Our cities and communities are armed to the teeth to bust
pot and cocaine dealers, and be prepared for the
extraordinarily unlikely chance that they will be
involved with terrorism. Meanwhile, a huge number of
vulnerable kids are being violated and abused every day.
Might we also consider what would happen if some of
police departments’ firepower were aimed at pimps? If
cops broke down doors of pimps that abuse kids with AK
47s in the dark of night in full combat gear? Might that
not help slow down sex trafficking (not that I think it
is a good idea to use that kind of police tactics in
general)? But where are our priorities?
Drugs cause some serious problems in our society. But in terms of destroying lives and disrupting the coherency of neighborhoods, I wonder what is worse: drug kingpins or pimps of unwilling teenage prostitutes:
Here is what veteran reporter Dan Rather has to say: “In
covering news for more than 60 years, I’d like to think
that few stories shock me anymore. But this is one of
them. We ran across it late last year and the more we dug,
the more disturbing it became. Eighty-year-old men paying
a premium to violate teenage girls, sometimes supplied by
former drug gangs now into child sex trafficking big time?
You’ve got to be kidding. Nope. That’s happening and a lot
more along the same lines.”
I think the article makes a valid argument: eliminating the trafficking on craigslist gives politicians something to brag about, but it doesn’t address the actual problem. Far too few resources are allocated to fight this awful problem, and pushing it off craigslist means it ends up on other websites, which are not likely to cooperate with the government.
North Korean TV only broadcasts hagiographies of the two
leaders and pictures celebrating the country’s army,
model farms, model villages etc.
Our minders had probably
never seen any other kinds of news item or documentary
about their country or the rest of the world.
They were
not allowed to, and they could not, because no-one has
access to the internet in North Korea.
You can see the full episode by Sue Lloyd-Roberts at the BBC. The starvation is shocking (the army had to drop their height requirement because widespread malnourishment meant they had to reject too many applicants), but the extent to which the government controls the population’s access to knowledge has truly unreal consequences. Here is an entire population that does not actually know what they are missing because they have no accurate information about the outside world. That this can go on in 2010 indicates we have not come as far as a world as we think.
Yesterday, someone parked a year’s worth of dental school (in the form of a BMW X6 outside our home. As I admired the dramatic curves of the car, it felt freeing not to want one. Now, before you start thinking I’m trying to be all high and mighty anti-buying-stuff, hear me out! This isn’t some moral triumph of mine over material goods. In fact, I understand I’ll certainly need a car when I begin working in a few years. Indeed, my thoughts about this are more practical.
Some people argue against Buying Stuff because you have to organize, dust, maintain, and categorize all of it. Me, the weirdo that I am, like organizing, maintaining, and categorizing. So it’s not that. It’s the Worry Factor. Bigger house — you get security system. Nice car — you buy more expensive insurance and have trouble driving in not so nice parts of town. You worry about hail so you get a garage. You worry about the paint so you wash it all the time. Lake cabin — you worry about severe weather coming through when you aren’t there. You buy a boat because, well, if you’re on a lake you need a boat. Then you worry about where to winter the boat. And then you buy another new car with the towing capacity for the boat. Then you insure the boat so when you’re towing it around you won’t worry. Jet skis would be fun. Now, you need a bigger garage. So, you find a bigger house with more garage space. It’s a vicious cycle!
Finding a place for all your stuff can be a challenge, but protecting all your stuff, protecting your ability to buy more of it by worrying about taxes, income, government — that binds us to stuff. That seems like something to avoid.
I’ve recently unlisted this website with Google, so I do feel a bit more confident in expressing some stronger opinions. I’ll use this new opportunity to make a point about a recent situation at the School of Dentistry. You see, we are currently expected to simultaneously care for patients and continue learning in what’s called a pre-clinical lab. So, we have lab work for fake and real patients. If you take an impression of a patient’s mouth on 8th floor, you have to disinfect it, walk down to 4th floor to get your pre-clinical materials (you don’t want to take a patient’s wet impressions in the elevator alongside other patients), and then climb back up to 9th floor to pour the darn thing up in the clinical lab space (using your pre-clinical materials). See, the school hasn’t given us the tools we need to do clinic work for real patients. We’re in a weird in-between phase. Soon, we’ll transition out of pre-clinic lab. Here’s an excerpt from the email we received:
The reason you have not been checked into the clinic lab
upstairs is because you are not yet checked out of
preclinic lab.
Did you catch the problem there? You needn’t attend the School of Dentistry to see it. One word: “because”. It’s very powerful — it is supposed to be a clue that the writer is about to articulate the reason for something. But it is often abused!
It doesn’t say in any document anywhere, ever, that we can’t be checked in to both places simultaneously! The email explanation is circular and illogical! “We use wood for houses because it is a good building material.” There it is again! Worthless. So, watch out for “because”.
Mykala recorded this one for me a while ago. It’s a comment I made while we were navigating (as we often do): “Goog 411 + GPS = Poor man’s iPhone.”
Anyhow, I think we’re really getting good at navigating… which is to say, we’re getting good at working together. On a whim, we took a day trip to Red Wing this past Sunday, and it was a blast. We took a hike, scouted out some things to do if we visit for a weekend (historical train and boat tour and etc.), admired a wonderful “Bed & Breakfast & Bread” placed called Round Barn Farm, and generally had a blast. The weather was threatening to rain, but was otherwise perfect in temperature. Here’s a picture from the top of Barn Bluff:
Happiness research indicates that looking forward to small trips regularly has a more profound effect on your happiness than looking forward to one big trip infrequently. My limited, unscientific experience with this seems to agree. In keeping with this idea, we attended the Prospect Park Ice Cream Social last Friday, June 4. In our neighborhood, there’s an old 1950s water tower atop the highest point in Minneapolis. It’s no longer a water tower, but it is in a very nice park in the neighborhood. For the Ice Cream social, it was open for people to climb the tower and see the sights. The view is amazing. Here’s Mykala:
And here I am:
Because the ice cream social event was written up in the Star Tribune, there were TONS of people there — we waited for 30 minutes until getting to climb the tower. The line had ballooned to an hour-plus by the time we left. The wait was worth it.
The great thing about the internet (and in this case, twitter) is that it gives folks with grievances a voice. Sometimes a very potent voice:
I’ve read a bunch of articles and blogs about this whole
situation by publicists and marketing folk wondering what
BP should do to save their brand from @BPGlobalPR. First
of all, who cares? Second of all, what kind of business
are you in? I’m trashing a company that is literally
trashing the ocean, and these idiots are trying to figure
out how to protect that company? One pickledick actually
suggested that BP approach me and try to incorporate me
into their actual PR outreach. That has got to be the
dumbest, most head-up-the-ass solution anyone could
possibly offer.
I wrote this meditation on attitude nearly seven years ago. Reading past the grammatical errors, attempts at grandiose style, and overwrought imagery, I think there’s some nascent wisdom.
Maybe.
Regardless, right now I’m listening to the Norah Jones song I referenced in there. It’s like stepping back in time to my Cretin Hall dorm room. Seems like another lifetime. Seven years ago.
