The Picture Worth A Thousand Women

I was rummaging around Colossal, a website for Art & Design, when I stumbled upon an article about an art instillation in Saudi Arabia, called Suspended Together.  The article can probably explain the instillation better than I (having not seen it in person) but it sounds very powerful. Basically, 200 fiberglass doves with postcard designs on them are suspended in mid-flight, seemingly invoking ideas of freedom.

However, if you look closer, the postcard designs are actually the documents Saudi women need to be granted by a male relative in order to travel. Many of the documents are from scholars, who despite their contributions to their country still cannot be trusted to travel on their own accord. All as if to say that women are treated like (according to the article) “a flock of suspended doves”.

I think it would be easy for those of us who disagree with forcing women to depend on the will of their male relatives to travel to vilify Saudia Arabian and similar cultures. But I think we also need to look at our own culture. Do we have similar traditions in America?

I’m immediately think about the recent (and ongoing) controversy from the Obama administration’s decree to religiously-affiliated organizations that they must provide insurance that covers the cost of the birth control pill for the female employees. For the purposes of this blog entry, I’m going to ignore the fact that this is more than just a religious issues (Does the government even have the power to mandate this?) and the fact that a large number of women take the pill for serious medical reasons, like endometriosis, (unlike male enhancement pills) instead of preventing pregnancies, and focus on the issue of women’s rights.

If these were churchs, synagogues or mosques then there’s an argue for the separation of church and state should be upheld and saying they shouldn’t be required to provide such insurance. But they’re not religious organizations; they’re just affiliated with a religion. And I don’t care what the Supreme Court says, corporations are not people. Therefore, in my opinion, the rights of the employees of these religious-affiliated organizations need to come before the company they work for. Once we prioritize the rights of a non-human entity over the actual humans that make it up and give them they’re existance, then we’ve gone down a dark path.

Going back to how this relates to Saudia Arabian women: Why don’t these organizations have faith in their employees to make their own decisions? If their employees also believe that birth control is murder or morally wrong, then they just won’t take advantage of that service in their insurance. (And if the employees don’t, then the moral beliefs of the company’s higher-ups shouldn’t be thrust upon them.) And you may argue that the company still has to pay for that service. Maybe. But you know the difference between two insurance plans is not going to be one pill. So the insurance plan that covers the pill is going to offer other coverage that the plan sans the pill also doesn’t cover. And maybe the company  will object to those too on moral grounds. (Personally, the cynic in me thinks companies are just using religion as a moral cover to attack a plan that they don’t agree with on financial grounds; what company wants to pay for their employees insurance?)

My point is: who are we to demonize Muslim cultures for not letting their women have the right to make their own choices, like when and where they will travel, when we are squabbling about treating our women like adults who can make their own choices about whether or not birth control is right for them and their family? Not to get all religious, but to quote a popular idiom also about society not passing judgement/ control on women, let he who is without sin…

Label Maker

Last year, representatives from the APA (American Psychological Association) came to inspect the school psychology program at UMD and interview the faculty and students to see if the program was deserving of being re-accredited. We haven’t officially heard back but it’s basically understood that the program, which has been accredited since such a thing existed, would have no problem at getting re-accredited.

At least it was basically understood. Then a bombshell dropped on the Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education (CHESE). The Counselor Education program, which is one of three programs in what will eventually/possibly be called CoPE within CHESE was not re-accredited by CAKREB. So the Provost has decided to shut the program down effective as soon as the current accreditation runs out at the end of the term.

For the students in the last year of the program, they’ll still be able to graduate from an accredited program. And the department is scrambling to accommodate the other students in the program so that they can continue to take classes, since they’re aren’t (as of now) going to be anymore Counselor Ed. classes. In class on Friday, which is for the first year students in CoPE to help with and encourage us to do research, the Counselor Ed. students were pretty panicked and confused about what was happening and what would happen to them. We’ve all pretty much rallied around them and they’re planning to speak to the department at a department meeting next Friday to try and save the PhD program.

I really don’t know most of the story, only the aftermath with the first year students. But it seems… unfortunate that this has jeopardized the education of a group of people. I don’t know anything about CAKREP but from the talk on Friday I gather that they’re basically there to certify that counselor education-type programs meet they’re standards and… then what? Our professor had what’s probably the cynical view, that CAKREP accreditation is basically only useful if you want to teach at a CAKREP accredited school. He also argued that accreditation programs unnecessarily limit programs to these cookie cutter molds.

On that last note, I’m inclined to agree with him. If programs are going to be forced to meet a rigid set of criteria to be accredited, then they’re going to be limited in what they can do. Program, whether in colleges or otherwise, only have limited resources. Certainly in some cases, accreditation is a good thing. I want to know that my brain surgeon graduated from a program that has taught him/her everything needed to save my poor little brain. But as soon as we start limiting programs that train people, we reduce diversity, innovation, creativity, and tack on a list of demands that take up our time and money. Also, I have a feel that some of the criteria for many accrediting institutions are arbitrary or outdated or insufficient or naive or some combination of those.

And ultimately, what does it mean to say that you’ve met the criteria of these institutions? Particularly in terms of the layman. I’m a layman when it comes to CAKREP. If I were hiring someone with CAKREP accreditation I would have no idea what that ACTUALLY means. Just that they met the rigid standards of some group of people. In theory, accrediting bodies like this and the APA would (I hope) argue that they’ll only accredit programs that are in the public’s best interest… (According to my cynical professor, CAKREP accreditation is to help counselors compete with psychologists and APA accreditation is to help psychologists compete with doctors) but that’s not a guarantee.

Labels are inherently misleading. They’re a few short words that attempt to convey tons of information so that people don’t have to spend the time to look up that information themselves. The more I think about it, the more it occurs to me how dangerous this could be. People put their faith in labels that lead them to buy services or products they know little to nothing about. Like foods that are labeled “USDA organic” that meet the USDA’s limited criteria and nothing more. And I’ve heard that businesses are finding shortcuts around those criteria. In fact, food labeling in general is pretty sketching. Juices, in my opinion, are the worst. If it’s says the juice is from concentrate, be wary. That juice could have been sitting frozen for ages and all it’s fruity/veggie nutrients wasted away.

I guess the people who really care or need to care, they’ll look up what the labels mean. But it’s unfortunate we give them so much power in the first place when it seems like really they’re just little shortcuts based on trust.

Like an Octopus on Roller Skates

Last Sunday, I went with one of my fellow school psych. grad students to the National Zoo. I thought it would be interesting to see it with snow on the ground. Unfortunately, the snow had already melted quite a bit. But there were very few people at the zoo which meant we were able to get up close and personal with the exhibits.

At the Invertebrate House (which I’ve never been to before since it’s kind of hidden, but worth looking for), we saw was some of the volunteers feeding their giant Pacific octopus, named Pandora. It was definitely a sight to see and I was able to get a video of it (which I’ll put up as soon as I get it off my phone). We also learned how starfish eat: they throw up their stomachs, which starts to digest the food externally, and then they pull their stomach back in. I wonder if that aids with digestion.

I was also able to get some neat videos of the lion and tiger that were out. Both were roaring, although sadly I only got a video of the tiger roaring. Not that it really looked like roaring, in the wide-opened mouth Disney movie way. Their months were both pretty closed.

Considering that the National Zoo is free, it’s a cool place to visit. They’re currently doing construction on an elephant run that will loop through the zoo, so some of the exhibits are closed because of that. But it should be even cooler once that’s finished.

All the Fibers that Knit Us

Now that it’s Winter Break here at the University of Maryland, I find myself with an abundance of time that was otherwise taken up with classes. Some of this time is being taken up bydog walking, some with reading articles to get ready for next term and let’s be honest, a good chunk of the time is going toward enjoying my ability to sleep in. But I still find myself with lots of free time.

I haven’t been as good about practicing guitar since my classes ended but I’m really going to crack down and make sure that I practice at least 15 minutes a day. Even if all I get done in that time is practicing a chord or two, that’s fine. I sat down to play some of the songs I haven’t touched since before Christmas and realized I had gotten too slow. The only song I could still play with any reasonable speed was Bob Dylan’s Times They Are A’Changing, which I have a hard time recognizing without his vocals even when I’m the one playing it.

But as if that still pretty new hobby wasn’t enough, I’ve decided to pick up another one: KNITTING! I was inspired by a few of my friends who have a lot of artsy, handmade projects going on. And also by the fact that deep down in my memories I could still remember the basics of knitting from being taught by my grandma years ago and I didn’t want to forget that skill. So I got myself a little knitting basics book, looked up some Youtube videos for clarity and taught myself to knit.

Since I have the time to do it now, I’ve taken on a big project. I’m knitting 7″ square dish clothes that, once finished, I’m going to sew together as a quilt. Hopefully it’ll look pretty cool and be useful. Unfortunately I found out several dish clothes into the project that the yarn I was using, Red Heart Super Saver, is 100% acrylic. So… it’s not going to be a super soft quilt but at least I can wash it and it won’t shrink. Which is essential when you live in a house of dogs.

[Pictures will eventually go here.]

Rulin’ the New Years

I’ve been seeing this picture of folk musician Woody Guthrie‘s New Year’s Resolutions (or as he apparently called them “rulin’s”). I don’t know if they actually are his, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t written by him and are rather a form of nostalgia inspired by our current economic and social climate. But whether they’re real or fake, a lot of the items would be good for everyone to pursue. “Eat good”, who can really argue with that? “Stay glad” can be tricky but it’s worth working towards.

Maybe it's not possible to meet all these resolutions, especially if you don't know anyone named Pete. But it's the spirit of them that's important.

What I like about these rulin’s is their simplicity. Even #8, “Write a song a day”, isn’t too hard. It doesn’t say write a good or award-winning song. Just write a song. Exercise your skill. It seems to be that one of the keys to making and keeping changes in your life is to set manageable goals to work towards. Maybe throwing really simple resolutions in with tougher one’s seems like a cop out, but if you feel better for reach those easy ones and that helps you maintain your momentum towards achieving your tougher resolutions, than why not set them as goals too?

Another key, at least in my opinion, is to set goals you’re actually interested in achieving. Maybe learning how to clog dance isn’t a particularly useful skill for you but you want to learn how, it gives you something to do, keeps your mind and body healthy and keeps you happy. And as long as you’re not clogging on someone, you’re not hurting anything other than maybe your feet. So why not?

A New Year, A New Post

Happy 2012! New Years resolutions are an opportunity for self-improvement. The stereotype is that they’re broken after a week or so of half-hearted commitment to them. But we can’t think to highly of our importance if we give up on improving ourselves so easily…

In order to insure that I would be able to keep my New Years resolutions for this year, I decided to commit them to the internet – a space more permanent than paper. So here they are, in a short and sweet list:

1. Walk my dogs daily, to help keep them fit (I’m looking at you, Marty the Obese) and help keep me fit
2. Cook more at home and bring the left overs with me for lunch, there by eating healthier and also cutting food costs
3. Continue to work on my guitar skills – I need to include this since for the past month I’ve only played my guitar once… It’s easy to get side tracked from it, but equally easy to work in a few minutes if not a half an hour of play.
4. To put #3 more concretely, I’d like to be able to play 5 songs well (probably from my Acoustic Bucket List) by December 31st, 2012
5. In the interest of this blog, write at least one blog entry per week (with the exception of November 2012, when I’ll again commit all my freetime to NaNoWriMo)

And those are my New Years Resolution. Let’s see how many I meet after 365 days.

 

RIP Jack

This weekend, my beagle Jack passed away.

He was 11 years old and in bad shape, so it was his time together. But it’s hard to say good-bye to someone who’s been a part of your family for 11 years. In a way, I’m kind of glad he’s dead. It was hard to watch him deteriorate and by the end he was doing some pretty strange things. He wasn’t eating, wandered aimlessly, got stuck behind things and couldn’t get out. It was especially shocking for me since before going to Korea, he was a pretty happy, active dog, a little neurotic but that was Jack. He had torn his ACL a little while earlier but was still running around on it. Then when I got back from Korea he just seemed… old. He had gained some weight, didn’t play with his toys much and although he’d still follow me everywhere he kind of did it in a way that reminded me of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.

It was nice spending pretty much my whole summer with him before grad school, though. At first he wasn’t too happy to have Marty and Han around. Then one day he decided to each a bunch of chocolate and had to spend sometime hooked up to an IV at the vets. Once he came back from that it was like he was his old self again. He was running around, happy to go for walks. He would even race Han up the driveway and chase him in the front yard. Suddenly when Dad came home from work he was so happy and would jump around like a puppy to get his attention.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t with him when he died (I was snowed into a power-less cabin in Pennsylvania) and I wish I had been. But I’m glad he was able to be a happy puppy again for a little while before he got really bad. And hopefully if there is a doggy heaven he’s up there playing frisbee with my old dog Baron.

#15: For SCIENCE!

Well I’m 13 entries down on my Post a Day Challenge. That’s what happens when you’re a grad student and you find yourself in the middle of midterms. I was toying with the idea of just post-poning (see what I did there?) this challenge until November, which is NaNoWriMo, or afterwards. But no! I said I’d write a post a day and if I can’t do that, then at least I’ll write 31 posts for the month of October. October deserves it!

I had written down several post topics on a post-it and posted it on my computer (so many posts…). Originally was going to talk about how I stumbled onto the beginnings of the Occupy DC protests while in DC. But after watching last nights episode of The Daily Show, I was inspired to write another post today, which is in a way related to the Occupy Wall Street protests.

This episode of The Daily Show was basically dedicated to how Science is often misunderstood or misinterrupted, and sometimes even villianized. I capitalize Science in a semi-sarcastic way since I was thinking during Aasif Mandvi’s interview with political strategiest, Noelle Nikpour, that people seem to often treat science and refer to it in a way as if it were a thing rather than a way to pursue knowledge. Although science and the knowledge we have gotten from that pursuit are at times so awesome (and I’m using that in the traditional sense of “aspiring awe”), that I don’t wonder if maybe it should be Science. Or rather SCIENCE!

But I digress.

Normally I take stories on The Daily Show with a grain of salt and I don’t really get riled up by the things Jon Stewart reports (even though he is my generation’s news media general, as I understand it), but this episode was different. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this particular episode struck a chord with me, after all the tag of my blog is “Knowledge is Power!”. I don’t need The Daily Show to tell me that there’s definitely some degree of anti-intellectual, anti-science, almost anti-knowledge sentiment in the United States and it seems to be growing as of late. I’ve been in college or abroad the past few years which has probably shielded me from a lot of it and yet I’ve still felt it at times.

On a side note on anti-intellectualism in American culture, I was watching an episode of Storage Wars (so scholarly, I know) and one of the characters said something along the lines of to quote the Japanese warrior Sun Tzu – keep your friends close and your enemies closer. First of all, Sun Tzu was Chinese. Second, he probably didn’t say that (He spoke Asian, duh. That quote is in English.). Second of all, perhaps attributing that to him is people’s way of making a Godfather – II quote look wise.

I guess a culture like this isn’t unexpected when you consider America’s history (although the American Revolution was informed by philosophy and our government was set up by a group of fairly intellectual men). We’re a pretty blue collar country. We’ve traditional believed things like pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and the whole Puritan work ethic. But why can’t we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps to become more knowledgeable people? Why does that discredit all the bootstrap pulling? I’m always seeing articles about successful businessmen who did it all without college degrees, which is just a nice little distortion of reality to create something that will entertain more than inform and help. Maybe you don’t need a college education to be successful, but you do need an education, whatever form it takes. You don’t hire some guy off the streets and send him to work as a fork lift operator that day. He needs to have some kind of certification to use forklifts, certification he received by being educated in how to use them. These college dropouts didn’t magically know everything they needed to do everything they did.

It seems like a lot of aspects of American culture and society exist in this weird duality. I know I’m not the first one to point this out but there seems to be a lot of black and white thinking going on. Like former President George Bush said, “Either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” Either you’re with science or your against it. Either you believe science or you don’t (a very intersting idea since not believing in Science doesn’t make it go away – it’s a jerk like that). Not believing in global warming doesn’t mean that our industrialized nations aren’t creating greater levels of pollutants that in turn are filling the Earth with more carbon compounds than can be filtered out by the Earth’s naturally occurring carbon cycle, which is being undermined through the deforestation of rainforests and the depletion of  phytoplankton . But I’ve become the Lorax, proselytizing for nature.

From NASA's Earth Science website for kids

We tell kids to go to school, pay attention in class, do their homework but we undermine teachers unions and the political talking heads dare to claim that teachers are paid too much and politicians argue we should take money away from the Department of Education or suggest eliminating it all together (sorry Ron Paul, I like you but this is crazy and backwards). We buy all these amazing products of science that are becoming so ubiquitous in our lives that we don’t think about or appreciate the complicated scientific path undertaken to invent them and put them in our shopping carts. Things like iPods, cars, TVs, vaccines (I’m looking at you, anti-vaccine movement).

I know a lot of these kinds of anti-intellectual comments are said by people involved in politics and may not be held by the majority of the public. But the problem is the more we think about it and use it in our national rhetoric, the more we believe it. How do I know this? Psychology (Cognitive-Behavioral Theory, anyone?)! Which is a part… of SCIENCE! And the more people begin to doubt scientific inquiries and discovers, the less money will be allocated for it. Which has so many implications. We’ll fall behind other countries in terms of innovation. The experimentation that is done will likely be less and less funded until the experiments can’t be afforded or short-cuts could be taken which WILL lead to dubious results. We won’t be create new medicines to help fight ever changing diseases, or finding cost-effective solutions to end our dependence on foreign oil, or generally and systematically improving our lives by something other than a little bit of luck and a lot of risk.

I guess what’s I’m saying is we collectively as a culture need to think with our brains a little more before we speak, rather than let our words be informed by the thoughts of our gut.

#14: The Truth May Be Out There, But The Lies Are Inside Your Head

Today… I met Terry Pratchett… I’ll go back and fill this post in tomorrow. This will need some explanation and it’s late.

Original Post: October 14th, 2011

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Edited Post: October 27th, 2011

To continue with this tale, Terry Pratchett spoke at the National Press Club in Washington DC. I found out about the event from WJ, who was attending with TD. I kind of hemmed and hawed about going, but it’s Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE. Of course I was going. I also hemmed and hawed about buying his newest book, Snuff, since I’m slowly collecting the books from his Discworld series, which has around 50 books. I like to get the ones Harper Collins published so they actually look like a series, rather than looking like a hodgepodge from different publishings.

But then, at the last minute (or last 19 hours), I saw that if you pre-ordered the book it would come stamped. Getting the book signed was out of the question, whether you pre-ordered the book or met Terry Pratchett, because of his health concerns. And you’d pay the same price if you bought the book there versus pre-ordering, but it wouldn’t come with a stamp.

I HAD TO HAVE THAT STAMP! BEHOLD!

And so I got the book and sat down to hear him speak, which was pretty interesting.  A lot of it was stories about his travels on this book tour. Apparently he visited Hobbiton in New Zealand. Of course, he spoke a little about writing and how as a child, he didn’t necessarily like school but he loved to read. Then, as he was leaving, he shook TD’s hand. That’s right. Terry Pratchett. Shook. TD’s hand. With his hand.

But then, the best part of the night: Apparently a friend of WJ’s from middle school was at the event as well and had pre-ordered one of the first hundred books. Which meant that she, as one of the first hundred pre-orderers, got a ticket to actually meet Terry Pratchett and get a few more stamps (again, health problems).

But she was too nervous to do it and wanted to get rid of the ticket. So she offered it to WJ. Who was too nervous too do it. So she offered it to TD. But he was also too nervous to meet Terry Pratchett. And I wasn’t about to let that awesome ticket go to waste! So, after waiting in line behind the other hundred pre-orderers, I met Terry Pratchett. He was delightful.  I have A PHOTO!

[Coming soon once I get it off WJ's memory card]

While we were waiting in line to meet him (although they didn’t have tickets, WJ and TD waited with me) we talked about that old thought-provoking question: If you could meet anyone living or dead, who would it be? I don’t know about living OR dead (If I went with a dead person, I think I’d have to choose Abraham Lincoln. Why? Maybe that will be a topic for another post.) but of just living people, Terry Pratchett would definitely be up there on the list of people I’d like to meet. But I always have trouble answering questions like that. There are so many interesting people in the world. And I think it’s interesting (not to over use that word) to hear peoples answers to this question.

 

#13: It’s a Twister, Auntie Emme!

So. How ’bout that weather recently? First an earthquake, then a hurricane, now a twister. Weird.

It came past campus towards the end of my stats class. Which I didn’t mind too much since we were just reviewing for next week’s exam. Everyone camped out in the basement of the building until it was over. Not too much else to report. It didn’t seem like it really touched campus at all.

I’m totally calling volcanic eruption as the next natural disaster the DC-Metro area experiences. You read it here first.