Feature Story:

Part One of a series marking the 15th anniversary of the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act

Talking with Andrew Sullivan about marriage is a bit like asking a blue whale what he ate for dinner. Once he starts, there's really no end.

(Photo by Todd Franson)

''At any particular point, we weren't clear what would happen next,'' he says, sitting at a coffee shop on a warm, early spring afternoon. ''It was way more contingent. You tend to look back on these things with a sense of inevitability, and I hate it when people say, 'Well, they're just on the wrong side of history.'

''Bullshit. History is what people make of it. There's nothing inevitable.''

That much is clear from a simple glance at a map of the United States, where, more than 20 years after Sullivan started pushing this cause, only five states – Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire – and the District of Columbia allow same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses.

Fifteen years ago, though, it was another state -- Hawaii, whose Supreme Court ruling and ongoing case in which three same-sex couples were seeking marriage licenses -- that captured the nation's attention.

In addition to the nation's attention, says Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the issue caught the eye of the lagging presidential campaign of then-Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), which ''saw this as a classic wedge issue'' and prompted Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) to introduce the Defense of Marriage Act to stop same-sex couples and their lawyers from, as Frank says, ''bringing same-sex marriage to every state.''

Elizabeth Birch, then the executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, describes 1996 as a very uncertain time. ''This is what we understood,'' she says, ''Hawaii was bubbling along – even the legal organizations were very nervous about Hawaii in the beginning. At the time, it was one of the most potent, difficult issues. Even Democrats had tremendous issues with it privately – even our best friends.''

Including President Bill Clinton, whose political advisors pushed him to sign the bill, according to Richard Socarides, Clinton's liaison to the gay and lesbian community at the time.

''Fifteen years later, I think we can be fairly candid about why that happened," Socarides says. "And the only reason it happened is because the people who believed that vetoing the bill would have jeopardized the president's election won the political argument. That's the only reason the bill got signed.''

But for Freedom to Marry President Evan Wolfson, who was a lawyer at Lambda Legal at the time and was co-counsel on the Hawaii case, DOMA is a complicated story.

''If I had had to pick which would you rather have, a win in Hawaii or subsequent state or blocking DOMA, I would have chosen the win. Because, without the wins first, we weren't going anywhere,'' he says. ''If necessary, we would overturn DOMA on the strength of the wins, and that's exactly what's now happening.''

The story of DOMA – from the religious right to the gay and lesbian groups and from Congress to Clinton – is important to understanding what's now happening in Congress and from the Obama administration. That story itself, however, is incomplete without looking at the ways in which gay, lesbian and bisexual people and their allies sought recognition of their relationships – and debated about the best way of doing so – from as early as the years immediately following the 1969 uprising at the Stonewall Inn.

''What They Propose Is Not a Marriage''

IT WAS ROUGHLY 40 years ago that what Wolfson refers to as the ''first wave of marriage cases'' began. Coming ''within two years of Stonewall,'' he says, ''there were three major cases making their way up courts.''

Along with a New York trial court case involving a transgender woman who the court found ''was not a female at the time of the marriage ceremony,'' the challenges – in Minnesota, Kentucky and Washington state – were met with hostility or simple disbelief from the courts.

In the Minnesota case, Baker v. Nelson, the state's high court upheld the trial court's ruling that the U.S. Constitution was not violated by the fact that Richard John Baker and James Michael McConnell had been denied a marriage license. The blunt language of the court's opinion, issued in October 1971, showed the uphill battle ahead for those same-sex couples seeking the right to marry.

Minnesota Supreme Court Justice C. Donald Peterson noted the religious roots of marriage, writing for the court, ''The institution of marriage as a union of man and woman, uniquely involving the procreation and rearing of children within a family, is as old as the book of Genesis.''

The court also dismissed comparisons to the then-recent decision striking down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia, with Justice Peterson holding, ''[I]n commonsense and in a constitutional sense, there is a clear distinction between a marital restriction based merely upon race and one based upon the fundamental difference in sex.''

A year later, the United States Supreme Court appeared to agree, dismissing the appeal summarily because there was no ''substantial federal question'' in the case. In other words, it was not even plausible to think that the Equal Protection or Due Process clauses of the Constitution's 14th Amendment could be applicable to gay or lesbian people or their relationships.

In November 1973, the Kentucky Court of Appeals was more direct when responding to Marjorie Jones and her partner's claim that they were wrongly denied a marriage license from the county court clerk of Jefferson County: ''[M]arriage has always been considered as the union of a man and a woman and we have been presented with no authority to the contrary. … A license to enter into a status or a relationship which the parties are incapable of achieving is a nullity....

"[T]he relationship proposed by the appellants," the court concluded, "does not authorize the issuance of a marriage license because what they propose is not a marriage.''

As Sullivan says today, ''We were basically told it was … an absurd, illegitimate request: marriage. Definitionally: not gay.''

A year later, it was no different when a Washington appellate court upheld the denial of John Singer and Paul Barwick's attempt to marry. In Washington state, the court had to address the fact that its relevant statutes did not explicitly limit marriage to one man and one woman.

''[T]he definition of marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman who are otherwise qualified to enter into the relationship,'' the court held, was ''so obvious as not to require recitation.''

''Going After the Central Problem''

LESS THAN 10 years later, in May 1983, as AIDS began its emergence as the defining political – and personal – battle of the gay community, Evan Wolfson was graduating from Harvard Law School.

Evan Wolfson

''I wrote my third-year paper in law school – my version of a dissertation – on why gay people should have the freedom to marry,'' says Wolfson. ''[I] always believed that this was important for us to fight for, a, in its own right and, b, as an engine for moving everything along.''

But when Wolfson began practicing law in the area – first as a pro bono attorney with Lambda Legal and then as one of its then-small staff of attorneys – his efforts to turn his thesis into a project he hoped would one day become reality hit a snag not often discussed these days: the conflicting views of other gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

''It was the subject of big divisions within the movement, within the legal groups and within Lambda,'' he says, noting there were two distinct approaches from opponents. ''There was the ideological opposition, and the strategic or tactical or timing opposition.''

That ideological opposition, in some ways, was led by Paula Ettelbrick, the first staff attorney at Lambda Legal and the organization's legal director – hence, one of Wolfson's bosses – from 1988 through early 1993.

Ettelbrick, author of ''Since When Is Marriage the Path to Liberation?," the leading feminist argument against Wolfson's path, says she has changed – and not changed – her views on marriage over the years.

''[T]his issue has been on [my] radar at least since the early to mid '80s,'' Ettelbrick says. ''I think the way to situate the perspective here is to look historically at what was guiding our thinking at different points of time. For me, it was feminism, it was progressive politics – which was very much endemic in the gay community and certainly in the lesbian feminist community – about going after the central problems. Not just looking for fixes, but going after the central problem.''

That ''central problem,'' she says, was – and is – that marriage is the only vehicle for relationship recognition.

''I feel very firmly that we need to continue the broader recognition, that we should insist on marriage and non-marriage – in a sense – family relationships.''

It wasn't just Ettelbrick and Wolfson intellectually sparring. Wolfson talks about the disputes over marriage at the legal roundtable – attorneys at gay and lesbian rights legal groups, academics and other lawyers who would meet regularly.

''That was the biggest dividing line, the biggest source of arguing amongst a group that might quibble or haggle over a particular legal idea but basically agreed over a whole range of things,'' says Wolfson. ''The one thing that people would argue about more than any other was marriage.''

''Nobody was going to challenge that we needed to get rid of sodomy laws," Ettelbrick explains. "No one was going to challenge that we needed antidiscrimination laws to deal with everything from HIV to sexual orientation.''

But marriage ''was hotly debated.''

She adds, ''I think it was a really important part of our movement that's seldom been fully addressed, to tell you the truth.''

That debate also took hold because Lambda Legal Executive Director Tom Stoddard shared Wolfson's view. Stoddard's opposing viewpoint article – ''Why Gay People Should Seek the Right the Marry'' – was regularly paired with Ettelbrick's article to exemplify the debate in the years that followed.

Of the importance of the articles, Ettelbrick notes, ''We both represented, first of all, different sides of the coin in this argument, and also, we were both at Lambda Legal Defense, which was a central organization to deciding about the future of litigation of these cases. So the movement question was not just, 'How do we deal with these competing views?' but also, 'How does an organization like Lambda deal with the two leaders of the organization having such differing perspectives?'''

''Civil Unions? After All That?''

AS THE LATE 1980s hit and AIDS was decimating the gay community, Stoddard and Wolfson found an unlikely ally in Andrew Sullivan. With a striking cover story – ''Here Comes the Groom'' – in The New Republic on Aug. 28, 1989, Sullivan began making a different case for marriage.

The article's subhead was ''A (Conservative) Case for Gay Marriage" and Sullivan made the argument that recognition of gay relationships was important – both in principle and practicality.

Describing the roots of gay politics since Stonewall and the transition that came about because of AIDS, Sullivan wrote, ''A need to rebel has quietly ceded to a desire to belong. … Certainly since AIDS, to be gay and to be responsible has become a necessity.''

Sullivan says that one of the lessons of the time is the story of ''how the gay rights movement grew out of the AIDS crisis as a very serious national movement.''

He recalls the men who would come up to him when he talked about his marriage work, telling him, '''This isn't some sort of moral issue about bathhouses or whatever, or what we should do as gay men. It is that I need to be able to see my husband in hospital and I need not to be stripped of all my belongings immediately thereafter by his angry relatives.'''

Of the movement as a serious force, Sullivan says, ''It hadn't been that, really, beforehand. It had been an urban and regional and sort of defensive gathering of groups. It had not been a national, coherent strategy.''

Andrew Sullivan (Photo by Todd Franson)

Sullivan advocated focusing on marriage and military service because those issues not only highlighted discrimination by the government, but expanded the narrative of gay lives.

''Those stories, those causes, would re-describe gay people in the minds of straight people,'' he says. ''The images they would put out there of gay people – soldiers, people living in families, which was the truth of who we were – was an important counterbalance to the only thing they previously had seen, which was gay rights parades, which, however wonderful they are, are not fully representative of who gay people are.''

For a conservative like Sullivan, it changed the terms of the debate, as well.

''Straight people understood marriage more than they understood defense of sexual freedom,'' he adds. ''And yet we had been trapped into this ... ghetto of defending sexual freedom. And then asking people not to be mean to us. Which, I thought, was the basic gay rights movement until the early '90s.''

That ''defense of sexual freedom'' was provided during the debate by people like Michael Warner, who countered Sullivan's book, Virtually Normal, with his own book published in 2000, The Trouble With Normal.

''At a time when the largest gay organizations are pushing for same-sex marriage," Warner writes in his preface, "I argue that this strategy is a mistake and represents a widespread loss of vision in the movement.''

Even people like Ettelbrick were seeking more, not less, governmental recognition of relationships, which alienated the position articulated by Warner and others – mainly in academia – who agreed with him.

But as Ettelbrick points out, ''Even within that pro-marriage part, you have people who differ.''

Including Sullivan and Wolfson, who disagreed over the political course, albeit privately.

''We didn't really air it, but it was an interesting debate,'' says Sullivan. ''Evan kind of pitched his proposal as, 'We can get this very quickly nationally by one state' – which I always thought was a reckless overreach.

''Publicly we were one, but, personally, I didn't really believe it should be automatically imposed on everybody in America. I thought we needed time to let this evolve in the public consciousness, and that was not going to happen overnight and that we should take every opportunity to educate.''

To that end, Sullivan says of his view of marriage and the military, ''Anything that got either of those two issues debated would change the narrative and legitimize it.''

For others in the gay, lesbian and bisexual community, however, this raised the other main concern with the ''marriage project.''

As Elizabeth Birch, HRC's executive director from 1995 through 2004, says today, ''I think back in those days, the judgment was, 'We don't even have employment protections' – and we still don't. Eventually, there were two schools: You could really leapfrog forward by going for what was seen as a very precious right – the right to marriage – or you could do it kind of incrementally.''

Ettelbrick looks at the ''foundation'' that she says was being built in court as another reason for advocating the incremental approach.

''We needed to use domestic partnership and other kinds of vehicles to begin to address the legitimacy of our relationships, period,'' she says, which was happening through decisions on gay custody, second-parent adoption and local-government recognition of domestic partnerships. ''There was a very strong argument that we needed that foundation because that was helping the American public kind of acclimate to our relationships.''

AIDS, Ettelbrick says, had made clear the need for that acclimation.

''Legislatures around the country were introducing legislation to quarantine gay men,'' she says. ''We were the scourge of the earth at that point, and our relationships were deemed not only immoral and criminal, but unhealthy. So, in that context, to even raise the specter of marriage just seemed ridiculous, from a strategic perspective – was the argument.''

For Sullivan, the reality of AIDS and the fear it engendered created his passion to fight for marriage.

''I really don't think you can overstate the weird confluence of those two events – a gay rights movement that emerges in the '60s and '70s in its most potent force, and it gets slapped down, really, by catastrophe. And the moment that's interesting is the moment when, instead of capitulating, it actually emboldens them more. We organized in different ways, and we fought back.''

Sullivan then references ''the memory of people's lost spouses,'' and tells the story of a man whose partner had just died of complications from AIDS.

The man was singing a show tune in the hospital, where he had been ''cut off completely, won't be allowed to go to the funeral, has been kicked out of his home, [yet] he's been singing that same song since the morning. Because, it's their song, and it's his last way of staying in touch.''

''It still gets me today," Sullivan says, crying. Am I going to let that happen without somebody, somewhere, insisting [on marriage]? Fuck this. Civil unions? After all that? Fuck you.

''You have to multiply that experience so many times in the memory of that generation to understand why we were completely committed to this – even when everybody told us it was nuts.''

But for Ettelbrick, the reality of the matter is that domestic partnerships or civil unions can make the difference someone like Sullivan is seeking.

''I just don't buy the argument that domestic partnership is second-class citizenship,'' she says. ''I've never bought that argument.''

Looking at today's legal landscape, she says, ''When you are in the context in which you need those health benefits or you need that recognition, it is a very important thing that New Jersey allows recognition of your family and of your relationship. Whether it's called marriage or not, you get all of the benefits. Now, it might be that culturally we still want the term marriage, but from a legal perspective, from a needs-based perspective, it's … damaging for people to argue the second-class citizenship.''

Birch makes clear that she – and HRC – believed such an incremental approach had merit – in large part because the specter of same-sex marriage ''was the most potent piece in their arsenal against us.''

Of HRC's approach at the time, though, Sullivan is characteristically blunt.

''They were like, 'No, we want to get ENDA. … We know that has higher polling, we can do it.' And my position was, 'Screw ENDA. First, this is a more fundamental issue about the government discriminating against us as opposed to our fellow citizens, and, secondly, if we win this, the argument that we make on this will so change the debate that ENDA will become easy.' And their view was totally understandable -- I'm not saying it wasn't.''

But, as Sullivan says he told people at the time, ''It's coming anyway. The courts are going to have to make these decisions.''

''This Isn't Just About Hawaii''

SULLIVAN, IN A way, was right – although the first legal same-sex marriages didn't start in America until about 15 years after his New Republic cover story.

The way the ''second wave'' started, though, was not quite how Wolfson had planned.

''I was asked by couples in Hawaii who knew of me … if I would consider taking this case,'' he says. ''And I was interested in doing that, but I was told by Lambda, no, that we were not going to do it. And all the other legal groups turned them down as well.''

Wolfson calls that decision ''one of the best things to happen'' to the movement.

"It led the couples back to a local Hawaii attorney, a non-gay guy named Dan Foley, who did take the case and brought to it just this extraordinary savvy and credibility on the ground in Hawaii that we would have never had.''

Birch concurs. ''Ultimately, what was great about it – the way anything happens in American history – is that ordinary citizens go to get their rights. It wasn't orchestrated. It wasn't impact litigation. It really was people just wanting a marriage license in Hawaii.''

And 20 years ago, on May 1, 1991, they did. Ninia Baehr, Genora Dancel, Tammy Rodrigues, Antoinette Pregil, Pat Lagon and Joseph Melilio – three same-sex couples – filed a complaint in a Hawaii trial court seeking the same marriage license that had been sought and denied previously during the first wave of marriage cases.

Lambda allowed him to give behind-the-scenes support, Wolfson says, and he and Foley became close over the course of the case, which was dismissed by the trial court – just as had happened 20 years earlier to Richard John Baker and James Michael McConnell.

This time, however, the Supreme Court saw the matter in a different light when it heard the case on appeal.

On May 5, 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court recognized that it was possible for same-sex couples to show that denying them marriage licenses violated their state constitutional rights.

Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Steven H. Levinson wrote the opinion for the court, detailing – case by case – how the decisions in that ''first wave'' were an ''exercise in tortured and conclusory sophistry.''

Instead, the Hawaii Supreme Court held that Hawaii's marriage restriction was a sex-based classification and, thus, subject under Hawaii's Constitution to strict scrutiny. This meant that the marriage prohibition for same-sex couples ''is presumed to be unconstitutional'' unless the state could prove at the trial court that ''the statute's sex-based classification is justified by compelling state interests and … the statute is narrowly drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgments of the applicant couples' constitutional rights.''

Wolfson told his Lambda Legal colleagues, ''Whatever you thought before, wherever you were with all these other divisions, the world had just turned. … This was a whole new era; it would never be the same again.''

Paula Ettelbrick

As Ettelbrick says, this changed not only the external world, but also the ideological debate within the gay and lesbian world.

''We were immediately launched into a battle that made it very odd for people like myself because, obviously, in no way was I ever going to defend the attacks on the Hawaii decision as they started playing out in legislatures around the country.''

As the case returned to the trial court so that it could apply the Hawaii Supreme Court's new standard, Lambda allowed Wolfson to join the case as co-counsel and launched the National Freedom to Marry Coalition to push political organizing efforts.

The need for public education quickly became apparent.

Elizabeth Birch says that, at the time, ''What we heard happened is that the [Republican National Committee] started doing really intensive polling and research, and they were trying to find an issue – a really potent wedge issue. … What popped was gay marriage and the numbers were astoundingly negative. They were, 'My God, look at this!'''

Barney Frank says Republicans seized on the way in which ''the rhetoric on our side played into it'' with the declarations that same-sex marriage would follow nationwide after Hawaii.

''Everywhere in the country wasn't ready for it," he says. "So [Republicans] then could argue, 'See, we gotta stop it, this isn't just about Hawaii. They're bringing same-sex marriage to every state.'''

Birch sums up the strategy: ''They figured out, 'Man, if we can drive a wedge between gay voters and gay money and the Democratic Party, wouldn't that be great? And, at the same time, we could use this issue to paint the Democratic Party as silly and frivolous in that, you know, this is what they're going to focus on.'''

As Ettelbrick says, ''At that point, who knew how it was going to turn out? It looked like the whole world was going up in flames over our relationships.''

''I Heard Rumblings''

THE WEDGE WAS the Defense of Marriage Act.

''I head rumblings that they were considering it, playing with it, I think as early as '95, certainly in '96,'' Wolfson says. ''It wasn't just another anti-gay effort happening in Congress, which had happened before, but it was one that was being done in the full spotlight of a presidential campaign and with enough people on our side that there was a debate. It wasn't just a routine anti-gay thing.''

It wasn't. The brief bill – introduced by Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia – only contained three provisions, and one of those was the title.

The first substantive provision stated that ''[n]o State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.''

The second provision – the federal definition of marriage – stated, ''In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.''

With seven co-sponsors – Reps. Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.), Bill Emerson (R-Mo.), Steve Largent (R-Okla.), Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisc.), Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Harold Volkmer (R-Mo.) – Barr introduced the bill in Congress just 137 days before it would be signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

The date was 15 years ago this week, May 7, 1996.

This was the first part of a series marking the 15th anniversary of the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act. The aim of the series is to present an in-depth examination of the circumstances, consideration and passage of the 1996 federal marriage law.

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A Young Kim, We Listen to Bach Transfixed Because This Is Listening to A Human Mind, 2010
(from the studio alabaster booth)

Printed Matter's annual contemporary art book extravaganza The NY Art Book Fair opened last night, and I dropped by today to take some shots of the festivities for the blog. Easily one of my favorite yearly art events in New York, the fair hosts an overwhelming amount of booths, lectures, screenings, performances, and more by 200+ participating independent publishers, booksellers, zinesters, and artists. The fair is at PS1 in Long Island City, it's free, and it will be open today until 7pm, Saturday from 11am-7pm, and on Sunday from 11am-5pm. Also, be sure to scroll down to the end of this post for a round-up of media art and digital culture-related highlights.

Booth for Swiss independent publisher Nieves Books
"You Are Her" a mini-exhibit of 1990s riot grrrl zines, organized by San Francisco's Goteblüd
Brooklyn-based Cinders Gallery's booth
Artist Sto Pit's Facebook at the Cinders Gallery booth
Editions by Trevor Paglen and Starlee Kine at The Thing Quarterly's booth
The third iteration of Dispatch's "RE: 1975-76 New York Art Yearbook" at the Dispatch booth
(Dispatch did another version of this project at No Soul For Sale at the Tate Modern, which we covered on Rhizome, here.)
Promotional prints for Laura Owen's book Fruits and Nuts at independent LA boutique Ooga Booga's booth
e-flux drew a thematic table of contents (of sorts) to all the essays published in their journal on the walls of their project space
Really gorgeous paper editions by Tauba Auerbach, at the Printed Matter booth
Another one of Tauba Auerbach's editions
Issues of Dutch magazine Open, which covers art and the public domain.
The art school Werkplaats Typografie set up a room for exchange in their project space.
Visitors can exchange books or zines for artworks, posters, books, screensavers, etc. produced by Werkplaats Typografie studients.
Art zine K48's Booth
The publication Deep Cycle by Max Goldfarb at non-profit transmission arts organization free103point9's booth
A copy of The Yes Men's spoof NY Times edition at the Yes Men's table

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Highlights

Electronic Arts Intermix Project Room
Everyday

EAI's project space, installed in MoMA PS1's basement vault, will feature STAGED DIRECTIONS, a special ongoing program of early and recent videos by artists, including rarely seen works drawn from EAI's extensive archive. STAGED DIRECTIONS features conceptual videos that involve rules, instructions, or tasks, incorporating the script or the instruction manual into the action and placing the artist's directions on stage and in front of the camera. The screening program includes works by Vito Acconci, Cory Arcangel, John Baldessari, Lynda Benglis, Dara Birnbaum, VALIE EXPORT, Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, Joan Jonas, Mike Kelley, Kristin Lucas, Kalup Linzy, Shana Moulton, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Seth Price, Anthony Ramos, Martha Rosler, Carolee Schneemann, Stuart Sherman and Lawrence Weiner, among others.

Fillip and AAAARG.ORG Project Room
Everyday

Since 2005, AAAARG has served as an online research tool for tens of thousands of students, educators, curators, and artists seeking access to books and essays on critical theory, art, architecture, and film. Developed around a near-10,000-item printed card catalogue that indexes the content of the AAAARG Web site, The AAAARG Library creates a temporary, participatory space for the free redistribution of textual material. The Library will exist alongside the paid economy of the Fair, offering an extra-institutional space that will develop through a symbiotic (rather than an oppositional) relationship to the systems of exchange that structure the Fair.

During the course of the three day event, a librarian will be on staff in Fillip's project room (I01) to fulfill book requests using the material available on AAAARG. A computer and scanner will also be on location enabling patrons of the Library to share material with the communities of both the Book Fair and AAAARG. Exhibiting publishers are strongly encouraged to submit material to the Library and may do so at any time during the project.

A Cultural Reader Presented by Golden Age
Saturday, November 6, 12:00 p.m., the Classroom

A Cultural Reader, seven minute micro-lectures by Maxwell G. Graham (director, Renwick Gallery), musical duo Javelin, Hanne Mugaas (director, Art Since the Summer of '69 and curatorial associate, Guggenheim Museum), writer William Pym, and artist-writer Tim Ridlen. Organized by Martine Syms.

NY Art Book Fair Conference: Experimental Libraries and Reading Rooms Panel
Saturday, November 6, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Note: Conference sessions require paid admission

What constitutes an experimental library? What is the impetus to create such a library and what impact do such spaces have on our exchange of ideas, the conduct research, or creation of art? Does this impulse stem from a need to create an intellectual community outside of academia, address an underrepresented subject, articulate an intellectual curiosity, or simply nostalgia for printed books and libraries, these spaces share the common trait of presenting unique collections of research material to the public. Martha Wilson of Franklin Furnace will give an introductory presentation. Participants include: Wendy Yao, Ooga Booga; Andrew Beccone, the Reanimation Library; Robin Cameron and Jason Polan, the Assembled Picture Library; Tiffany Malakooti and Babok Radboy, Bidoun Library. Moderated by Renaud Proch, Independent Curators International (ICI).

Saul Anton in conversation with Boris Groys on Groys’s new book, Going Public. Presented by e-flux.
Sunday, November 7, 12:00 p.m., Conference Room

If all things in the world can be considered as sources of aesthetic experience, then art no longer holds a privileged position. Rather, art comes between the subject and the world, and any aesthetic experience used to legitimize art must also necessarily serve to undermine it. In Going Public, Boris Groys looks to escape the limitations understanding art through aesthetic and sociological means, which always assume the position of the spectator, of the consumer. Let us instead consider art from the position of the producer, who does not ask what it looks like or where it comes from, but why it exists in the first place.

Paul Chan reading from his new book, Phaedrus Pron, followed by a book signing. Presented by Badlands Unlimited.
Sunday, November 7, 3:00 p.m., Conference Room

Published as a limited paperback and an unlimited ebook, Paul Chan's Phaedrus Pron recasts Plato's legendary dialogue on art, erotic love, and madness as unyielding sexual prose that stretches the limits of intelligibility and sense. "Written" by typsetting the original text with computer fonts created by Chan that transform the conventional alphabet into an array of erotic idiolects, Phaedrus Pron unfolds as a relentless exchange of erotic verse between a philosopher and a young man in search of rhyme and reason.

Print & Demand #2 with James Goggin, Jiminie Ha, Rob Giampietro, and Caleb Waldorf. Presented by Triple Canopy
Sunday November 7, 4pm, Conference Room

The second in an ongoing series of conversations exploring how print culture is being changed by the manifold forms of online publication, and how public spaces are being constituted around those forms. Caleb Waldorf, Triple Canopy creative director and co-organizer of The Public School Los Angeles, will moderate a discussion about the role played by design in shaping digital forms of publication: How are certain tropes of print publication—and the reading and viewing experiences they have engendered—being translated for new media (while others are being jettisoned entirely)? How has the shift from graphic design to user design, with its focus on interaction and interface, changed the way publications function? Participants include: James Goggin, design director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and principle of Practise; Jiminie Ha, an independent designer and founder of W/——— project space in Chinatown; and Rob Giampietro, a designer and writer and principal at Project Projects.

Last week, we published a story at the Miami New Times linking Florida governor Charlie Crist to a father-son team of chemical castrators named Dr. Mark and David Geier. The Geiers are “anti-vax” autism researchers who believe rigorous chelation therapy, augmented with the castration drug Lupron, is an effective treatment for (some) autistic children. (That's the digest version, anyway. You may find some good background on the Geiers here, courtesy of Respectful Insolence, or you may view our own story here.) From all appearances, the governor's office is attempting to bend a reluctant Florida Department of Health to the Geiers' will, as the researchers seek access to the state's database of millions of confidential vaccination records. The governor's intercession comes at the request of one Dr. Gary Kompothecras; chiropractor, anti-vaxer, Geiers supporter, and – crucially – major Crist fundraiser, with a seat on the Governor's Autism Task Force.

This is reprehensible, but it's not the subject of this screed. In this screed, we'd like to share what we left out of the story: Our queasy suspicion that none of the cynical shennanigans described therein would have taken place if the governor believed his constituents understood science, or had any faith in his state's media to report factually on a science story.

 

If we're right, it must be said: the governor has not made an entirely unreasonable assumption. We two are skeptics, journalists, and Floridians, yet prior to researching this story we had no idea that Charlie Crist had tapped Dr. Gary Kompothecras to be on his Autism Task Force. (If it wasn't for Respectful Insolence and a neuro-diversity activist of our acquaintance, we'd never have heard of Lupron, either.) And if we didn't know, what chance had the average Floridian of knowing – the one who gave up her subscription to The Miami Herald three years ago and now gets her news from Drudge and HuffPo? None at all.

Our story received a loud and enthusiastic reception from the skeptical and neuro-diversity communities, but constituted barely a blip on the radar of the mainstream media. We hope it's not mere egoism that makes us believe the reception rather proves the point about the wretched relationship between science and the press. There is, after all, a very important election coming up in the States, and the Crist-Rubio-Meek race has been one of the country's most-watched. Imagine any other situation in which a campaigning pol's name became attached to the word “castration” and the event didn't cause pools of saliva to accumulate beneath the chins of the nation's talking heads. There was no drooling this time, because in order to make political grist out of the Lupron story, the talking heads would have had to dismiss the claims of the anti-vaxers and embrace the findings of “mainstream science” as unequivocally true. In other words, they would have had to take a stand on a scientific issue. And that just isn't done.

Why not? There are, after all, some things that newspapers and cable news programs will treat as unequivocally true. For example: Though they cannot know for sure, news outlets from Hannity & Colmes to The New Yorker have taken it on faith that God does not “hate fags,” no matter how voluminously the Westboro Baptist Church may preach to the contrary. Furthermore, every news outlet is happy to report that the 9/11 Truthers are nuts; that Richard Nixon was uncommonly dishonest; that Stalin was bad and Hitler was worse; and that Lady Gaga is not a world-conquering Manchurian Candidate singing in the service of the subterranean reptilian Illuminati. There are those who disagree with such sentiments, yet the media feel no need to offer “balance” (how we loathe the word) by giving these contrarians a voice.

The media is much more tentative on vaccines/autism in particular, and on alt-med or science in general. Why?

Our own (hopelessly circumscribed) experience leads us to finger four particular culprits for the media's science-indifference.

1. If it bleeds, it leads. Yes, it does, and the front page's natural preference for the loud and the splashy does lead to an over-reporting of woo-stories and an under-reporting of skeptical stories. “Angel Rescues Trapped Miners” is news, whereas “Angel Fails To Rescue Trapped Miners” is just kind of depressing. Still, though – science is full of loud and splashy stories. “Castration” is a loud and splashy word! Moreover, science deals with such tantalizing subjects as the end of the universe, sexuality, cancer, cybernetics, AI, life extension, weaponry, and love. If reporters were as obsessed with drama, excitement, screamy-headline-type stories as we suppose, science journalism would be a much bigger deal than it is. But journalists, we suspect, have a difficult time contextualizing scientific data, because their brains have been subtly poisoned by a very bad idea.  

2. Objectivity is a false god. Yes, it is. Modern journalism is an American invention of very recent vintage, and newspaper writing prior to the American Civil War was floridly and nakedly partisan. The enormity of the war led to an increasingly somber and clinical tone among news writers, even as advances in telegraph technology led to a surplus of news and a resultant shortage of paper. By the early 1900s, the flat, info-packed style of American newswriting existed in more-or-less its present form, though “objectivity” wasn't yet its stated goal. That came in the following decades, as the result of arguments within academia and internecine conflicts within individual dailies. Those in favor of pure objectivity won the day (or at least a plurality of advertisers), and now most newsfolk think “objectivity” was something handed down on Sinai. It wasn't. But even if it was, it wouldn't be any more attainable. What gets printed or aired in a news story has everything to do with which sources get back to a reporter before deadline, who looks best on camera, and what angle might make a story juiciest and thereby more appealing to an editor. (This last applies mostly to television media, though we print people are not entirely juice-resistant.) That said, objectivity is a fine goal – as long as a reporter actually thinks about it. But we tend not to. Consider the slogan “Fair & Balanced.” It's popular, but meaningless. “Fairness” is telling the truth; “balance” is undermining every truth with an equal and opposite untruth. Reporters are distressingly committed to the latter, unless the untruth in question is so obviously ridiculous as to be beneath mention. This is the case with the ideology of the Westboro Baptist Church and the suggestion that Lady Gaga is a Freemasonic cyborg. You'd think the notion of a link between, say, vaccines and autism would be in this category as well, but it's not. And that's because: 

3. Journalists don't know much about science. True. The scientists have graphs. The anti-vaxers have graphs. The scientists sound a little saner, but how can a poor, bedeadlined journalist be sure? He can't. And so he plays it safe, offering up nice, balanced stories like this one, which secretes several good points amid several bad ones, trusting in the readers' scientific expertise to sift the one from the other. Similarly written pieces are likely to be published for a while, because:

4. Journalists don't think science is cool. True. Remember the flap about the Virginia Heffernan article in the New York Times Magazine? In that article, Heffernan launched a nasty attack on the good folk of ScienceBlogs.com while fruitlessly namechecking a few post-structuralists from the last century, as though Darwinism was a mere social construct but Derrida was channeling God. (And as though the spiteful polemic was a weapon solely licensed to journos. No pharyngula allowed!) Defending herself in the comments section of a colleague's blog, Virginia excused one of her errors on the grounds that she “has no training” in science, and was so unaware of the existence of climate change “denialism” that she failed to recognize denialist literature when she saw it. She claimed this even though her screed was, in part, a strident argument against strident arguments against climate change denialism. The substance of those arguments aside, we hope you'll agree with this assessment: If Ms. Heffernan had been writing about literature, politics, food, or sports, she wouldn't have felt nearly so comfortable claiming ignorance as a defense. Only when writing about science, apparently, may journalists write before bothering to learn anything about their subject. Take a look at Nancy Gibbs' story from a June issue of Time, in which she editorialized about synthetic biology while acknowledging in the first graf that she needed the phrase “synthetic biology” defined for her before she could write about it. Does that inspire your confidence? (In the same story, Gibbs tentatively suggests that we avoid manufacturing bacteria, as bacteria can mutate in unexpected ways. She never gets around to explaining why this isn't equally true of the bacteria in her own small intestine.)

Carl Sagan often opined that understanding science isn't as difficult as lay people imagine. Consider the complicated data syntheses occurring within the brains of rabid NFL or FIFA-fans – that's hardly less complicated than the attainment of an amateur-level grasp of physics or biology. It's certainly a good deal more complex than a basic understanding of the hows and whys of critical thought. But just because journalists could and should learn science doesn't mean they will. They're busy people.

We submit that the only way to create a science-literate press is by hitting journalists where it hurts: In their egos. At a recent lecture in Gotheburg, in Sweden, James Randi was asked by an audient: “What would be the best suggestion you have to us in Sweden to do something about the media's problem?” His response is applicable well beyond Sweden:

“Complain! It works, folks. When you see something absolutely non-sensical on television, write a formal letter with your address and your telephone number expressing how displeased you are. [Write a letter] saying that you're not stupid, and you don't want to be treated like a little child. Say: I'm a citizen of the moden age! Don't drag me back into medieval times.”

Right on. If the skeptical community was to use its considerable erudition to issue an en masse challenge to the media, we think it likely that the media would respond. Journalists don't want to be wrong, and they pride themselves on their skepticism. Indeed, it was a naturally skeptical bent that led most of them to journalism in the first place. Journalists, especially investigative reporters, are individuals almost pathologically suspicious that they are being lied to by the rich, the powerful, and the cynical. They can sniff a dissembler from miles away, and take a visceral pleasure in the exposure of fraud and hypocrisy. Not a gullible bunch. They could and should be our closest allies.

If there is anything that your GetReligionistas appreciate, it is people who take the nuts and bolts of religion news seriously. While this website’s primary audience is mainstream journalists — editors, reporters, producers, you name it — we also know that we have plenty of faithful readers in academia and also in pulpits.

Read more on Follow the $$$, history, power, doctrine, etc….

If progressives have learned anything about conservatives, it's that conservative attacks on liberals are near-perfect predictors of what conservatives themselves are up to. Conservative projection is highly reliable.  So it's hardly surprising that almost 80 years of accusing liberals of trying to destroy America is a tip-off that destroying America has been what conservatives have been up to all along.

This was starkly revealed by Dinesh D'Souza's book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 , which I commented on yesterday in "The Three Stooges do Joe McCarthy", following up on digby's diary, "Objectively Pro-Taliban".

The Booklist review of D'Souza's book said:

He notes that American conservatives have more in common with Islamic Fundamentalists than with American liberals.

While Publishers Weekly dryly noted:

Charging that liberals aid terrorists while sympathizing with the terrorists' culturally conservative worldview, D'Souza's critique of American cultural excess trips over its own inconsistencies.

A recent article in Grist by David Roberts, "The right's climate denialism is part of something much larger", provides another perspective on this same phenomena. He begins by citing another piece at Grist, "Stupid goes viral: The Climate Zombies of the new GOP" by RL Miller, which gives a rundown of some of the GOP's latest crop of climate-denying candidates for Congress.  And he cited a Gallup poll showing the sharp ideological slant of recent growth in "climate skepticism" in the public:

After which he proceeded to broaden his scope to encompass a wide-ranging attack on reality-based institutions:

It does seem to me that the right's climate denialism hasn't been properly linked to the larger phenomenon of epistemic closure on the right. When Jim Manzi, everyone's favorite sensible conservative, criticized fellow conservative Mark Levin for peddling intellectually shoddy skeptic arguments in his bestselling book Liberty and Tyranny, Levin went nuts, joined by a half-dozen other NRO writers. How could they not? The very same skeptic talking points in Levin's book appear in thousands of blogs and comment sections across the interwebs. If they are intellectually bankrupt, a whole lot of people are going to look stupid.

Regardless, to restrict discussion to climate science -- how many scientists say what, who signed what statement, how many peer-reviewed papers say what -- misses the forest for the trees. Climate denialism is part of something much broader and scarier on the right. The core idea is most clearly expressed by Rush Limbaugh:

We really live, folks, in two worlds. There are two worlds. We live in two universes. One universe is a lie. One universe is an entire lie. Everything run, dominated, and controlled by the left here and around the world is a lie. The other universe is where we are, and that's where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it. And seldom do these two universes ever overlap. ...

The Four Corners of Deceit: Government, academia, science, and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper.

The right's project over the last 30 years has been to dismantle the post-war liberal consensus by undermining trust in society's leading institutions. Experts are made elites; their presumption of expertise becomes self-damning. They think they're better than you. They talk down to you. They don't respect people like us, real Americans. Here's Americans' trust in institutions, also from Gallup data (click for larger version):

[Click to Enlarge in New Window]

The sole exceptions to this general decline in trust are the military and the police:

This is what the real "culture war" in America is all about.  It's not some "distraction" fomented by the Baby Boom generation as Obama argued in his primary campaign against Hillary Clinton.  It's not "just" about abortion or gay rights.  It's about the conservative war on modernism--secularism (as opposed to theocracy), democracy (again, as opposed to theocracy), science (as opposed to theology-based dogma) and, more broadly, empiricism (as opposed to purely faith-based belief).  All these are important core values, practices and fundamntal sources of strength on which America is based.  And all of them are under sustained attack by the right.

This is the real clash of civilizations.  And movement conservatives are clearly on the side that's dedicated to destroying America.

Yesterday was meant to be a short ride, but there was a change of plans, so I decided to bike down to the Dacheng wetlands in Changhua with Drew to see the spot where the massive Kuokuang petrochemical plant complex is slated to go in, and take a few pictures. I originally planned on a 140 km ride but we got a little lost there in the wilds of southwestern Changhua, where the roads are marked on a strict need-to-know basis. Hence, I ended up with an impromptu 163 km ride, my second century (100 miles) of the month. In the pic above Drew photos the vast expanse of wetlands.

The Kuokuang project....

The project was initiated by the state-run refinery CPC Corp., Taiwan to relocate its crude refining plants in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung City to Changhua County by 2015, where it plans to invest NT$400 billion (US$12.57 billion) to construct the petrochemical complex

[from here] Planned for construction on reclaimed land off the mouth of the Zhoushui River in western Taiwan’s Changhua County, the 2,773-hectare complex is set to be the second biggest on the island after Formosa Petrochemical Corp.’s Mailiao refinery complex in nearby Yunlin County.

Egrets.... you can be 100 meters away and if they spot you moving, they immediately fly away. But they will follow a tractor in a field a meter away like puppies.

I posted on "1,000 academics" who oppose this project here. Among them is the influential Noel Laureate Lee Yuan-tse...

Nobel prize winner Lee Yuan-tseh voiced his opposition Tuesday to a project to build a giant petrochemical complex on a central Taiwan coastal wetland, describing the project as "Taiwan's misfortune."

"We pray for favorable wind and rain, for the country to prosper and the people to live in safety, " said Lee, a former president of Academia Sinica, the nation's highest research institute.

However, "the wish seems getting more and more far away from us," Lee lamented at a news conference in which he and many other scholars called for a halt on the Kuokuang petrochemical project out of concern over ecology and human health.

Lee pointed out that with the massive emissions of the Kuokuang complex the government will never make its emissions milestones.

An abandoned military structure. Behind the wetlands stretch down the coast to the distant Mailiao industrial complex.

The Taipei Times reported the other day on activist opposition to the upcoming project:

The pamphlet was written by Hsu, Lin Pi-yao (林碧堯) of Tunghai University, Chou Chin-cheng (周晉澄) and Wu Ching-chi (吳清吉) of NTU, as well as other TEPU members.

TEPU said the petrochemical company’s claim that it would create 692,000 jobs once operations began was proof it was exaggerating its statistics.

According to the 2009 Human Resources Report by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), the chemical and petrochemical industries accounted for a total of 268,000 jobs.

“Does the work force also include the ladies that sell betel nuts outside the factory?” Hsu asked.

Hsu said Kuokuang’s report showed that its scale of operations would be comparable to Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s naphtha cracker in Mailiao (麥寮). Formosa Petrochemical has said its naphtha cracker emits 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, but Kuokuang said its annual emissions would only be 12 million tonnes.

Hsu said Taiwan imports almost all of its energy sources, with the petrochemical industry consuming about one-third of this but contributing only about 4 percent of GDP.

“We’re not asking that the petrochemical industry be reduced to nothing,” Hsu said. “But the petrochemical sector already takes up a large share of the nation’s industry and should not be expanded anymore.”

Lin also said Kuokuang would not be using new production processes and could cause severe pollution.

He said the government was only thinking in terms of profit from the sale of petrochemical products to China under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), a strategy that would cause serious suffering to Taiwanese.

In some ways this highlights the problems of environmental activists in Taiwan -- the company's claim that it will create jobs does indeed include the betel nut girls outside the factory, which would not exist otherwise. As written, the company is not claiming it will employ so many people, only that its economic activities will have multiplier effects, a notion well supported in the economics literature.

That said, there's no way it will create so many jobs. The MOEA says that:

MOEA estimates have the project attracting NT$933.6 billion (US$29 billion) in future investments, while generating NT$460 billion in annual output and creating 375,000 job opportunities.

Note that everything will be subsidized -- water, electricity, oil imports.

The wetlands there are full of structures. Drew remarked that you could see why in the old days ships did not like to approach Taiwan from this side. You could ground your craft in the mud kilometers from the shore.

Speaking of water, I posted last month on a Commonwealth magazine article on the planned destruction of central Taiwan's last wetland for a totally unnecessary naptha cracker for making plastic:

It's not only that Taiwan's largest wetland is bound to vanish if the naphtha cracker project is realized. Lee Hong-yuan, professor at the Department of Civil Engineering at National Taiwan University and a harsh critic of the project, foresees a host of difficulties: Where is the huge amount of water that Kuo Kuang will need supposed to come from, given that the complex will be located in a land subsidence area that lacks water? And how is flooding to be prevented when the land subsides even further? How can the increasing salinization of the soil be addressed? And what is to be done about worsening erosion caused by sea water? These four questions expose the government's absurd policies on industrial development, water resource management and land use, as well as its coastal protection and agriculture policies, which seem to be suffering from scarcity themselves.

.....

Second only to Pingdong County, Jhanghua County has the most severe land subsidence problem in all of Taiwan. In the most affected areas around Fangyuan and Dacheng, land sinking, resulting from excessive groundwater exploitation, can be as deep as an entire story. And land subsidence continues to spread inland. Due to the sinking of the coastal area over a long period, seawater has seeped in, so that the extracted groundwater is salty and the soil has starting to become salinated. Now not even peanuts grow there anymore. In Dacheng, whose economy used to rely heavily on agriculture, the acreage of abandoned farmland keeps growing and expanding further inland. The height of the town's jetties has to be constantly raised to make up for coastal subsidence.

Another structure, concrete piles.

Wonder how this happened.

In a commentary in Taipei Times, Civil Society and the Fight Against the Big Polluters, Lee Ken-cheng observed:

The new Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology plant will be located on the north bank of the Jhuoshui River (濁水溪) opposite the sixth naphtha cracker plant. When development is completed, the combined pollution from these two plants will be even worse than current levels. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ strategic environmental assessment report on the petrochemical industry should, of course, include information on all external costs caused by the petrochemical industry before being submitted to the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee for discussion. Before the environmental assessment is passed, the review of the plant should be suspended.

The sixth naptha cracker is shown below. It is actually in the next county down, Yunlin, and has been in the news after a spate of recent fires.

The Mailiao petrochemical and steel complex.

Another view back to the south.

The Taipei Times reported on the administrative roadblocks to an environmentalist plan to purchase land to stop the construction:

After 50,000 people signed up to purchase 200 hectares of coastal wetlands in Changhua County in an attempt to block the construction of a petrochemical plant in the area, environmentalists yesterday announced the beginning of the second phase of the project — to purchase another 800 hectares. The group also urged the government not to scupper the campaign through administrative measures.

“More than 50,000 people — from across the country, including the offshore islands — have agreed to purchase a total of 200 hectares of wetlands along the Changhua coast. Now it’s time for us to start the second phase of the project,” Taiwan Environmental Protection Union Changhua Division chairman Tsai Chia-yang (蔡嘉陽) said. “This time, we will look to purchase another 800 hectares of wetlands in the area.”

Tsai said that the original 200 hectares are in a coastal strip along which the critically endangered pink dolphin lives. The 800 hectares to be purchased in the second phase of the campaign are an essential habitat for some bird species, he said.

Although coastal wetlands in Changhua County’s Dacheng Township (大城), to the north of the mouth of Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪), are an important habitat for many endangered fish and bird species, Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co plans to build oil refineries in the area.

Worried about the ecological damage and pollution that such a plan would bring, environmentalists and locals have launched the ambitious project to raise money for an environmental trust fund to purchase the land that Kuokuang wants to use to build refineries.

Each share — 1m² of land — will cost only NT$119.

Though more than 50,000 people have expressed interest, the Ministry of the Interior has yet to approve the application for the creation of the environmental trust fund.

Deputy Minister of the Interior Lin Tsyr-ling (林慈玲) said environmental groups had not yet registered to enable themselves to create a trust fund and that the groups had not received consent from the National Property Administration to buy the land.

Tsai said the groups were still in the process of registering to create a trust fund, but added that he did not agree that the consent of the National Property Administration is needed before the ministry could review their case.

“The ministry says it’s the agency in charge of approving trust funds, but then it says it won’t do anything with our application before receiving consent from the National Property Administration. That’s giving the power to decide to the National Property Administration,” Tsai said.

Several of us watching this had wondered whether the government will simply use its power of forced purchase to seize any land purchased to stop the project. The site, and the one in Mailiao, sit next to waters frequented by Taiwan's endangered pink dolphin. For more on that issue, see this long post on environmental assessments and the dolphins from a couple of years ago.

Wetlands stretch to the north as well.

Drew and I got up on the seawall, where the cool wet breeze off the ocean completely negated the desiccating heat of the noonday sun.

A milestone was reached this year when a major investor in the Kuokuang project pulled out due to the delays in getting it constructed.

Business tycoon Preston Chen (陳武雄), chairman of the Taipei-based Chinese National Federation of Industries, said yesterday he would quit investing in the Kuokuang petrochemical project because of continued delays.

“I’m not investing. No investment project in the world can defer for so long,” Chen said in disappointment.

The Kuokuang petrochemical project was worth investing in four years ago, but it’s now a big question mark, he said.

“The world is changing fast in terms of business competitiveness. Kuokuang Petrochemical has my sympathy for all it has endured over the past years for the development project,” he added.

He repeated a statement by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) earlier yesterday, saying the government attaches equal importance to economic development and environmental protection, but if the two issues conflict and one must be favored, environmental protection would win out.

He lamented that major investment projects in the country don’t receive enough support, pointing out that a similar project was proposed in Singapore half a year after the Kuokuang project and the Singaporean petrochemical complex has already started commercial production.

Kuokuang had also been identified in reports last year as a possible site for Chinese investment. The project is justified by claims that Taiwan needs it to stay in the plastics race with Singapore.

A wetlands wharf.

Drew headed out onto the concrete "wharf" into the wetlands.

Mud and temples.

Looking back up the seawall. Note yet another sunken blockhouse.

Drew returns with power. Drew is an amazing rider who has been an inspiration to me, constantly pushing me to exceed what I thought were my limits. I am humbled and fortunate to have him as a friend and mentor. His account with more pictures is here.

A beautiful young couple enjoying the lovely day nearby. What kind of Taiwan will the future bring to them?
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Anthony Watts writes about some explosive yet amusing developments at scienceblogs.com, a blogging platform masterminded by the Seed Magazine - more precisely Seed Media Group because the magazine has been defunct for a year or so.

They recently wanted to add a new blog on nutrition, Food Frontiers (now on Pepsi websites), sponsored by PepsiCo: please feel free to buy two dozens of bottles or anything else from the amazon.com link.

The idea makes a lot of sense because Pepsi knows quite a lot about these matters and it is also doing a very good job in practice - as its successful market battles against CocaCola have demonstrated. They not only produce some tasty products - beverages and food - but also know how to package it in an efficient and environmentally friendly way, among other things.

There was no problem with transparency, either. The first article on Food Frontiers mentioned that it was an extension of their corporate blog, the authors were PepsiCo employees, and that it was "presented by PepsiCo". An absolutely flawless setup.

However, the Seed Magazine happened to forget that their blogging platform has been built upon a time bomb. The magazine has filled their server with dozens of unhinged activists who pretend to be interested in science but whose real passion is radical left-wing politics.

These "thinkers" make Leonid Brezhnev look like Milton Friedman in comparison. (By the way, Brezhnev didn't really believe the communist ideals; he would prefer the scientific-technological revolution and brute power instead.)

The list of these "thinkers" includes the self-described "Godless randomly ejaculating liberal" Paul Z. Myers, the top climatic Wikipedia censor and U.K. Green Party apparatchik William M. Connolley whose Stoat is "taking science by the throat" (his words!), Tim Lambert with his Deltoid, and many others whose names remain actively unknown to us - thank God.

(I follow dozens of blogs including "gems" such as CapitalistImperialistPig but none of the SB blogs is anywhere in my bookmarks.)

So once they learned that Seed could have any link to a free and therefore evil capitalist corporation, dozens of them began to leave scienceblogs.com. Isn't it a scandal for a corporation that has studied their consumers' nutrition since 1890 to say something about nutrition, its current state, and its future? Only clueless communist bloggers have the right to speak! P.Z. Myers himself started the revolt by his polite text titled

Say hello to... PepsiCo? What the fuck?

which forced all other SB bloggers to participate in this insane anti-capitalist protest, too.



Does P.Z. Myers hate Pepsi because he's been hired by its leading competitor? Don't believe it! ;-)

Those who realized that their blogs have been failures have left the SB platform; others such as Myers himself who have collected a sizable ring of visitors and who earn thousands of dollars a month from their blog decided to go on "strike" and push the Seed Magazine to become a hardcore communist company behaving according to their image.

The Food Frontiers SB blog was murdered within 36 hours.

There's only one sensible thing that the Seed Magazine can do: they should tell all of their bloggers that the bloggers have no credentials to censor the flow of the information on scienceblogs.com and that any blogger that will publish complaints against the Seed policies on the Seed servers will see his or her blog deleted.

The Seed Magazine has to get rid of the tons of the stinky communist garbage pretending to be "science" that the magazine has accumulated over the years. It has to try to build a balanced, ideologically neutral community instead. If it fails to win this battle, it will eventually be controlled by the likes of P.Z. Myers and their similarly radicalized readers which is not only a path to a complete violation of the basic ethical principles but also a path to their eventual financial bankruptcy.

And that's the memo.

---

P.S.: Your humble correspondent was offered to join the scienceblogs.com platform in 2006 and I had nothing substantial against it. (Myers is a liar; I got a full contract with all the rules to sign; in 2006, scumbags such as himself were not deciding about these Seed Media matters.) The purely technical considerations such as the stability of the URLs and traffic and the control over the design - and independence in general - decided I would say no.

Of course, as the composition of their bloggers "crystallized", I found many new reasons why I would say No. If you were a SB blogger who is not a mad communist like them, they could cause you lots of trouble just like they did to the proposed Pepsi nutrition blog. It's always dangerous to live in a vicinity of a leftist, especially if there are many of them - it's always a threat for your basic human rights.

If TRF or WUWT were hosted by scienceblogs.com, they could disappear within minutes. You know, Google and its blogger.com is just a generous beacon of freedom in comparison. And I do believe that the recent temporary disappearance of TRF was a minor technical glitch without a serious systemic error and without consequences: what would be left if even this belief had to be abandoned?

By the way, P.Z. Myers boasts that he decides who can blog at SB and who cannot. And it is mostly true, indeed. It reminds me of the misinformation that I was fired from Harvard. Well, I had a contract for several more years and I resigned once my visa expired (and I decided not to work on any green card or new H1B back in 2005 when the feminazi terror against Summers began).

But you can easily see that it doesn't really matter. I was almost existentially threatened by the Marxist activists. Within a short time, the likes of P.Z. Myers that have contaminated all universities could not only fire me but destroy me, too. Much like Stalin (a Georgian weather scientist who would become the Soviet dictator), Kim Jong-il, or any other villain of this kind, they think that their left-wing ideology gives them the right to control everyone else's lives, speeches, and opinions. I had to escape to safety; it's that simple.

The idea that a left-wing academic or a Green Party official is more honest or is expected to be more accurate if he is not paid by PepsiCo is utterly preposterous. These people are paid from many other sources that also influence what they write - and sometimes what they believe. They're creating their image within certain communities that indirectly brings them (fake) prestige and (real) profit, too.

There's nothing wrong about capitalist companies, corporate-sponsored research, and professional blogs. In fact, I believe that certain "strictly applied" and relatively "short-term" disciplines of science - such as the science of nutrition - should be studied exclusively in the commercial sector, otherwise the taxpayers' money are being wasted.

---

P.S. II: To demonstrate that scienceblogs.com has almost nothing to do with science these days, let us look at the five currently most active articles on their server, according to the main page of scienceblogs.com:

1. Episode LXXXII: Is this the thread for the tea party?... P.Z. Myers just included a would-be funny video that attacks the tea party movement
2. Monckton vs The House of Lords... Tim Lambert wrote a short text discussing purely the form, not the content, of some exchanges of Lord Monckton with the deputies
3. What fresh torment can we perpetrate on young girls?... P.Z. Myers discusses breast ironing in Cameroon and argues it occurs because the inhabitants are Catholics
4. Boyd Haley finally does the right thing, but is it for the wrong reasons?... Orac celebrates that the ScienceBlogs surrendered to the commies like him in PepsiGate; it's discussed that evil companies are adding drugs to food
5. GOP Talking Points Even GOP Doesn't Believe... Ed Brayton about Bush tax cuts. Doesn't even pretend to be science

As you can see, science is virtually non-existent over there and everything is biased left-wing politics. But they still have the breathtaking arrogance to attack PepsiCo's scientific blog on nutrition as insufficiently scientific for them. Just compare the SB blogs with Food Frontiers when it comes to their scientific content; FF is almost insanely and boringly technical. WUWT and TRF are somewhere in between but closer to FF than the SB blogs.

Half a day after the list above was reproduced, it changed. The currently most popular or active article on scienceblogs.com is called Shaking the nuts and it is an intellectually vacuous reply to this post of mine and the post by Anthony Watts (aside from an episode with a conservative encyclopedia entry).

Note that he has to be shaking the nuts because his blog is composed out of "random ejaculations". :-)

Myers' reply builds on the fact that his website is being visited by 100,000 mindless morons a day who enthusiastically join Myers' attacks on anyone who is called "right-wing" in any sentence.



Congratulations, Seed! The most successful article on the Seed Media blogging platform is an irrelevant emotional appendix attached to the 3,600th most important and 56th least scientifically valuable article on The Reference Frame. Dear Seed Media Group, that's where you have arrived by your permanent licking of the arses of these far-left loons.

(No, "charlystone". I am not gonna write another "response" to the randomly ejaculating scumbag. The Reference Frame is a quality science blog, not a place to amplify insults by mindless bigots. The fact that an imbecile writes a text about me that is read by 100,000 other imbeciles isn't a sufficient reason for me to write a text on TRF.)

---

P.S. P.Z. Myers has published a detailed scientific response to my points addressed to his 28,000 Twitter followers. Here it is.

Motl=bugfuck insane. RT @Billare: Lubos Motl's take on #SbFAIL, http://bit.ly/bcheZg ; the diagnosis -- "radical left-wing politics"

Congratulations, Mr Myers. It sounds truly convincing.

---

P.S. again Luis Dias, a Pharyngula reader, points out in the "Shaking the nuts" discussion thread that he was surprised that Mr Myers has openly boasted that he could eliminate new bloggers from the SB ring - and censor the flow of the information in this way. Various Pharyngula faithful are telling him that he's... wrong, politely speaking, but they offer all kinds of reasons that contradict each other.

Some of them say that Myers has never had any control about any such issues. Others say that it is completely normal not to admit people who don't "fit in" - such as Pepsi folks or TRF. Anyone who is not a leftist liberal. Indeed, this rule is routinely applied in the company called the Academia.

However, when it comes to groups that the liberals worship, such as some of the people of color who usually don't fit either and who may be incompetent at the same moment (unlike the Pepsi nutrition folks), it would be a discrimination not to hire them! The hypocrisy of these people is just amazing. If your society doesn't put these dangerous power-thirsty radicals in the jail soon enough, they will eventually put you in the jail - or hang you.

Apologies for the week of silence.



I am back from a retreat in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France. A group of 14 thinkers was debating the origin of life and everything. Because of the algorithm that David B. was creatively using to choose and kindly the participants and because of the invited people's algorithm to decide about their answer :-), I had the opportunity to meet the leading proponents of theories that require interventions during the creation of life and hear (and react to) their arguments, too.

They're kind of pleasant and thoughtful people - although I realize that I may get into lots of trouble just by writing a similar sentence.

Richard L. whose name is known to everyone who follows the AGW debates gave a talk about the sociology and history of the AGW movement and related changes in the institutionalized science.

Privately, he gave me an argument why we shouldn't believe cosmoclimatology too much - the atmosphere's enhanced ability to form clouds (because of cosmic rays or anything of the sort) may only lead to the birth of clouds at altitudes that differ by 50-100 meters from the original ones (while the total area covered by clouds is pretty much fixed) - so there's no detectable difference for the energy budget.

I will have to think about the arguments more carefully because small changes of the cloud-covered area are still enough to make a difference. It was very interesting to see how much Richard L. knows about many things such as the history of Jews in France and elsewhere - and how much we agree about various detailed unrelated topics such as the right magnitude of the interest rates and the reasons for them. ;-)

We had also a lot of fun with Christopher B. who is an old-fashioned British journalist and Gentleman and who knows many words in Czech which I always appreciate. :-)

I gave an introduction to string theory, cosmology, and the multiverse. Several talks were dedicated to technical analyses of various steps in the evolution of insects (Günter B.), the evolution of whales (Richard S.), and mutations of the bacteria (Doug A.).

Michael D. described the evolution of his opinions about structuralism and functionalism as two basic philosophical schools to imagine the origin of life (life as crystals - inevitable shapes dictated by Nature; life as machines that are designed for a purpose). This question is somewhat independent from the evolution vs design debate because the functionalist schools does include Darwin as well as ID proponents.

I appreciated his immense excitement although I don't quite understand the "operational" difference between the two schools. After all, machines are also created by Nature - indirectly, through humans; and crystals are also built for a purpose, e.g. to minimize the energy of the atoms in the lattice. ;-) So there's no "fundamentally qualitative" difference and the main difference between the two groups - or endpoints - is the amount of complexity (and contrivedness) vs universality of the structures.

Our generous host Peter T. - who is arguably on a similar ideological boat as your humble correspondent because e.g. CapitalistImperialistPig dedicated an article named "Libertarian Whack" to him on his blog :-) (but dozens of articles are dedicated to me!) - gave a very sensible speech about why our world is ceasing to be scientific and another one about the origin of religions and the role of scapegoats in them.

Intense discussions followed after each talk as well as at all other times.

Victor S. - who is a very good oceanographer, as seen from his knowledge and good swimming :-) - gave me his recent interesting paper about the explanation of sleep as a recalibration of senses. He is Indian, despite the Czech name, and it was reassuring to be close to someone who would also almost certainly say "Evolution: Yes" if asked about this very issue. :-)

But you shouldn't imagine that the opponents of evolution were some religious nuts who spend their time with collective prayers. Quite on the contrary: their knowledge of biology has been vast. No doubt about that, I couldn't compare to them in the specifics. I am still convinced that something is flawed about their big picture but yes, I do admit that I need some degree of belief to be convinced that all potential problems can go away. And their detailed knowledge of the biological structure has simply been impressive.

Tyler H. who is also a Christian from KY would often be able to see some potential "denial of the evidence" that seemed implicit in other participants' lines of reasoning. The young Gentlemen often tried to act more modestly than what his extensive knowledge of biology allows him to say. ;-)

The most general theme of the doubts about evolution was the idea - most quantitatively analyzed by Doug A. - that it is very unlikely for many mutations to occur simultaneously. Sometimes, many mutations (K) are needed for a new life form or a new life strategy to work. The required time may grow exponentially with K which quickly becomes hopeless if K is large.

It's a potentially good argument except that I don't think that it works in the world around us. First, it's often clear that things can work with K very small - one or two. The evolution of a complex eye is arguably the closest "proxy" to the anti-Darwinian argument claiming that it only operates if all the features conspire but they are unlikely to occur at the same moment. Indeed, the eyes are very complex and rely on the interplay of many components.

However, eyes of more primitive animals actually show exactly the kind of evolution that tells you that the evolution can be decomposed to K=1 or at most K=2 steps - and each of them brings evolutionary advantages - because there has always been some room for incremental improvements. The eye was getting deeper, the resolution grew because the animals could see more, the lens would also develop, and so forth.

Unlike others, I think that this "irreducible complexity" is a great potential method to falsify a whole class of theories. It is a great idea for a "litmus test" and the people who say something else are as blinded as the most religious ID advocates. However, when you look in the real world, I don't think that you will find contexts in which this falsification is actually possible.

There are also other issues in which I find the critiques of evolution to be contrived - even if you forget about the existence of other potentially "belief-based" reasons linked to the "big picture" that indicates that the things should have evolved naturally. It has often been assumed that the mutation rate (especially the rate of "useful mutations") was low, only local mutations contributed, and so on.

Well, if one wants to prove that a class of natural mechanisms is impossible, he should allow the mutation rate etc. to be as high as Nature needs, and find the maximum of Nature's ability to evolve the new things over the space of possibilities. If things don't work for one value of a parameter (or many parameters), it doesn't mean that they work for no value of the parameter.

After all, Robert S. who is a top and pioneering champion of the "metabolism first" theories - life didn't start with RNA but some self-feeding protein-like molecules - was emphasizing similar things. In some chemical environments, the mutation rate could have been higher which may be more helpful for you if you're Mother Nature and if you want to evolve highly revolutionary new life forms. ;-)

I did expect the opinions of Robert S. to be compatible with mine before the meeting. So needless to say, despite my highly limited degree of religious inclinations, I was more compatible with the participants' opinions about the big questions than e.g. in the Academia.

But back to the possible anti-evolution arguments.

Another thing is the role of other types of processes (aside from point mutation) that may modify the genes - such as breeding. They were largely neglected. New operating systems are not created by a sequence of "point mutations". Copying-and-pasting is often important, too. The male and female parents may be more likely to combine their advantages, giving birth to offspring that may have all the advantages and making it easier and more likely for Nature to overcome the irreducible complexity problem even if one existed.

We also had some doubts about the relevant size of the population that was enough to obtain certain new traits and the relevant fraction of the population at various stages. Doug A. did a good job to explain and localize these problems but there always remained a "mysterious component" that prevented us from checking the numbers, even as order-of-magnitude estimates.

In some sense, an "exponentially infinitely large" population is enough to get whatever you want. It may be vacuous to think about "infinite populations" because they start to resemble the anthropic multiverses where arbitrarily unlikely events - e.g. the evolution of insects from flowers (isn't it a great idea of mine?! Look at the shapes and flavors, it may work) - become possible simply because of the large number of possibilities. The best forms may eventually flood the environment because of natural selection.

Of course, I am convinced that if all these tests of evolution were done in their full glory and if you used the correct natural model with a realistic choice of the parameters, it would be possible and likely for the life forms to evolve naturally. But yes, I do agree that this belief of mine is a belief - and that many explanations that evolution works are sometimes artificially constructed just for "some explanation" to exist, and the particular explanation doesn't have to be correct - a point emphasized by Günter B.

I could add comments about interesting discussions with Arthur C. or Stephen M. At this moment, I have already listed all the "intellectual" participants of the meeting. The surnames are deliberately shortened to the initials to make the description semi-anonymous and I ask you to keep this format in the comments, too. It's not the job of the Internet readers to know absolutely everything about any semi-private event anywhere, is it?

Your humble correspondent had to say lots of things about the inflationary cosmology, eternal inflation, why this may be believed or not, and so on. Towards the end, it got harder because of some crazy late-spring cold (possibly induced by some allergy) but I worked hard.

The other folks were listening. Although high-energy theoretical physics represents the "opposite end point" of the spectrum how seriously a person may consider arguments based on mathematics, I think that everyone listened carefully and thought about the arguments and concepts intensely.

I have also spent an hour with Peter T. Our discussions focused on particle physics and the general opinions of the billionaires, among other things, but again, not everything should be reproduced in the blogosphere. It was a very interesting meeting.

Japan is reacting to the loss of its fourth prime minister in four years not with anger, but with a sigh and a shrug

If this were any other country, four prime ministers in as many years would be a sign of serious political instability. Not so Japan. Hatoyama is out, but it's business as usual. The machine of government grinds on, like a kind of self-propelling juggernaut that rumbles forward regardless of who is in the driving seat. The public, meanwhile, go about their daily lives as if nothing had happened. It looks like apathy, but it's not. It's despair and resignation.

"Shoganai," they say (a popular word with shades of meaning ranging from "c'est la vie" to "tough shit"). This is politics; there's nothing we can do about it. It drives me nuts, of course. I wish people would at least show some frustration, use some strong language, perhaps even resolve to go out to vote (turnout at the last election was under 50%). Only a minority are willing to air their views – often people who have left the rat race: independent bar owners, the odd housewife, mature students, pensioners, and the like. But most people seem too exhausted or busy even to think about it.

At first, Hatoyama seemed like a good thing. Before the election, he was promising to shift power away from the civil service, to introduce child benefits, and to remove the US military presence from Okinawa. He had even begun to deliver on some of his pledges, banning civil servants from holding their own press conferences and abolishing high school fees. Two issues, however, have been his undoing. The first is the fact that his mother, Yasuko, heiress to the Bridgestone tyre fortune, allegedly made illegal donations to his campaign using the names of dead and imaginary people. The second is that he bent under US pressure to renege on his promise to make American troops leave Okinawa, choosing instead to honour a 2006 deal to relocate the Futenma base away from Ginowan City to Henoko Bay. Not only has this caused considerable annoyance to Okinawans, it will also damage coral reefs and threaten endangered marine fauna.

These two issues – family privilege and US interference – are the essence of what makes people feel so powerless here. Hatoyama, like the majority of the ruling elite, is from a rich and powerful political dynasty. These dynasties, many of them descended from feudal retainers and landlords, established a virtual monopoly over government after the abolition of the shogunate in 1868. Although in the ensuing years they attempted to create a simulacrum of democracy, in reality they did nothing of the sort, and they've had a stranglehold on power ever since.

After the war, General MacArthur saw to it that power remained in the hands of conservative upper-class families and instituted a "red purge" which resulted in people with leftwing sympathies being summarily dismissed from the media, academia, the civil service, the teaching profession and industry. Dissent was trampled on, and the way paved for 50 years of Liberal Democratic party rule, vested interests, bribery and corruption. Some people naively thought that the gravy train might finally terminate once the LDP was voted out. But the antics of Mama Hatoyama have put paid to that.

However, it's not just corruption and nepotism that keeps people out of politics. Dogged resignation to the status quo is inculcated from an early age here. There is next to no education in civics and no attempt to make children aware of their democratic rights. Children are not encouraged to express an opinion at school, where classes are large and taught by rote. The energies of pushy children are channelled into sports clubs where they learn how to fit into a hierarchy, first learning how to stoically endure discipline from older members, and then, as they get older, learning how to discipline their juniors. Less pushy children, meanwhile, can sleep in class and go unnoticed.

There is also great emphasis placed on the individual's ability to gaman (put up stoically with suffering), rather than on problem-solving skills, and children are taught to fear the censure or ridicule of others, which makes them unwilling to stand out. In fact, the education system, with its songs, uniforms, rituals and group-focused activities, has achieved an almost perfectly Foucauldian model of passive citizenship. It's an achievement, of sorts.

But there may be hope. Japan has a venerable tradition of popular rights movements, although many were brutally suppressed, and in some places, the spirit of local activism persists. Even though ordinary people are largely kept out of national politics, issues in rural areas still motivate people. Recently, the Okinawans have been taking an increasingly more proactive stance in the issue of US bases. If this local issue grows into a national one, politicians might have to sit up and listen to public opinion. But we'll have to wait until Friday when the new prime minister is chosen to find out how likely that is.

There is no way today is not going to suck, little muffins. Dr. Isis and the Isis family have a 13 year old Jack Russell Terrier. He came to live with us after we agreed to take him in for 6 months while his original owner found a new place to live. We've since had him for about 7 years. In the last several months he has become un-housetrained and is developing cataracts. Then a few weeks ago he snarled and snapped at Little Isis. Yesterday, he bit at him. He didn't wound him, but he did make contact with his little foot. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

There is no way this is is going to end well for everyone.

Figure 1: I am afraid that, no matter what, it is going to end like this.

So, I might as well answer an email. Mama needs a little flattery...

Dear Dr. Isis,

First off, I would like to sincerely thank you for your openness, honesty, and hilarity on your blog. When I got pregnant last year as a 'finished with fieldwork and just started analysis and writing Ph.D. candidate', I relied heavily on your blog as a source of positive female mentoring, especially during late night freakouts when I worried I was totally nuts to think of having a kid before defending. Or when people point-blank asked if my pregnancy was a "mistake" since I hadn't finished my degree yet. If at all possible, I am an even more avid reader now that I have my own little one and am working to balance personal and professional commitments. So thanks for all of your hard work, and finding time to do some "personal" outreach in your busy schedule.

I was wondering if you could comment on a mentoring issue. My advisor is relatively young, just made tenure, and except for his experience here, I don't think he has mentored before. He's been pretty good so far, but I have added lots of things to my "don't EVER do when I finally become a mentor" list. Just yesterday I heard from an undergraduate student that I have been mentoring for the past 2 years. She is incredibly hard working and was awarded a prestigious summer position that she was really excited about. Unfortunately, she just sent me an email yesterday that she had a family tragedy and had decided to stay at home this summer instead of taking the research position. She didn't provide any details, but just based on her level of excitement about the position, it must have been something really earth shattering for her to decide to stay home. I left her a message soon after to express my condolences and to let her know that I understood her decision. Our advisor just sent her an email this morning (CC'd to me) expressing his disappointment and asking her to reconsider her decision. My knee-jerk reaction is that it sounded condescending and patronizing, as if she couldn't rationally weigh the costs/benefits of choosing to stay at home vs. take a prestigious summer job. It's hard to get subtle tones from an email message, but he has reacted similarly to sudden game-changing decisions of his other students in the past, including me. He seems more apt to jump to conclusions about the student's commitment to science and their ability to function in academia, even (especially) when he doesn't know all the details that went into the making of those decisions. I suspect that there may be some cultural issues at play here too, where our advisor might not feel the same responsibilities towards extended family as my friend.

Do you have any advice on how to mentor students through personal tragedies? Is it ever appropriate to ask for more details about a student's personal life and the factors that went into making such a difficult decision? When cultural attitudes towards family differ between mentor and mentee, how can the mentor respond in a cultually-sensitive way to decisions that may be weighted much differently than they themselves would prioritize their actions? And when the decision is last minute, and the tragedy still fresh, is there any way to tactfully discuss the pros and cons of a deeply personal decision?

Thank you so much again for sharing your thoughts with the wider world. Any advice you may have on this issue (or pretty much any other!) is very much appreciated.

Sincerely,
[Future Awesome Mentor]

Boy, oh boy, oh boy. Where to being...

Mentoring is a funny thing.  I don't think anyone is ever formally trained to mentor someone.  Some of us have the opportunity to informally mentor more junior scientists as graduate students and postdocs and I think that we learn to be mentors as a product of how we were mentored and our experience mentoring others.  There are people that have mentored for a fucktillion years and still suck at it and there are people that are relatively new mentors and are largely successful. 

What I am finding funny in my own career is looking back at my experiences with my graduate school mentor.  I can remember being angry at him so many times.  I once stormed back to the lab after he refused to help me fix a piece of equipment, slammed the door, and yelled to my labmate, "I wish he would just go take a leap off his own ass!"   Now, I find myself doing some of the exact same things.  Things that used to infuriate me and that I swore I would never do. 

And, sometimes "good" mentors are good because they are matched with someone who is a good fit.  One particular mentor might not be right for everyone for every purpose.  This is why I think it's important to have several mentors - both formal and informal. 

While I have been open about leaving school when I was an undergraduate [I know in some other post I discussed this.  Damned if I can find it],  I've never had a student experience a tragedy that caused them to leave school.  When I left school, it was challenging to come back.  It was challenging to motivate myself to return and it was challenging to convince others that I deserved a second chance.  It doesn't mean that it's impossible.  It just means that it is challenging.  That challenge can pose a substantial barrier to some and might cause them to not return at all.

The other day I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine about someone I have started collaborating with.  He is a non-tenure track PhD-level scientist who is extremely brilliant.  I asked my colleague why this scientist had never entered a tenure track position.  He commented that this scientist chose to stay at MRU after he finished his PhD and began work as a scientist.  In the last few years he had applied for a tenure track job, but did not have a sufficiently competitive application compared to individuals who had stayed on a more traditional path.  He then said, "Sometimes leaving a traditional career path can really hurt your future ability to get on the tenure track."

So, what about a student who experiences a tragedy and decides to either leave school or give up an opportunity?  It is inappropriate to ask a student for details about her personal life, but it's not inappropriate to be available or to try to offer resources to help them balance family and academic responsibilities.  I also think it is appropriate to be honest about the consequences of particular decisions and to be open to helping a student weigh the pros and cons of a decision.  I know that I did not have the appropriate reference points to weigh the cost and benefit of my own decision to leave school(even though I thought I did) and I think that a responsible mentor has a duty to be sure that the person she mentors understands all of her options. 

There may frequently be cultural differences between a mentor and her trainee.  I come from a culture that places a very high value on family, and staying close to one's hometown, especially for women.  Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the culture of academia and, while I hope that we can continue to work to change the culture of academia, it is implausible that a single undergraduate student is going to do it.  At the end of the day  this student has to make the best, fully informed decision that is best for her, understanding the ramifications of her decision.  Sometimes women who leave academic opportunities to care for family are looked down upon and, more frequently than their male colleagues, women are asked to leave careers and school, to care for family. I know some male scientists who are concerned about giving women opportunities because they are afraid that these women will leave academia. But, maybe there will be no consequences.  Could be that this student will return in the fall on the same path to success she was on.   Maybe this letter writer's mentor is concerned that this student will not continue on a path toward graduate school.  It's hard to say without really understanding the dynamics between these parties.

Best of luck to this student and congratulations to the letter writer for being an available mentor to her.  Sometimes all you can do in these situations is hope that everything works out for the best.

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by Bonnie Azab Powell.

Summer fruits from the farmers market are the supermodels of the produce world. Just like Heidi Klum doesn’t need makeup to be beautiful, a super-fresh White Lady peach or Seascape strawberry doesn’t need extra sweetening or seasoning to shine. But given the right recipe—one designed expressly for fruit and vegetables at their peak ripeness and flavor, not for their wooden supermarket facsimiles—they can really wow your tastebuds.

Just in time for June’s bounty of stone fruits and berries comes Farmers’ Market Desserts. Author Jennie Schacht and photographer Leo Gong visited dozens of farmers markets as well as farms in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Schacht lives; New York City and the Hudson Valley; Wisconsin; Maui; and elsewhere to compile this visually appetizing collection. Grouped according to the season, the recipes hit all the right dessert notes, from familiar ones like sorbets and tarts to more exotic granitas and parfaits. And it’s not all strawberry fields forever—there’s a section for in-between seasons, using dried fruits and nuts and even winter vegetables like squash. Suggestions for substitutions abound, and “Farm Journal” boxes share tidbits from farms Schacht visited, such as Weston’s Antique Apple Orchard, where a Wisconsin family grows some of the last remaining examples of certain apple varieties.

Grist quizzed Schacht by phone this week about how she got into food writing, why she prefers shopping at farmers markets to Safeway, and why the buzzword “organic” rates hardly a mention in her book. And in case you feel inspired to bake over this holiday weekend, she’s also shared her recipes for Strawberries & Cream Cake Roll and Chilled Plum Soup with Sour Cream after the jump.

How do you pronounce your name?

“Shacked,” like shacked up. Or “Shaq attack,” with a “t” at the end and without the “attack” part.

In addition to writing about food, you also consult for food and hunger nonprofits and government agencies. Which came first? Cookbooks or grant proposals?

My background is actually in social welfare—I am a licensed clinical social worker, though currently on inactive status. I worked in community-based health care, for example running a prenatal care program at a Native American health center. In January 1991, I started Schacht & Associates, which helps nonprofit and public organizations to develop health care programs and get them funded.

At some point I realized I had raised around $20 million in grants, and that obviously my third-grade teacher was wrong—I could write! I grew up being told I was a terrible writer. Even my parents, who were extraordinarily supportive, said it wasn’t my strong suit.

When I realized I was able to persuade funders to give these groups large amounts of money, I decided to try and do some food writing, which I had always wanted to do. I’ve always loved to cook. At a young age I’d tackle stuff from Mastering the Art of French Cooking or from the Julia Child TV show. Looking back now, I had a predisposition toward math and science. One of the things I love about baking and pastry are the marriage of art and science. It’s creative and artistic, so many scientific principles involved.

So I went to Cornell for a summer and got a certificate in food and beverage management, because I thought it was good to have some academia behind me. I wrote a few food articles, and then one day I went to a chocolate tasting with chef Mary Cech, who developed the pastry program at Greystone [the Culinary Institute of America]. I handed her my business card and said, “If you ever want to do a book, call me.” And she did! And that book was The Wine Lover’s Dessert Cookbook.

Farmers’ Market Desserts is your first solo cookbook, right? Was that hard?

Yes, it’s the first I’ve done entirely myself. It’s very touching that Chronicle Books had faith in me, since I don’t have a culinary background, no restaurant or catering company as a portfolio of work. I just went to farmers markets and bought stuff and brought it home and thought, “OK, what would be fun to make with this?”

I’ve always wondered how people create recipes. Do you start with someone else’s and then modify it, or make it up “from scratch”?

I have files and files and notebooks of things I’ve cooked, notes on what I’ve done so I can make it again if I like it, or a variation to try next time. The recipes I’ve developed are things that have worked with my own kitchen experiments over the years. Also, I have a very strong mental taste capacity—a flavor imagination. Sometimes I can actually write a recipe on my computer, print it out, and take it into the kitchen and more often than not it works exactly as I imagined it.

Most Americans seem to view cooking as a chore, something to be outsourced. With cookbooks on their way to becoming anachronisms, how can we entice people to make their own ice cream?

Well, I know even people who cook are intimidated by desserts. I had someone tell me that making granita sounded too complicated because you had to open the freezer and scratch it with a fork every 30 minutes or so. And granita is one of the easiest desserts to make, I think. So I tried to have plenty of things in this book that are really simple, like avocado pudding, that would work even for people who are easily intimidated.

A lot of people are just busy and overtaxed, and they do rely on packaged foods. But there seems to be a new and increasing interest in home cooking, as evidenced by the growth in farmers markets, the Edible publications, the Slow Food movement, and backyard gardening. So I am hopeful. I’ve noticed that when people make something themselves and have the satisfaction of it coming out edible—or better yet, fantastically delicious, better than something in a restaurant—it’s sort of self-igniting.

Why the “Farmers’ Market” Dessert Cookbook? Why not the “Supermarket” Fruit Dessert Cookbook?

First of all, I just love the farmers market. I love that you can talk to and ask questions of the people who grow the food you’re eating. I love that you can see it, touch it, and taste it before you make it. You can try three different kinds of strawberries, and one week one vendor will have the ones you like best and the next week it might be a different one. I love that it’s shopping and community.

With cooking, your outcome to a large degree is only as good as your inputs. It depends where you live. If you want to make dessert and the farmers market isn’t open, if you have a produce stand with good fresh local produce, use it. But if you buy products that have been flown from somewhere far away, they’ve likely been picked before they are ripe, or selected for their durability in shipping, and they’re just not going to taste as good. If you aren’t lucky enough to have a farmers market or a produce stand, then just try to find a reliable source. Even our neighborhood Trader Joe’s has organic produce, and it’s often local. Ask the produce person in your supermarket if you can taste the fruit. They’ll usually let you.

You don’t talk much at all about the organic label in your book.

I prefer organic. But when I go up to someone’s booth and they say they haven’t gotten their certification because they haven’t been doing it long enough, or it’s too expensive, but they don’t spray or use pesticides, then why shouldn’t I buy it? Why should they be penalized? I’m more interested in a combination of food that’s been grown healthfully, with respect to the environment, that’s good tasting, and local. I am not an organic über-alles person.

OK, so what’s your secret junk-food weakness?

I don’t think I have one! I can honestly say I really don’t like processed food. Even when I was growing up, we ate home-cooked food always. We baked our own bread or got it from the local bakery. We used very few packaged products. I don’t think I have ever eaten a McDonald’s hamburger in my life—I stopped eating meat in college. I eat dark chocolate. And I do like a pretzel. Maybe even the two together.

Strawberries & Cream Cake Roll

From Farmers’ Market Desserts by Jennie Schacht (Chronicle Books, May 2010)

This takeoff on strawberry shortcake is elegant enough for a dinner party and, despite a few construction steps, not at all difficult to make. It can be made several hours or even a day ahead, making it perfect for entertaining.

Makes 8 servings

Filling

2 pints (about 4 cups) strawberries, hulled
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier (optional)
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup crème fraîche or sour cream
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Cake

5 large eggs, separated cold, then left at room temperature for at least 30 minutes
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour, sifted before measuring
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Confectioners’ sugar, for rolling and finishing

1. To begin the filling, set aside 1 cup of the berries for garnish. Cut the remainder into 1/2-inch-thick slices and toss with 2 tablespoons of the sugar and the liqueur (if using). Set aside at room temperature to get acquainted while you prepare the cake batter.

2. Preheat the oven to 400ºF, with a rack near the center. Oil a 17-by-12-inch rimmed baking sheet and line with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Oil the mat or parchment.

3. To make the cake, in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or with a handheld mixer), beat the egg whites on medium speed until they hold soft peaks. Add 1/3 cup of the granulated sugar in a slow, steady stream, then increase the speed to medium-high and continue to beat until the whites hold medium-firm peaks. Set aside.

4. In a large bowl, using the mixer with the whisk attachment, beat together the egg yolks, vanilla, and the remaining 1/3 cup sugar on high speed until thick and pale, about 5 minutes with a standing mixer and a little longer with a handheld mixer. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. On low speed, mix in the flour and salt just until combined.

5. Whisk the whites briefly to bring them back to medium-firm peaks. Using a large spatula or whisk, gently fold one-third of the whites into the yolk mixture to lighten it, then fold in the remaining whites just until combined.

6. Immediately pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake until the top feels dry and springs back when you press it lightly with your finger near the center, about 8 minutes. It should remain pale. Transfer the pan to a wire rack, cover with a tea towel, and let cool for 10 minutes.

7. Run a thin knife around the inside edge of the pan to loosen the cake sides. Using a fine-mesh strainer, dust the top of the cake lightly with confectioners’ sugar, re-cover the cake with the towel, and invert a rimless baking sheet on top. Invert the pans together, releasing the cake onto the towel and rimless sheet. Lift off the top pan and peel off the mat or parchment. Let the cake cool completely, 20 to 30 minutes longer.

8. To complete the filling, using a chilled bowl and beaters, whip the cream, crème fraîche, vanilla, and the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar until the mixture holds firm peaks. Strain the berries, capturing their juices in a bowl, and fold the drained berries into the cream.

9. Cut the berries reserved for garnish in half, from top to tip. Mix them with the reserved berry juices.

10. Position the cake with a long side parallel to the edge of the work surface, and place a serving platter at the opposite long side. Spread the cream filling evenly over the cake, leaving a narrow border on the short sides and a 1-inch border along both long sides.

11. Starting at the long side closest to you, fold the 1-inch border tightly over the filling, then begin to roll, using the towel to help form a compact roll and pulling it out of the way as you go. Then, use the towel to help you transfer the cake, seam-side down, onto the serving platter. Use a thin or serrated sharp knife to trim just a bit from the ends of the cake to create a slight angle (baker’s snack!). Refrigerate the cake, tightly covered, until very cold, about 2 hours or up to 1 day.

12. Sift confectioners’ sugar over the top, and spoon the reserved berries around the base. Cut the cake with a thin or serrated sharp knife at a slight angle, using a gentle sawing motion.

Season to Taste: In place of the sliced strawberries, use raspberries, olallieberries, or blackberries, coarsely chopped if very large. In the filling, substitute crème de cassis for the Grand Marnier with blackberries, or raspberry liqueur with raspberries.

Farm Journal: If you are accustomed to shopping in a supermarket, you may not know that many strawberry varieties are cultivated, each with its own constellation of size, color, texture, and flavor. Don’t discriminate against strawberries because of their size, shape, or color. Instead, follow your nose: fragrant berries are likely to be ripe and flavorful.

Chandler, Diamante, Douglas, Ogallala, Seascape, Sequoia, and Sweet Charlie varieties are particularly flavorful, with the Ogallala combining the floral aroma and flavor of wild strawberries with the larger size of domesticated (or farmed) varieties. Which are available at your market will depend on where you shop, but the farmers’ market gives you the perfect chance to taste and discover the sweetest for yourself.

Chilled Plum Soup with Sour Cream

From Farmers’ Market Desserts by Jennie Schacht (Chronicle Books, May 2010)

One childhood role I had was to re-create my grandmother’s best hits for my dad. Plum soup with sour cream, which he called by its Yiddish name, pomella, was one of his favorites. This grown-up version is every bit as satisfying, served in shot glasses as a sort of dessert amuse-bouche, or in bowls accompanied by crisp Hazelnut-Almond Biscotti, Lavender-Walnut Sandies, or Market Jam Gems, made with plum jam if you can find it. The soup is perfect for making in advance because it needs time to chill. If you have leftover soup, take a tip from recipe tester Emily Lichtenstein: freeze it in Popsicle molds for a refreshing plum pop!

Use flavorful, dark flesh plum varieties, such as Santa Rosa or Yummy Rosa, for the soup. The fruit should be quite ripe and soft but not bruised. This recipe is a great way to use up plums about to go over the hill.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

4 cups water
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Few twists of black pepper
2 pounds firm-ripe plums, pitted and coarsely chopped
1 sprig lemon verbena, about 4 inches long (optional)
2 tablespoons crème de cassis or other berry liqueur
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
About 1/2 cup sour cream or crème fraîche, for serving
6 to 8 small sprigs mint or lemon verbena, for garnish

1. Combine the water, sugar, salt, and pepper in a large, heavy, nonreactive saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the plums, bring back to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Skim off any foam that rises to the top, stirring occasionally, until the fruit is very soft and falling apart, about 20 minutes.

2. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon verbena sprig (if using). Let cool for about 20 minutes, tasting occasionally and removing the lemon verbena when its flavor has perfumed the soup to your liking. It should be a delicate background note, not a predominant flavor.

3. Puree the soup until smooth using an immersion blender, standard blender, or food processor. Stir in the crème de cassis and lemon zest and juice. Cover and refrigerate until very cold, about 4 hours or up to 4 days.

4. Ladle the chilled soup into shallow bowls. Top each serving with a dollop of sour cream and a mint sprig.

Season to Taste: Try other stone fruits, such as peaches, nectarines, or cherries. Strawberries or blackberries also make a delicious soup, though you may want to strain out the seeds. Omit the cassis or substitute a complementary light-colored liqueur for light-colored fruits.

 

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Boulder CO (SPX) May 12, 2010 - NASA's space shuttle Atlantis will make its final flight May 14 carrying three University of Colorado at Boulder-built biomedical payload devices, including one to help scientists understand how and why slimy and troublesome clumps of microorganisms flourish in the low-gravity conditions of space.

The experiments on biofilms - clusters of microorganisms that adhere to each other or to various surfaces - are of high interest to space scientists because of their potential impacts on astronaut and spacecraft health, said CU-Boulder's Louis Stodieck, director of BioServe Space Technologies in the aerospace engineering sciences department.

Their growth, for example, occurred in water purification and environmental controls systems on Russia's Mir Space Station and was of regular concern.

Led by Professor Cynthia Collins of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., and managed by NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, Calif., the experiments will target the growth, physiology and cell-to-cell interactions in microbial biofilms.

The team will examine how the formation of the three-dimensional structure of biofilms formed by microbes differs in spaceflight versus normal gravity.

Because astronauts show decreases in their immune systems during spaceflight, researchers would like to know more about how bacteria behave in space, including their apparent increase in virulence and resistance to antibiotics, said Stodieck. Such experiments have implications for astronauts on long-term space travel flight to places like the moon, Mars and beyond.

The experiments will be carried aboard Atlantis in sets of specially designed fluid-processing apparatuses known as GAPs designed and built by BioServe, said Stodieck. Atlantis astronauts will control the individual GAP experiments using hand cranks to trigger and then later terminate cell growth via fluid mixing. The samples will be returned to Earth at the end of the mission for further study.

The GAPs will ride inside BioServe's Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus, an automated, suitcase-sized device developed at CU-Boulder that has been launched on more than a dozen NASA space shuttle missions, with two of the CGBA devices now on the International Space Station. BioServe is providing the hardware, integration and operations support for all Atlantis GAP experiments.

A second experiment using BioServe hardware, sponsored by Astrogenetix, Inc. headquartered in Austin, Tex., and designed by researchers at the Durham VA Medical Center in North Carolina will analyze changes in virulence of two particularly nasty strains of bacteria in the low gravity of space. One, Salmonella, can cause illness and death to humans by tainting food or water.

The second, Staphylococcus, can cause a variety of infections, including Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA - a growing problem in hospitals and health clinics - because of its ability to resist antibiotics in the penicillin class of drugs.

"Water quality, food safety and disease are age-old problems on Earth," said Stodieck. Not only do these experiments have applications for keeping crew members safe by helping scientists better understand gene and protein changes in pathogens, they also could help researchers find new ways to prevent and control infectious disease."

A third experiment designed by the University of Florida will use BioServe hardware to study cell cultivation in a tropical plant known as Jatropha that produces energy-rich nuts, a popular new renewable crop for biofuels.

The researchers will be looking for genes that help or hinder growth in tropical plant species to see if it could be commercially grown in "warm-temperate" areas like the southern United States.

After the launch of Atlantis, the shuttle program has two scheduled flights remaining - Discovery September and Endeavour in November - before the fleet is retired.

Stodieck said hardware and experiments built by BioServe are manifested on both missions as well as on future resupply vehicles traveling to the International Space Station from other countries.

BioServe also has plans to fly hardware and experiments in micro-gravity on existing commercial rockets and on space vehicles now under development, Stodieck said.

"It's been quite an era for the space shuttle program," said Stodieck. "But I fully expect we will continue to do research on the International Space Station - it will just require an adjustment in space vehicles."

Both undergraduate and graduate students play a role in designing, building and testing spaceflight payloads, said Stodieck. Master's student Christine Fanchiang, who has helped to test the payloads, will be at Cape Kennedy, Fla., for the launch.

"I had heard there were astronauts on the CU faculty, and then I found out that I could actually work with real spaceflight hardware at BioServe," Fanchiang said.

"I plan on getting my doctorate here in aerospace engineering, and who knows - maybe someday I can help to design and build lunar outposts."

BioServe also has flown several K-12 educational experiments on ISS, including seed-germination studies, crystal garden growth experiments and the life cycles of butterflies - all of which have provided learning opportunities for middle school and high school students around the world, said Stefanie Countryman. Countryman is BioServe's business manager and coordinator of education outreach.

BioServe is a nonprofit, NASA-funded center founded in 1987 at CU-Boulder to develop new or improved products through space life science research in partnership with industry, academia and government. Since 1991 BioServe has flown payloads on 35 space shuttle microgravity missions.

Back during the transition and early days of the new administration, when Obama was announcing the names and qualifications of his first nominees, I complained that he seemed to restrict his choices to people who had graduated from the country's most elite universities...Stanford, Berkeley, and the Ivies, mainly. It was rare to find someone who had attended a second or third-tier university. Why did I see that as a problem? Well, it's complicated, but growing up in Princeton, New Jersey with the sons and daughters of Ivy League professors, I know a bit about the culture of elite academia and the kind of kids who are educated there. I have a ton of respect for Princeton as a learning institution and for the superachieving kids that make up the Student Body. But they are living in an alternative reality that is disconnected from the common experience of the vast majority of people in this country and the larger world. I don't have a problem with hiring a lot of Ivy Leaguers to positions of governmental responsibility, but I do have a problem with overpopulating the government with people who have mostly enjoyed a very privileged upbringing. I'm not an absolutist about this at all. Princeton and Columbia educated Michelle and Barack Obama, and Sonia Sotomayor. Not everyone who attends Stanford or Yale is born with a silver spoon in their mouth (or, like Chelsea and Barbara, is the daughter of a president). It's just that I think someone who went to, say, Miami University of Ohio and graduated with honors should be taken seriously and be given a shot at working in high positions in government. You want people who are top-notch achievers, but not everyone need be an A-student from the age of thirteen on. So, I can almost relate to P.J. O'Rourke's anti-Obama rant, A Plague of ‘A’ Students: Why it’s so irksome being governed by the Obami. Except, O'Rourke's complaint is not that stupid schlubs like himself aren't allowed to work in Obama's administration. His problem is that Obama is treating something seriously that O'Rourke desperately wants to treat unseriously: namely, the governance of the United States of America: Barack Obama is more irritating than the other nuisances on the left... ...The secret to the Obama annoyance is snotty lecturing. His tone of voice sends us back to the worst place in college. We sit once more packed into the vast, dreary confines of a freshman survey course—“Rocks for Jocks,” “Nuts and Sluts,” “Darkness at Noon.” At the lectern is a twerp of a grad student—the prototypical A student—insecure, overbearing, full of himself and contempt for his students. All we want is an easy three credits to fulfill a curriculum requirement in science, social science, or fine arts. We’ve got a mimeographed copy of last year’s final with multiple choice answers already written on our wrists. The grad student could skip his classes, the way we intend to, but there the s.o.b. is, taking attendance. Now, I understand how something as simple as tone of voice can grate like nails on a chalkboard. I felt that way about George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin. It was hard for me to get past how they were saying things to listen to what they were saying. So, if Obama's style is distracting and irksome to P.J. O'Rourke, I don't begrudge him that. And I know he is a humorist (sometimes, but not here, a quite accomplished one) and one ought not take him too literally. But he really is arguing that people of average intelligence founded this country and that they can run it best. The smart set stayed in fashionable Europe, where everything was nice and neat and people were clever about looking after their own interests and didn’t need to come to America. The Mayflower was full of C students. Their idea was that, given freedom, responsibility, rule of law and some elbow room, the average, the middling, and the mediocre could create the richest, most powerful country ever. Nevermind that this is an atrocious reading of history, our country was, at least, populated by people who were not part of the dissolute European aristocracy. But it was founded by people like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, who were certainly some of the smartest and high-achieving people of their day. (I'd note here, for the record, that Franklin and Hamilton's frivolous and humble upbringings might have prevented them from serious consideration in the Obama adminsitration). What O'Rourke viscerally dislikes is Obama's earnestness and raw intellect. Politics should be a mud-fight, and policy only exists to be cynically mocked. How dare this president treat the electorate as if they might learn something? It feels like we all might be surprised at any moment with a pop-quiz. Can you explain the CBO score of the health care bill in 500 words or less? Whatever insecurities O'Rourke may have, he's actually much smarter than the average person. But his discomfort with Obama is obviously shared by a lot of people who just don't like his style and manner (and I'm not even talking about race). George W. Bush was a 'C' student at Yale. Yet, O'Rourke could relate to him. He wanted to blow off 'Nuts and Sluts,' too.

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The ability to reel off great XIs of the past, as featured in an Oscar-winning Argentinian film, defines the true football fan

The lawyer leans back on his bar stool, thinking about the names that the state prosecutor has just given him, taken from mysterious letters written by a man who may have committed a grotesque murder 30 years ago.

Oleniak? Ah yes, he says. "Juan Carlos Oleniak. First played for Racing Academy in 1960. In 62 he went to Argentinos Juniors and back to Racing in 63. In a classic match with San Lorenzo, he got pushed and fell face-first into the moat. He was soaked." Manfredini? "Pietro Waldemar Manfredini. Racing paid peanuts for him and he ended up being an extraordinary player. Incredible." Bavastro? "Julio Bavastro. A right wing. He played only two matches between 1962 and 1963 without scoring." Sanchez? "Ataulfo Sanchez. Goalkeeper. An eternal benchwarmer. He played only 17 matches between 57 and 61." Anido and Mesias? "The full-backs in the team that won it all in 61."

And then, carried away by the reminder of the glory days, the lawyer treats his small but attentive audience to his own cherished list of names: "Negri. Anido and Mesias. Blanco, Peano and Sacchi. Corbatta, Pizzuti, Mansilla, Sosa and Belen." The 11 representatives of Racing Club de Avellaneda – one of Argentina's big five clubs, nicknamed La Academia – who won every available trophy almost 50 years ago, recited in order from 1 to 11, in the old formation of two full-backs, three half-backs and five forwards.

"We call him Plato," one of the lawyer's friends remarks. "The Academy is his life." A good joke, and perhaps its extra layer of meaning appealed to the voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when they awarded the Oscar for this year's best foreign‑language film to El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret of Their Eyes), in which the scene appears.

The lawyer's store of knowledge has helped to identify the suspect, who is then tracked to a match between Racing and Huracán in the latter's stadium in a scene which may make the most effective cinematic use of a football match since Vittorio De Sica showed a group of travelling Modena fans making their way towards the old Fascist‑built home of Roma in Bicycle Thieves in 1948. But it was the listings of names that caught my imagination: a beautifully deployed exposition of a special pleasure in which many of us indulge from time to time.

Most football lovers have an allegiance not just to a club but to a particular team, the sequence of their names hard-wired into the memory, ready to be produced at the appropriate moment. It's a way, not least, of proving one's authenticity: by rolling out the names of Thompson, Whare, McDonald, Burkitt, McKinlay, Whitefoot, Dwight, Quigley, Wilson, Gray and Imlach, I demonstrate my right to be considered a Nottingham Forest fan.

But maybe remembering an FA Cup winning team, even one from 1959, is not much more of a feat than reciting the names of Alf Ramsey's England heroes of 1966. So I reinforce my claim by rattling off another XI: Grummitt, Hindley, Winfield, Hennessey, McKinley, Newton, Lyons, Barnwell, Baker, Wignall and Storey-Moore, runners-up in the old First Division in 1966-67, left. And it's amusing to realise that such feats of memory are extended even to the enemies of that era: Sprake, Reaney, Cooper, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles and Gray.

New generations of fans have been denied the same privilege. Ever since Fabio Capello used the money Silvio Berlusconi poured into Milan to create the first of the big squads almost 20 years old, squad rotation has meant that although an individual unit – Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Keown and Winterburn, for example – may write itself into legend, a favourite XI must be provisional and temporary. And so a cherished ritual loses its essential nourishment.

Anyway, The Secret of Their Eyes comes out in the UK in August. Go and see it, and not just for the reminder of football's simpler days.

Grant Allen, Investment Professional, Core Capital Partners

Grant Allen joined Core Capital in 2007 with nearly six years of strategy consulting and telecommunications industry experience. Most recently, Grant was at Liberty Associated Partners, where he worked with the CEO of Jingle Networks' 1-800-FREE-411, and Microsoft Corporation, where he was a Product Manager in the Mobile & Embedded Devices division and developed field-level compete strategy for Windows Mobile.

Previously, Grant was a consultant at Dean & Company, where he focused on transitioning telecom infrastructure providers to new growth sectors such as mobile media and location-based services, as well as cost reduction strategy for wireline carriers. He began his career working with a number of young companies, including Bates White, an economics consulting firm; Nextera Interactive, a Internet incubator and IT consulting firm; and A-k Presence, a web design and e-commerce services firm he founded. He remains actively involved with a number of non-profit organizations including Washington, DC-based FareShare and the Ocular Melanoma Foundation, which he also founded.

Grant received his B.S.E. in Civil Engineering cum laude from Duke University and an M.B.A. with an individualized major in Private Equity and Venture Capital from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania. There, he was an Executive Director of the Wharton Graduate Association, a Leadership Fellow, and sat on the board of the Wharton Alumni Association.

Grant participated in the FundingPost event: DC Early-stage Venture Capital Conference on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 in DC

Core Capital Partners
Founded in 1999, Core Capital is a venture capital firm managing $350 million in private equity across two funds. We provide capital to both early-stage ventures and small to mid-sized growth companies developing or incorporating disruptive, "core" technologies in high-growth technology sectors. Core Capital is led by a seasoned partnership with deep domain expertise and over 70 years of collective investment experience.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., but with a national focus, Core Capital is led by a seasoned partnership with deep domain expertise and over 70 years of collective investment experience. The firm is backed by some of the country's most sophisticated limited partners and a Board of Advisors representing leaders in academia, government and business. Our close industry relationships are critical to our ability to source attractive, proprietary investment opportunities, partner with other leading firms, and invest in A and B rounds at half the industry average pre-money valuation.

Core has invested in nearly 40 companies and is actively involved with its portfolio. With over 100 collective career investments, our partners' purpose is to apply broad operational and venture capital experience to identify and assist early-stage companies in becoming market-leading, sustainable businesses. To that end, we partner closely with entrepreneurs and believe we can significantly affect growth trajectory and profitability through proactive operational participation and board involvement.

Some Previous Investments:
GoMobo
is a mobile payments firm dedicated to improving everyday life for consumers on the go. GoMobo launched its patent-pending remote ordering system in May 2006 and became a press sensation with coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, and ABC World News. Today, GoMobo's clients include affiliates of Dunkin' Donuts, Subway, Wawa, Papa John's, and top independent restaurants in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and 25 other US cities.

SoftModule
is developing first-of-its-kind technology to create a dense computational fabric that will let tomorrow's datacenter run more efficiently while handling the computational demands of the future. In order to decrease energy consumption and harness untapped power, SoftModule is using a multi-layer, multi-criteria, adaptive scheduling algorithm to control hardware resources. SoftModule is in stealth mode.

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After two weeks of Winter Olympics euphoria in Vancouver (or rather 2 weeks of heavy workload without lecture interference, not that I attend lecture), I have immediately faced the realities of several setbacks. Inability to meet a professor to discuss about the promotion of an internationally-recognized technical conference due to overwhelming workload and schedule. A Toastmasters meeting (with the club that I co-founded) being cancelled in the last minute due to low attendance. Lately in the last few terms, receiving less-than-desirable grades despite sinking my effort and time into it at my social and family life’s expense (at times even sanity). To me on a certain level, those were signs of failure. I do not feel good at times when I’m dealing with the consequences of those failure.

After going through some blogs related to this topic, while my views have yet to change significantly, they got me at least thinking about success, failure, and perfection in retrospect. I found myself having the problem of being a perfectionist. For example, when taking courses, I focus to exert the effort and time required to achieve near perfection grades. I gave up a lot of socializing opportunities even when they won’t affect my ability to achieve decent grades (although would affect my chances of getting the grades that I was aiming for). The goal was so hard to reach that I became constantly frustrated when results aren’t being met, upset b/c of the amount of fun I could have had doing other things, and burnt out b/c I felt my resources are being wasted. Srinivas Rao’s guest post on Nicole Crimaldi’s blog about the comparison between success and perfection pointed out a key issue that most people ignore. The report cards were never acknowledged for effort. Rather expectations on meeting certain grades are completed with regards to whether any new knowledge has been retained, or whether the work was any fun. I had neither when I went for perfection, as I felt it was needed for certain goals that were no longer relevant. I also went for it for the purposes of self-esteem, using the results of the grades on the report card system to convince me to feel rewarded (even though realistically this isn’t the case, proven by performance in certain job interviews in the past where I was deemed not social enough, thanks to giving up social opportunities to earn grades, or forgetting key concepts covered in some previous courses that were asked, as I was more focused on getting the grades than actually learning the material without considering the scholastic consequences. Failure is a part and foundation of success. It is often times a very challenging setback to swallow and handle.

This problem often stems from personal attachment to achieving success. No one wants to fail at anything. Rao has another blog post that was very enlightening. He talked about the 6 signs of being too attached to success. I will relist them here.

1. Not living in the present. I have realized that I have doing too much in the present moment to improve my chances to achieve a desired state in the future. What ends up happening being the plans not working out, and I have upset and bitter about wasting the time in the past rather than enjoying myself. This change is a gradual process. While I have aggressively worked out future plans to be as planned in the past, currently I tried not to let this lingering too much in my mind affecting my health and sanity by working it out on my own pace. I have also totally scrapped the old ways of laying out future career plans and focused on networking with other bloggers that weren’t even expected last year or two years ago. I am focusing on what I want to do in the future, and work out the steps to get there on my own healthy pace.
2. Fundamentals are abandoned. While I remembered I did well on the fundamentals, when faced with an ever more challenging problem, my anxiety and excitement got a hold of me. I was so focused on solving the problem that I either lose sight of the big picture, or I forgot the required fundamentals to solve it. Efforts should be exerted to at least remind oneself that fundamentals cannot be abandoned in order to achieve success.
3. Doing things that is known not to work. Being attached to the outcome may yield a situation where the goal is known to be too difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish. As a result, failures are more likely to occur, frustration would start to build. I’m currently in the progress of making smaller, more achievable goals that are easily measurable.
4. Stop having fun. When you stop having fun with what you’re doing, then you really are not going to succeed. Even if you do succeed it’s not going to be very fulfilling. For example, in my case, sometimes I get overloaded with responsibilities that people from various volunteering organizations. I could not unload or delegate very much of those responsibilities. As a result, I toughed it out. Even though the outcomes of fulfilling those responsibilities were successful, it did not feel fulfilling at all personally. The reason stems from either the setbacks I encounter as a result of such time investment, such as grade degradation, schedules of my other tasks fallen behind, lack of sleep, socialness, wellness, etc. I just stopped having fun (and still not really having fun, but it is getting marginally better).
5. Continually compare to a previous success. I also struggle with this one. I felt that I have been in a drought of recent scholar success, as I have been very attached to scholastic achievements. In reality, unless I really want to stay in academia (which I am not having fun in school whatsoever), scholastic achievements complement very little, if at all, to success in finding new career and business opportunities. At least this is a reminder for me to not push myself over the edge health-wise to achieve certain goals. It’s just not worth it in the long-run (although I am a very near-sighted person).
6. Going nuts on a minor setback. This happened just 2 days ago. When some of my team members wrote close to completely incomprehensible report content for a report, I was physically and mentally tired and frustrated due to being overloaded with other new responsibilities just fallen on my plate that I was cursing 10 words per minute for a while. I had gone nuts about the amount of extra time I have to spend to edit at the expense of my needed sleep. A person who is not as attached to success likely would’ve handled one self better, i.e. not going nuts and swearing all over the place.

To cap off this post, I would like to bring a final example of how the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee (VANOC) handled a certain adversity. During the 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony, when a Canadian legendary icon, Wayne Gretzky, tried to light the cauldron, it malfunctioned. Critics were all over this debacle happening in an event where nothing should go wrong if well-planned. No one saw a clown engineer fixing the cauldron coming in the closing ceremony, before Catriona Le May Doan, another Canadian athletic icon, lighted it with the Olympic flame. It shows that failure is part of the process to success sometimes.

What are your thoughts? Please feel free to send an email to blog@sysil.com or leave a comment below.

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Conservatives love to bash academia as little more than an elitist welfare state, a plush cushion to soften the landing for people who can’t cut it outside. Tenured radicals and left-wing nuts  don't want to work, so they sit around sipping chardonnay and lounging among dusty old volumes by Chairman Mao.

As its sunday and I decided it was time for something silly and best used once and ignored, the D30 Instant Background generator. All players roll a d30 as they create their character and go nuts.

1. Polymorphed Chipmunk: You are the result of testing a wand of delayed polymorph. You've been a person for two years now and are still trying to get things down pat.
2. Rightful Heir: You are the rightful heir to a minor nobles throne. Of course you are currently heir to a much better throne as long as your cuckolded 'father' doesn't find out.
3. Rabbit Warrior: Trained in isolation by a druidic cult since you were a baby, you are one of the seven animal warriors. The eagle warrior, the bear warrior, the wolf warrior, the viper warrior, the lion warrior and you. Truth be told they are all *#$%'s to you and make fun of your rabbit suit that you wear, so you've decided to strike out on your own.
4. Go-Getter Undertaker: You completed your undertaker apprentice ship, problem is there isn't enough work for all the existing undertakers. Being an impatient sort you decided to generate some business.
5. Thog: You are Thog, Thog Not Speak word with more than one Sy..sy..sound.
6. Klingon: K'Plah!
7. Emo: You're middle class parents didn't get you, so you eventually left your room (Rent? As if) and took your chances in the greater world. You tell everyone your name has the word dark in it.
8. Penitent Clown: Your whole life was one of dignified academia, you struggled to be valedictorian in clown college..but then a pie related accident due to your own negligence killed over 40 nuns and orphans, now you are a self-flagellating clown, destined to atone for your one error.
9. Jo the Temp: You were just supposed to run some errands for the day until the regular got back, this...this seems like a lot more than you signed on for.
10. World's Worst Mime: Your propensity to announce everything you are doing loudly has made it hard to find work as a mime. Adventuring is the only work you can get.
11. Elvis: A freak accident in the time space continuum warped you into this bizarre realm, now you are just trying to do the best you can.
12. Dr. Sam Becket : You have leaped into this body, and need to set things right where once they were wrong. Hopefully Ziggy will have some more advice.
13. I Drew the Knight: Someone drew the Knight in a deck of many things, but then died of a heart attack. You have no history before yesterday.
14. Cliche: Your parents really WERE murdered by orcs and you really DO have a psychological condition where you trust anyone you meet in a tavern who wants to go on adventures with you. This makes you really sensitive when you think others are faking your conditions.
15. The copier is like really broken: While trying to fix the copier at work, you left the accounting department and wound up here.
16. From Oz: The freak tornado that through Dorothy in Oz? It threw you here 20 minutes ago.
17. From the other Oz: Those prison officials really should have confiscated your RPG books earlier, with the help of your character Blackleaf you learned magic and teleported here.
18. TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUT: While it in no way impacts your stats, you are a transformer, you can transform into +1 crossbow in a full round.
19. Vampire Slayer: An accident in the early 90's warped you from the USA to this bizarre realm. Time to fight evil and make 90's pop culture references chosen one.
20. Normal Guy: You are actually pretty normal, your parents are alive you had several well adjusted siblings and you really don't have a lot to complain about.
21. Last of the the Taarakians: You've got wickedly awesome knockers. I hope your playing a girl character.
22. Mel Gibson: You are any one of Mel Gibson's characters transported to this fantasy realm, with the caveat that for some reason you are really well adjusted and think this is a normal switch.
23. Cat: You are an anthropomorphic cat, you talk, somehow manipulate objects as if you had fingers and are yet still able to poop in a box. As a magical side effect, no one seems to find it odd that you are a talking intelligent cat and they will alternatively treat you as either a person, a pet or both.
24. Deformed Orc: You are a hideously hideously deformed orc, your tribe has shunned you and you have fled for human lands. Oddly enough the deformity makes you look like an attractive human. You find the sight of yourself revolting though.
25. One and a Halfling: Although you insist you are a giant and powerful halfling. You seem just like a kind of short guy. You are beginning to wonder if you are crazy or everyone else is.
26. An illusion: You are actually just an illusion, and people could disbelieve you if they had any reason to. You are determined to make sure that everyone doesn't disbelieve you at once, then you might stop existing..
27. A towel: You are an anthropomorphic towel. You are truly the worst character ever.
28. Disney Princess: You are a Disney princess of your choice. Somehow your happily ever after was stolen from you and you ended up here. While you do want to get back, you are noticing you can do things that were physically impossible before..like curse..or be unladylike in any manner..
29. Which one is real?: You have the same background as the player seated to the left EXACTLY the same.
30. Uh oh: You rolled a d30 to check your characters background and ended up having your mind transported into their body in the fictional game world. Crap, the GM loves TPK's too.

Cold baked beans out of the tin, Boiled eggs and soldiers, a secret Boursin habit… here, top chefs and foodies reveal what they rustle up when no one else is around

JAMIE OLIVER
Seriously hot chilli

"I'm not home alone very often because it's usually me and Jools, or I'm babysitting the girls. On those rare occasions, because I'm a chilli addict, I go for something really hot. I'll do an NYC spaghetti arrabiata or dan-dan noodles, which I also learned in New York and which are seriously hot."

DAN-DAN NOODLES

In the western Szechuan province of China they make this in massive buckets, which they carry on poles over their shoulders. I absolutely love chilli, but this dish is right on the edge of my chilli tolerance.

SERVES 4

1 beef or chicken stock cube,
preferably organic
500g minced beef
2 tbs runny honey
300g wheat noodles
4 handfuls of mixed green veg
(Chinese cabbage, sprouting broccoli, bok choi, spinach)
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
3 tbs dark soy sauce
2 tsp freshly ground Szechuan pepper
5 tbs good-quality chilli oil (see below)
2 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced
1 lime, quartered, to serve

Crumble your stock cube into a large pan of water and get it on the heat. Add the beef to a dry pan and, on a medium to high heat, keep moving it around until it's golden and crunchy, which will take about 10 to 15 minutes. Pour away any excess fat, then add the honey and toss until all the mince is nicely coated. Cook for about 30 seconds, then take the pan off the heat. Stir your noodles into the boiling stock and move them about a bit so they don't stick together. Cook according to the packet instructions. Shred your cabbage into 1cm strips, quarter your bok choi and snap up the broccoli spears. When the noodles have 1 minute to go, throw in the prepared greens to blanch them. Drain the whole lot in a colander, reserving a mugful of the cooking water. Tip your noodles, veg and the water back into the hot pan.

Add your garlic, soy sauce, Szechuan pepper and chilli oil. Give it all a good mix with tongs and divide among 4 bowls. Sprinkle over the crunchy beef , finish with a scattering of spring onions and serve each dish with a lime quarter to squeeze over.

PS You can buy good chilli oil, or you can make your own. Get a handful of mixed dried chillies (as many as you like), toast in the oven to bring out the flavour, whack them in a food processor with a bottle of groundnut oil and pour back into the bottle. This will keep in your cupboard for a year. Jamie's America is published by Michael Joseph at £26

RAYMOND BLANC
Porridge, cold omelette or just a glass of wine

"Dining alone is not always from choice. It takes something extraordinary and life-changing. Something like a divorce. You have lost your head; you are in a woeful place, emotionally ravaged, and you feel like there is no light. I remember this very moment years ago. I had to shake myself vigorously and say: 'Come on, Raymond! Be a man.' And I threw the most exquisite party for myself, right there and then.

"My party was a joyous event. I laid the table with white candles, a stiff napkin, the finest silver and a bottle of red wine and cooked myself a five-course meal. Steak, salmon, a little tarte and wine, to celebrate. It shouldn't be so unusual to eat alone. Mankind associates it with a sad little moment deprived of elegance and joy. Yes, you may spend less time preparing a meal for yourself, but I see it as a convivial moment.

"I need to cook good food for myself. It's rare you'll see me eating from the plastic bag or the fridge. A low point for me would involve pâté, three gerkins, thinly sliced toast and a glass of excellent wine. But I am strict about what I put in my mouth even if no one is watching. Eating alone doesn't have to be a nasty white-bread sandwich or something tinned – although I would not turn my nose up at an artisan cassoulet with a glass of wine.

"In my line of work eating alone is very rare, and yet sometimes I can avoid people all day. If I am alone, I have no routine except for this: eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. No one else does it like this, so I have to snatch some privacy for such a day. I'll make myself poached eggs with black pudding and porridge with a variety of milk. Soya one day, rice milk the next. I am not a robot; I can change. Lunch will be an omelette, probably cold, a moment snatched in the midst of a pressure cooker of work. And dinner? Nothing. Just a glass of wine. As we all know, all food turns to fat as we lie in bed.

"Of course, I use proper cutlery. To use fingers would be absurd. But I never read. The table is a precious place, not one for books. As for newspapers? To read of the doom and gloom in the world while chewing your croissant, that will give you indigestion, non?"
www.manoir.com

RAYMOND BLANC'S SMOKED SALMON OMELETTE

3 medium free-range, fresh eggs
1 tsp each olive oil and butter
30g smoked salmon, roughly chopped

In a mixing bowl, gently beat the eggs together with a pinch of salt and pepper. In an omelette pan heat the olive oil and butter until it begins to foam. Pour in the egg mixture and cook for a few seconds, allow the omelette to set lightly before stirring the set part inwards, repeat this motion 5 times until the omelette has formed completely but is still soft and creamy in the centre. Add the pieces of salmon in the middle of the omelette and fold the sides towards the centre. Brush the omelette with butter and serve.

THOMASINA MIERS
Red cabbage poached in red wine, toast and Marmite

"I live next door to a market in west London, and when I'm home alone I'll buy the things that look the most fun. If it's just you to worry about, you can go a bit mad.

"One of my favourite things at the moment is red cabbage poached in an old bottle of red wine with bacon and garlic. It's nutritious, can be stored in the fridge and reheated as and when I get hungry. I have it with soda bread – I always have lots of soda bread for topping with various things, along with a block of parmesan, olive oil, chutney, proper butter and root vegetables as fall-back options. That's my kind of food. If I am feeling very lazy, it's a thick piece of brown toast smothered in butter with Marmite, seasoned and topped with strong cheddar melted under the grill."
www.wahaca.co.uk

THOMASINA MIERS'S SALAD FOR ONE

1 fennel bulb, sliced
1 apple, sliced
a handful new potatoes
a handful of walnuts, roughly chopped
chorizo, sliced
smoked mackerel
1 egg, hard boiled
For the caesar dressing:
1 dsp mayonnaise
1 tsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic (finely chopped)
salt and pepper
1 dsp grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp of milk

Boil the potatoes, chop in half and leave until warm. Fry the chorizo slices and add the potatoes and chorizo to the other ingredients. To make the dressing, blend the ingredients together and drizzle over the salad. Try to eat warm.

GIORGIO LOCATELLI
Kebabs, risotto, Butterscotch Green & Black's chocolate

"I used to be mad for beans on toast when I got home from work. But at 1am it's not good for you, so now I just have chamomile tea. Lately my family has fallen in love with Green & Black's butterscotch chocolate. I'll eat a whole bar and then replace it so they don't know. When my wife Plaxy and daughter Margarita are not around, I sometimes eat kebabs from the Lebanese places on Edgware Road. They're not like other kebabs. They are really shawarma, chicken or lamb, marinated and cooked, then served with tabbouleh and wrapped in a flat bread with yoghurt, garlic sauce and tomatoes.

"Recently I was at home alone, not feeling well, and I made myself a glorious parmesan risotto. The food of my grandma. Real comfort food – and then to be alone was luxurious."

MICHEL ROUX SR
Fried foie gras or stir-fried lobster straight from the pan

"There is nothing sad about eating alone. I adore it. I'll usually start without a plan. Maybe I'll wander to the butcher in France and buy a piece of pork loin, which I'll eat with a bowl of vegetables roasted in garlic and thyme. I do love a big red meat stew, so I'll freeze it in portions and eat it bit by bit.

Occasionally I'll make a batch of puff pastry, slice some apple, bake it in the oven and freeze the rest – an accidental apple turnover.

"I always eat sitting down – it's better for the digestion – but other than that my manners go out the window. I'll often eat straight out of the pot. I am wicked. I'll stir-fry lobster with vegetables and a wine glaze, but I'll crack the shells with my bare hands and toss them away. Or fry a lump of foie gras and serve it on a hot plate with salt and eat it with a fork and no napkin.

"I love pancakes with apricot jam. I break my own rule and eat standing up. Pour the batter into a hot pan, cook it, spread it with jam and then stuff it in my mouth while pouring more batter in.

"I drink wine with my meals as a celebration of my solitude. I never read with a meal – it distracts from the food, and I like to concentrate on the flavours. Most of my recipes come from experimenting alone. And the bottle of wine sitting opposite me is the best company I could ask for."
Sauces by Michel Roux, published by Quadrille at £14.99, is out now

MICHEL'S BAKED APPLE FOR ONE

1 large cooking apple with unpocked skin
unsalted butter
1 tbs apricot brandy

Preheat the oven to about 180°C/Gas 4. Baked apples taste and look lovely if the skin is left on. If it has pocked skin, though, peel it. Core the centre and replace with a large knob of unsalted butter. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes or until it puffs out. Once cooked, pour over apricot brandy and serve with a large glass of dessert wine.

GILES COREN
Yesterday's lamb bone, in front of the telly

"I love eating alone. I always do it standing up: outside a kebab shop with a doner; in my kitchen with a whole roasted chicken fresh out of the oven, picking the wings and legs off while the torso cools; in the garden with a piece of cheese on toast; in front of the telly with yesterday's lamb bone, dropping bits of fat on the carpet. Sitting down is for wimps. Likewise cutlery. Alone, it's fingers only. I revert to basic atavistic principles: tear it off the animal, burn it a bit, get it down your face, and get on with your life."
Giles Coren is the restaurant critic of The Times. His book Anger Management (For Beginners) will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in July

JOHN TORODE
Homemade carbonara or Thai soup with leftovers

"I don't get to eat by myself very often but I love doing it. I make it into a real event. I take my time, I lay the table, I pour myself a healthy-sized glass of wine and sit down with a good book. It might be pasta with homemade carbonara for one but it will be properly made and served.

"That said, I'm still very good at cobbling meals together. When I'm alone I set myself up in the kitchen with a load of chillis and do as the Thais do, using leftover staples like rice to make soup. If I am running around, I'll snack on a lump of good hard cheese, but I'll usually have just one big meal.

"I recently discovered breakfast. I'm always happy to whip up blueberry pancakes or porridge and banana for my kids, but left to my own devices I'll make something that's so spicy none of my family would go near it."
www.smithsofsmithfield.co.uk

JOHN TORODE'S LEFT-OVER THAI RICE SOUP

1 heaped tbs boiled rice
400ml water
6 shots fish sauce
handful spring onions, sliced
3 chillis, sliced
a handful of bean sprouts
a sprig of coriander
seasoning and chilli to serve

Boil everything together until hot. Throw in the bean sprouts, top with coriander and extra chilli if you're brave and serve. For breakfast.

TOM PARKER BOWLES
Boiled eggs and soldiers, takeaway curry

"I tend to get lazy when I'm alone, so cold baked beans out of the tin, doused in Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. Or a cheese slice, anointed with a grind of pepper, then rolled up and eaten in one. Boiled eggs and soldiers are another solo classic, and delivery curry too.

"But eating alone is one of life's great pleasures. If you want to slurp soup straight from the bowl, or lick the plate clean, no one's there to disapprove. For me that's the real joy of solo munching."
Full English: A Journey Through the British and Their Food by Tom Parker Bowles is out now

ERIC CHAVOT
Ham and crisp sandwiches, Boursin cheesecake

"I've spent 20 years eating with people – chefs, family, friends – so I'm still fascinated by the idea of eating alone. I'll make naan pizza – supermarket naan, tomato paste, shredded mozzarella, three minutes in the oven – and eat it with my fingers standing up. I'll also go crazy with a ham and crisp sandwich and crudités. I secretly use a lot of Boursin in sauces for pasta and have recently discovered cheesecake using Greek yoghurt, Boursin and crushed digestives. Boursin is one of those ingredients chefs can't admit to using, but to me it's a godsend.

"The only time I sit down is when I make beans on toast. You can't eat that with your fingers. Or maybe you can?"

ERIC CHAVOT'S IMPROVED HEINZ MUSHROOM SOUP

1 can Heinz mushroom soup
1 onion, finely sliced
1 clove garlic
sprig thyme
a dollop of Boursin

Fry the onion in some butter until it's the consistency of a compote. This will take about 20 minutes. Add garlic, thyme and sauté further. Pour in the tin of soup and simmer for about 10 minutes or until hot. Stir in some Boursin and serve with ciabatta.

ANGELA HARTNETT
Pasta and tomato sauce

"I live with my sister and flatmates and work across two restaurants, so eating alone is a very rare occasion. When I do, I'm boring. I'll have pasta with tomato sauce or the leftovers from a roast chicken from the weekend. I'll use whatever utensils I have – fingers, forks, whatever – but I generally eat with cutlery. Ever tried eating pasta with your fingers? Exactly."
www.gordonramsay.com/nonnasdeli

ANGELA'S SIMPLE PASTA WITH TOMATO SAUCE

1 portion of dried spaghetti
portion of chicken stock
1 clove garlic
1 onion, finely sliced
1 tin tomatoes
pinch of salt, sugar and pepper
ripped mozzarella, to serve

Boil the pasta in the stock until cooked. Fry the onion and garlic in olive oil. Add the tomatoes and seasoning, and simmer for about 20 minutes until reduced. Rinse the pasta, drizzle with oil, add the sauce and top with mozzarella.

DAVID THOMPSON
Thai street food or homemade Italian

"It's rare that I'll cook a meal for myself. I almost always eat out, no matter where I am. Eating alone in Bangkok is frowned upon. I find it odd given the abundance of street food, which is perfect for the solitary diner. I love a green papaya salad or noodles from the street vendor. I don't care if I attract the odd look.

"British people don't like each other, so eating alone is common over here. I love sitting alone in restaurants with a good book. I'm a huge fan of history academia. It makes excellent company, and people don't try to talk to you.

"If I had to cook for myself, if my life depended on it, I'd make something basic and Italian. I lay the table, just comfortably rather than properly."
www.halkin.como.bz

DAVID'S RISOTTO

1 portion (150ml) chicken stock
a few handfuls of arborio rice (about 70g)
a handful of each of the following: peas, asparagus, mushrooms or radicchio, depending on what is in season
a handful of grated parmesan

Boil the stock and add the rice. Stir and simmer slowly, slowly. Once the rice is cooked, add the raw vegetables and simmer for a further 3 minutes. Top with grated parmesan if you wish.

A Blogger's Farewell

This is my final post on the Science and Cruelty blog. I'd like to thank everyone who has commented. Writing a blog has been an interesting experience and I've learned a lot, both from comments and from reading other blogs on the Psychology Today site.

I'll keep up the reading, but as for blogging, I've been thinking for a while that it's time to move on. I've put my ideas across sufficiently in previous posts as well as in my book Cruelty, and I don't feel this format works for me.

For those who are interested, here are three of my reasons why not. They relate to speed, salience and value.

Speed

Blogging is an amazing format and great discipline, but it isn't for everyone. For me, one major difficulty is the speed.

Like other Internet media, blogging expects near-instant response to any event. Responses from professional scientists and writers, however, are expected to be thoughtful, well-informed and considered. That takes time -- i.e. it isn't near-instant.

In practice, this conflict often seems to me to be resolved by the expert responding with a statement describing the event, filtered through the grid of his or her previously-held beliefs ('expertise'). What's wrong with that? Nothing; it's what we all do.

Yet it isn't really thoughtful analysis, more a rote response. The previously-held beliefs aren't changed by the new event. The expert dictates his or her opinion, but rarely alters it.

I respect these experts, and their views which have been developed over years, and I think it's great that we have access to that expertise. But I find myself uncomfortable in the 'expert' role. It's too prone to encourage unwarranted certainties.

That's not just a problem for experts, but for all of us. The more certainty expressed by them and others, the more 'dogmatic' becomes admired as 'decisive', the more unexpected, and hence alarming, uncertainty becomes. That in turn makes it harder to express uncertainty, as climate change scientists have discovered to their dismay. (For some staggering examples of how people can react to uncertainty -- and to statements they find threatening -- explore the comments on this article by Andrew Simms).

'People want certainty', I was once told by a media person. Indeed. They want other things too, like eternal life, perfect health, and endless economic growth without ruining the planet. Unfortunately, wanting something doesn't automatically entitle you to get it. Sometimes the laws of physics get in the way, and you just can't argue with them. And sometimes we just don't know enough to be certain.

In praise of slow thought

The difference I'm highlighting is between being authoritative and being exploratory. I'm exploratory by instinct. Too cautious, maybe, distrusting my own opinions and expecting my previously-held beliefs to change with new information -- rather than to provide a rigid filter through which I can interpret new events. I rework and rethink, by preference. Writing this post? Hours of work (another reason why I'm calling it quits).

This hesitant, querying, always-revising approach results from early brainwashing by an ideal of careful scholarship which is now an immovable millstone weighing me down. It makes for a slow, old-fashioned thinker who needs time to think afresh on each occasion -- even for an event like the massacre I mentioned, which as a topic should have been right in my ballpark. I can't just say, 'We don't know yet, but here's my theory ...", like others do. We don't know; why act as if we do?

Re the massacre, there wasn't enough information in the public domain to make it clear at that point what was going on. If I'd responded (which I didn't), my post would have been no more than a guess based on pre-established thinking (i.e. something old), dressed up as a rapid-fire interpretation (i.e. something new). Sorry, no can do.

The Internet has given us virtually instantaneous communication. Because this is so obvious a feature of the new media, people seem to have decided that speed of response is an excellent thing in itself, irrespective of the quality of the response. I hope as our relationship with the Internet matures this obsession with speed will fade. Is it always really essential that whatever it is you're saying is said right now? Slow thought, like slow food, has its advantages. It's often better thought, especially when emotions are involved. If you've ever regretted firing off an angry e-mail, you understand me.

Salience

Blogging competes for our overwhelmed attentional resources. What attracts attention? Not slow thought, for sure. Fast responses, short statements, eye-catching titles and images, personal statements, provocative claims and moral judgements. I could have given this post a title like 'Why This Is The Last Post On This Blog'), but isn't 'What's Wrong with Blogging' more likely to draw in readers? It makes a general claim, and includes a moral judgement ... what's not to like?

This approach has worked for UK tabloid newspapers, and for many books, blogs and other creative enterprises. I regret my own incapacity to follow suit. Done well, sensationalism can make an author rich (don't you agree, Mr Gladwell and Professor Dawkins?). Yet sometimes the low-profile, the non-attention-seeking, the quiet can turn out to be more useful in the long term. Look at Mary Douglas' great book Purity and Danger, now a classic in its field, hardly noticed outside academia for years after it was published. (And a far better book than The God Delusion.)

Value

Most of what is written on the Internet, like most of what is written in newspapers, is pretty forgettable, often facile, and sometimes downright false. Facile, forgettable, false -- a great recipe for fast media, provoking and grabbing attention without the need to spend time checking whether statements are true. It's not so useful if knowledge and truth are your main concern, as is often the case with slow thinking.

(Science is a great example of slow thinking -- or it should be. That's why I think the recent trend towards releasing details of studies before they've been published -- in some cases before they've even been submitted for publication -- is so pernicious. It's also why I and many other UK academics detest the notion, beloved it seems of our measuromaniac government, of funding bodies using media 'impact' as a measure of the quality of research.)

'A seeker after knowledge, is she?' I can almost hear the cries of 'Pretentious! Elitist!'. If you're minded to join in, bear in mind that you owe your existence and your modern-day comforts, including the machine on which you're reading this, to those devoted scientific and technical elitists who pursued knowledge and cared enough about the truth to get their science right.

Elitism follows from human difference. Democracy as a political system -- giving voters an equal say in choosing who rules them -- is a nice theory. Applied to intellectual endeavour it's a non-starter, because there all men aren't equal (likewise for women), either in ability or, more importantly, in basic motivation. We differ in how much we care about understanding stuff, just as we differ on how much we care about poverty or sex or many other things.

Generally, however, we agree in caring a lot about ourselves. Yet some of the things we value most -- from cathedrals to the Internet -- were created by people who temporarily suppressed their own personal values in order to pursue something greater, be it something useful, beautiful, true or divine. We don't even know the names of most of the people who built the European cathedrals, just as few of us can name the programmers who created the nuts and bolts of modern communication. Those programmers did their work over years or decades. Cologne cathedral took centuries to build.

Science, my prime example of slow thinking, demands both long commitment and  depersonalisation in its pursuit of understanding. Blogging, by contrast, is all about the quick and personal. My view, my life, my experiences, my opinions: now.

Well, this is heresy these days, but as you'll know if you've read my blog, I'm not into sharing personal stuff with strangers. I don't have a Facebook profile, nor a Twitter account. (This is by far my most revealing post, though it reveals only what is obvious from my books.) I'm not enquiring into your private enterprises either, because frankly I'm as indifferent to your background, gender, age, sexuality, religion and voting habits as I am to your views on fashion and whether or not you like football, meat or Chinese opera. Whatever kind of person you are, what I want to share with you is this and only this: the realm of ideas. Wonderful, exciting, enthralling, dangerous ideas.

Not because I'm an intellectual who loves playing around with abstract notions as a substitute for living, but because ideas matter. They change lives. They give us marvels, and horrors. They make people kill people, and send people plunging into hideous danger to save others. Without ideas we might as well not exist. They are our source of values and of everything we value.

Thank you for reading

I went into blogging with my eyes open, knowing the format's benefits and limitations. I hoped that either I would learn the gift of sensationalising, and thereby, ultimately, get my ideas across to a few more people, or that I would learn from my readers, or that I would be able to use the blogging format, however awkwardly, to give them some of the knowledge I've scraped together.

I have learned a little, and given back too, though not as much as I might have wished. The sensationalising, however, is just as hopeless as it ever was. The ideal of scholarship remains immovable. My dreams of sharing ideas I see as critically important -- for all our futures -- well, they're still just dreams.

There's no point repeating myself or writing long essays which hardly anyone reads. I'd be better off concentrating on my next book, though I daresay not many people will read it either (if and when)! But books work for me. It's an alien world, this fast-paced, opinionated blogosphere, and it's time I left it. Thank you for your company.

Last month, Patti Church and Treena Grevatt came in and gave a talk on Personal Branding for WISE. Patti’s one of the people behind WhyHire.me so it was great to have her come and speak to us.

I was in a complete panic because they were going to use me as an example, and I thought having a personal brand meant you had a website. And at the time, my website had been “under construction” for longer than I care to remember and I “just” had a blog. So I built my website. Luckily my neighbor is a web-dev genius and I take care of his cat when he’s away and make dinner for him from time to time, so he fixed some little CSS things that were making me nuts.

Actually, I don’t think I knew was a personal brand was, until all of a sudden I had one. Not so long ago I just had Facebook, and then I added LinkedIn, but didn’t use it much. Then I started using Twitter, and started blogging about my research (and being a grad student in general). Finally I had a website. And that’s when I thought I had a personal brand.

However my personal brand is more than that. Google me – the whole first page of results is me and what I’m about. You’ll find my website (top hit!), my Twitter, my LinkedIn, my Brazen Careerist, my slideshare presentations, a course I’ve taken and my lender profile on Kiva.

This is when I realized – a personal brand means people can know who you are, by looking online. And I’d built one without even realizing that’s what I was doing. It meant that Patti could literally tell me what my “key words” are – because they’re on my LinkedIn, but having seen the rest of what I’m about she could tell me the others I should add. And she could say, you should meet Kelly because you two will really like each other. She was right, I did like Kelly when I got to meet her, and she gave me the nicest #FollowFriday ever, so I think it was mutual.

Actually, Kelly came across my Conversation Networks via yet another person and connected with me on Twitter. So, next realization, a personal brand means that people find you and connect with you if they’re interested in the kinds of things you’re interested in. That’s really cool.

A lot of grad students research fascinating things, but they don’t put it out there – they don’t blog, they just write it up in papers that only academics read and ultimately into a thesis that’s often read only by their committee and their mother. There’s all this value that gets lost in academia because it’s not put out there in a format and a language that non-academics will read. A personal brand allows you to share what you’re making, and is a place to continue discussion. The other day a guy (older, professional) came up to me at an event and asked for my card because he wanted to see more about what I’m working on. Isn’t that awesome? It would have been even more awesome if my cards had arrived by then, but that’s by the by.

“Personal Branding” is scary because it sounds like marketing speak, and most of us aren’t marketers. Why do we have to market ourselves? Shouldn’t the work we do speak for us? For me, at least, my personal brand is the work I do speaking for me. Personal branding pretty much consists of putting it out there and organizing it. It doesn’t feel fake, it feels like sharing, like being part of a conversation.

If you read my blog, maybe you feel like you know me. In a way, you do. If you were looking to hire me, you could find out from my brand what inspires me, what winds me up. You could discover a lot of my skills in what I write about and what I work on. You could probably get a good impression of whether I would fit in with your company. You’d probably know if I wouldn’t, as well, and that’s OK – better to find that out sooner rather than later. I’m OK with people feeling like they know me from my online persona, because it’s just the spell-checked version of my actual persona. I consider what I put out there, but I think authenticity wins. How about you?

Summary: /* Use Occam's Razor—judiciously */

---

by David Roberts

When it comes to energy, policymakers are often confronted
with human behavior that seems irrational, unpredictable, or unmanageable.
Advocates for energy efficiency in particular are plagued by the gap between
what it would make sense for people to do and what they actually do. Efforts to change people’s behavior have a record that
can charitably be described as mixed. (See my post, Making
buildings more efficient: It helps to understand human behavior.)

Many of the experiments that have cast the most light on
what does (and doesn’t) drive behavioral shifts around energy have been run by Dr. Robert Cialdini,
until recently the Regents’ Professor of Psychology and W.P. Carey
Distinguished Professor of Marketing at Arizona State University (he retired in
May of last year). Cialdini’s professional focus is not just on energy but on
behavior more generally, and the ways behavior is influenced. His seminal 1984
book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, is used in business and
marketing schools across the country, and his most recent book, Yes! 50
Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive (co-authored with Dr. Noah
Goldstein and Steve Martin), was a New York Times bestseller.

Robert Cialdini. Photo courtesy wikimedia commonsCialdini describes six “weapons of influence”:

Reciprocity: people will repay favors.
Commitment and Consistency: people will stick to
commitments made publicly.
Social Proof: people will do what other people
do.
Authority: people obey authority figures.
Liking: people are more influenced by those they
like.
Scarcity: people desire what is perceived as
scarce.

He consults for a variety of organizations, exploring how
these mechanisms can be used to produce positive results. Maybe the clean
energy crowd should listen in!

———

Q. What is social psychology?

A. Social psychology is the study of everyday behavior—behavior that has some kind of a social context—and the factors that change
and influence it. How do people think about social interactions, and how do
those social interactions change the way they think?

Q. There seems to be an uptick in interest about the
application of social psychology to energy policy. What’s bringing it about?

A. It’s the least capital-intensive way of making change.
I’m speaking of both kinds of capital here: financial and social. Technology
costs a lot. Incentive programs cost a lot (and as soon as they’re discontinued
the behavior flops back). Legislation, legal constraints, taxes, penalties of
one sort or another—those are costly in terms of social capital, which
organizations and governments are loathe to spend these days.

What you have with social psychology is a set of procedures
that are essentially costless to enact but produce levels of change that are
comparable to those other mechanisms.

Q. What can social psychology contribute to energy policy?

A. It can help understand a set of motivations that are
based on social interactions and social rules. I’ll give you a great example. An
economist at Harvard decided to see how much money it would take to get people
to let him skip ahead of them in line. Sure enough, according to economic
understanding of human behavior, the more he offered to pay them, the more
willing they were to let him cut ahead of them in line.

Then he found something that flew in the face of what an
economist would say: people wouldn’t take his money. It was the offer itself
that told them how socially responsible they were to let this guy skip ahead of
them, because he must have a need. There’s a rule called the “norm for social
responsibility” that says we are obligated to help those people who are
dependent on us for aid. The money he offered them was a signal for how great
his need was. It wasn’t about an economic exchange at all, it just looked like it
was.

Q. It seems like fine-grained understanding of how people
interact. How do you scale it up as policy, to get substantial effects?

A. As I argued in Influence, I’ve tried to identify the universals of human experience—those things
that produce assent across the widest range of situations and settings and
practitioners. You follow an authority; you pay back those who have given to
you; you seize scarce or dwindling opportunities; you follow the lead of others
like you and what they’re doing; and so on.

Take an example. The fastest growing development within
marketing right now is called “social cause marketing”—it’s even
outstripped sports sponsorship. It involves some entity, usually a corporate
group, saying to its customers or its market, “if you purchase our product or
employ our services, we will donate so much money to a good cause.” They’re
banking on an understanding of the rule of reciprocity: people want to give
back to those who have given to them in a meaningful exchange.

Well, we put signs in hotel room bathrooms—this isn’t
published yet—that said, “[Re-use your bath towels] for the environment.” That
was the control group. The other sign said, “If you [re-use your towels], we’ll
donate a percentage of the savings that we get at the end of the year to an
environmental cause.” That didn’t produce any increase in towel reuse.

But if we said, “We’ve already donated to an
environmental cause in the name of our guests,” now we get reciprocity.
That produced, I think, a 28 percent increase over either of the other
strategies. You can apply this to social cause marketing: if you’re going to
give a donation anyway, you should give it first.

So it is possible to employ these principles in broad-gauged
ways to produce large-scale change. And it’s costless— that’s the
thing.

Q. Have any policy-makers contacted you? Are you aware of
any efforts to systematize this stuff into policy?

A. Yes. Interestingly enough, in the U.K. I’ve been
asked to speak at 10 Downing Street about this three times now, and I’ve spoken
to congressional committees here in the United States as well. [See “The
Contribution of the Social Sciences to the Energy Challenge,” a 2007
hearing of the House Committee on Science and Technology.] I’m hopeful that
there is a movement toward evidence-based decision-making, an attempt to
undertake actions that incorporate what social scientists have learned.

Q. Can you point to particular policies that have
incorporated these insights?

A. I can give you some evidence of what happened in the
presidential campaign, where the Democratic National Committee used this
information in very effective ways to get out the vote. They recognized that it
was a serious mistake to do what they had been doing in previous elections,
saying to registered Democrats, “So many Democrats failed to vote in 2004
that it caused this terrible country.” Instead, they changed the wording
to, “So many Democrats voted. Join them!” There’s a recent article in
the Journal of Politics that showed that those two strategies had
dramatically different effects on voting behavior.

Notice what the Obama campaign did when it announced the
donations it had received the previous quarter. It was brilliant: they didn’t
just list the amount of money they had received, they listed the number of
contributors who had donated. The multitude became the message. People want
to be with the crowd. It tells them something not only about what’s
appropriate, but what’s possible for them.

If we send people in San Diego a message saying the majority
of your neighbors are conserving energy on a daily basis, that has more effect
than telling them to do it for the environment or to be socially responsible
citizens or to save money. If your neighbors are doing it, it means it’s feasible.
It’s practicable. You can do it—people like you.

It was very important that we say “people in your
neighborhood.” If we said “the majority of Americans,” that
wasn’t effective. If we said “the majority of Californians,” that was
more effective. If we said “the majority of San Diegans,” that was
more effective. But the most effective was “the majority of your
neighbors.” That’s how you decide what’s possible for you: what people in
your circumstance are able to do.

Q. How do you respond to the notion that there’s something
vaguely Orwellian about the government or corporations using this information
to change people’s behavior?

A. I’ve heard it from certain commentators on the right;
Glenn Beck was one of them. There are even legislators in Congress who are
complaining about certain aspects of the energy bill on this. It’s a
know-nothing argument; what you are railing against is honest information. What
is tricky about telling people about what their neighbors are doing and letting
them adjust to whatever extent they want? There’s no penalty. There’s no
constraint. There’s no government incentive. You’re going to tell me you’re
against giving people information?

Q. Liberals still tend to think that if you give people
plain facts, action follows.

A. In our San Diego
study, we went door to door and put hangers on people’s doorknobs with various
messages. We had a control group where some homes received no door hanger, no
message. We had another control group where they received a message that told
them that saving energy was a good idea and urged them to do it. Those two
control groups were equivalent in energy savings at the end of the month.
Information and exhortation was the same as nothing.

Changing people’s knowledge, changing people’s attitudes,
changing people’s beliefs are all on the surface of changing their behavior. So
let’s cut to the chase: Let’s change their behavior. There are techniques for
doing it that don’t involve having to change any of those [other] things.

I saw an article a while ago about Washington, D.C.‘s inner-city
parents—the extent to which exposure to fast food advertising and promotions
affected how much they took their families to fast food restaurants. Sure
enough, the more promotion and advertising they were exposed to, the more they
ate fast food. But those promotions didn’t change their attitudes about
fast food or their belief that fast food was bad for them. It only changed
what they thought their neighbors were doing.

Q. One of the toughest nuts to crack is energy efficiency—there’s all this potential, but people just don’t do it. Any thoughts on how
these insights could be applied to efficiency?

A. You could ask people to indicate the extent to which they
think energy efficiency is a good thing, and make it a public, active
commitment—then they’re going to be more likely to be consistent with it.
You can tell them what stands to be lost instead of what stands to be gained.
You can tell them what their neighbors are doing. You can tell them what
experts are saying about this. Each one might have an additive effect; you’re
going to clip 3 or 4 or 5 percent off with each one. But if you add them up,
now you are talking about something that’s much more than a minor deflection.

Q. How much government R&D funding goes to this kind of
thing vs. technology development?

A. It’s miniscule. [Rep.] Brian Baird [D-Wash.] has a bill in
which he recommends that the Department of Energy have a branch devoted to
behavioral science research. That’s what produced the “nanny state”
objection in Congress. He’s had to withdraw the bill and try to make it an
amendment to something else.

Q. It’s weird how long we’ve lived together as a species, yet
still we know so little about why we do what we do.

A. Nobody would be surprised to read that these are
universals of human behavior. What’s surprising is how little people know how
to activate and amplify them.

There’s research that shows that if a waiter leaves a mint
on the tray with the bill, his tips go up 3.3 percent. If he leaves two mints
on the tray, tips go up 14 percent. What’s the message? It’s that people give
back to those who have given to them. The majority of people would say, well, I
knew that. I have to say, if people know that, how come in 50 percent of the
restaurants I go in there’s no mint? How come in the 50 percent where there
are, half of the time the mints are in a basket by the door, where nobody
inside the restaurant benefits? So people know these things at a surface level,
but they don’t know how to activate them systematically.

Q. I saw that you retired from academia. What’s next for
you?

A. I retired in order to write a couple of books I had in my
head. I think the greatest disservice that social scientists have performed to
the public at large is to keep their information pretty much to themselves.

Q. I find that very frustrating. Environmentalists are
constantly having tortured discussions about how to influence people. Everybody
has their own folk theory or intuition. But where is the empirical knowledge
about this stuff?

A. In the academic journals. In places where people wouldn’t
ever be able to find it, and if they could, they couldn’t parse it—it’s
jargon laden. This is a soapbox issue for me. The work I’ve done and my
colleagues have done is supported by the non-academic community, either through
research grants or tuition payments. The public is entitled to know what we
found out with their money, about them and how they work, and we keep failing
to come through on our end.

I owe it to people to write some books. We have over 50
years of research into the psychology of persuasion. We know a lot.

Related Links:

Economics as pathology, part two

Rationality, welfare, and public policy

Economics as pathology

I was out with some friends tonight at Denny's, after which I rather felt like I should eat something desperately healthy. So, I made a vow:

I am going to eat a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast every day for two weeks.

As challenges go, this one isn't that earth-shaking, but I'm curious to see if I notice any change at all. My working theory is that ANY mindful change at all will yield personal insights; that is, if they are really are done mindfully and contemplatively. It helps that the idea of eating oatmeal every morning seems so boring and trivia that I am half-expecting nothing significant to be yielded at all. In fact, it's almost a parody of the self-help empowerment process, which amuses me deeply. However, if I garner some kind of amazing epiphany from this exercise, I imagine that I will have to amend my model of what productivity is made of. And I will look forward to future exercises like a fortnight of watermelons and 1001 Macademian Nuts.

Any oatmeal-related facts, tips, or cautionary tales will be heartily appreciated!