What do Z and O have in common?
What do my friend, Zenfishing, and our president-elect, Barack Obama, have in common?
See if you can spot it. (Telegraph UK, 50 facts you may not know about Barack Obama)
Brain brain what is brain
(Post title from Star Trek’s Spock’s Brain episode)
This was worth a thorough read. Starting with the mundane (gadgets and web sites to measure and pique brain activity) it moves through anecdotes and scientific observation and (it really is well worth a read) concludes in this mode, with some suggestions like:
Nancy Andreasen offers four suggestions to which you should allocate 30 minutes a day — choose a new and unfamiliar area of knowledge and explore it in depth, spend some time meditating or just thinking, practise observing and describing things, and practise imagining.
The best advice I ever heard came from a Spanish neurologist, Damaso Crespo. He said I should do 100 yards a day, not sprinting but walking. But I had to walk with a friend and talk all the time. It’s the walking, the talking and the friendship that feed the brain; the sprint just feeds dumb muscles.
In the end you die, and it seems likely that the miracle of the world inside your particular 1.3 kilograms of crème caramel dies with you. Perhaps you had insight, inspiration, perhaps you created, perhaps you were a genius. [...] Brain workouts are all very well but, stripping away the science and the rhetoric, they all come down to the same simple injunction: pay attention, because you pass this way only once.
It’s chicken mania day
First, I watched (streaming Netflix) “The Natural History of the Chicken” (a PBS video, about 1 hr.) Netflix link IMDB link
Now: whilst procrastinating a bit, caught this on Newsweek’s site: Chicks and the City (2 min.) about family raising chickens in the middle of Brooklyn.
Addendum 18 Nov:
New Coop de Ville (Newsweek), which mentions:
I like the weekly YouTube address
I just watched the first (short, 3+ min.) YouTube address by Barack Obama, spotted via the Change.gov site he’s set up for the transition period.
This is 100% logical to me: there is much of a needed and forward-looking nature that can be done with federal funds, and I’d rather it go to this.
That means putting two million Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools. It means investing $150 billion to build an American green energy economy that will create five million new jobs, while freeing our nation from the tyranny of foreign oil, and saving our planet for our children.
Food security would probably be good
Last Wednesday night I had a rare evening out and went to the Egyptian Theatre to listen to Michael Pollan speak about food. It’s his book tour, I suppose, for In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
which I reviewed a few posts ago. You’d think it’d be boring and just of interest to a few, but the house was packed. It was sold out.
My program’s the graphic. You can scan for more background. All I can say briefly is I’m really rethinking everything. And though I’ve not done so yet, I am looking forward to reading his article “Farmer In Chief,” published in early October and directed at the next US president. I’ve heard that Obama has read it; he mentioned it in passing during an interview.
Food is one of those things wherein you don’t often see the core issues forest for the faddish talking-head trees. It bears thinking about.
Idiots who live in same state as me
Yes, Idaho (as all states and provinces, I suppose) has some real winners. Here are two examples — a man from up north with a sign and a noose and a bunch of little elementary school students being raised up right[-wing].
Hey, be really proud.
This car company bailout thing
I wrote an off-the-cuff email to Speaker Pelosi since she’s getting headlines for wanting to move forward on throwing money at GM and the other “Big Three” automakers. It’s not silver-tongued, but it’s earnest.
Speaker Pelosi,
No no no no no! Please reconsider the automaker bailout. It’s harder to say “no” but it will tarnish the Democrats with the same “spending like money’s growing on trees” brush that the Republicans of recent years have earned.
If you do move forward think long and hard. These are the companies that have ignored any forward thinking. They’re pumping out SUVs in the wake of Peak Oil for godsakes. They’ve mismanaged their way into this mess and they deserve no consideration. Note that other car companies aren’t failing. The ones that are forward-looking. I heard Honda in Canada is opening new plants.
And across the board: I am not wanting to hear any more stories about anyone getting bonuses or working in any but austere environments at financial firms or any other entities that are benefiting on the backs of US taxpayers. Please play it smart. I’d like Democrats to be in Congress more than two more years.
Respectfully,
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This is especially apropos in light of my recent posts noting innovation. (Something the Big Three think means adding bigger cup-holders.)
“Experience is helpful, but it is judgment that matters.” — Colin Powell (10/2008)
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