10 Things to Do This Christmas

1. Skip the shopping
2. Donate to causes important to you loved ones rather than buying another sweater
3. Remember the Peace and Joy
4. Don't get pulled into the hassles and exasperation
5. Have an actual conversation with one of your relatives, find out what they're thinking about, what they're excited about right now
6. Go ahead and drink some eggnog
7. Call an old friend, even if you haven't been in touch for a while
8. Walk the dog, stretch a little
9. Feel good, not guilty, about loafing and wasting a bit of time
10. Eat a good clementine and really taste it
    

In Today's NY Times Pointing out one more reason why Obama is the Guy

December 18, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

The Obama-Clinton Issue

By DAVID BROOKS

Hillary Clinton has been a much better senator than Barack Obama. She has been a serious, substantive lawmaker who has worked effectively across party lines. Obama has some accomplishments under his belt, but many of his colleagues believe that he has not bothered to master the intricacies of legislation or the maze of Senate rules. He talks about independence, but he has never quite bucked liberal orthodoxy or party discipline.

If Clinton were running against Obama for Senate, it would be easy to choose between them.

But they are running for president, and the presidency requires a different set of qualities. Presidents are buffeted by sycophancy, criticism and betrayal. They must improvise amid a thousand fluid crises. They’re isolated and also exposed, puffed up on the outside and hollowed out within. With the presidency, character and self-knowledge matter more than even experience. There are reasons to think that, among Democrats, Obama is better prepared for this madness.

Many of the best presidents in U.S. history had their character forged before they entered politics and carried to it a degree of self-possession and tranquillity that was impervious to the Sturm und Drang of White House life.

Obama is an inner-directed man in a profession filled with insecure outer-directed ones. He was forged by the process of discovering his own identity from the scattered facts of his childhood, a process that is described in finely observed detail in “Dreams From My Father.” Once he completed that process, he has been astonishingly constant.

Like most of the rival campaigns, I’ve been poring over press clippings from Obama’s past, looking for inconsistencies and flip-flops. There are virtually none. The unity speech he gives on the stump today is essentially the same speech that he gave at the Democratic convention in 2004, and it’s the same sort of speech he gave to Illinois legislators and Harvard Law students in the decades before that. He has a core, and was able to maintain his equipoise, for example, even as his campaign stagnated through the summer and fall.

Moreover, he has a worldview that precedes political positions. Some Americans (Republican or Democrat) believe that the country’s future can only be shaped through a remorseless civil war between the children of light and the children of darkness. Though Tom DeLay couldn’t deliver much for Republicans and Nancy Pelosi, so far, hasn’t been able to deliver much for Democrats, these warriors believe that what’s needed is more partisanship, more toughness and eventual conquest for their side.

But Obama does not ratchet up hostilities; he restrains them. He does not lash out at perceived enemies, but is aloof from them. In the course of this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual.

Obama did not respond to his fatherlessness or his racial predicament with anger and rage, but as questions for investigation, conversation and synthesis. He approaches politics the same way. In her outstanding New Yorker profile, Larissa MacFarquhar notes that Obama does not perceive politics as a series of battles but as a series of systemic problems to be addressed. He pursues liberal ends in gradualist, temperamentally conservative ways.

Obama also has powers of observation that may mitigate his own inexperience and the isolating pressures of the White House. In his famous essay, “Political Judgment,” Isaiah Berlin writes that wise leaders don’t think abstractly. They use powers of close observation to integrate the vast shifting amalgam of data that constitute their own particular situation — their own and no other.

Obama demonstrated those powers in “Dreams From My Father” and still reveals glimpses of the ability to step outside his own ego and look at reality in uninhibited and honest ways. He still retains the capacity, also rare in presidents, of being able to sympathize with and grasp the motivations of his rivals. Even in his political memoir, “The Audacity of Hope,” he astutely observes that candidates are driven less by the desire for victory than by the raw fear of loss and humiliation.

What Bill Clinton said on “The Charlie Rose Show” is right: picking Obama is a roll of the dice. Sometimes he seems more concerned with process than results. But for Democrats, there’s a roll of the dice either way. The presidency is a bacterium. It finds the open wounds in the people who hold it. It infects them, and the resulting scandals infect the presidency and the country. The person with the fewest wounds usually does best in the White House, and is best for the country.

College for Free

Really one of the coolest things on the web has to be MIT Open Courseware. These are actual course outlines, lecture notes and even exams from MIT courses, and they're all for free. You can get amazing-sounding classes like:

Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of Global Energy
Managing the Innovation Process
Modern Poetry

The first one sounds exactly like something I would love to work through. Let's see if I actually do. I'll keep you updated.

Net-Net

In a conversation with Bonnie today, she told me her company's worst biz-glish offender is "Net-Net". I'd never even heard of that before. It means, "and the result was...."

Example: We implemented X, Y and Z. Net-net: we signed the client.

Low-hanging Fruit

I was at a day-long meeting today, sharing best practices across the company, which is great. I heard the phrase "low-hanging fruit" at least twice an hour.

What's your favorite over-used biz-glish?

Crackberry addiction

Has it gone too far when I'm making blog posts from the jungle via Blackberry? I'm sort of tickled and sort of embarrassed.

Jungle eats

Ok, I'm not quite in the wilds yet. Dad & I are in Manaus waiting to get picked up to go by boat to our jungle lodge for the rest of the week. So, in our very non-exotic hotel in .anaus, I had Piranha soup for breakfast! It is a spicey fish soup with lots of green onion that you squeeze a good bit of lime into.
Piranha, by the way, is a Tupi-Guarani word that means fierce fish.

Only in Japan

I was addicted to Tetris in college. This was found by Maria, my college roommate who watched me waste many hours playing it.

Meet and Greet around the world

From the International Herald Tribune, so apt and so funny

Tyler Brûlé : The best and worst in meeting venues

By Tyler Brûlé

Friday, October 12, 2007

If you live in the northern hemisphere October means autumn, if you're south of the Equator you're in early spring and if you reside in that special place called "medialand" it means the season of the list. At this very moment on editorial floors stretching from Taipei (my current location) to Melbourne across to Santiago and back up to Vienna, writers are busy compiling their year-end lists for December and January issues.

Not to be outdone, I've been working on a list of my own. But instead of making you buy this paper sometime between Christmas and New Year's, I'm going to save you the suspense and give you my ranking of the world's most and least hospitable places to conduct business meetings. The following criteria were gathered over the course of the past two months while on assignments in Asia, Europe and North America:

1. Venue. The meeting had to be held in the client's place of business.

2. Friendliness of reception staff. Points were deducted for offices that had laid off their receptionist in favor of a staff list stuck to the wall and a lonesome looking phone.

3. Security procedures. Points were deducted for silly measures like having your photo taken.

4. Waiting time from the moment the receiver was replaced to the time someone came out to greet guests.

5. Waiting time from being placed in holding room until the moment the host materialized.

6. Greetings. Points deducted for not having a business card. Further points deducted for avoiding eye contact, fishy handshakes and untucked shirts.

7. Coffee, tea or? Extra points for additional catering. Points deducted for not offering anything. Automatic failure for showing up with your own beverage but not offering anything to your guests.

8. Pacing of meeting. Automatic failure for starting the meeting with: "Just so you know, I'm a little pressed for time so I'm going to have to be out of here in less than 20."

9. Focus and engagement. Extra points for putting your mobile phone on silent and placing it face down and disqualification for taking a call in the middle of a presentation.

10. Farewells. Full marks for seeing a guest all the way to the exit and marks deducted for leaving them to get lost in a maze of partitions and desks.

Over the past few weeks I've visited the following countries: France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Britain, Denmark, Sweden, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Finland, Singapore, Spain, Belgium and now Taiwan. While you'd think there'd be a global corporate standard for receiving and hosting guests, the following reveals that a few countries need to enroll in finishing school. Here's how five of the 16 fared.

GERMANY German receptionists tend to be efficient and to the point. Hosts usually show up promptly and security is kept to a minimum, though some banks have started to behave like American companies with their security measures. Business cards are the norm rather than the exception and coffee, two types of water and apple juice tend to feature at the center of the table. In wealthier companies there might be chocolates too. Mobile devices are kept at a distance and ignored. The host will usually escort you to the lift and offer a firm handshake goodbye. Score: 9/10

SWEDEN Blame it on efficiency or cost cutting but many Swedish firms have resorted to the "call me on my mobile phone as you enter reception and I'll come down and get you" school of meeting and greeting. Sometimes a meeting that was supposed to be attended by three will only feature one person because one is off sick with a cold and another is home looking after a child with the flu. Meetings start on time and there's always fizzy Ramlösa on the table. Mobile devices are peered at occasionally. Meeting rooms are always well equipped with extension cords and full wireless and chairs tend to be ergonomic. The host will show you to reception and will often ensure your transport is sorted. Score: 6.5/10

UNITED STATES Receptionists increasingly seem to be off-brand and might be better suited to running their own nail bars than greeting visitors. Security measures are too heavy-handed - passports are required for crossing borders, not riding in elevators. It's become industry standard to make guests wait before sending an assistant out to fetch them and an all-too-common practice to make them sit while the host paces around the office on the phone. Guests are seldom offered drinks but the host(s) usually show up with towering coffee thermoses or water bottles that indicate they know something about a looming drought that you don't. Meetings are prefaced with odd sayings like "I'm going to have to jet in about five minutes but my colleagues will fill me in after" or "I'm glad you reached out today and came to see us." Blackberries will be consulted throughout the session and quite often the visitor will have to repeat main points several times. Guests leave meeting rooms parched and bewildered. Score: 4/10.

JAPAN Hosts are occasionally waiting in reception already and there's always a juggling act of dealing with shuffling umbrellas and bags while pulling out business cards. Meetings occur in rooms that are uniformly gray on gray on gray and tea (hot or cold) or coffee (hot or cold) will be brought in by a young girl teetering on Vuitton heels while balancing her tray of beverages. If there are four to six hosts, one will usually nod off during the presentation but this will be compensated for by colleagues who will make all kinds of grunts and gasps. You won't be quite sure when the meeting has ended, but eventually everyone will put hands on thighs, bow and visitors will be escorted to reception and hosts will bow till the visitor is out sight. Score: 7/10

ITALY Reception is often a man's job and the mood can range from personable to not particularly interested. Waiting times in Italy get longer the further south you go but are never as bad as you might expect. A good coffee is always a feature, more so than even water. Mobile phone calls will be taken and callers will be told off accordingly for ringing during a meeting, and visitors shouldn't count on meeting rooms featuring a broadband cable let alone Wi-Fi. Guests will be sent off with much animation and excitement. Score: 7/10.

If I were to draw up another list, it would be for business opportunities in 2008, and a global chain of workplace etiquette schools would top the ranking. My first campuses would be in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Free Rice

So here's a website, where you can do good for yourself (improving your vocabulary) and good for others (donating rice.) Check it out, it's fun.

Free Rice

Ma and Wally

My godson and his great-grandmother. So cute.

The Rhubarb Trilogy - Jam

The things you can find on YouTube! How to make rhubarb jam, every step including picking it in the garden. I found this after watching the clip above.

Pick your candidate

If you haven't seen this yet, it's a short quiz on your political beliefs, which gives results of which political candidate you most closely agree with. Select a Candidate 2008

Peace Prize

I have to say I'm disappointed with the choice of Al Gore for the Nobel Peace Prize. I've spent my career in the areas of environment and alternative energy, so a number of people approached me on Friday morning, smiling, to talk about it. Yes, it brings further attention to issues of the environment, which is good. But Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth is misleading and emotive. He lacks scientific rigor and just goes for the heart-strings. I'm not a big fan.

I was pleased to see that they tempered it by sharing the prize with the UN's IIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the whole thing strikes me as political and Hollywood.

Duck Fat

I have a feeling this new job is going to keep me running. On the morning of my 3rd day, Wednesday, my alarm was set for 4 o'clock so I could make a 6:30 flight to Los Angeles, where I met a colleague from the Washington, a major client and a whole scad of other people. That said, I haven't had a chance to give you any edifying posts until now. This one will only be useful to those of you in/near Chicago, but it's worth it.

Saturday, George and I went to Hot Doug's (The Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium) for lunch. It's a sausage/hot dog joint in the middle of industrial/commercial nowhere on the NW side of the city. You drive along these empty streets until you see a place with a line out the door and around the corner. Now I had heard great reviews of their homemade specialty sausages and the Fri/Sat specialty of Duck Fat French Fries, but I had no idea I'd be spending 40 minutes in line waiting for them. It was worth it. We waited in line, mostly with folks who looked like hip Bucktowners getting over their hangovers. We were the only ones with combed hair and un-ironic shirts. We got recommendations from the 20-something bleach-blond guy in skinny jeans in line behind us, and ordered from the list of daily specials. Our favorite was the Saucisse de Toulouse with carmelized onions and brie.

Cooking for One

I recently picked up a book called, "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone." There's great freedom in cooking for yourself - you have no one to please, you don't have to sit at the table, use a fork or turn on the stove.

When I'm alone I eat one of the following:

• Pasta, with a sauce made from what's in the cupboard or freezer
• Bread and cheese
• A huge pan of roasted asparagus

One time I had some hard boiled eggs on hand, so I spent the entire evening making empanadas to use them up. (I'm sure there's an easier way.)

So, what do you eat/cook when no one else is looking?

Politics, Religion & Theater

Mom and I saw a very interesting play on Sunday, Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl at the Goodman Theater. It presents plays within the play, showing the towns, actors and politics around putting on Passion plays in Elizabethan England, early Nazi Germany and post-Vietnam US.

Elizabeth was anti-Catholic, but mostly just trying to get both politics and religion under her control. In Nazi Germany, Hitler visits the passion play in Ober Ammergau, and congratulates the town for its emphasis in attributing blame for Jesus' death on the Jews rather than the Romans. In post-Vietnam US, the actor playing Pontius Pilate wonders why Pilate doesn't take responsibility, and Ronald Reagan says he, like the play, will bring hope to the country.

How much of politics is theater? How is the theater used for political ends? How is religion used in the discourse of politics, now and through the ages? How does politics influence religion, in a time when pulpits have been used to endorse candidates? Is there a separation between religion and theater in the Passion Play?

What does the most recent famous version, Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson, say about our time? He has been accused of anti-semitism, and indeed his portrayal of Pilate and the Jewish crowd are similar to the one portrayed in Nazi Germany. He emphasizes blood, gore, death and suffering, not resurrection, hope and rebirth.

I'm reading a book review in last weekend's WSJ of The Stillborn God by Mark Lilla. The book explores the history of political theology, noting that Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was the first one to try to separate politics and religion. In the 1960's books were being written predicting the end of religion altogether, but the last quarter of the 20th century to the present has seen religion take a major role in politics in Iran's Revolution, the Christian right in the US, and the Hindu nationalist BJP party in India, to name just a few.

Salade Nicoise

Here is a beautiful blog entry with pictures and recipe for a Salade Nicoise. It really is the perfect meal, combining so many of my favorite things - green beans, tuna, tomatoes, potatoes, and olives. (Admittedly, sometimes I skip the hard-boiled egg.)

George made a confession a while ago, that he had thought for many years that Nicoise was a misspelling of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus where he grew up. So, he never tried it because, of course, he already knew what a salad from Nicosia would taste like.

Terracotta Warriors in London

For any of you who have not been to China, but might be going to London any time soon, be sure to go to the British Museum, where the largest ever exhibition of the terracotta figures outside of China will be held until April 6.

I visited China in the summer of 2000 with my mother. It included a few days in Xian, where the army was discovered. When the figures are first unearthed, they are quite vividly colored, but the paint quickly fades with exposure to the air. They are leaving some portions of the army unexcavated, in the hopes there will be better technology/methods to preserve that color in the future.

In Tribute to the Late Great...

Pavarotti singing Ave Maria by Schubert. Enjoy!

Slav Clarification, More Dubrovnik & Zagreb

My good friend Ron, who knows much about many things, including Russia, Slavs and European history, left a comment that I'll reproduce here. In my last post, I'd been blathering on about northern and southern Slavs as if I knew something about the subject. (Thank you, Ron, for educating me.)

Russians btw are Eastern Slavs, with the Belorussians and Ukrainians while the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks are Western Slavs.

Here are a few more Dubrovnik pics. Also, here are some pictures of Zagreb, which I'll admit that I knew zero about, but figured it would be very communist looking. We spent just 1/2 a day there, between a flight from Dubrovnik and a train to Ljubljana (of which, more soon.) What I, unfortunately, do not have pictures of are the wonderful fruit & veg market in Zagreb in a central square and the lanes and lanes filled with outside tables of coffee shops.

A view from the walls of Dubrovnik to a fortress protecting the western approach.

A view of Dubrovnik's harbor from the walls.

A famous Zagreb church with (questionable) roof tiles from the 1890s depicting the crest of the city.

The Zagreb cathedral.

Islands off Dubrovnik

Due to popular demand, pictures as well as observations on culture and cuisine.

Culture: I certainly won't pretend to be an expert, but it was interesting to hear George say, multiple times, It's like Greece in some ways and not in others. Geographically and culturally, Croatia is between Greece and Italy, though of course the language and people are Slavic. (I guess when I think of Slavs, I think of Poles, Russians, the northern Slavs, whereas Croatians, obviously, are southern Slavs.) Whenever there was traditional Croatian music being played, it sounded Greek to George, except for the language.

I don't think I can fairly comment on the people, given that we were in the most touristy place at the height of the season. Service and friendliness were in line with what you'd expect. It seemed to me "post-Communist." The attitude was, I'm doing my job, but I'm not getting paid to smile at you. That said, certainly noone was rude or unpleasant, just very busy.

The food tended more to the Italian - grappa, amazing ice-cream, risottos, pasta, espresso. Mostly, though, there were plenty of Mediterranean staples, like fish, tomatoes, salad and wine.

Below are pics from the day we took a boat to 3 islands off Dubrovnik. I will post more pictures, including Zagreb and Slovenia in the coming days.

Here's a view into a walled garden on an island about 30 minutes by boat from Dubrovnik. George got the picture by climbing up some stairs across the road. Notice the wonderful grape arbor.

Here is the harbor of that same island. This was our view as we had an afternoon espresso.

An artsy shot for you - burnt-down candles in a monastery church on the island of Lapad.

A view of the water and harbor from that same monastery on Lapad. The water was refreshingly chilly given that the air temp was in the 90s.

I couldn't help myself - another artsy shot. The monastery was under renovation and there were stacks of copper pipe lying on the ground under some low palms.

Dubrovnik

Here is the main square in Dubrovnik on a Saturday afternoon.


Much to George's dismay, many of the so-called streets in Dubrovnik resembled nothing so much as extended stairways. Here he is with his coffee in a cafe/stairway.

The beautiful cloisters at a monastery in Dubrovnik, which also housed the 3rd oldest pharmacy open to the public in Europe (which now looks much like a Vienna drawing room.)
Check out the nice capital here with the dogs.

My favorite picture of George and me from this trip, also in the monastery cloister.

The street our rooms were on. Those are a lot of stairs after a long day of sight-seeing.

Vacation!!

And so, I'm off for 10 days to Croatia and Slovenia. I already know that Slovenia is beautiful having visited it in 1994 (backpacking after college,) and I understand that Croatia is magnificent. You can be thinking of me gazing at the blue Adriatic.

I'll let you know....

Killer Whales

This is spectacular. Here are pictures of a superpod of orcas off the coast of Washington photographed in July.

Edith Piaf

I saw the movie La Vie en Rose last night, a biopic of Edith Piaf. Here's one of my favorite songs by her.

How to

I like #6.

Top 10 "How to" Searches in the U.S (4 weeks ending 7/21/07)
1. How to tie a tie
2. How to have sex
3. How to kiss
4. How to lose weight
5. How to write a resume
6. How to levitate
7. How to draw
8. How to get pregnant
9. How to make out
10. How to make a video

What does it mean to be Black in America?

Pundits are talking about Barack Obama not being Black. What does it mean to be black? As I think about this and read what other's have to say, it seems in the face of Obama, people are quickly readjusting their definitions. Being African-American is not enough, you have to be descended from West African slaves brought to the US. Are the pundits collectively redefining because Obama breaks the boundaries, including the assumed ones of class and power? For example, here is a quote from an article proclaiming that Obama is not black:

Not descended from West African slaves brought to America, he steps into the benefits of black progress (like Harvard Law School) without having borne any of the burden...
- Deborah Dickerson, Salon.com, Jan 22, 2007

Is Black really a class issue instead of a descent issue? Notice that Deborah Dickerson does not point out the reversal of Jim Crowe laws, which pertains to all African Americans, as evidence of black progress, but refers instead to Harvard Law School, which applies to a miniscule minority of Americans of any color. Although she does not say so explicitly, she's talking about Blackness as a Class issue. Yes, Class, which is something Americans don't like to talk about.

These questions come to me in vivid relief as I think about my brother and how he compares with Barack Obama. For those of you who don't know my family well, my brother, who sees himself as black, was adopted as an infant by my white parents.

Similarities between my brother and Obama:

• Bi-racial, half African descent, half European
• Raised by white family, at times overseas
• Both will be followed by security guards when they walk into a store
• Both will be pulled over more often than I will
  

The differences between my brother and Obama:

• Obama is white collar and has political power, my brother is blue collar and does not have political power
  

Other than the fact that pundits won't get on TV talking about my brother, on paper, my brother and Obama are alike in background except for their chosen career paths and subsequent rise in the socio-economic structure.

So, give me your thoughts - What is Black? Race? Ethnicity? Family history? Class? Some intersection of these?

I need advice!!!

Please, please let me know what you think I should do.

I have an idea for a blog entry that compares and contrasts my brother to a major political figure. My thoughts are on race, class, and educational and economic achievement.

Is this exploitative to use my brother as a pawn for my political point of view?

Seize the Day - the Bell May Toll for You

Yesterday while I was on my way to work the bus passed an apartment building with yellow police tape around it. I glanced out of the window and saw a heavy body bag being put onto a gurney. My heart thudded. Someone right here died, not long ago, in some bad or mysterious way. What was I doing at the time, living life normally, casually, taking life for granted at the time when someone was in fear?

Later in the day, I checked the website of the Chicago Tribune and found out that a 46 year old man who had lived in a studio apartment for 10 years fell, or was pushed from his 10th story window, and was found dead at about 6 a.m.

My point in writing this is not to be morbid. Perhaps my point is trite: Carpe Diem. I found that yesterday was one of the most productive days I've had at work in ages. I was busy, happy, engaged. And in the back of my mind was this awareness of death, of the finite time we have on this plane. Even at that, our time may be much shorter than we think. So, live! Find the work that you are meant to do, whether that is teaching or cooking or parenting or being the best account manager you can possibly be.

You know you're in Hyde Park when....

So, I was walking down the street and noticed a small, bright yellow Mazda parked nearby. It had a University of Chicago license plate holder and a bumper sticker that said, (I kid you not):

My other vehicle is the Mahayana.

(Am I just as nerdy, because I get it?)

Just when you thought news of our war effort couldn't get any worse....

Check out this article - soldiers who have returned from Iraq are suddenly getting bills for equipment that they supposedly damaged while they were on active duty.
What???
We're making them pay for the truck they were in while they were being bombed or shot at???

Ratatouille & Compact Florescent Bulbs

I came across this very nice little cartoon that I would like all of you to watch. I am an energy/environment conscious person, but those of you who know me, know that this is as preachy as I will get. Let your children watch this as well.
Also, has anyone seen the movie, Ratatouille? I know it's been out a while, already. I want to see it.

South Park Movie - Blame Canada

My friend Jay sent this to me this afternoon. It's one of my favorites, reminding us all that the easiest thing to do is find a scapegoat. No need for rationality, just pick the closest person/cause/group that's different from your own.

The Taste of Summer

I can't wait until the farmers' markets open every summer so that I can make Gazpacho. It tastes like summer to me, and for a few months in the spring, I start yearning for it. The key, of course, it home-grown, yummy, tasty, ripe tomatoes. (I woke up this morning with a hankering for it and was so happy to find half a pitcher of it left over from yesterday.) You are sure to get your entire day's quota of vegetables, fiber, vitamins, etc.

5-6 luscious tomatoes (red is the standard, but try orange or yellow for beautiful variety)
1 small onion
2-3 cloves garlic (even garlic lovers should not go over-board; raw garlic is awfully powerful)
1/2 cucumber
1 sweet red bell pepper
4-5 good pinches of salt
1 handful of bread crumbs (plain is best, and this is optional)
1/4 cup of vinegar (not balsamic, but plain old wine vinegar or cider vinegar, whatever is around)

Chop everything coarsely, throw it in a blender, blend. I like it pretty smooth, but you can leave it a bit chunkier if you like. Don't be afraid to add a little water if it needs it. Chill, or if you don't have time for that, throw a few ice cubes in before you blend. Pour it into glasses, bowls, or drink straight from the blender, like I do. Garnish with a few reserved minced veggies, if you like. It's even better after a few hours, or the next day, when the flavors have had a chance to marry.

Race to Mackinac 2007

The race starts off tomorrow around noon. Anyone who's local to Chicago should come down to the lakefront to watch the race start - it's beautiful. It's supposed to be windy, but clear this weekend, so the race will be a fast one but not stormy.
Here's the website for the race. I'm not racing, but the boat I crew on, Dos Aguilas, will be out there. Click here, then Boat Selector - J105 - Dos Aguilas to track their progress through the weekend.

iPhone in a Blender

This is post-modern, self-referential and funny all at the same time (a rare combination). It's an iPhone in a blender:

http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone

(It took a little while for this to load on my machine for some reason, so please be patient. It's worth it.)

Where are your resources going? Children? or Cars?

Here's another great, thought-provoking article I found in the Globalist, about designing cities for people, not for cars. It suggests rating the livability of cities on the ratio of parks to parking lots. It notes that funding for roads, which is public space for cars, are often given priority over parks, which is public space for children.

Declaration of Energy Independence

I found this interesting article, re-wording the Declaration of Independence to discuss Energy Independence. As long as they were monkeying with it, you'd think they could have replaced "Men" with "People", but sexism aside, it's an interesting read:

http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2346

Failed States

What do Haiti, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Burma all have in common?

They're all rated as more stable than Iraq by Foreign Policy's Failed States Index. The only country that was worse was Sudan.

Failed states are the foremost global security risk. They are breeding grounds for civil strife, terrorism and extremist ideologies. Iraq was certainly not a great place before we invaded, but it wasn't as bad as it is now.

I'm so glad W decided to start this war to make me safer.

Chad - On the Electric Violin

My multi-talented friend Chad Gifford, who plays the meanest electric violin I've ever heard, has joined forces with Dick Prall to play some mighty fine music. I heard them play a small show at Uncommon Ground on Sunday night. It was fantastic. Check out his website, check out the music. Chad's not actually playing on Dick's current CD, but will be on the next one.

Iranian Underground Music

I saw a very interesting movie with my friend Nora last night. It was called Sounds of Silence and was presented by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, one of my favorite organizations. The film-maker is of Iranian background, but grew up in Europe and was covering the censorship and repression felt by non-traditional musicians in Iran. He interviewed hip-hop, rock and pop artists as well as a journalist who had organized an underground, on-line only music festival.

Because of the limitations placed on the lyrics, music, and appearance of the artists by Ershad, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the musicians told stories of shows cancelled and of not being able to record and publish their music. Many of them spoke of distributing their music via the web. Generally, they couldn't sell their music and make money from it, but at least it was being heard by audiences larger than what could fit in the living room.

Amir Hamz, the filmmaker, mentioned he'd been talking to CNN and also had a distributor signed on, so keep your eyes open for it.

Slaughterhouse Five or Do We Have Free Will?

I've just finished reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Has anyone else out there read it? Can you explain it to me?

It was interesting on a number of fronts:

• Definitely not a front-to-back narrative. When the narrator dies, he simply continues narrating the book. You hardly even notice.
• Calling WWII the Children's Crusade resonates with our current conflict. When I see lists of the dead, 95% of them are far younger than I am.
• It questions the existance of Free Will. Aliens teach the narrator that all of time is already laid out and visible, if you know how to see it. In fact, in the entire novel, the protagonist seems to make only 1 decision, to marry a woman no one else wants to marry. Everything else in his life seems to be a matter of being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time and being accepting of what happens.

I am a free-will/personal-responsibility sort of person myself. Maybe it's a matter of wanting to feel in control, or of not being cut of from opportunity. Thoughts? I'd love to hear....

Everyone can be Jackson Pollack

I found this website, and it's lots of fun for wasting time. The paint will change color when you click your mouse:

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

"Doubt is a Virtue"

There's a great piece on Salon.com today about JFK's belief that Doubt is a virtue, and how our current administration and political culture could use a bit more mature doubt and less swagger and blind self-assurance.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/11/doubt/index.html

Northern Michigan (or what I did on my vacation)

For the Memorial Day weekend, my mother and I went to northern Michigan, which is where she spent summers as a child. Here are some pictures.

Trillium

A view through the trees to Lake Michigan

A Beach at Wilderness State Park

Same Beach

Flowers at Wilderness State Park

Simple Pleasures

Here are a list of the things I'm thinking about today that make me smile:

• Dinner with old friends
• A kiss from my 2 year-old god-son
• My fountain pen
• The smell of a BBQ, even if it's someone else's
• The rhubarb pie I made on Sunday
• Eating it out on the fire-escape looking at the clouds
• Taking a nap with the cat
  

Summer

Ah, summer is here. Tonight is the first sailing race of the season. The temperature is warm: 84 F right now. It's windy, so the race should be fast. I've dug around for my sailing shoes, dormant in the back of the closet since October. I've found my contact lenses and I'm trying to remember sailing lingo.

I am sure that with the crack crew, including me, Dos Aguilas will triumph!

Know thyself

Oscar Wilde has a way with words:

Only the shallow know themselves.

Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics?

Here's a quote by Winston Churchill that I'd never seen before:

The only statistcs you can trust are those you falsified yourself.

Roman Tunisia - Bardo Museum

The Tunis suburb of Bardo is home to the extraordinary Bardo Museum, which houses an enormous collection of mosaics from about the 2nd to the 4th century, spanning the Roman period into the Christian period.


Check out the expression, the individuality, the movement of this face. How do they do that in stone? Incredible.


This is a river god, again with great liveliness and movement.


I took a picture of this because it looks like an alien, and we thought George's son would like it. Apparently, it is a symbol of fertility and prosperity and was common near the entrance of a home to bring good luck.

2 men, 2 grocery carts, 1 television

So, I was having a coffee and croissant with my mother this morning at a cafe in Greektown. My mother looked out the window and said, there are 2 guys with grocery carts and a TV walking down the sidewalk. They were just slowly strolling down the street, occasionally stopping to discuss which direction they should go.

We thought it would make a good opening to a surrealist vignette, or would it make the central plot line of a short story. The question is, what would the back-story be? What were these guys doing?

Carthage

Over the next few days, I'm going to tell you a bit about Tunisia. I just returned from about four days there, and I'll start from the beginning - Carthage. It was founded by the Phoenicians in the 3rd century BC and became a rival of Rome, resulting in the Punic Wars (remember Hannibal taking elephants over the Alps?)

After the 3rd of the Punic Wars, Carthage was completely destroyed. The Romans even sowed the soil with salt to make sure no one could live and farm there - pretty spiteful. Here are a few pictures of what is left of Carthage.

Architectural remnants

A very lovely capital

The Punic Ports - this was the port used by Carthage, the mighty seafaring, trading culture used this itty-bitty bit of water as their port. I guess things were on a different scale back then.

William Blake

Proverbs of Hell.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.
All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloke of knavery.
Shame is Prides cloke.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Let man wear the fell of the lion. woman the fleece of the sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.
The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.
One thought fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

The fox provides for himself. but God provides for the lion.
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows you.
As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title!
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow; nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.
If others bad not been foolish, we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius. lift up thy head!
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.
Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox. he would be cunning.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
Where man is not, nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
Enough! or Too much.

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html

Who is the real enemy? Iran? or Saudi Arabia?

Iranian-financed guns are shooting at our kids in Iraq, right? They're part of the axis of evil, right? And so maybe we should expand our war into Iran?

The fact is that more Saudi-financed guns are shooting a lot more of our soldiers than Iranian ones. So why aren't we building a case against the Saudi-backed Sunni militants? Could it be because the Saudi royal family are friends with our boy W? Could it be because we get oil from Saudi Arabia?

Why, Mr. President, are we going after the Iranians instead of the Saudis?

To help with the cold....

Because I'm in the middle of an Artic freeze, I thought I'd pull out one of my favorite pictures from my trip to Cyprus last summer. This was a hot, hot day at the harbor in Kyrenia on the Turkish side.

Tribalism, Identity, Da Bears

Well, Da Bears, the Bears, the Monsters of the Midway have lost the Super Bowl! It's so sad.

I just finished reading a book called How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer and it made me think about identity in our post-modern, anonymous, urban/suburban world. I'm not a rabid sports fan, or Bears fan and yet I'm sad and disappointed. Do I identify myself as a Chicagoan and a Bears fan more than I realize? Is it part of what makes me me? Does it give me a group to belong to?

This afternoon, after all, I drank beer and ate BBQ pork with some of my oldest friends and some people I'd never met before and yet we shared in community with a common cause, common beliefs and common ritual.

I believe I am a rational, autonomous individual without need of tribal identity. Maybe I'm wrong.

Happiness, and how to achieve it

Happiness, perhaps it's a trite topic. On the other hand, maybe we talk about it because we experience such a lack of it. Can you aim for happiness? Or should you shoot for satisfaction? Meaning? Accomplishment? and hope that happiness comes along as a side benefit?

I'm contemplating this because of a conversation I had last night with my darling, George. He loves his work. He's a chaired professor, so his motivation is not tenure. He simply loves what he does. He works for at least half the day each day of the weekend because he love it. He doesn't actually talk about his work much, but if he's away from it for too long he starts to miss it.

I wish I loved my work that much. Don't get me wrong, I like my job. In fact, just this week I turned down an offer from a big company you've all heard of to stay where I am, in a tiny little consulting company. But, I wish I loved it as much as George loves his. I suppose most of the people I know work to pay the rent, hopefully in something they don't find too objectionable, but to be faced with someone who loves his work makes me realize there could be more.

Is it a matter of creating it? Is it a matter of being busy enough that I don't have time to think about happiness? I recognize that I'm always happiest at work when I've got a deadline and I'm juggling stuff. Is that just because I don't have time to navel-gaze?

Iran on the Web?

The two most common languages used on the Web will not surprise you: English and Mandarin. The third most common will surprise you: Farsi!

(I hear this during a talk by a guy from the Council on Foreign Relations, so I believe it.)

Your Solopsism is Showing

New word for me, Solopsism: extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc. egoistic self-absorption. (dictionary.com)

Is blogging evidence of solopsism? Do I have anything to say that people actually want to hear? Is it self-indulgent?

Hyderabad & a Story With/Without a Moral

In the New York Times travel section this week was a short article on the rise in both tourist and business travel to Hyderabad, India. It reminded me of my first night in India, on a business trip in the summer of 2004, when I almost started a sectarian riot.

I was travelling with a colleague, Amar, a Hyderabad native, and Hyderabad was our first port of call. We had traveled 24 hours from Chicago to Frankfurt to Bombay to Hyderabad. It was exhausting. So, after sleeping most of the day, Amar called me and asked me to go out on the town with him. I was picked up in a Range Rover driven by Amar's real estate developer brother-in-law, his movie-star friend (married), his girlfriend and Amar.

As we walked into the newest dance club in town, by-passing the line, the actor was stopped for autographs and we tried to keep to the shadows to avoid the paparazzi, since his girlfriend was with us. After a long night drinking pricey drinks and dancing, we left the club and my hosts decided I needed a late night tour of the sights of Hyderabad. So, off we drove, drinking Chivas Regal out of the bottle, roof open, weaving around the old women stooped over sweeping the streets. At one point, we made a phone call to a Congress MP who was the friend of the brother-in-law. He and I drunkenly chatted about something or other.

They took me to Charminar, the 400-year old gate in the middle of the poor, mostly Muslim part of town where people were lined up sleeping on the sidewalk. Keep in mind my crowd of rich, drunk Hindus in a Range Rover with an immodestly-clad blonde in the back seat.

There's a small mosque at the Charminar, so Amar and I climbed out to go see it. I was wearing a short skirt, so I wasn't allowed in, but the mosque custodian smiled at me and gave me a small green flag with a white star and crescent. I was happy and climbed back in the car to show off my souvenir. All the guys in the car flipped out and thought is was a Pakistani flag, which it was not. So they climbed back out of the car, woke up a cop and started yelling about being real Indians, etc. People on the sidewalks started waking up. I started yelling "I'm Christian, I'm Christian" and herding my crowd back into the car. By the time we left half the square was awake and starting to move towards the car. And that was how I almost started a riot on my first night in India.

Is there a moral to this story? Is it:

1. Don't drink and drive.
2. Don't go to mosques in short skirts.
3. Understand the history including animosities of the places you're visiting.
4. Don't go out with your girlfriend when there are paparazzi around.
5. Drinking Chivas Regal makes you immune to political violence.
   

Vote, or suggest your own.

Life Lessons of Pinball

A few weeks ago George and I went to dinner with a friend. Afterwards, my friend suggested that we stop by a place around the corner with a pinball machine. I was sceptical - how silly to play pinball, but I didn't want to squash the enthusiasm of the others.

We walked in, I discovered my inner child, I learned that George is a pinball master and I had SO much fun. (Also, inexplicably, I won 3 out of 4 games.) So, George's secret skill at pinball comes from when he was writing his dissertation. He'd reward himself with a pinball game every time he finished a page.

I take life too seriously sometimes, turning up my nose at childish things like pinball. And I had a great time. I need to do that sort of thing more often! Maybe that should have been one of my new year's resolutions as well. Have More Fun!

Happy New Year!

As we enter the New Year, I thought I'd share a few resolutions:

1. Be more patient and accepting, both of myself and others, especially those I love the most. It's so easy to be snippy with the people you see every day. As for being accepting of myself, it's so easy to say, "I should have achieved XYZ by this point in my life and I'm a failure if I haven't." Instead I will say, I am where I am, I am what I am, and I will move forward with my dreams.
   
2. Work out more. Yes, I say that every year and look where it's gotten me.
   
3. Be unafraid of failure and have the courage to take risks, professionally and personally. This allows for the freedom to dream large dreams and think big thoughts. Otherwise, one is limited to risk-free, utterly attainable "silent desperation" that plagues so many who have been beaten down.
4. Have more dinner parties. After all, I love to cook and I love stimulating conversation.

My New Year started with champagne and spanikopita, spiced up with dancing in the living room next to the roaring fireplace (music courtesy of a group of wild Russians with a great iPod.) It's an auspicious start!

I wish all my readers a year energized by your ambitions and dreams, of deep-down satisfaction, and laughter.