Category Archives: Science

Chew Your Food

Remember how your parents or other adults would admonish you as a child? Close your mouth when you eat. Chew your food!

How many of us grew up with an evening ritual of sitting down together, at one table, for a meal? In my family, this was a daily event. Dinner (or supper) typically happened at 5:30 to 6:00. My father was not fond of later dinners. Each of us had specific seats. Being a schoolteacher in the 60s and 70s, we as a family of six ate out only on special occasions. And a trip to Burger King, McDonalds, or Carrolls (remember them?) was a special outing. I grew up in the kitchen. My mother was comfortable allowing us to experiment and make messes. I learned to enjoy cooking, though as years pass I’ve moved away from it.

Then these corporations began metastasizing, and we became a nation of gobblers on the run. Many families stopped having a regular meal together. Women worked more outside the home at jobs, so packaged food became more popular. So many of us ate without tasting, gulping food in minutes flat…and getting indigestion.

There is a social movement afoot that attempts to reverse this trend. It’s known as the Slow Food movement. A number of countries also have organized around this, such as Germany, Italy (of course!), and the U.S.. The U.S. site states, Recognizing that the enjoyment of wholesome food is essential to the pursuit of happiness, Slow Food U.S.A. is an educational organization dedicated to stewardship of the land and ecologically sound food production; to the revival of the kitchen and the table as centers of pleasure, culture, and community; to the invigoration and proliferation of regional, seasonal culinary traditions; and to living a slower and more harmonious rhythm of life.

This week, take time to learn about the Slow Food movement.

Experiment with culinary traditions in your family or locale, or new ones you’d like to try.
Do a little research on organic food production, and how people are learning to manage the land for the benefit of all.
Compare the cost/benefit (not just financial) of taking time to cook and prepare things from fresh ingredients in relation to using fast food, prepackaged items, or eating out.
Think back to your upbringing and family traditions. Write about what food meant to your family, the role it plays now.
Are you a party-thrower? Do you go all-out, have caterers? Or do you prefer potlucks? Have a potluck with a few friends.
When you cook, slow down and experience the texture and color of the ingredients and utensils. Browse some recipes. Set the table nicely. Eat at a leisurely pace, allowing your tastebuds to fully connect with the essences of the food.

Whatever you explore, be sure to write about your findings, thoughts, feelings, in any form–a story, report, poem, list. It’s all good.

Politics Aside

The excerpt below is sad news. My mother is recovering from breast cancer. I say “recovering” because, as far as I know, until five years have passed without recurrence, a woman is not “in the clear.” January 2005 will be the second anniversary of her surgery. I myself was confronted with cysts and biopsies that same month and year. It briefly brought me nose to nose with my mortality. I do wish Elizabeth Edwards all the best as she pours her energies into fighting this.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of John Edwards, the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, received a diagnosis of breast cancer on the day his running mate, Senator John Kerry, conceded the election, a spokesman announced Thursday.

— This entry was posted in Science on Friday, November 5, 2004 by Kathryn.

It’s A Small World

Oh, I know that’s trite. Trite, but true.

I belong to an Internet community called Orkut. When I learned we were moving to this area, I joined some communities, such as the South Bay Area community, and sent a message, a call for information. I was open to whatever advice people wanted to give a newbie. Well, a very nice man named George was among those responding, and I liked his warmth. I read his profile and thought, “This is a neat person!” So I extended an invitation to become friends, which he accepted. Granted, he hardly knows me, but in these communities the concept of friend is defined loosely.

Anyhow, during the two visits I’ve had with Tish, she has spoken highly — nay, raved — about her friend George. He is so cool that he danced with her to Leonard Cohen. (I don’t know about you, but most men in my life have demurred at any suggestion of dancing, so any man who will boogie is wonderful indeed.)

Her enthusiasm about George sparked my curiosity, so I went to his blog. And wouldn’t you know, it’s the very same George! (Insert a quote from the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Hugo the Abominable Snowman finds Bugs and says “I will love him and hug him and pet him and squeeze him and I will call him George.)

A brief perusal of George’s blog provided some advice on how Movies are cheaper than therapy or pills. Below is an excerpt of his take on a movie that’s been hot in my little circle.

A. and I did get to see “What the Bleep Do We Know,” which annoyed the shit out of me. (Repetition of the phrase “quantum physics” by a slew of experts and special effects to describe peptides’ and hormones’ effects on humans doesn’t help. Biting the pacing of “The Matrix,” railing against addiction/overprescription of anti-anxiety/SSRI drugs and using a leaden overlay of story doesn’t help. Use of a Magic Negro with a basketball to explain superpositioning and a third-eye-touching shaman to explain how Native Americans learned how to see Columbus’ ships really, really, really doesn’t help.

Thank you, George. You’ve saved me some time. I owe you!

One Thing Leads To Another

Siona started it, and I’m glad she did. What I’m about to post is lots of food for thought, and since I’ve not digested it all, I only present the material.

Siona has been thinking and writing about metaphors and how integrated they are in language, how they shape our worldview and actions.

In their later work, the authors [George Lakoff, Mark Johnson] make the case that it’s our essential embodiedness that make abstract concepts rely so heavily on metaphor. We can only use our experience, the fact that we’re bipedal, forward-moving, sighted creatures, to communicate; indeed, our experience is obviously primary to (rational) thought, and so it stands to reason that the latter would be so strongly influenced by the former.

–posted Friday, September 24

I was thinking today about my earlier ramblings on metaphor. What if I’d fallen for Lakoff and Johnson’s theory too readily? If someone says “I’m in a bad state,” or “He’s defending his position” or “That new theory reshaped my views,” why wouldn’t we take their statement literally? The debater might well be defending a very real, and very important, territory: rather than being a certain spot, though, the region he’s defending is his world, his entire picture of reality. The person who is in a bad state is, literally, in a bad state: her environment is disintegrating, the air she’s breathing is polluted, her city is awash in poverty and her government corrupt. Someone whose belief system was altered may “see things differently” in a very real, and very physical sense.

–posted Sunday, September 26

Laura asked, after reading my last entry, whether the difference between literal and metaphorical language was that important. My initial reaction was that it is: it’s important to be aware of how the language we use shapes our thoughts. It’s important to be aware of the the metaphors that affect our literal world. What I didn’t realize was how recognized an issue this was, and what a hot topic it’s been recently.

It is for this reason that George Lakoff (who’s more local than I’d thought) has become such a politically engaged character. I ran across an article that ran in the Berkeley news about a year ago; in it, Lakoff talks about the difference between conservative and progressive language use, and the role that he has taken on personally in bolstering the efforts of the latter.

It’s a fascinating interview. Lakoff’s discussion of framing was especially frightening.

The same paper contains some more recent articles as well; in them, Lakoff talks about the power of phrases such as “the war on terror” (he points out that terror is a state of mind, which is internal to a person; thus “‘the war on terror’ is not about stopping from being afraid, it’s about making you afraid”) and “tax relief” (which implies that taxes are an affliction rather than a responsibility or a right). Most of these can be found at the Rockridge Institute site. It”s an impressive resource, and an impressive analysis of the power of speech and phrasing in this year’s election, and in politics in general.

–posted Monday, September 27

If you visit the links provided, you will find links in her posts to the sources she mentions reading. Siona’s thoughts have generated much commentary. One of them, titled In Defense of Terror also sparked comments. [Edit 9/29: it was not written in response to, but concurrently. Ah, synchronicity.] I posted it here in the extended entry because the statements prickle, make me uncomfortable, encourage (demand?) me to question my assumptions, and that’s important. We need to remain aware. Obviously I’m restating other peoples’ thoughts without generating my own; with regard to this blog, I try to aim for being a conduit of information (admittedly not an unbiased one, because being human precludes objectivity most of the time). So if these words incite a reponse, feel free to leave a comment, but I won’t attempt to interpret further the authors’ intent. I put this here to catalyze your brain and mine.
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