I later discovered has meat in it. Then I walked home and, after reading Gawker for ten minutes, re-started work on the Rat Brain project, which is what I did until 5:00pm. My head still hurts from doing this. Went to UCSD and then to my second doctor's appointment, the one whom I see regularly. He gave me free samples so that I wouldn't have to go to the pharmacy, because he is AWESOME. Note that if I had to pay every time I got my medicine it would be $40 each time.
Now I am home and not working on the Rat Brain until tomorrow because if I do right now my head will explode all over my desk.

Watch this:


Today's Wiki anniversaries: Australia was discovered and Hair premiered today.

I forgot that I had watched the second episode of "Castle" recently. This time the writing was much better, with the exception of one over-drawn monologue by the character Castle himself. The show is pulpy, so if you like that genre, I would definitely take a look. So far, nothing besides that and Nathan Fillian stand out about the show, but I'm rooting for it to develop into something above average. I'm about to watch episode three. The song from the first one is still stuck in my head, which apparently is "So What" by Pink.

Friends Send Me Links

Anthony sent me this Youtube video:



It's a German comedian's history of the USA and terrorism. Anthony expressed that a lot of the German public shares his sentiments. I've only watched the first video out of the series of five. The problem is that the criticisms the comedian makes are valid, but it hurts to hear them come from an outside source who may genuinely stereotype Americans unwittingly. I have many rants about the perceptions of Americans abroad. Ask me sometime.

The Enright house is playing in Los Angeles on Friday. If you're a fan of good Indie music you might want to consider reviewing their page.

I am attempting to use less colloquialisms in this blog because of a fear that they could influence my formal writing style.