The Adventures of Wonk

Let Them Eat Cake (and Corn)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 01:26:00 +0000

Is healthy and sustainable food only for the privileged?

BATAVIA, Ill.—In the food deserts of America, the place to shop for groceries isn’t the local supermarket (there aren’t any); it’s the corner liquor store.

There’s a two-tiered, class-based food supply in the United States, and access to food that is healthy for both body and environment is far from democratic.

In most areas, a mother can use food stamps to buy a bag of Cheetos for her children but not a bag of apples from a farmers’ market. Thanks to our nation’s agricultural policies and generous subsidies for corn, a heavily processed, health-busting, environment-destroying meal of burger-fries-and-soda is now plentiful and cheap—cheaper oftentimes than a pint of simple, pesticide-free berries (if you can find them). Even in areas where fresh produce and organic options are available, how many have the luxury of choosing, say, a $6 quart of organic strawberries at a place like Whole Foods?

Those were some of the barriers to the sustainable food movement discussed in a lecture given by Chicago Tribune food and investigative reporter Monica Eng at the Batavia Public Library earlier this month.

“Who is looking out for some of the sickest, who are also the poorest, among us to make sure that this isn’t just a movement for the well-off? Eng asked. “How do we make it a movement for everyone to help create a healthier nation in general—healthier soil, healthier air, healthier kids?”

That’s one of the biggest themes emerging in a sustainable food movement centered around foods that are healthy for consumers, animals and the environment, Eng says. Only 1-3 percent of the U.S. food supply is organic, and the premium for organic can be steep: anywhere from 20 to 40 percent more (or even six times more, Eng has found). For those without the access or means to buy organic, the main option available is food produced by conventional, mostly industrial, agriculture—what Maria Rodale, author of the book “Organic Manifesto,” calls “chemical agriculture.”

Industrial agriculture yields a supply of food that’s plentiful and cheap, but loaded with hidden costs and ticking hazards. Not just for the poor, but for us all.

Eng has spoken to experts who warn that industrial farming will deplete our nation’s soil in the first half of this century. Also, scientists say that the factory-farm practice of feeding antibiotics to healthy animals—which accounts for something like 70 percent of all antibiotic use in the U.S., Eng said— breeds antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” like MRSA, which kills more Americans each year than AIDS.

And then there’s the issue of genetically modified foods, which drew the most questions and comments from the audience of approximately one hundred. Eng believes that all of us have eaten genetically modified food without knowing it. In the U.S., genetically modified foods are not labeled, as they are in most other nations. “The Japanese Prime Minister has said, ‘We’re not going to be feeding genetically modified foods to our kids. Let’s let the American kids be the guinea pigs and see what happens to them,’” Eng said.

Eng’s lecture shed light on a U.S. food system turned on its head: an up-is-down, black-is-white world where the age-old staples of life—fruits, vegetables, whole grains—are the new luxury items, and the former luxuries—meat, processed foods, heat-and-serve meals—are now the cheap staples of the masses.

“In other countries, you couldn’t afford to eat a TV dinner or a Totino’s pizza every day. But they’re so cheap here,” Eng said. In the U.S., “bad food is cheap food.”

The question is why? Why are fruits and vegetables so expensive? Why is a meal of hamburger, fries and soda so cheap?

At the heart of the problem are U.S. Department of Agriculture policies that even its Chief Economist, Joseph Glauber, describes as “foolish and unhealthy” and “not economically sound,” Eng said. There is a huge disconnect between what the USDA subsidizes and what its Food Pyramid says we should eat. The USDA recommends that 35 percent of our diet come from fruits and vegetables, but fruit and vegetable growers received only 0.4 percent of all USDA subsidies during the years 1995-2005. Only 24 percent of our diet should come from meat, nuts and dairy, but the meat and dairy industries received 74 percent of the subsidies—three times the amount we’re supposed to be eating.

Also, fruits and vegetables are considered “specialty crops” and thus subject to tariffs, which further drives up prices. But not corn: Corn is heavily subsidized, making it very inexpensive for the food industry to sweeten our food, and fry our meals, and feed the factory-farmed animals that end up in our supermarket aisles and on the Dollar Menu.

If we are what we eat, then we’re a nation of corn—because that’s the street drug being pushed on every corner, every store aisle, every school lunchroom.

If that sounds hyperbolic, consider the following: 25 percent of all groceries in an average supermarket contain corn, according to the book “The Omnivore's Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. Eighteen percent of the human body is composed of carbon; in the typical American, 69 percent of that carbon comes from corn, according to a 2007 CNN article by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. In other words, the typical American is more than 12 percent corn—that’s more than the amount of hydrogen (10 percent), the third largest element of the human body. Deconstruct the typical school lunch and it’s easy to see why: there’s corn in the meat, corn in the bread, corn in the sweetened drinks, corn in the processed cheese, corn in the oil that fries the potatoes. The list could go on and on.

And studies are showing that we get hooked—literally addicted to these kinds of fatty, sugary foods. “[Scientists] look at the dopamine responses in your brain to fatty foods and it’s the same as with cocaine addiction,” Eng said.

Addiction may be the goal, according to the book “The End of Overeating,” by David Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Kessler accuses the food industry of engineering the levels of sugar, salt and fats in our food to create recipes for addiction: an addiction that keeps Americans trapped in the feedback loop of craving, buying, eating. Not unlike the tactics once used by Big Tobacco to manipulate smokers.

And cheap corn is what keeps the gears of the industrial food machine turning.

The glut of corn is making us fat and sick. But the driving ethos of the food system isn’t health; it’s cheap calories. It’s all about getting the most calories per cent, the most bang for your buck in an all-you-can-eat-buffet culture.

“Food is cheaper in the United States per household, and as a percentage of our income, than any other nation in the world,” Eng said. “It’s mind-boggling.”

This ethos of cheap calories is promoted by USDA policies and produces school lunch programs that are penny-wise but, quite literally, pound-foolish. Once non-food-related costs such as transportation and labor are deducted, only about $1 is being spent on actual food, per meal, under the USDA’s National School Lunch Program. Although the U.S. Senate is considering an increase of 6 cents more per lunch, that hardly seems sufficient to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic, which has experts predicting that today’s children will be the first generation in U.S. history to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

“Growing healthy habits in our kids is not the top priority,” Eng said. “The top priority is, ‘How cheap can you do it?’ But we have to have other priorities. If we don’t spend the money now, we’re going to be spending it later.”

Because in the end, we all pay when a class-based food supply makes Americans sick. According to the Centers for Disease Control, obesity-related healthcare alone costs us $147 billion annually, half of which is footed by the taxpayers.

And class is a factor in the childhood obesity epidemic. Rural areas are suffering from the highest rates of childhood obesity in the U.S., due in part to the decline of farming and the poverty that follows, according to a 2005 article by the Associated Press: “The only other place where researchers are finding obesity rates similar to rural America is in the poorest, most troubled urban neighborhoods, suggesting that poverty may be the overriding cause."

Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was recently quoted in The Atlantic magazine on the subject of obesity: “I began to see that while we’ve got food stamps for people and we’ve really conquered hunger in America, all these people on food stamps are obese.”

And that’s a problem for the Department of Defense. The irony of the USDA’s National School Lunch Program is this: It was started in 1946 in response to DOD complaints that recruits were malnourished and too skinny; now the complaint is that recruits are too fat and can’t even run a mile, Eng said. Now there’s a push to spend the funds necessary to provide the DOD with what it needs: skinnier recruits.

Indeed, policy makers are increasingly focusing on the problem of obesity in the United States. But again, the focus seems to be on calories. Eng knows of experts who see 100-calorie Oreo packs as “one of the biggest success stories in the healthy eating movement.” One such expert “wants to make it a win-win for businesses and our waistlines” and is “proposing to the Senate that the food industry reduce the calories they give to the American public by 20 percent by 2020 and [in return] they’ll get a rebate on their advertising time for ‘healthy’ foods,” Eng said.

While some are pushing fewer calories as the solution, there are those who believe the future lies in alternatives like “organic Twinkies.”

But are organic Twinkies really the answer?

That’s debatable, Eng said. But it seemed a fitting question to ask on what was, coincidentally, the 80th birthday of the Twinkie, the notoriously shelf-stable sponge cake created in Schiller Park, Illinois, as a cheap snack for Depression-ravaged consumers, during a time when cheap calories perhaps made sense. Organic Twinkies would be free of pesticides and thus better for the environment, certainly, and better for the health and safety of the workers who farm the ingredients, Eng said. But the nutritional value—or lack thereof—remains largely the same. And then, of course, there’s the overriding question of price: Who can afford that organic Twinkie?

Also, the organic label can be used in self-serving ways by the industry; it can be applied to foods that meet organic standards but violate the spirit of sustainable agriculture. (If a “free-range” chicken is only free-range for the final two weeks of its seven-week life, and is then diesel-trucked to a store 3,000 miles away, how “sustainable” is that, really?) Even the term “sustainable” can be suspect: “To many people, ‘sustainable’ means ‘We sustain our profits,’” Eng noted.

But organic or not, the Twinkie still epitomizes what’s wrong with the American diet today; it’s still “the archetype of all processed foods,” according to the book “Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats,” by author Steve Ettlinger. Organic food can still be processed food. And yes, Twinkies also contain corn: Eight of its 39 ingredients are derived from processed corn.

But processed foods are just one facet of a complicated problem that must be attacked from multiple angles, Eng said.

As TV chef Jamie Oliver learned in his reality-TV experiment, “Food Revolution,” you can indeed spark a revolution by serving healthy meals cooked from gourmet vegetables and free-range chickens to schoolchildren weaned on reheated factory-made pizza—but not the kind Oliver intended. An overwhelming number of children complained, and many dropped out of the school’s lunch program. Access to healthy food is one thing; acceptance is quite another.

“Will they eat it? That’s the ten-thousand-dollar question,” Eng said. “People pretty much agree it’s going to require cultural and generational shift. You’re going to have to get kids to say, for some reason, ‘I want these sprouts, and I want some cabbage. I don’t want the nachos.’ And you’re going to have to get parents to say, ‘I want to be chopping and washing and cooking fruits and vegetables, and paying for that.’”

Education is one key, Eng said. “According to surveys, after kids have nutrition classes and gardening classes, they go home and tell their parents: ‘I like broccoli, Mom. I just realized today that carrots and broccoli and apples can be good. I’ve only had terrible ones, or none at all in the past, but I realize these are good.’ So we are seeing some changes. Whether or not their parents are going to buy it and make it is another question."

There are things we all can do to help, Eng said. The more people buy organic, the lower the prices for all. That will help get organic options onto the shelves of Wal-Mart, say, rather than just Whole Foods.

And the middle class is crucial to bringing prices down, says Gary Hirshberg, founder and CEO of Stonyfield Farm, the nation’s largest manufacturer of natural and organic yogurt. Hirshberg says increasing the organic food supply in the U.S. from 3 percent to 10 percent would make a huge difference in price and a huge difference for the environment.

In the meantime, consider this suggestion from Eng: “Buy the ugly fruit; buy the ugly vegetable. Because the reason [the industry] spends all this money on genetically modified and tons of pesticides is because people don’t buy the ugly stuff, people want food to look perfect.” Remember, that industrially farmed apple only looks super red and blemish free, Eng says, because it has been “through all sorts of shenanigans.” Ugly produce may be discounted at organic markets or donated to needy organizations through what are known as “market basket programs.”

Also, learn how to select and cook some of the cheaper organic options. Organic beans, barley and other whole grains are not that expensive, Eng says. “That could be one of the solutions: Get people to understand that healthy food does not always have to be expensive food.”

Because organic and locally grown foods may seem like luxury items to many, but in the end, cheap and unhealthy food may prove to be the most costly indulgence of all. Those at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid may suffer the greatest hits to their health and local environment, initially. But eventually, the damages are bound to trickle up. And we, as a country, should perhaps consider the morality of essentially letting the disadvantaged among us serve as the canaries in the coalmine.

Eating healthy food is the cheapest and most effective form of healthcare there is; for many, it’s the only form of healthcare that’s within reach. And yet, more than 23 million Americans, including 6.5 million children, have no access to fresh food on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, where is the health insurance industry investing its money? Fast food—something low-income areas usually have plenty of. Researchers at Harvard studied 11 large insurance companies and found that they owned nearly $2 billion of stock in the fast food industry, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. So the same companies that are selling us life, disability and health insurance are simultaneously placing their bets on the very thing—cheap, unhealthy food—most likely to make us die sooner, or suffer a disability like diabetes, or rack up massive bills in healthcare.

It’s enough to make a person want to seize a pitchfork and storm the castle.

Don’t be surprised, though, if the hands holding those pitchforks turn out to be rather small. And they won’t be wielding pitchforks; they’ll be holding garden hoes, and tilling the soil of school gardens.

“It really is going to be the young people who are really going to drive this movement, and actually influence their parents,” Eng said. “We’ve got the most eco- and health-aware young people that we’ve ever had. The more young people get involved in this, writing about it for their school papers, demanding their cafeteria have better food, I think it’s going to really influence what comes next.”

Media Mashup for the week ending February 28

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:10:00 +0000

Every week, I consume massive amounts of media online. Most never make it into this blog, often because I can't figure out how to build an entire blog post around them. Seems such a waste. So I've decided to start a new feature: my media mashup for the week previous.

So without further ado, here's what I learned online last week:

Insurance companies will find any excuse to charge you more money.

If you're on their list of Top 10 Most Dangerous Drivers by Profession, expect higher premiums. The most accident prone: Lawyers (cue the Schadenfreude and ambulance-chaser jokes). Number six on the list: Dog Groomers. (Really? Are they subjecting canine passengers to the theme song for Law & Order? Because that song makes dogs howl, apparently.) The real culprit behind these stats: Multitasking. (Did you hear that, HR department--or whoever's responsible for including the same tired buzzwords in every single job listing? Can we all just go back to Singletasking now? No? Well, it didn't hurt to ask. Oh, it did? Damn.)

Are you one of these people who use Twitter or Facebook to inform others that you're going out of town? Well, stop it. Because that kind of behavior could lead to insurance hikes (not to mention a burgled home).

Who, really, is blogging and tweeting these days?

Unemployed print journalists. When people start tearing up antique books to make stylish "vintage-inspired" postcards (really, now...), you know print is truly dead. It's pretty much bits & bytes or bust, as a journalist. But for those with hopes of a career in Internet journalism, you should know: it doesn't pay. And the new media types in NYC are curmudgeons who want to pull the ladder up behind them.

"Old" people. (See yesterday's post.) I love the Millenials, I really do. As a Gen X-er, I love them the way a middle child loves the baby of the family. But sometimes, the baby says things... and then I wish Mom and Dad had stopped the baby-making sooner. By exactly one.

We're turning into a Culture of "Nice."

The internet is becoming a much nicer place, driven in large part by the Millenials, who have better social skills than Gen X, which is apparently too sarcastic for its own good. It's probably less about being "nice" per se, though, and more about the "favor economy" and "the generosity of a salesman toward a customer."

But we're still not that nice.

There's a new iPhone app called Bird Turd that lets you take a virtual "poop" on tweets you dislike. (But don't confuse that with Poop Tweets, a Twitter user with 700+ followers who tweets about--yes, you guessed it--poop.)

And as always, there are the Tea Partiers, who seem an awfully belligerent bunch to me.

I want to go to Cupcake Camp.

Maybe what the world needs now is a cupcake (cupcakes are nice with tea, aren't they?). The idea behind Cupcake Camp is simple: bring cupcakes, share cupcakes, eat cupcakes. Hundreds attend each of the events, which originated in San Francisco but have since spread to 15 other locations including Sydney and Montreal.

But more than eating them or attending Cupcake Camp, what I really want is to make cupcakes. Like these:

Photos from toxel.com and hello naomi's flickr stream.

That's my media mashup for the week ending February 28. See you next week...

Does this blog make me look old?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:07:00 +0000

One of the joys of taking classes at a community college in my thirties is that I get to annoy "Millenials" with all sorts of pseudo journalistic questions about their generation.

I'd like to think their answers help me stay relevant.

But sometimes, their answers just make me feel obsolete.

For example, this week I took a survey in my journalism class to find out how many of my young classmates read blogs (self-serving question, I know). The answer: none of them.

Oh, and Twitter is for "old people." And Ashton Kutcher.

That's what I get for asking self-serving questions.

With respect to both macro-blogs (like this one) as well as micro-blogs (such as Twitter), the research I read online backs up the results of my highly unscientific survey. Young internet users are turning away from blogs, both as creators and as consumers, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. Only 15% of 18- to 29-year-olds now maintain a blog (down from 24% in 2007). The numbers were similar for teens, among whom there has been also a 24 point drop in the number who comment on friends' blogs (from 76% down to 52%). And yes, the majority of Twitter users are 35 and older, according to comScore.

I've never been under the delusion that blogging makes me hip or cutting-edge, so I'm not shocked by those stats--a little depressed, maybe, but not shocked. What I did find surprising, though, were articles like Why Isn't Mainstream Gen Y Buying Into the New Web?, which suggest that the younger generation is not nearly as enthused about Web 2.0 as I would have thought.

What they are enthused by: the mobile web. Especially the mobile web as viewed on a mobile phone. So a smart and forward-thinking blogger, I suppose, would start learning to blog with a mobile audience in mind.

But to be honest, I'm too tired to even think about that right now. It seems like we have to rethink everything these days--privacy, copyright, what it means to be smart, what it means to write well, and on and on. Now I have to rethink blogging, too?

They say 30 is the new 20, but at times like this, it feels more like the new 80.

Strangers no more: A new app that IDs faces

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:11:00 +0000

When I wrote this post a few days ago about our dwindling 15 minutes of anonymity on the internet, I almost included a bit on how the coupling of facial recognition technology and smartphone cameras will enable us one day to obliterate the anonymity and mystique of any stranger we encounter on the street. One day.

But that day is already almost here.

A Swedish company has created a new app called Recognizr that can analyze the face of a stranger and deliver that person's name and social networking presence, if any.

It's strictly opt-in (at this point), meaning you can pull up only the data of people who have chosen to be added to Recognizr's database. (Which begs the question, who are those people?!) But there's often a fair amount of societal pressure to opt-in to these things (see Facebook). And as Popsci.com notes, "where social networks go, advertisers and other more invasive data mining schemes are sure to follow."

Is all this unsettling? Yes. But you won't find too much hand-wringing here. For an explanation of why, let me punt for a moment to the brilliance of David Foster Wallace and this excerpt from his novel Infinite Jest (pg. 150):

"[T]here's some sort of revealing lesson here in the beyond-short-term viability-curve of advances in consumer technology.... First there's some sort of terrific, sci-fi-like advance in consumer tech... which advance always, however, has some unforeseen disadvantages for the consumer; and then the market-niches created by those disadvantages... are ingeniously filled via sheer entrepreneurial verve; and yet the very advantages of these ingenious disadvantage-compensations seem all too often to undercut the original high-tech advance, resulting in consumer-recidivism and curve-closure and massive shirt-loss for precipitant investors."

DFW was referring there to the (imagined) rise and fall of videophones, which went thus:

Everyone jumps on the videophone bandwagon.

Consumers quickly find the use of videophones emotionally exhausting and stressful because: a.) callers on the other end now know when they're doodling, filing their nails, channel surfing, etc., instead of giving callers their full and undivided attention; and b.) they can no longer take a call without worrying about how they look and the unflattering nature of videophone cameras.

In response, entrepreneurs develop masks, then full-body suits, then full-fledged surrogates to plop down in front of the videophone, all of which become increasingly expensive and ridiculous and so-not-worth-it.

Everyone ditches their videophones and goes back to the voice-only version.

It's not much of a stretch to see that paradigm coming into play with facial recognition technology, should it ever reach a level of obtrusiveness I'd resent. So I'm not too worried.

Still. I, for one, am going to be very mindful about my tech choices, because (and I'm paraphrasing Ferris Bueller here) Technology moves pretty fast these days; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, it's going to roll you.

Now. Where did I put my beloved iPhone...

Five reasons I won't be blogging today

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:16:00 +0000

Only celebrities can get away with being boring.

There's a place for blog posts that are mostly just links to the creativity of others--It's called Tumblr.

I'm not part of the 24/7 MSM news cycle. If I were, I'd get fired, because as a creator I am slooooow.

I already know I can do half-baked. My next post is in the oven, spending as many days there as it needs, for a change.

Olympic women's figure skating starts tonight. Canada's skater just lost her mother. South Korea's skater has the rabid gold-medal expectations of every Korean on the planet (including my parents) piled upon her willowy 19-year-old shoulders. Drama, drama...

Does self-esteem reside in the left brain?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:04:00 +0000

Science is confirming what I've long suspected: the left half of my brain has a bigger ego than the right.

When the left hemisphere is in charge, subjects are more likely to associate themselves with positive attributes, such as "capable," according to a study published in Cortex. When the right hemisphere is in charge, subjects gravitate more toward negative attributes, such as "boring."

In other words, the left hemisphere has confidence that it's awesome, and the right hemisphere mostly has self-esteem issues.

That explains so much. I've had two careers, one very right-brain and the other very left. At the left-brain job, I knocked shit out, no problem. At the right-brain job, it was round-the-clock angst. If I could transfer the big ego to my right brain and give all the humility to my left, I'd probably get a lot farther in life. Sigh.

If you have any comments to submit, please do. Just remember: All mean comments should go to the left; All nice comments should go to the right.

15 Minutes of Anonymity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:08:00 +0000

They say the Defense Department invented the Internet, but I have an alternate theory: I think Al Gore made a wish on The Monkey's Paw, and one day we'll find out the ironic price to be paid for that granted wish.

In a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of the experts surveyed agreed with the following statement:

"By 2020, the identification ID systems used online are tighter and more formal -- fingerprints or DNA-scans or retina scans. The use of these systems is the gateway to most of the Internet-enabled activity that users are able to perform such as shopping, communicating, creating content, and browsing. Anonymous online activity is sharply curtailed."

Is that 42 percent comprised of Orwellians who also believe the Mayan calendar predicts a 2012 apocalypse? Does publishing a stupid little blog post like this, for example, really require that level of security? Surely the 54 percent who disagreed saw things in a completely different light?

Mmm, not so much, really. In their expert opinion, "the identification systems used on the Internet [will be] applied to a wider range of activities," although it will be "still relatively easy for Internet users to create content, communicate, and browse without publicly disclosing who they are." [emphasis mine]

Remember when the Internet seemed to be all about anonymity? In the future, will we reminisce about the days when one could post snarky comments, adopt a false persona, and surf for free porn on the internet without having one's retina scanned and think, Good times?

But enough with the dystopian thoughts. I'm off now to watch the lovely bitcherinas ice-dance for Olympic gold... and to think of a way to get that monkey's paw out of Al Gore's hands.

Happy 20th Birthday, Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:47:00 +0000

Unfortunately, you're still one year away from taking a legal drink, which you'll probably need after seeing my first attempt at photo painting. But this is what you've unleashed on the world...

Can there be an app for Serendipity?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:43:00 +0000

I think of technology as the ultimate Enabler, in both the positive as well as the AA sense of that word. If you want to be a shut-in, no problem -- you can shop for groceries, earn a living, even socialize from the comfort of home without uttering a single face-to-face word. If you crave intimacy, but find the psychic price of IRL interaction too steep, there's a (porn) site for you. And if having hundreds of Facebook "friends" truly gives you a sense of connection... well, obviously you're in sync with the masses.

But here's the kind of enabler most of us need: the kind that helps Opportunity find our door, that lets us know when we're actually in the right place at the right time, that nudges us to chat up the adorable stranger on the subway platform now instead of posting to "Missed Connections" later. Everyday another hundred+ people get onto our trains, or walk through our parks, or lounge at our spots. Some of those strangers could offer us a job, produce our screenplay, share our love of Lego art, end our loneliness -- whatever. Not likely, perhaps, but possible. Facebook, et. al, covers the people we do know -- what about all the people we don't but maybe could? With all this GPS tracking and whatnot, technology has the goods to be that enabler, doesn't it?

Well, if location-based social networks/apps like StreetSpark take off, maybe technology will one day meet my high expectations.

StreetSpark is not the first to explore the possibility. There are an increasing number of such networks/apps that specialize in dating (such as Grindr for the gays, and AreYouInterested for the straights). What caught my attention with StreetSpark, though, is that it envisions itself as having a potential audience that extends beyond singles.

In a nutshell, here's how it works: they use the info you provide about who you are and who you're interested in meeting to match you with others on the basis of proximity and convergence of interests. When you're out and about, you can turn on the service and view your matches on your mobile device. If your interest is piqued, you press "Ignite." If the stranger also presses "Ignite," you'll get to see more info about each other and then text or meet up.

But this post is not a promotional for StreetSpark, so for more information on how it works, check out either their website or YouTube page, where you can see the service in action.

Without a following of Facebook proportions, though, I doubt StreetSpark or any other location-based social networking app can be the serendipity scout I'm envisioning. It may be that any "spark" lies mainly in one's perceived sense of life's possibilities. Which is no small thing, that. Without that sense of possibilities, it's too easy to fall into the trap of feeling like nothing new ever happens, every day is the same as the last, and it's going to be Groundhog Day for the rest. of. your. life. Or is that just me?

What do you think about location-based social networking?

Dashboard Confessional

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:42:00 +0000

Last night I went trolling for more dashboard widgets, culminating in yet another episode of binge downloading.

Yes, dear reader, I'm a widgetwhore.

A "widgetwhore," as defined by Urban Dictionary:

"A Mac user (OSX 10.4+) who fills up the dashboard with widgets, of which many, or at least some, are unnecessary or ridiculous. Most common among new Mac users, particularly recently converted windoze users. Commonly, but not always, characterized by cuteness or bouncyness."

I'd say I'm a textbook case -- except for the cutesy/bouncy bit (all those cutesy icons I've downloaded onto my Mac don't count, right?). What fuels my addiction? Boredom? An empty, shallow existence? The delusion that somewhere, out there on the interwebs, is a widget for each and all of my heretofore unfulfilled (and bottomless) needs?

My down-the-time-hole project for today was to purge all unused widgets (Ooh! A goldfish aquarium!) and whittle my dashboard down to these seven six favorite and neither ridiculous nor unnecessary widgets that I use on a regular basis:

Color Burn -- A daily dose of color palette inspiration, complete with hexadecimal values (for all the web geeks and bloggers wanting to customize their templates). I also enjoy the quirky palette names, such as "Kung Fu Grip" or "Extraterrestrial Supermodel."

Screenshot Plus -- I love this screen capture widget. It's what I used for all the pictures in this post. It captures a full screen, a window, a rectangular selection, even a widget. There's also a timer function. So simple, but it does everything I need from a screen capture app.

Wikity Widget -- Better than any notepad or sticky notes widget I've tried. Using wiki technology, this little gadget automatically adds links to your notes and makes your sundry collection searchable. Great for someone like me who's constantly jotting down (usually on Post-Its scattered all over the house) or typing random notes, which I can never find or forget about.

Tags - CSS -- A way to quickly search for all those CSS properties and attributes I'm just starting to learn and having a hard time keeping straight in my head. Comes in handy when you're trying to tweak your blogger templates. There's a version for HTML tags, too, and these two widgets are great in tandem.

Oxford American Dictionary/Thesaurus -- The only widget that came bundled with my Mac that I actually use. Gets heavy usage when I'm composing these blog posts or, say, reading a New Yorker article full of egghead words.

Boredom Button -- Because boredom is bad for your health. And sometimes, I just want my ennui to vanish with the mere push of a button. This is kind of that button. The sites it bounces to are well-edited, and I've found some bookmark worthy links this way. Such as this for quirky news (although English is maybe not the native language of their writing team), and this for artsy images and creative inspiration.

Dashometer -- The widget that inspired this post and got me thinking about my addiction. It's a "pedometer" that measures your dashboard usage. But now that it's helped me recognize that I have a problem, I'll probably purge this widget as "unnecessary" -- ironic, isn't it?

Any other widgetwhores out there? What's on your dashboard now? Post your Dashometer stats, if you have them.

UPDATE: I've cleaned out my dashboard, but now I'm using iGoogle as my homepage and loading that up with widgets. So I guess all I've done is transfer my widget addiction.

Get thee to a nunnery

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:15:00 +0000

A Nun Prepares for Lent.

Either The Church is relaxing its standards or someone in the blogosphere is having a little fun with a nun costume and/or Photoshop. Regardless. If I were a nun, this is probably the kind of nun I'd be...

[10 Examples of Nuns Behaving Badly]

The Tao of Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:04:00 +0000

There are 23.7 million tweets per day, on average, mostly human in origin. But that could be changing, if this post on HuffPo is any indication.

Animals, beds, toilets, trees, shoes, chairs and even bathroom scales are increasingly invading the Twitterverse. Apparently oversharing, self-promotion and narcissistic solipsism are not traits exclusive to homo sapiens.

At first, I felt a rant coming on after reading the HuffPo piece -- How inane, wtf is happening to society, blah blah. But then, I felt inspired to do this little tweet mashup for you instead:

The mundane concerns, the self-absorption, the absurd nature of existence... There's something kind of Zen about these tweets, no?

[Huffington Post]

Love in the time of 140 characters or less

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:28:00 +0000

Will flittering be the new speed dating?

Imagine walking into a dimly lit, swank lounge packed with 300+ singles, everyone wearing a numbered tag and holding a mobile device. A giant Big Brother screen looms, displaying a live-feed stream of the flirty tweets (aka "flitters") pinging about amongst the crowd. You spot an enticing stranger, and with thumbs poised on mobile device you begin to compose in your head the perfect in-140-characters-or-less come-on to #157....

Suddenly you receive a flitter: "Hey #69 - U R so hot! See u at the bar? #123 flitter."

Welcome to the world of Flittering.

This Valentine's Day Eve, Canadian singles will be tweeting for love at Flitter events like this held in major cities across Canada. Flittering is the brainchild of Fastlife, the world's largest speed dating company, which hosts events in six countries including the U.S.

Personally, I can see Flitter parties trending and quickly overtaking speed dating events (which seem so early aughts decade). Canada is hardly the first place I'd search for hot trends (Sorry, Canada). But the Canucks may be on to something here. What do you think? Post your comments and let me know.

[Reuters]
[More info @ Fastlife]

Got Beer?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Move over milk, there's a new bone density booster in town

Drinking beer may increase bone mineral density and help prevent osteoporosis, according to a new study.

The key ingredient contained in beer: silicon (who knew?), which increases bone mineral density.

Pale ales contain the most silicon; light lagers, wheat beers and non-alcoholic beers the least.

Sounds about right -- if beer drinking gives you Homer Simpson's belly, your bones are gonna need the extra strength to lug that shit around.

I sense a new beer-lobby ad campaign a-brewing. Paris Hilton sporting a beer 'stache? Seems only a matter of time.... [Reuters]

A Tale of Two Chimps: Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:00:00 +0000

What a traumatic news-cycle this week has been for our nearest living relations within the animal kingdom. I keep thinking of all those baby chimps out there, in their wittle diapers and parked in front of some TV somewhere, maybe an ice cream cone in hand... and maybe at this very moment one of them is watching that endlessly looped clip of the gunned-down Crazed Chimp of Connecticut... the lifeless chimp body being dragged away by his police executioners... Heartrending, just heartrending.

But the backstory of the Crazed Chimp of Connecticut? Enough good material there to write a Greek tragedy. Or two. The "mother" stabbing her own "son." The imploring death-gaze that seems to ask, "Why Mom? Wwwhyy?" The weeping mother looking on as her son's lifeless body is carried away. It's an embarrassment of Greco-dramatic riches, really.

And I'm seeing made-for-TV movie potential here, people. Think: E! Television Original Movie. If you don't see how this story has the elements for the True Hollywood Stories genre yet, well then consider:

1) The once bright career in Show Business. Yup. Travis was a veteran of TV commercials--perhaps you saw him in ads for Coca-Cola and Old Navy. But then he got old and his cuteness waned and the work dried up. That's Show Biz.

2) The Codependent Relationship. If Mommy has a cup of tea, then Travis has a cup of tea. If Mommy needs a glass of red wine every night to chase away the emotional pain, then Travis needs a glass of red wine every night to chase away the pain. If Mommy likes to pop a Xanax from time to time, then Travis--well, you get the idea.

3) The Drugs, the Alcohol. 'Nuff said.

And the moral of this story? Stop anthropomorphizing. Someone could lose a face. Not to mention a life.
Part 2 of "A Tale of Two Chimps" to follow...

My Debut Album Drops Today

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:06:00 +0000

Ha. Not really. I just made a dummy album cover, courtesy of Wikipedia and Flickr, just for fun, and thanks to this blog posting, "wikipedia names your band." My randomly-generated band name is Pajama Party--it rather fits, actually. Ditto the album's title. Almost makes me want to start a band.

You'll learn the easy 3-step how-to as well as view the posted album covers of others in the blogosphere who played along. As time wasters go, I'd give it big ups: http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/wikipedia-names-your-band

* Pants Sold Separately

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:23:00 +0000

(Shudder). I may not date for months. Novelty T-shirts are one thing. But this?? It looks like it was manufactured using the Shroud of Turin method.

So if you want one of these for yourself, don't expect me to play enabler by providing you with a link. Go to Google. The search keywords should be rather obvious...

Knitting Subway Dude, You Just Brightened my Day...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:37:00 +0000

"Knit 1, Purl 2, Knit 1, Purl-- Dang, I think I dropped a stitch..."

Can this Outfit be turned into a Color Scheme?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:26:00 +0000

It's a common designer's trick for generating color palettes and schemes: springboard off the color combinations from a favorite photo, swatch of fabric, bubblegum wrapper, your old prom corsage--whatever you find pleasing to your eye's sense of color. I do it all the time.

And with this rather fun and easy-breezy online tool I found today, you can too. I tried it myself, and here's what I got:

It didn't quite capture the colors in the striped socks (or the brilliance of Marc Jacobs), so there's a dearth of accent colors to choose from. But a better quality photo or digital file might be the fix. I think I'll use this mainly to get those Web-safe color codes you need when generating content for the Internet--just roll over a color-chip with your mouse and voila, the code is revealed. But I'm already imagining all kinds of alternative uses for this tool... Come to think of it, it might come in handy while yarn shopping for that self-portrait in latch-hook I've been meaning to try...
Give it a whirl: http://www.cssdrive.com/imagepalette/index.php

Fashion for the Recession

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:31:00 +0000

Cutouts and peek-a-boo holes. An artful slash here and a provocative slice there... Now there's a Fashion Week trend I can get behind, even in these recessionary times. Especially in these recessionary times. Not for the actual fashion aesthetic, mind you, but simply as a matter of practicality. That threadbare T-shirt with the gaping hole in one shoulder, all those sartorial makeovers I've attempted on a garment armed with nothing more than a pair of scissors... Suddenly I've found a way to "spin" a woebegone wardrobe that screams "poverty" into one that purrs "fashion." This is one trend that I hope goes viral.

But I know how those fashionistas roll: troll the streets for inspiration, preempt the trends of the poor-and-not-so-famous, then dump said trend once it catches on. Or pair it with fur (another catwalk trend) to separate yourself from the (shudder) poor-hungry-tired masses for whom "the look" is not a conscious fashion choice but rather an economic necessity.

Oh Fashion... you heartless, spendthrift bitch...

Callout Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:19:00 +0000

Is someone disrespecting you?

Making you or someone you know feel uncomfortable?

Tell 'em to back off with a Callout Card.

Send an amusing (for you) yet brutally-frank (for them) Callout Card to any and all who would use the technological marvels of the 21st Century--cellphones, emails, text messages, IM's--to pester and plague your peace of mind. Here's a sampling:

These would have been perfect for a certain "supervisor" (ha!) and saboteur extraordinaire I once had the misfortune of toiling under. Nothing would have saved me from her machinations, ultimately, or kept me in a job I otherwise loved but for her. But it would have been... cathartic.

http://www.thatsnotcool.com/CalloutCards.aspx

The Bailout Booth

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:12:00 +0000

Apparently there's a new site out there called bailoutbooth.com. And to generate some media buzz for their site they set up a booth in Times Square in NYC and just, like, handed out crisp $50 bills to anyone and everyone who stood on line--even more, in some cases, if one's tale of economic woe managed to so move the mystery man in the booth.

But if you missed out, no worries. Plans are already in the works for booths in other major cities such as Boston and Philly, among others. So start crafting and honing your tale of woe, folks... I know I am. Then I'm going to blow all $50 on booze, invite over some friends, turn on the CNN, and play a little drinking game: whenever some talking-head utters the word "Bailout" everyone has to chug a shot. Because if we really are facing "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" I think a bit of binge drinking is in order--wouldn't you say?

The Bailout Booth: coming soon to a city near you...

Hello Again

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:52:00 +0000

It's been a long long time between postings. Can't say I've missed it, truth be told. It took a lot of energy to follow the Obama saga at such a fever-pitch and for so long. Election '08 madness just reached the the saturation point for me back in November, I guess, and an extended break seemed in order. Can't say I'm ready to jump back on that (maybe dead?) horse again, but I'm flirting with the idea. Thought I'd give it a whirl today.

Nothing at all deep-dish to offer y'all today, though. Just some random musings on a few characters and key players from Election '08 that I thought I'd share:

Sarah Palin: She's like the Energizer Bunny from that advertising campaign back in the day--isn't she? Remember those TV ads? Where the Energizer Bunny would just randomly invade commercial spots in which he had no place, banging on his stupid drum while the Snuggle Bunny was busy trying to sell fabric softener or the Whassup! guys were in the midst of pushing their brand of beer, or whatever. I'll be, like, watching CNN and contemplating "The worst economic crisis since The Great Depression" or something, Ms. Palin far far from my mind... and then I'll hear the breaking news of her feud with Ashley Judd or whatever. Irksome, to say the least. I wish she'd just stay on her tundra and leave me in peace. But I know that ain't gonna happen. The one consolation: it's pretty fun being mean about Sarah, I have to admit. Takes me back to the old days...

Joe the Plumber: Like the poster-child for every person who doesn't know what the hell to do with his/her Life. Maybe I'll open a plumbing business. (a beat). Wait, maybe I should run for Congress instead... No, make that Joe the Country Singer instead. (a beat). Scratch that: an Author is what I really am. And by "author" I mean self-appointed Ambassador to the world.

Oh Joe... I'd like to judge you, I really would. But black as your kettle may be, my pot is rather black itself. Trying to pull off a career change in this economy has me bouncing from one potential job title to the next, too.

Obama's Book Club

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:16:00 +0000

Move over Oprah--there's a new book club in town... But for the smart & wonky set. Same literary windfall for the "chosen" few. But without the hankie-wringers. And everything is pretty much snark-proof (Jonathan Franzen would not dis this endorsement). As Publishers once spoke of "The Oprah Effect", they will soon speak of "The Obama Effect." And here are the latest two beneficiaries of a plug by Obama:

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's about Lincoln's presidency, and how he packed his Cabinet with his rivals (not literally, of course. Lincoln didn't chop up his rivals and store them in the chifforobe, if that's where your sick mind was headed, Rahm Emanuel). Every politico and pundit is racing to the bookstore for this one, thinking it will be the key to unlocking Obama's nefarious plans for his administration... or at least explain why Obama would ever choose Hillary for Secretary of State (I'm still trying to figure that one out... but then I keep getting sidetracked by the thought of "Where's Willy?", a game I do not want to play--does anyone? Personally, I got enough of that old game during my days as a White House Intern... (not really)).

The Defining Moment: F D R’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, by Jonathan Alter. The lucky author who got a plug from Obama on 60 Minutes last Sunday. The New York Times has an (unintentionally) funny piece about how three different writers/publishers of a soon-to-be-released book on FDR almost wet themselves watching 60 Minutes, wondering if theirs was the book Obama was reading and about to name before a nationwide televised audience...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/books/18book.html?em

Clearly, the man reads... and a lot. And publishers obviously send Obama advance copies of books all the time. But I'm a little worried about this Obama Effect... Is the desk in the Oval Office going to be buried under unsolicited manuscripts? Did we just trade in a President who doesn't read at all for a President who maybe reads too much? Will Obama be nose-deep in the latest by Ken Follet while Putin invades Alaska? Is this why some evangelicals suspect Obama is really the Antichrist? Because a black man who reads lots of really smart books... well, he must be the Antichrist. Clearly.

And if there is an "Obama Effect," might there also be a "Reverse-Obama Effect"? The evidence suggests there is:

Das Kapital by Karl Marx. Joe the Plumber, you have nooo idea what you did for Karl Marx's book sales... and how amused Karl Marx is, wherever he is. Because your thoughtless use of the word "Socialist" has led to a worldwide surge in book sales (not to mention tons of "capital") for that old German socialist... communist... whatever. For real. (I know it's hard to tell with me, sometimes.) But not to be outdone, Joe has written(!) a new book, Joe The Plumber: Fighting For The American Dream, available "exclusively" through his incredibly stupid new website: http://www.secureourdream.com/html/store.php?content_id=9&nav_id=7&

Book of Collected Wisdom of Sarah Palin, by Russell Blackstone. Apparently, Sarah Palin is about to sign a $7 million book deal (WTF?!!). In the meantime, though, there's this 120-page book... which, um, does have 100 blank pages in it, just so you know. You can buy it here: http://books.cafepress.com/item/book-of-collected-wisdom-of-sarah-palin/304373749

Overheard Between Putin and Sarkozy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:35:00 +0000

This real exchange between Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy is too funny not to share. It happened last August when Sarkozy flew to Moscow to convince Putin not to overthrow Saakashvili, the President of Georgia:

PUTIN:

I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls.

SARKOZY:

Hang him?

PUTIN:
Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.

SARKOZY:
Yes but do you want to end up like Bush?

(a beat)

PUTIN:
Ah, you have scored a point there.

Hehe... Diplomatic relations between world leaders can be so funny/stupid... Who knew?

Here's my source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5147422.ece