According to the 20 or so respondents to my very scientific poll. Chickens and fish won the vote for least wrong to eat. Tigers on the other hand won the vote as the least appealling meal choice. Crafty buggers! They run a shifty campaign! I even heard they were running for the demoncrat nomination for President - hey wait scratch that I was thinking 'cougar' - - SILLY ME!
Just Kidding!

the sound of one's own voice

"These anthropologist0s are like monks of scholarship who, having made the discipline their divinity, accept celibacy and dedicate themselves to the cloistered life." -(characterization of anthropologists in popular fiction, as 'revealed' by Jeremy MacClancy in a short essay entitled THE LITERARY IMAGE OF ANTHROPOLOGISTS)

It struck me how it's not just anthropologist who can be recognized for having made, "the discipline their divinity."

Self Image

fun

Where on Earth is Waldo, (Soon to Be) the Google Maps Version

 

Neatorama » Where on Earth is Waldo,

the 'means' of production...

parenting

is not that tough is it? come on!

Tribute to my wife and her ilk...

Dignity is rare. All too often we get duped by masquerading frauds like selfish ambition, individualism, and the proclivity toward the self-alienation of personal comfort. The curious thing about dignity is it is impossible to achieve in one's own efforts - we are all subject to the whim of others for its endowment in our lives. There are many things we can do to disenfranchise ourselves from receiving dignity - and unfortunately we all done enough to disqualify ourselves from it. So dignity becomes an act of grace.

There is little else that is as undignified as the prospective loss of my waste elimination system. I can't imagine a how a diaper could help me maintain a sense of personal poise. Age is feared as the harbinger of death but even more it is old age that is feared as that period of time when we will eventually lose the ability to corral the resources of our personality to cover up the ugliness we've closeted all our lives. And nastiest of all is the fact that we WON'T be dead - to avoid it all.

Some of what I enjoy most about our new life, is the stories that Char regales me with. Ever so careful not break any issues of confidentiality she tells me the sad, funny, frightening, surprising and frustrating stories of the lives of the 'clients' on her case load. She is devoted to doing her job to the best of her ability but she really is not interested in her own track record. I can tell as she talks about the man with schizophrenia who is dying of cancer that she really is an agent of dignity. It could be that case after case might eventually wear her into that jaded dark suspicion that runs rampant in the 'caring' professions. People always ask me how my wife is doing. I usually tell them that she loves her job. But I realized something today she does not love her job so much as she loves the people she gets a chance to care for - and I know she is real good at bringing them dignity.

A lot of this sorta came together for me tonight when I was doing some investigating about a new documentary I heard about on the radio today. Here's a video and some links to a few other things related to the Young@Heart octogenarian chorus. Enjoy!

Stayin Alive

I wanna be sedated

cute

here's the link to MarkO's post to view the vid

anxious heroes

This afternoon I listened to Q as I do most afternoons on my way home from school. I listened to the host interview Patricia Pearson about her new book: A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours And Mine). (See this NY Times review) Now I mean no disrespect to those who suffer from anxiety but I could not help drawing the connection between the rise of anxiety in our society and the prevailing winds of fear that are a steady gale.

This was my comment on the story

Dear Q:

Anxious? Maybe that's a good thing! Maybe in a day when fear mongering is the vehicle for everything from insurance to politics to infotainment, anxiety should not just be expected but revered. Maybe in a day where we indulge ourselves in fear like fine wine - craving it like fore-play - an anxious response is completely appropriate. Is it time to stop calling anxiety a disease or dysfunction and start aspiring to it a one of the finer virtues of our 'enlightened reality'?

Just wondering...

No really, I'm wondering - I'd like to know - I mean soon - okay now. PLEASE!

Q | CBC Radio

distracted - who me?

honestly, I wasn't distracted. what was there to distract me?

it couldn't have been the three girls with skin tight low-riders and shirts that rode up to reveal their midriff. or the fact that they chatted and giggled with tell tale gestures of infatuation with one or another boy in the next row up.

it couldn't have been the fact that the 'worship' was altogether too long. that new song that he introduced was lame the first time not mention the third time and this after we were forced to sing along to a recording - for the benefit of the kids

And speaking of kids - I definitely was not distracted by the fact that this service was billed as a kids/family service and they only that gave indication that it was such a thing was the fact the kids did not get to go to children's church and a few were invited onto the stage.

it couldn't have been the lady warbling away in 'harmony' to the music. or for that matter that we ended up singing, "God of Wonders" at precisely the time when my back and my legs were pleading with me to sit down.

or the fact that after the kids finished showing off with their two songs the worship leader said something like, "it's not just the kids that can worship we adults can approach the throne of worship as well." And then proceeded to lead us in a hymn - rather slowly too.

and I definitely was not distracted by the business man who clearly was scoping out which of his clients or other business contacts were in attendance at the church.

I wasn't distracted by the fact that the preacher, although relatively humorous, preached three messages instead of just one.

And I absolutely was not distracted by the lead pastor lifted his head toward heaven every time he prayed directly to God. Even though it was so different than when he was praying to the people - you know with his head panning across the congregation - giving us the mini sermon in his prayer.

Because he was the guy that told me I should not be distracted. In fact he ask the 'worship' dude to play a little longer just to make sure that all of us had not been distracted and were able to 'engage the spirit of God'.

what did distract me though was after the service - running into one of the kids from my youth group. One of the last ones I thought I'd see inside a church willingly. It really caught me off guard when he told me that he had put his enormous musical talent to work on the Psalms and that they had just opened up for him as he read through them. Usually distractions make me frustrated but this did something altogether different.

Cows and Cannibalism

Marshall Sahlins wrote a chapter in Rethinking Popular Culture entitled La Pensée Bourgeoise. Here he takes a swipe at North American notions about the rational nature of our food choices. The 12 pages or so are a blistering romp through $40,000 words - but one of the shortest my anthropology course this semester. Here's the angle:

Most of us seem to make very rational choices about the food we purchase to consume. Especially in today's health conscious world we are focused on the value that our food brings us. We are concerned about calories, flavour and cost. So when we hit the supermarket our minds are constantly making calculations about what we should put in the shopping cart. If you asked people about what sorts of effects cultured played in their food choices we might only be able to identify a few subtle differences between what we would choose to eat. Our choices are between hamburger or sirloin pork chop or chicken breast for instance. Most of us never consider picking up some dog loin for supper. Why is it that we don't?

A dog after all is far more cost effective. Dog meat is cheap to grow and just as easy to prepare as beef. And even when you look at a butchered cow the laws of supply and demand that make capitalism flourish are somehow abandoned. I mean there is only one tongue and a heck of a lot of steak - yet tongue is almost the cheapest thing you could buy. Not quite such a rational decision after all?

And think of all the subsidiary economic ramifications of eating cows. Around here there might be a lot of farmers looking for different crops to irrigate instead of timothy.

Sahlins suggestion is that we objectify certain parts of our material culture in order to distance them from ourselves. Otherwise a prevailing metaphor of cannibalism prevents us from being able to consume them. A dog is part of the family. Who eats their own family members? But this idea of objectification reveals a far more subtle plot. Think of the cow for a minute. Ever eaten cow groin? Or how about a cow's back or belly? It's not usually a shoulder its a brisquette or shank or loin. Sahlins suggests that even this terminology reveals a clever distancing that allows us to eat the cow without feeling too bad about it.

The article is really a gold mine of ideas but it has prompted a new poll which you will find on the side of the blog. And for those of you who might like to explore this a little more here's a clip of from the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy to give you a little more fuel...

Fast forward to the 5:30 mark for a tasty little clip!