text:
Democratic Party, Politics, Socialism, Uncategorized

The Sanders “Revolution” Is a Blind Alley

“The working class will acquire the sense of the new discipline, the freely assumed self-discipline of the Social Democracy, not as a result of the discipline imposed on it by the capitalist state, but by extirpating, to the last root, its old habits of obedience and servility.”–Rosa Luxemburg

Bernie Sanders’ reformist welfare state capitalism is not, in any way, shape, or form socialist, let alone Marxist. His way is just a prettier repackaging of neoliberalism for desperate Millennials emeeging from the warm nest of the post-WWII capitalist bubble into the cold reality of late-stage capitalism in crisis.

Sanders & his ilk seek to improve the material conditions of the middle, and to a much lesser extent, working classes WITHOUT addressing the system which creates and will continue to create the conditions seeking to be reformed.

Sanders’ kabuki theater “revolution” is a essentially a morphine drip for the petty bourgeois Millennials who are the first generation in the advnced post-industrial west to experiance the full savagry of late stage-capitalism in crisis. His policies would make the current generation more comfortable with their misery under the current system, and would have as a consequence the INTENSIFICATION AND PROLONGATION of the crisis and its’ attendent woes & brutalities. Only the overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement with communism will ameliorate the condition of the working classes & disintegrate the class barriers that stratify society. Sanders is a new coat of paint on the walls of the same old reformist blind alley.

An Ichthyarchy

Blessed be the wrath of me

my fervor an aeipathy

febrile and sweet sweat

a cotton cloth well met

high mound of dead flagblenny

remains of ichthyarchy

down nepenthe, drown regret

So much I must forget

on down upon bleeding knee

I intone the rosary

Drag on glass by teeth wet

blood Sherry I pay my debt

want and wish and mourn for slavery

instead of man mart bibliopoly

qat on tongue blemish bet

I know it is niff a loo debt

witch watt in the right race cavity

deposit something else white gravity

they fool themselves and fear the Tet

align themselves with the hellbound set

they decry their wholesome scaevity

at mount mass Abraham’s thysiastery

blessed be the wretch who let

the space where her grapes Zion blet

Some Excerpts From a Debate on Immigration

The following is from a debate I had only with a xenophobic anti-immigrant fellow. I have removed his name for privacy’s sake.

A. [Redacted], you are being defensive and calling out everyone for attacking you for correctly characterizing your opinions and views as bigoted and xenophobic. Does that make you a bigot or a xenophobe? I don’t know. Only you know that. In other words stop whining. No one is forcing you to enter this “den of leftists” (and I am sick and tired of right wing people trying to dehumanize their opponents by calling them by random nouns… “the leftist” “the illegal”…just shut it…we are all human)

B. English is not and has never been the official language if the USA. We have no official language. We have always had different languages spoken in this nation and government documents have been printed in multiple languages for generations now and last I checked the Chinese have yet to invade.

C. I would always wish to be on, or even err on, the side of social justice and openness. If that means a small expense to us blessed, pure blooded, “native born” people then so be it. I am willing to live with your discomfort Angel.

D. There is no evidence that the people coming into this nation are any more crime prone then any other random assortment of people. On the contrary, immigrants, both documented and undocumented, have a lower crime rate then native citizens. Don’t take my word for it though…I got this info from a few minutes of searching the FBI crime statistics database. It is laughable for those racists in Murrieta, California to call the “illegals” criminals…these are babies, toddlers, and their mothers. They meet the federal definition for refugee status, and that is why they were being taken to federal processing centers: to ASSESS THEIR STATUS. So what the protesters were ACTUALLY doing was disrupting the legal process of finding out who these people are, their status, and what do do with them. They are disrupting the very thing they are calling for. So they are not just racists, they are fools as well.

E. WE CREATED the crisis in these Central American countries that is leading these people to flee. The gangs that run rampant in the streets there are tools of the corrupt governments that we have propped up and funded for years at the expense of democratic and social justice oriented movements in this nations. Look at what we did in El Salvador with the literal death squads, in Nicaragua, in Guatemala. We are reaping what we sowed during the Monroe Doctrine fueled imperial backed corporate land grab perpetrated by this government under both Democrats and Republicans since at least the early 1800’s. We have a responsibility to these people and we owe them at least a fair chance at asylum.

Thought on Constitutional Rights

In his Giles Hickory letters published during the debate on the Federal Constitution (and on whether it should include an enumerated bill of rights) Noah Webster wrote

I know it is said that other nations have lost their liberties by the ambitious designs of their rulers, and we may do the same. The

experience of other nations furnishes the ground of all the arguments used in favor of an unalterable constitution. The advocates seem

determined that posterity shall not lose their liberty, even if they should be willing and desirous to surrender it. If a few

declarations on parchment will secure a single blessing to posterity, which they would otherwise lose, I resign the argument and will

receive a thousand declarations. Yet so thoroughly convinced am I of the opposite tendency and effect of such unalterable declarations,

that, were it possible to render them valid, I should deem every article an infringment [sic] of civil and political liberty.

Webster was a true critic of constitutional systems and a strong proponent of a more representative and malleable form of government and governing charter. His was not a libertarian view of government, at least not the anarchic and all but lawless form of libertarianism subscribed to by modern conservatives and Free Market cultists. This is the sort of libertarianism that errs on the side of protecting human decency and using the mechanisms of government to protect and expand upon liberties and rights, and to protect their exercise in the public realm. Not an individuated liberty, but a societal and collective one based on the philosophy of the social contract.

James Madison, on the other hand, had a very different view on the subject of rights. In the National Gazette he wrote

In its larger and juster meaning, [property] embraces every thing [sic] to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.  In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandise, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them. He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

The equation of landed and capital property with intellectual, religious, personal freedom and the needs of common man for his welfare creates a system wherein the rights of man can be parceled, packaged, and negotiated over. Every court is a court of property, all law is property law, all rights are subject to constitutional justification, codification, negotiation i.e. all rights derive from a contract, being in this sense a contract concerning business affairs and services demanded and expected. The Enlightenment as applied through constitutional law by the founders turns man into a commodity and universalizes the notion of a liberal political economy. Man as merchandise, rights as property, laws as contract, life as waste land made civil and useful by exploitation…

extremism, opinion, Politics

The False Hope of President Obama: A Critical View From A Far-Left Former Supporter

I must admit my part in a horrible mistake. In 2008, a lifetime ago from the perspective of my political and intellectual development, I supported the campaign of Barack Obama for the Presidency of the United States. This was back when I still believed that change and reform could come from the current political system and its elected leaders. I believed that a charismatic, kind seeming, friendly, ambitious and intelligent young liberal could bring about some change and move us forward as a society. I no longer suffer under this delusion. Barack Obama was and remains a remarkably talented people-pleaser and political operator.

Unfortunately he has used his talents to further the interests of friends and colleagues in corporate finance, big business and in the lobbyist class. Obama is not a Muslim nor is he a Kenyan…but he is a corporatist, a militarist and an avowed capitalist. He is no socialist. If he were I would seriously have to reconsider my political philosophy. A socialist does not sell the government to the highest corporate bidder and he does not open his arms to all the bankers, investors and financiers who ruined the economy you have pledged to repair.

My problems with Barack Obama began when I realized the extent of his support for covert warfare and high tech weapons. He seems to have taken the profane security apparatus put together by the men and women who controlled George W. Bush and used to it further an ever expanding war on terror. He has surrounded himself with ex-Bushies and former defense contractors and manufacturers who tell him that there is no limit to what must be done to protect the “homeland”. Unprompted preemptive drone warfare is now seen as a legitimate way of maintaining our always tenuous feeling of security. Our government now tries to claim the authority to assassinate US citizens abroad who they deem to be a “terrorist” or even just a “supporter” of terrorism. Even Bush did not go this far. That is not to say that Obama is “worse” than Bush. This is a red herring thrown out by liberal apologists trying desperately to justify the rejection of the ideals they claimed to stand for when it was a conservative who demanded unlimited extra-judicial military power.

The point is not who has done more wrong but what wrong is being done and how is it being justified? The “traitors” have become the “patriots” and the left has taken the place the right monopolized for the past decade: as the representatives of national security, government power and institutional preservation. The left may be less crass and overtly bigoted in their exercising of the patriotic prerogative but they are just as skilled as the establishment right at manipulating the fears and anxieties of a society told for decades that they are one major terrorist attack away from societal collapse. The point is not that one president is worse than the other on these issue, the point is that with each new president the national security apparatus is expanded and built up upon the foundations created by the last. The presidency has become a creeping pseudo-dictatorship that exploits political loyalties and genuine goodwill for their imperialist and corporatist causes.

I truly tried to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt. I naively believed that change to the system could occur within the system itself by replacing leadership. I, along with many of my left wing comrades, bought into the euphoria surrounding the election of a charismatic and amiable leader with a fascinating and compelling background and story. But I slowly came to realize that black, white, latino or otherwise the presidency is the presidency and it possess an allure and an intoxicating sense of ethical invincibility that verges upon the delusional. It is the office itself that is corrupting, it is the system that demands that a president must abandon principle in favor of self-justifying realpolitik. The executive now has powers and a scope never contemplated by the founders, flawed as they were, and for the most part the people are dazzled into complaisance by the glamour and spectacle of an imperial presidency. Who doesn’t like pomp, circumstance and feel good nationalistic self-importance, especially when it comes wrapped in a smiling face and a self-deprecating sense of humor? We are coached by our media and by our popular culture to see the president as a sort of uber-American, the personification of all our aspirations and values. How can the man who roles easter eggs with adorable children on the White House lawn be the same man who orders drone strikes on farmers and Islamic militants without provocation?

The “preemptive” warfare condemned by the left under Bush II has now become the new normal under an Obama administration increasingly obsessed with its own power. The same anti-war left that took to the streets over the disgusting abuse of power by the Bush administration now hems and haws when confronted with the fact that the man they elected to erase the stain of the Bush years as largely embraced his predecessors national security philosophy. Where then is the moral core of the establishment left? When the left resorts to apologizing for what it once found morally reprehensible when practiced by a member of the opposition why is there any reason to believe they have our interests at heart?

As the Manning case, the Al-Awlaki assassination and the general criminalization of public dissent demonstrate, the perimeters by which terrorist activities are defined continue to expand exponentially. Journalist Jeremy Scahill, during an interview on MSNBC, noted that by choosing to carry on with this targeted assassination program we are forced to deal with the very elements of society that we claim are out to get us. We are “out-sourcing our kill program” to “warlords” and Al-qaida affiliated thugs. He goes on to say

“One of the things we see under President Obama is the expansion of “signature strikes”, this idea that [accused militants] are engaged in pre-crime like [The book and film] Minority Report, where we are targeting people based on a pattern of life.

A pattern of life and behavior that has a priori been labeled a threat by the powers at be based on perameters that we are not privy to, nor should be be privy to according to those same powers. How is this in anyway a “liberal” position? Was this the sort of “change” from the Bush administration that millions of liberal minded voters wanted from the man they elected president twice? Why do accept near-tyrannical exploitation of our fears and anxieties when it is done in the name of liberalism? And while the gnashing of teeth from the Right over these abuses smacks of the most hysterical sort of hypocrisy their anger serves to confirm the idea that when you give unlimited power to one you trust that same power may be used by someone someday who you would less like to see wield it.

Add on top of all this the emerging facts about an NSA domestic spying program that dwarfs that undertaken by the Bush administration during its nadir and one can begin to realize that there really is no substantive difference between the Democratic and GOP positions regarding the national/homeland security state. The only difference is cosmetic, really a matter of PR. Obama may actually be the best sort of liberal the capitalist system can offer: a happy intellectual who tells us how he will keep us safe and that we should not worry our pretty little heads about programs that we were never supposed to know about in the first place.

So once more I must admit my mistake. I bought into the simple-minded politics of fear and faction when I voted for and supported Obama. When Exxon, GE, Lockeed Martin Goldman Sachs and faceless security “analysts” have more say over the policy of the US then do 300 million citizens is it really time to quibble over whether the person who caters to their every demand has a D or an R after his name? Obama is not the solution or the problem. He is in fact quite irrelevant in the scheme of things. The real problem is the ever expanding power of the executive and his officers. We must stop expecting change to come from the presidency because the presidency as it has been reimagined since 9/11 is an office dependent upon ethical and societal stagnation, or at least apathy in regards to our own human rights. We must reject the allure of the traditional political process easy jingoistic scapegoating and strike out on our own in a new direction, a new path that leads to true democracy and an empowered people and society, a nation that is not dependent upon the suffering or exploitation of a world we are constantly told we must fear. We must give up on our political “heroes” and begin to see the potential within ourselves. We are better than Bush, we are better than Clinton and we are better than Obama. Change will come when we begin to realize this fact.

UPDATE: The NSA whistle-blower has come forward and it is Edward Snowden, a former analyst and adviser for the NSA. Here is a an interview with the man, who is now on the run from the US government

Democracy, Liberty, Philosophy, Politics

The Quiet Tyranny of High Expectations: Thoughts on the American Dream

If you work hard and you are not lazy and you really believe in the American Dream, then you too can have everything you ever need. Preferably you will be a business owner and “job creator” and not a worker drone who is a leech on society. We must be a society of owners and managers and bosses. Everyone can be a millionaire, and if you end your life below market expectations then you have no one to blame for this except for yourself and your lack of drive and hard work.

Or so we have been told for over 100 years in this country.

Before there was a cohesive labor movement in this nation there was just labor: often for your own family or for a small mill or a farm owned by your landlord. Life was hard and often work was harder, and the rewards were unfairly apportioned. But, you worked and nothing more was expected of you by your kin and your fellow workers. Surviving was thriving, and most people hung onto the very edge of both. The rich were the rich by virtue of birth or by force, and they had an almost deity like influence on the lives of the poor workers who never really knew their presence as fellow human beings. There was no tease, no promise of “this can be you if only”…There was work and there was death. The former led to the later while at the same time holding it off for as long as it could. If there was a dream it was not an “American” one…it was a workers dream, a dream of surviving to enjoy some of the fruits of your labor. Not much was excepted of the working and poor classes, so when they were able to have relatively happy lives it was seen by the community and the society as a bonus, and as an example of how luck can play as much of a role has skill and hard work in making a “successful” life. And this was only if you were not born a chattel slave!

Things began to change with the shift from overtly slaved based feudal proto-capitalism to the modern industrial verity. People no longer had the ability to take care of themselves the way the once did; populations were growing and the strain on each and every family was getting greater and more unbearable. There were other pressures as well: pressures from a newly emerging consumer market that began to suggest, quietly at first but with increasing urgency and rhetorical violence that your life was not worth living as it was. Capitalism promised a better life, a life more full of possessions and promises of yet more lavish and expensive possessions later on. There were new things to eat, new things to wear, new pieces of ephemera with which you could adorn your simple and oh so pathetically inadequate life. So it was time to leave the confines of subsistence and sustainable expectations, as meager and as unfair as they were, in order to pursue a new life in the bosom of industrial capitalism.

There we find the sons and daughters of slaves and farmers, men and women used to the smell of manure and the aroma of backed bread and wild flowers. They are now stuck toiling, choking on the industrial effluvia that passes for air in the factories and steel mills and slaughter houses and breweries. The worked far beyond their natural capacity; they shortened their lives, ruined their health, and filled their days with mind numbing repetitive action. They also rarely saw their families anymore. Of course industrialization led to amazing advancements in culture, technology and even medicine, but for the poor and the working classes you caused these things to come into existence they might as well have been the peacocks and gold plates of the old Liege Lord’s table: entirely unattainable. There is a special kind of cruelty in being forced to manufacture and ship objects, products, foodstuffs and tools that you cannot ever possibly afford. That cruelty though was beginning to be offset by a new incentive, a capitalist incentive. It was no longer appropriate to outright enslave people as chattel. That was far to uncivilized a system. Something was needed that was far more palatable to the blasé bourgeoisie Christian guilt that was now in fashion. Something like a pious servitude, a system that could bring in hordes of men, women and children who would gladly sacrifice themselves for some greater reward to come. Something like a dream.

You toil, you fall ill, you are treated like a piece of the machinery you work with, but hidden within you is an upper class gentleman or gentlewoman! Why subsist when you can indulge and grow in wealth and status forever! That nice rented home you have? It is a token of the lowly failure that is your life. Don’t you want your children to be better? And their children? And theirs? The American dream of perpetual advancement seemed to be a material Fibonacci sequence that was self-sustaining and self-justifying. Why do you need these new things? Why do you need to own a house you cannot possibly fill? Why do you need to own a car that only serves to get you where the capitalists want you to shop? Why do you need products to make you more appealing? Because you must show off your wealth and status and shame your neighbors and their failure. Because those things that you are told you want to buy the rich already have and look how happy and moral they are! Because your lower class stink is overwhelming and the grim of the factory and the farm still colors you as a lesser being.

Work! The dream becomes even more appealing, and even more unattainable. The promise of the next generation being better off than the last, as impossible and unnatural as that promise was, became the motto of the working classes: work and you will become better than who you are! For if working towards more material and capital success makes you a better person, then being poor is of course a lesser sort of existence for a lesser sort of humanity. How to explain away the nasty little fact that out of millions who work themselves to the bone only a relative handful ever achieve anything remotely approaching comfort, let alone the relative affluence of the American Dream? Well that is where the mentality of the old order, the feudal order, comes in handy. Some are lazy and meant to be poor, some fail themselves and their communities by daring to fall on hard times. If an American fails at his chosen (or chosen for him) profession then there must be something wrong with that American, or with his work ethic. And what is a work ethic but red badge of conformity and fealty to a mode of production and acquisition that creates the potential for infinite growth? The value of hard work is no longer just valued for its ability to keep a family and a community alive and possibly comfortable. No, that is not enough in the new world where everything MUST have a marketable value: Working hard means that you are given your all to the masters of industry, to the people who bless the lesser elements of humanity with the left-overs from the great feast that is made from the fruit of their indomitable genius. For surely no man who is rich can be rich without a reason? No man is rich who does not deserve it, and not man is poor without his deserving that state as well. Wealth is self-justifying, and above reproach. The American dream is a creed, and the “successful” (by standards created by and for the successful) are the prophets and the priests of that holy edifice that is the American Free market.

So they found themselves slaves again, only this time it was a more spiritual and emotional kind of slavery, and many, many more people found themselves in chains. Fortunately for the fragile and hypocritical values of “society” this slavery was an acceptable sort; they type of servitude where the slave can be blamed for his own condition because he chose to become a part of that system of his own free will. You cannot be a slave if you choose your own chains! And the trappings of wage labor…Well salaries can be cut or “negotiated” down with the token Unions we allow them. The hours can be cut because we will just invent new modes of working that force more activity and seeming productivity into every second. And if all else fails we can just blame the government for coddling and spoiling those brats of the working class. When your worth is work it follows that when you are not working, even if it is not of your own choice, you have no worth. The Dream must be preserved, and it is the new standard of what it is to even be a worthwhile human being. Everyone can be a success…if by everyone you mean everyone who is a success. It is easy to round out the math when you drop the lowest common denominators: everyone who was not lucky enough to be born into wealth or lucky enough to come upon it through the random turn of events that define life.

But, if any man can “luck” upon wealth, then that means there is nothing morally superior about the American Dream. That cannot do…The workers will not toil for an ethos that has no eternal and intrinsic value to it. So therefor there must be no luck…Luck is just another word for success, another word for hard work. Luck is just another merit in the mind of the worker to be anything but a worker: abandon all hope all those who do not succeed. And what is success? If you have to ask you are already a drain on the system. The value of capitalism and the market is in that intangible feeling that you are getting away with something. If the bar is set high enough only those born in mid jump have a real chance. Or else they must happen upon a benefactor who cares enough to give them a boost. This is a tyranny of high expectations, a system based on the idea that if you do not succeed you were never meant to succeed in the first place. The American Dream is just that; and it is not even a dream of the working or poor classes.

It is a reverie made up out of whole cloth by those who have wealth and wish to acquire more by leveraging the work and sweat of others into gold they can wear about their necks and on their little fingers. And the most insidious thing is this: the rich and the powerful do not even need to expend the energy bringing this message to the lower classes: every poor mother sings the lullaby of great expectations to their children as the drift off to sleep. Every working man works for a future that could be his if only if he toils just one minute more. There is no need for a lash or a bludgeon if you have a dream that seems real but is not. The mind of a man is the cruelest tool of the oppressor  because that very mind can persuade itself that they too can be better than who they are. And better still if they can work themselves into the graves for the future of their children! Children are the future, and the future always seems to offer more potential, at least in the minds of the men and women who live stuck and toiling in the present.

For that is the most insidious part of the American Dream…It is infectious and thrives on the hopes and dreams of the naïve and the innocent. In the eyes of a child his parents can do no wrong, they cannot be working for nothing because…well because then there is no reason for them to leave them the way they do. There must be a dream! There must be dream that justifies the sacrifice of the family and the community upon the alter of progress and the market. It cannot just be for a rare shot at riches…There must be a pot of gold to find! And indeed the act of working hard and leaving the family must be a virtue. Or else…What is the point? And that is a possibility that the rich and the powerful cannot allow to be ruminated upon: what if there is no point to hard work? What if the riches of the world are apportioned largely at birth and after that mostly at the fickle whim of luck? What if it is not better to work hard for someone else? What if it is indeed ok to settle for “less”, if that less means that you are happy and able to know the family and community we are told to value? What if success is just a word, just a dream unto itself, a concept that has no objective meaning and no inherent value? What if we do not need all that we are told we need?

But that is just a lie, the sentiment of losers and failures and freeloaders who do not want to be part of the most perfect system the world has ever known: The Market! So strive you workers! Toil and slave and sacrifice for the good of the company and the shareholders! It is in their hands that your fate resides, in their hands and yours…If you continue to work them raw.


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Spinach Gomaae

24 Oct

One of most popular Japanese dish, simple preparation is best feature.

Enjoy to squeeze the water out, making leaves tender.

Pleasure of health by eating.

Spinach Gomaae

Spinach Gomaae

Gomaae salads in North America are usually presented with spinach, but you can make a variety of things in gomaae style. (Goma = sesame, Ae = to dress.) Although the custom is generally to undress before forking, this dressing is so yummy, you’ll prefer to be dressed for this forking sesssion. Dressings vary from cook to cook, so see the suggestions below for four different takes on this ever-popular dish.

Ingredients (serves 4)

  • 2 bunches of spinach, or the guu (filling) of your choice (see “Variations” section”)
  • Goma dressing (choose variation appealing to you)
Ingredient Recipe 1 Recipe 2 Recipe 3 Recipe 4
Freshly ground sesame seeds (NOT tahini) 4 Tbsp 3 Tbsp 3 Tbsp 4 Tbsp
Sugar 2 Tbsp 3 Tbsp 1 ½ Tbsp 1 Tbsp
Soy Sauce 1 ½ tsp 2 Tbsp 1 ½ Tbsp 1 Tbsp
Sesame oil ¾  – 1 tsp 3 Tbsp

How to make Spinach Gomaae

  1. Prepare and set aside the dressing.
  2. Wash and boil the greens. Boil and salt plenty of water, drop in washed leaves and boil until just wilted.
  3. Drain wilted leaves into a colander and plunge into a large bowl of icy cold water.
  4. Once greens have cooled, drain them again and then squeeze out the water (be quite firm). The leaves will be much smaller in size – don’t be surprised.
  5. Prepare portions: Shape the squeezed greens into a thick log-shape, and cut into individual portion sizes. Put each portion into a small dish and dress just before serving. (Toss the dressing through the guu if you prefer.)

Toss any of the following (or any combination of the following) with the dressing for a simple side-dish

  • Salt-massaged vegetables: e.g. daikon radish, carrot, cucumber which has been thinly sliced, salted and “massaged”, left to leech moisture for 20+ minutes, and then squeezed out.
  • Steamed vegetables: e.g. green beans, thinly sliced potato
  • Sauteed vegetables: e.g. mushrooms, okra
  • Steamed or boiled meats: e.g. chicken, sliced pork
  • Raw fish: sashimi-grade tuna (cut into cubes) or slices of tuna carpaccio – great with avocado

Not the same as the creamy “gomaae” dressings you’ll find at most Japanese restaurants (some of which taste as though they are made from peanuts and not sesame) you can substitute the above recipe with a pre-made sesame dressing. Try sesame shabu shabu dipping sauce if you prefer to fork something creamy and rich.

Happy forking!

3 Responses to “Spinach Gomaae”

  1. Mark M October 26, 2010 at 12:46 pm #

    Cooking this tonight! Thanks Hana!

  1. Open, Sesame! Sesame Sauce Secrets « Let's Forking! - December 18, 2010

    […] it happened, but North American sushi shops abandoned the  traditional soy-sauce based dressing (easily made with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and sugar) for a richer, creamy-style sesame dressing (warning to those with allergies – I highly […]

  2. Japanese Home-Cooking Class #2 | Albatz Gallery & Blog - September 2, 2012

    […] so I really liked this salad. Hana’s recipe for gomaae (sesame seed dressing) on her blog: https://letsforking.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/spinach-gomaae/ Japanese sesame-dressed salad aka […]

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“If you don’t drink, why do you go to parties?

This is what drunk people look like to sober people. Still doesn’t remove from the fact that this was an awesome night, and the love I have for all the people in this photograph. Sober partying is all about perspective.

“If you don’t drink, why do you go to parties? Isn’t it annoying having drunk people yelling in your face all night?” Whenever I am asked this I laugh, then I explain my appreciation for the occasional drunken yelling match. As a newly sober party attender, I have come to grasp and appreciate the inner workings of the drunken human condition.

The Pretender

The best way to not hate partying with drunk people is to pretend you’re drunk yourself. Immerse yourself in the party culture, and as Ron Burgundy once said, “When in Rome…” In what other circumstances do we greet each other with a shriek of happiness and a big bear hug? Divulge our appreciation for someone in a sentimental heart to heart? Recount tales of greatness with full gusto, and animated hand gestures? This is the stage of the evening that you connect with old friends to reminisce the good old days and make bold promises to hang out in the future.

I love this part of drinking, the passion and enthusiasm for the little things. Finally I have a group of like minded people willing to throw down on the dance floor and fill the airwaves with giggling gibberish. However, this is just a stage, because unlike genuine happiness found without alcohol, there is a always a crash, and suddenly the sober person’s role begins to change.

The Protector

Drunk people are vulnerable. All night they have been saying how they feel, and acting on impulses usually stifled in the office cubicle, and now the night is coming to an end. This is the part of the evening when the euphoria of the initial buzz wears off and the desperation to keep the feeling alive takes over. Fights break out, people hook up, and the final round of drinks are drunk. In this moment, a smart sober person knows to step to the side and let nature run it’s course.

Once the dust has settled and the arrests have been made, you can’t help but feel responsible for these now completely incapacitated, stumbling drunk, helpless people. And so, “The Protector” role develops into the, equally responsible, designated driver.

The Designated Driver

If you are really lucky you will manage to pull a few friends from the wreckage and lure them to the safety of your vehicle. This will take hours of drunken negotiations and perilous scavenger hunts for purses and missing people. Once everyone is in the car and the directions home have been surreptitiously drawn from the slobbering mouths of the semi-conscious, you are a fully legal, driving super hero. This is the grunt work, volunteer, shit shovelling part of the evening, but just like the girl at the Wendy’s pickup window, you have to suck it up and do your job. Throw on some pulsing house music and play the role of the cool limousine driver. You will be showered in compliments, thanks, and  maybe a tip if you play your cards right.

You should expect to be out later than the people whom you took home. You should expect to feel awful the next morning, but you should know that with great power, comes great responsibility. You have the power to enjoy yourself without getting drunk, and therefore it is your responsibility to ensure the safety of those who cannot.

The Observer

At the end of the night you are left to your thoughts. No drugs or fading effects of booze to lull you into a induced, dreamless sleep of respite. This is what I love about going out sober, and probably the same thing that most hate. I get to have these memories and learn from them, take in and appreciate those drunk minds speaking their sober hearts. It’s hard to imagine the positive outcome amongst the mayhem of the last few hours, but as you drive home in silence, or lay in bed before sleep, you run through the events of evening and, for once, you remember them.

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Archive for June, 2009

DCC_9520It was a beautiful Sunday in late June and we decided to violate our number 1 rule, not to take the dogs on a kayak trip that we have not take ourselves.  We have heard Split Rock Reservoir in Boonton Township was a beautiful place with a dedicated launch area, and the fact that it is a reservoir and not a river meant we could take the risk and break the number one rule.  We did fine and access was all very easy.

According to the sign the parking lot, Splitrock Reservoir is located in the Farny Highlands section of New Jersey.  It’s a 625- acre reservoir and is 1,500 acres of surrounding land owned by Jersey City through Green Acres Program. There is a 13.8-mile hiking trail that loops around the reservoir, so that gives you a perspective on how large the reservoir is.  We probably did about half of the reservoir on the paddle.  Loos like a great place to boat and swim and have fun for a whole day.  There were lots of fishermen but I didn’t get any sense they were catching anything.

Time Line in accordance with the photo log.

  • 11:30 – Arrived and parked at Split Rock Reservoir’s southern shore.
  • 11:50 – Kathy is in the water with Scraps and Rags.
  • 11:55 – I’m in the water taking pictures of Kathy and the dogs.  Kathy soon hands Rags off to me and we are off.
  • 12:15 – We reach the western shore of the reservoir. just north of the dam.
  • 12:32 – We see a cormorant basking in the sunshine.
  • 12:44 – We encounter two snakes basking in the sunshine on some rocks.
  • 1:00 – We reach the island in the middle of the reservoir and start looking for a place to pull out for lunch.
  • 1:28 – we land on the island and enjoy a lunch of honey dew and granola bars.
  • 1:53 – We are back in the boats after lunch.
  • 1:59 – We are heading south on the eastern shore of the reservoir in the narrow channel formed by the island.
  • 2:12 – We see a couple of turtles basking in the sunshine on a log at the southern tip of the island.
  • 3:09 – We tie the two boats together and slowly paddle back to the launch area.  We probably got out of the boats at 3:30
  • 3:56 – We are in the car traveling over the dam that forms the reservoir.
  • 4:30 – We are home and I unload the car, shower, download the photos and begin to
  • 5:15 – Blog of the trip begins.

It was a perfect day, in the low 80’s with low humidity and fluffy clouds int he sky.  Being on an open reservoir a day like this proves to be a bit hot for the dogs.  It’s wasn’t easy finding shade pooped the puppies out during the 3 and one-half hour trip.  Rags, of course, was never too comfortable in my boat when Kathy was close so she eventually fell into the water off of the bow of my kayak early on.  It was cool that she swam for quite a while trying to reach Kathy kayak in front of her.  I let her swim, then she eventually turned back to me and I picker her up and placed her wet body in the boat.  A quick shake and a wet camcorder but we all had fun and I hopefully captured her swimming.  While in Kathy’s boat during the second half of the trip, Rags fell twice into the sink as she and Scraps wrestled for space on Kathy’s boat.  Scraps never fell in and seemed to have a relaxing experience.  Rags would often chill in the cockpit either looking over the edge at the other boat or sleeping on the floor.  I think she was okay with the whole experience.

Getting out of the boat was bedlam as the launch area was packed.  Right as we were getting out the two middle aged mean capsized in their new rowboat.  It happened really quick and the guy in front lost his glasses and looked dazed during the whole thing.  The big fat guy in the back of the boat who caused it to tip responded with the “my bad” as his friend looked as if he ‘d seen a ghost.

We packed up quickly and easily, explored the dam and went home.  There are lots of beautiful homes in this section of Boonton Township.  One house turned all thir rock on their property into cool rock sculpture.  Great stuff.   It was a great paddle and a great day.  Can’t wait till we kayak again.  I’m glad we discovered another great place to kayak with  30 minutes of our house.

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Rest stop on the flooded river.

Rest stop on the flooded river.

Kathy and I decided to take off from work on this Tuesday to celebrate  my birthday and do some kayaking.  It had been raining for what seems like the past week and today provided a break in the weather that gave us a great day to kayak in what were hopefully some high waters.

Based on the extensive rains of the previous few days I thought it would be good opportunity to complete a gap in the Passaic River we had not yet done.  Uncharted waters for the two of us so anything could happen and who knew how fast the water was, if there was a lot of  portaging or how long this trip would take.  To date, the Passaic has been very tame, a winding lazy brown river, so I wasn’t too worried.

The water reminds you of chocolate milk.

The water reminds you of chocolate milk.

It would have been nice to get out earlier, but we had off and Kathy wanted to take full advantage.  I did the packing early and got the car loaded but we didn’t leave the house until probably 11:00am.

After getting some egg sandwiches at Gene’s, dropping my car off at Shepard Kollack Park in Chatham, the take-out point, driving to the put in point at Valley Road, going back into town to take a dump at Burger King, we were ready to put in at 12:30.  Compared to the first time we used Valley Road, our first trip, the area was now way over grown.  Recognisance of the put-in area revealed a large snake in the grass resulting in Kathy and I moving up the path a bit to use a different put in area.  It looked as if it would be a challenge.  Kathy got in her kayak and I pushed her in.  She started to list badly and almost went in.  She didn’t have her paddle in her hands, mistake #1 and almost bought the sink.  Fortunately she didn’t capsize, but she did cut her finger.  We made good use of our first-aid kit before we even got started.

Time-line of the day based on the photographs taken:

  • 9:55 – I made PB&J sandwiches with strawberries we got from the farmer market last week.  That was a nice combo.
  • 12:30 put in a Valley Road.
  • 12:32 – Bridge 1 – Going under the Valley Road.
  • 12:56  -Power Easement 1
  • 1:09 – We see first pile of strange white foam.
  • 1:36 – We see bucolic farm on the right side.
  • 1:50 – Power Easement 2
  • 2:08 – Sewage Treatment Plant 1 – Long Hill Township on the left.
  • 2:18 – Ball Fields – On the left, baseball.
  • 2:21 – Bridge 2 – Normal modern concrete bridge.
  • 2:35 – Sewage Treatment Plant 2 on the right.
  • 2:41 – Bridge 3 – Normal modern concrete bridge with I-Beam structural supports below.
  • 2:48 – Power Easement 3
  • 3:03 – Bridge 4 – Combo railroad trestle low and Valley Road/Springfield Ave bridge that separates Morris and Union Counties.  The road bridge employed aqueduct styled repetitive arches to achieve it height over the railroad bridge.
  • 3:26 – Sewage Treatment Plant 3 on the right, Berkeley Heights.
  • 3:28 – Bridge 5 – Snyder Ave – This was very low and we had to limbo below it.  It is a modern concrete with a faux rock decorative exterior.  It was a bit creepy going so close to the underside concrete of the bridge above you.  We took out immediately after the bridge at Passaaic River Park, Canoe Launch Area
  • 3:30 Take out for lunch at Snyder Avenue.
  • 3:34 – Kathy ventures to the Berkeley Heights Sewer Treatment facility at 29 Snyder Avenue to use their bathroom.
  • 4:03 – Back in the water after lunch.
  • 4:18 – Power Easement 4
  • 4:27 – Bridge 6 – Also a modern concrete with a faux rock decorative exterior, much like the Snyder Avenue Bridge but with much more clearance.
  • 4:31 – Power Easement 5
  • 4:37 – Power Easement 6
  • 4:54 – Power Easement 7
  • 4:56 -Bridge 7 – Normal modern concrete bridge with I-Beam structural suppots below.
  • 4:54 – Power Easement 8
  • 5:04 – Power Easement 9
  • 4:56 -Bridge 8 – Normal modern concrete bridge with I-Beam structural supports below and a suspended white pipe of something dangling from it.
  • 5:19 -Bridge 9 – Old stysle beamed concrete bridge
  • 5:29 – Dam/Waterfall 1 – I got caught and the top and got through.  Kathy carried her boat around.
  • 5:34 -Bridge 10 – Tall single-arch old style stone bridge.
  • 5:36 – We begin to chase a Blue Heron down the River.
  • 5:41 -Bridge 11 – Normal modern concrete bridge with I-Beam structural suppots below.
  • 6:00 – Take Out at Shepard Kollack Park, Chatham.  We left the Kayaks there, took everything else in may car and drove back to the put in at Valley Road, Long Hill Twp.  We pulled through a McDonald’s drive through on the way there.
  • 6:43 – We get to Kathy’s car at Valley Road and start driving back to the take-out at Shepard Kollack Park.
  • 7:08 – We arrive to Sheppard Kollock Park to find no one stole our Kayaks we left in the boat ramp.
  • 7:26 –  Car is packed and ready to go home.
  • 7:46 – Kathy’s car and the Kayaks are parked in the driveway.
  • 8:00- Kayaks are in the house.
  • 9:14 – After walking the dogs I cracked a bottle of Havens, Red Wine Bourriquot, Napa Valley, 2005 and posted a quick blog and next I started on this adventure’s blog.

The first half of the trip move pretty slowly.  We had to trek trough many narrow passages of downed trees.  Fortunately, with the help of the high waters , we were able to get through obstacle with out a problem, but it was a bit of a maze.  The water was not heavily polluted and empty drink bottles were not as plentiful as I expected.   The water was a dark chocolaty brown.  Kathy described it quite succinctly as appearing like chocolate milk.  And she was right.

We didn’t see to much wildlfe.  A few frightened turtles that dove in the river upon seeing us.  We found on Blue Heron late in the day that we chased down the river.  That was about it.  We saw one elicit campsite set up on the right bank of the river early on.  There were lots of bridges and sewage treatment plants.

The last half hour of the trip the river narrowed and picked up speed.  I went over two mini-waterfalls caused my dams and they were a risk and a rush.  Kathy portaged around the first one.  This one was easy and fun  even though I got caught on a rock right at the cusp of it.  The second waterfall was much more moving and when we went over it we both got splashed and our cockpits took on some water.  I did the second one so quickly and effortlessly Kathy didn’t think twice about it when she approached it.  Actually, I had little choice about it.   She got through it fine but her heart was pounding.  It was right at the end of the trip any way.  It was like a log flume where the whole thing is mellow till the two big dips at the end with the big splash as a finale.

First waterfall where I went over after getting stuck at the crest.

First waterfall where I went over after getting stuck at the crest.

Kathy had been fearing the take-out, since it was moving rapidly at that point, all day long and after the exhilaration of the 2 waterfalls it came up quickly upon us.  I overshot it a hustled to get back to it.  No big deal and I got on the concrete ramp and out of the kayak with no problem.  As Kathy was drifting by she threw me her painter rope, which I missed but I was able to grab her and drag her up the ramp no problem.   The rest was the hell of shuttling back and forth but we had made it.  12:30 – 6:00pm on the river and feeling good about it.

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DCC_8039_edited-1A rainy past couple of days presented us with a grey cloudy morning in which to drive to our Delaware Water Gap (DWG or Gap) kayaking trip with the Hackensack River Canoe and Kayak Club (HRCKC).  John Franzetti in the red canoe was our organizer and kudos to him for executing a perfect trip.  The water was great, the weather was great and the people on the trip were all nice.  I think this is what the HRCKC is all about and I am glad I found it.

DCC_7751_edited-1Kathy and I so far in our recent  journey have only paddled the Passaic and Rockaway Rivers.  While we have both gone down the Delaware with work and friends in the not-so-recent past, this would be our first trip in our own kayaks.  This time we were putting in south of where either of us has paddled before going through Delaware Water Gap and taking out in Belvidere, NJ.  Seemed like a pretty long trip, 12 miles so I thought, but with the current of the Delaware pushing you along, it should be a joy to paddle.

Right on time, at 9:00 we arrived at the National Park Visitor’s Center rendezvous located at the last exit in NJ off of Route 80.  Once there we found out we were going to caravan up 3-mile to the campgrounds at Worthington State Park. We spent 30 minutes schmoozing here using flush toilets, taking pictures before heading up to Worthington on Old Mill Road which parallels the Delaware.  Kathy and I have camped at Worthington before and are familiar with the location.

DCC_7683_edited-1At 9:40 we started to unload the boats at the Worthington boat ramp parking lot and then one person per car shuttled up to Belvidere.  In Belvidere it was garage sale day and the whole town was for sale.  There is no option to stop with a group like this especially considering the paddle was dominated by women who seemed to be especially ravenous at the thought of a town-wide garage sale.  We found the take out point at the end of Front Street, filled up the parking lot and squeezed into 3 cars and shuttled back to Worthington State Park.  We arrived back at Worthington at 11:15.  Here we had one last chance to use a composting toilet and in the river we went at 11:30.  The put in had a great concrete boat ramp and getting in for me was dry and smooth.  I immediately unpacked the camera and camcorder and started taking shots.

One thing you notice when comparing the Delaware to the Rockaway and Passaic Rivers is the bigness of the Delaware.  There is a lot of water flowing and the mountains, especially in and around the gap are big and you can see distances.  The other rivers are dominated by personal woodlands on the banks and you are much closer to everything.  In the Delaware you look far and wide.  In addition, the Delaware is much deeper at points and the water seems much cleaner.  We saw virtually no litter or pollution and the water was not muddy or murky at all.

With respect to wildlife, there was little to see and enjoy.  Buzzards circling  high over the cliffs were everywhere, a few geese, one heron, no fish, mammals, reptiles.  There were some wild kids threatening life and limb jumping off a railroad trestle just before lunch.

Along the way it was mostly undeveloped, undevelopable land, but after leaving the Gap, more and more homes appeared along the shore.  More so on the PA side.  Many had developed their access to the river.  There were a few private swim clubs and motor boats and jet-skis made their minor presence known in the river.  It is amazing what the wake from a small boat does to the kayak.  Pretty cool.

Speaking of which, this trip down the Delaware presented Kathy and I with the most turbulent waters we have yet faced.  This also was pretty cool and exciting.  In addition, compared to my vague memories of trips I took decades ago, the strong riffles/rapids we faced in this trip happened often, Not just once or twice over the course of the day.  I would guess we had 12 or so episodes of rapids into riffles into waves which were something to deal with.  At times the crests of the waves dwarfed our kayaks and when you hit one right, splash!  It was more of a thrill than I expected and you got a lot of it.  It’s time for Kathy to get her own bilge pump and it’s time for me to keep my bilge pump at the ready.  In addition, we  both need to get big automobile sponges to sop up the mess after you get soaked.   To date all my camera protections and precautions have worked, but it maybe time to get a water-proof camcorder so I can relax a bit and enjoy the ride.  It wasn’t too bad where I was paranoid so it was still worth the effort and risk.  In closing with respect to the water and the movement of it, it was a lot of fun and I cannot wait to do it again.  Hopefully the video shows some of the excitement.

DCC_7737_edited-1Back to the itinerary. We spotted the Route 80 overpass around 12:00 and Route 80 for the next hour or made it’s presence know with its constant din and occasional odd sound of a truck doing something that sounds like it is killing its engine.  At 12:09 I was under the Route 80 overpass making a left turn toward the Delaware Water Gap.  There were many nice turns and new vistas presented in this trip and this left furn from Route 80 to the Gap was one of the best.  Mount Tammany dominates the scene for a while but it is what the Gap is all about.

There were lots of overpasses to go under in this trip,  Route 80 was one but there were several abandoned bridges and trestles along the way.  As previously mentioned, we saw two crazy teenagers jump off one of them.  One other was a cool stone multi-arch bridge.  Unlike the the other rivers we have been on, bridge abutments didn’t poses and navigational challenges in the currents of this river and didn’t impact the flow to any appreciable degree.

DCC_7782_edited-1At 12:30 we passed the launching area where we assembled at 9:00 in the morning.  A few people got out to use the bathrooms so we just hung for a while with Mount Tammany and the Gap looming in the foreground.  By 12:45 we were passing through the Gap directly under Mount Tammany as we say good bye to it and all its glory.

From this point on the river got deeper stronger and more exciting.  We encounter more recreational uses of the river, more riffles and less scenery.  It’s not that it was ugly, it just wasn’t as majestic as the gap.

We passed under the abandoned multi-arched bridge at 1:15.  It has trees growing on it. and then went under a new looking pedestrian bridge at 1:20.  There was another overpass, just past this pedestrian one and I think it is for rail, but I am  not sure.  Shortly thereafter at 1:35 we come upon a power plant in Pennsylvania, just about the only real industrial complex we found during the while trip.  It had 2 large stacks and an effluent release that cascades off of a large concrete block.

At 1:50 we went under the abandoned railroad trestle where the kids were jumping of the bridge.  I barely got a shot of one of them jumping and I think I got a video of one of the jumping.  None of the footage is that good unfortunately.  It is difficult to turn your body in a kayak to take pictures with 2 hands of subjects behind you.  I’m glad I didn’t photograph anyone getting hurt as the two daredevils seemed to survive the encounter.

DCC_7949_edited-1At 1:55 we were pulling over to the pebbly shore of New Jersey to eat lunch.  In and out of the kayaks here was easy and eating and standing felt good.  I had 2 PB&J sandwiches, Kathy had one, some honey-dew and back we went.  At 2:30 we were getting back into the water.  Now most of the fun would happen with several stretches of large riffles that randomly soaked a paddler that dared hit the crest of the wave wrong.

As we lagged toward the back of the pack we encountered a few forks in the river starting around 3:00pm that we took. The forks in the river were created by the presence of several large islands in the middle of the water.  This provided some smaller channels to go through, which was a nice change of pace, but where the channels came together it usually resulted in some adventurous currents.

With respect to lagging behind, in our 12′ recreational kayaks, it seemed difficult to keep up with the rest of the pack as the day wore on.  We paddled hard but it was tough to catch up to everyone else.  The day was certainly characterized by a lot of paddling, non-stop for the most part, and there was a lot of arm and shoulder toning going on.  It was amazing how effortless it seemed the canoes were  in moving swiftly through the waters.  By 4:15 I finally worked my way to the front of the armada so I could turn around and get some frontal photographs of the paddlers in the club.  Most of these kayaker photos I posted in my Google Picasa Web Album which I shared with the club.  You can get to it by using the link below or just enjoy the embedded slideshow.

2009-06-06 Delaware Water Gap HRCKC Paddle

DCC_8067_edited-1At 4:25 we staged for landing at the Belvidere overpass into Pennsylvania. I spotted a few swans resting in a patch of vegetation but nothing too exciting. There was a boy scout troop at the take out point that crowded the area but they did help several of us get out of the boats and carry them up to the parking lot. John, help with mine.

At 4:30 I has out of the water and by 4:40 I already had one kayak on the car. We took Route 46 home, all the way, for a change of pace. We got home at 6:00 to feed and walk the dogs. Made a quick turn around unpacked, showered and off to visit Kathy’s brother Joe in Montclair for dinner. We got home after dinner and crashed good. We are now looking forward to having a little more fun on the Delaware River now that we know a little more about what is is all about.

Just a little more “diary of the mouth” from your humble narrator Larry.

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Symmetry 2

Symmetry 2

Symmetry 2

Digital photography has opened up a whole new world of exploration and creativity. Manipulating individual pixels to manage luminance, vibrance and saturation has expanded into large-scale pixel transformation, a whole new art form.

This is an example of wholesale pixel manipulation; the original image was a photograph of geometrical structural shapes found in the glass roof of a shopping mall.  Click here to see the original image.  I took the original image, converted it to B&W, then followed a lengthy “recipe” of Photoshop tools and key strokes to arrive at “Symmetry 2”.

I’d like to meet the person who had the vision to create the recipe.

Thought for the Day:       Creativity is the residue of time wasted.                                                                                Albert Einstein

About Larry's blog

THINGS I LOVE: Family, Friends, Photography and College Football. THINGS I LIKE: reading, sports,travel, straight shooters, sense of humor, hand-crafted beers, nature, golf, organization, my wife's cooking, the USA, movies of all types except sci-fi, blueberries, National Parks, music (especially light jazz)of all types except opera and rap, licorice, punctuality,woodworking, dogs and clean underwear.
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One Response to Symmetry 2

  1. Sherrie Wade says:

    Nothing resembles the first image. I was expecting to see the inside dome of a building, not the outside.

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Mathematics Research Guide by Jane Holmquist: LibX Toolbar

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Willow Dressel
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Archives for category: Librarianship, generally

So, you and your library are not on Twitter. Big deal, right? Professional sporting events, political debates, award shows and cable news are pre-hashtagged, but what does it mean for you? If you’re feeling left out, and want to get into Twitter, I’m going to propose a two and half pronged attack:

The Institutional Account

The odds that you’re already producing the stuff you need to populate an institutional Twitter account are high: new LibGuides, new acquisitions, changes to your regular hours, programs, Ask A Lib services, etc. Twitter is just a free way to publicize what you already do. Before you sign up, consider:

  • Setting some policies about who will tweet, how often, and in what style to give your account consistency, and legitimacy
  • Setting a few more policies about how and when to respond to retweets, favorites, and mentions, favorable and unfavorable
  • How to incorporate your Twitter background page, icon and shortened links into the greater branding of your institution (if you’re not a stand alone kind of place, i.e. law schools that are part of larger universities)
  • Will this be fun for you? If no one on staff is going to enjoy tweeting, the product won’t show your best side. Twitter is a great way to humanize an institution, show that it’s made of individual voices that make one–but if you’re not feeling it, your Twitter voice will show it.

The Personal Professional Account

Networking, attending conferences, attending conferences that you’re not even in the same time zone as: let Twitter solve it for you! If you’ve ever felt like you’re missing out on what’s going on in the library world, or like your professional development budget is $5, Twitter can be a great way to get out there, without getting out there. In my own life, I call it “using the Internet to trick people into thinking I’m important.” And I have to say, reader, you’re here, aren’t you? For your personal professional account:

  • Consider making the icon an actual picture of you, or at least cartoon you. This is your brand!
  • Keep your tweets related to your professional life. This is your chance to promote your work, your institution, your ideas, but not your cat, or your dinner, or your shoes. Ok, a little bit of that from time to time is nice to show you’re not a library robot, but keep it pro.
  • Use your personal professional account to follow the hashtags of conferences you’re not at (because who can afford them all), but also conferences you are at. It makes the entire experience richer.
  • A little shameless self promotion won’t hurt you. Did you write a new Lib Guide for your library? Get it out there! It’s good for you, it’s good for your institution, and it’s good for someone who maybe wouldn’t have found the information without Twitter.
  • Above all, don’t make your Twitter feed a moment by moment account of your day, because it’s boring. Take this advice from Garance and ask yourself whether your tweet is relevant before you post it.

The Solely Personal Account

It can be a little fragmenting, I suppose, but so many things in life are more fun with Twitter. Find your friends at baseball games, follow food trucks, rave (or rant with caution) about new restaurants, share pictures of your animals. Don’t forget:

  • Be careful about turning locations on–I hear there are bad people on the interwebz.
  • If you’re taking a picture of, say, a playbook in your lap, be sure you’re wearing pants (I’m looking at you Chris Cooley, former Redskin).
  • Don’t forget your #natitude

#natitude by Meg & the rest of Natstown

If you’ve skimmed all this and still don’t think Twitter is for you, don’t forget that you can read people’s open pages without actually joining. Let’s do this again for Facebook a little later on!

“Where have you been” is one of those loaded questions that can mean, “Where have you been, I have been waiting for you for hours,” or “Where have you been all my life?” The reasons you aren’t there can be just as varied. This week, we’re going to talk about getting back into the swing of things, professionally, when you’ve been out of the loop. We’ll talk about getting involved in social media, getting involved in a professional association, starting a new program at your library, and we might even discuss my two week hiatus from Lulu.

A sullen faced, “Where have you been, I’M STARVING” Neko, by Meg

Whether or not you’re a baseball fan, or even a sports fan, there’s something to be learned about managing from a profession driven by men called Managers. They might not always choose their staffs, but they work with who they have to get the best results–as many wins as– possible.

Ozzie, by Meg

I have had great managers, and terrible managers. Likewise, I’ve had the pleasure of watching successful baseball teams, and the agony of watching dreadful teams. Two ideas unite both: chaos breeds chaos, and consistency breeds calm. Ranting and raving, publicly decrying your staff, and general anger are divisive and destructive. Conversely, public praise, private problem resolution, and general calm are uniting and productive.

Without a checklist: if you’re in a management position right now, be mindful. Things may need to change at your workplace, but you will get more done by being a steady, predictably cool presence than by being an unstable, unpredictable hot head. Be calm, and be effective. Be erratic, and work in circles.

I have never taught a full semester course. I’m not even Dr. Meg, it’s just what my friends in my AP US Government class called me in high school. But, I have gone to school a few times. From my consumer perspective, here are some pro tips on professorship.

by Meg

Course Design and Syllabus

  • Order of operations: If you’re teaching skills that build on one another, be mindful of that fact when ordering your lessons. International Shoe doesn’t make much sense without understanding jurisdiction; the contents of the U.S. Code don’t make much sense without understanding the legislative process. Timing matters.
  • The virtue of snow days: Don’t forget to leave wiggle room in your course outline. One lesson might take longer than anticipated to sink in, the weather might not cooperate, you might want to include a review session for an exam. No amount of careful planning can change the randomness of life.
  • Get a copy editor: Few things are more disheartening than typos and grammatical errors in a syllabus. It shows your disregard for value, or worse, makes you look incompetent.

Conducting the Class

  • Know your stuff: Like typos, inaccuracies in lectures and course materials make you look like an idiot. They might be honest mistakes, but there’s nothing worse for a student than feeling like they wasted hard-earned money on an expensive course taught by someone who has no idea what they’re talking about.
  • Students are adult humans, not children, or animals: adjust your tone and inflection accordingly. Parents of infants and toddlers, take note: it’s an easy mistake to make.
  • The Army way: “I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you, tell you, and then tell you what I told you.” One of my favorite professors in law school was a retired soldier, who had also taught at JAG school, and his method was very effective (especially for property, yeesh).

Student Evaluations

  • Grade and time: If your course will evaluate student performance with something more than a final exam, grade that work in a timely manner. If you can’t do so, ask yourself why you’re assigning it.
  • True results: The way a course is conducted should match the evaluation. Skills classes like trial advocacy, legislative history, might only need short answer questions, or hands-on take-home demonstrations. Big idea classes like gender theory in American law might be better suited to long form essay questions.
  • False positives for law school courses: Lest we forget, at the end of law school, one takes the bar. If you are teaching bar tested stuff, a bar style test will be disfavored in the moment, but probably really appreciated a few years later.

What was your favorite thing about your favorite professor?

Hey, look, a selection of software books from the early-mid 2000s from a library that shall remain unnamed. Quaint, no? I’m pro print materials, but in the case of teaching yourself how to code, why not get hands on?

Learning How To Code On Your Own:

  • Codecademy: Interactive tutorials that you can complete on your own, or in tandem with friends, on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Python and more
  • Code Year: a Codecadmey project that delivers a lesson every Monday, for those who like to be reminded that it’s coding time
  • Lifehacker’s Teach Yourself To Code: Helpful tips on languages and what each one can do, which compilers to use, app and add on development
  • Mozilla School of Webcraft: A range of courses and challenges using real life APIs like Twitter
  • Google Code University: Including classes for Android programming (who better to learn from?)

Learning How to Code With A Group:

  • Meetup: Searching “coding” and your location and be a-mazed. There are classes everywhere! How do I know? I tested it with my hometown, and if there are coding classes around Hampton, VA, they must be everywhere.
  • Check your local community college listings. Or, if you’re at an academic institution, it’s time to cash in those free tuition credits, no?

Coding + Girl Power

  • Girl Develop It: Based in NYC, Meetup-based classes for women who have been shy to ask about coding, and might feel more comfortable in an all/mostly female setting
  • Women Who Code: Based in San Fransisco, another woman-focused Meetup
  • Ladies Learning Code: Originally based in Toronto, with a west coast branch in Vancouver

Real Schools, Real Courses, Still Free

Are you ready? I’m most looking forward to Codecademy, but I might look for a lady coding Meetup around DC. How about you?

Before we even get into the skill set that one now needs to be a librarian, we need to create a foundation. That foundation is you accepting that you don’t know everything, allowing yourself to be a novice, and being open to change. It’s hard to do. There is a fine line between accepting that you don’t know something and feeling stupid for not knowing it, between allowing yourself to be a novice and feeling disempowered. Don’t take what you don’t know personally. I find that I learn less when I’m feeling defensive, and I learn more when I am feeling like a badass who’s about to gain a world of knowledge.

Today, I’m putting that theory on the line, and starting my research for Back To School here:

Greetings from the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress. I worked here for a long time, and now I don’t. But today, I am getting over what I think I should know about this collection based on my experience here, starting from scratch, and compiling a giant list of resources for later this week. You, dear readers, deserve everything that this collection has to offer, and frankly so do I.

We may be librarians, but we cannot know everything. There simply isn’t enough time–which also doesn’t leave enough time to feel guilty, or hopeless. Nothing replaces experience, but repeating the same tasks, improving upon the same skills, can only accomplish so much. It’s easy to feel like we’re chasing an ideal can never be caught, but catching up isn’t the goal. We are all learners here, and you are a badass.

Formal education can’t teach you everything, but do you ever feel like there were some major plot holes in your library schooling? There’s much to be said for learning by experience, but a little guidance in advance never hurt in the cases of:

  • Management and human resources
  • Teaching full semester courses as an associate professor, with elbow patched tweed jackets
  • Creating digital archives
  • Wrangling big data
  • Being confident enough to go at the above tasks with no instruction, and no warning

This week at Lulu, we’re looking at self education, outside of the classroom, because all librarians must be able to do all things. We’re learning together, you and I: I’m going to compile lots of resources on each topic, and you’re going to tell me who and what I’ve left out in the comments, on Facebook, on Twitter, wherever. Sound like a deal?

In the spirit of education, may I present one Mary McLeod Bethune with the promise of a post on biography as inspiration forthcoming:

Mary McLeod Bethune at the National Portrait Gallery, by

I thought I would finish Mental Health Break with a field report from the other side of librarianship: the side where one is not a librarian at all. I recently described myself as an “information professional at large,” and with 12.8 million Americans out of work last month, I can’t be the only one. However, filling out application after application that asks, “Name?,” eventually leads to “Who am I?,” and then to “I am alone” more often than I care to admit.

Aside from the monotony of applications, the guilt I assign myself for having lost my job (and increasingly, for not being a Stepford Wife while I’m at home all day), and the sheer boredom, the hardest part of unemployment that I am in total control to fix is this nagging feeling of wasted time because I am not in the career that I went to school so many times to realize. Did I really believe that I would prevent any sort of unpleasant employment situation, or that I would always be doing precisely what I set out to do? Did I think that there wouldn’t be down time?

Well, yes.

I’m willing to blame youthful ignorance, willful ignorance, sheer stupidity, gross misinterpretation of the brand of feminism with which I’ve surrounded myself, whatever. I need to get over it. There is more to me than being a law librarian. I am in total control to fix monotony, guilt, and boredom, too, but here are my new efforts to stop feeling like a wasted effort that you can try too:

  • Plan projects that you would never be able to/allowed to do at work. I’m typing away on my social media consulting materials, thinking of how to fund, then digitize stuff for fun and no profit, and thinking of dipping my toe into a for real academic article.
  • Go out and visit related institutions. I live in a big city full of libraries, and I’ve been to practically none. You can always learn from what someone else is doing, even without making a big formal tour of it. Just go in as a user, see what happens.
  • Go out and visit not at all related institutions. Libraries aren’t just libraries anymore. Go to museums, factories, start up offices, print media houses, coffee shops. There’s a lesson to be learned everywhere, which is terribly convenient as libraries now have to do everything.
  • Embrace your pre-graduate education. You learned to color inside the lines at one point, right? Have you colored recently? No?? Well, there you have it. If you’re really feeling ambitious, go and do that with people who are learning it for the first time, share your experience, and don’t forget to mention that coloring outside the lines is way more fun

Today, I am going to the beach. I’ve granted myself a one day break from applications and house work, and I’m going to read my September Vogue under a big, fabulous hat, and sketch sea birds. If I were at work, I couldn’t do any of these things on a Wednesday. But today, instead of lamenting my unemployment, I’m going to try and make the most of it.

Vogue and big, fabulous hat, by Meg

Everyone is not going to like you. You are not going to like everyone. The more difficult you find those facts to accept, the more likely you are to find yourself losing sleep, or dreading going to work over a difficult coworker.
Much like bad bosses, there are many brands of crap colleagues: oversharers, the hyper peppy, the hypo peppy, folks with intense mood swings, anger issues, liars, louts, the whole lot. Step one to dealing with any of these types is allowing yourself to not get along with them. It’s ok! So many people, especially women, feel the need to like and be liked for fear of being impolite. Being able to work with a variety of people is an important asset, but sometimes, it just isn’t going to happen. Your value at work is more than your likability.

After you have allowed yourself to not get on with your problem coworker, assess how you have been reacting to them. You’re upset, yes, but how is that manifesting in your work, your self-esteem? You cannot control someone else, but you can control yourself. If you can pinpoint what happens after a bad interaction with a bad coworker, you can change how you react. For example, let’s say you have a coworker who sends inflammatory emails about your work, ccing everyone, every day. If you usually sit in your office and fume, try going for a break, or at least doing something away from your computer for a while. Extract yourself from the situation, and change your own personal outcome.

Now that you have allowed yourself to not get on with your problem coworker, and you have identified and changed your reaction to what bothers you about said coworker, it’s time to be honest with the coworker. You’ve been honest with yourself thus far, and while that’s a positive step, if you don’t tell the coworker what’s going on, you’re going to come off as passive aggressive. You don’t need to list every single problem you have with the person, but a simple, “It really upsets me when you _____, I’m going to _____ when it happens, and I just wanted you to know.” What if the person has no idea they’re doing that? They might not care, of course, but we don’t get better at being humans without feedback. Be brief, be professional, and move on.

In review:

  • Allow yourself to not get along with everyone.
  • Identify how you react to a bad situation, extract yourself, and change your own personal outcome.
  • Explain the situation and your new reaction to the person who’s upsetting you briefly, and professionally.
  • Be happier. After all, whose life is it, anyway?

The second most common question that I’ve been encountering on job interviews is, “so, what was it like serving Members of Congress [in your most recent position at the Law Library of Congress]?” The answer is, “it was nice, but they’re not really the primary patron group. They don’t walk into the Reading Room, they rarely call. I mostly served members of the public, especially pro se litigants and homeless patrons.”

This fact does not impress most people.

However, I was very concerned with giving the best possible service to homeless patrons. The parade of sad stories was varied: veterans with addiction issues, domestic violence survivors, folks too old for the foster system, but not old enough for Adult Protective Services, and a range of mental health issues. Which is to say, most of these patrons had other very serious problems which likely led to their homelessness. And they were angry. There was a lot of yelling, erratic behavior, and that was all very unpleasant. But, at the end of the day, I always got to come home, eat dinner and sleep in my bed.

In the spirit of gratitude for being able to sleep in your own bed at night, some practice tips for dealing with homeless patrons:

  • Just listen. Law librarians cannot offer legal advice, and we’re often quick to point out that fact to public patrons when we’re tired of listening to their stories. But, when you’re ignored in the public arena (in stores, on the streets) you might just want someone to listen to your problems to confirm that you’re still human.
  • Recommend appropriate resources. Let’s say someone comes in with a court summons that cites a rule. Don’t throw the entire Rules of Civil Procedure at them. Get the right volume of the annotated code (of wherever), show them the rule, then show them the annotations so they can read about it, see some case examples, etc. Is language an issue? Give them the annotated rules and a dictionary.
  • If you can’t help, suggest someone who can. Familiarize yourself with your areas’ shelters, non-profits, and government agencies that handle veterans’, domestic violence, addiction, and general mental health issues. Recommending another resource is typically not legal advice. Try, “have you contacted the VA?,” or “are you familiar with city’s Rape Crisis Hotline?”
  • If it’s getting ugly, tell the patron exactly what behavior they need to change in order to stay in the library. “You need to lower your voice,” or “I need you to step back so that I can continue helping you.” A specific direction is more considerate, and likely more effective.
  • If you need to call law enforcement, tell them in advance that the patron is homeless. Police can certainly offer different resources for homeless folks than a law librarian can, but they will often handle a situation differently when homelessness is an issue. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s always been a more positive outcome than anticipated.
  • Keep thinking about your bed. I’m not suggesting that you pity the person in front of you, but at least be cognizant of the fact that the universe has given you a bed today, and act accordingly. What the universe giveth, the universe can taketh away.

How do you help your homeless patrons? Is it even an issue in your library?

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Cleaning up your procrastination

This may come of as a very unconventional tip for breaking procrastination or even hard to believe – I found it that way when I first read it somewhere – but again and again it somehow works for me, so it might work for you.

Even though I keep my productivity in close check and am very much aware of when it starts to drift, I still from time to time find myself struggling with procrastination or trying to fight my way through thick layers of “bran fog”. Sometimes work and creativity just comes easy. Getting in the zone and banging out several hours of creative work just comes as second nature – but then at other times this “zone” just seems to have disappeared altogether.

My usual ques to get into the zone, as for instance the same hour long mix played through earplugs, just do not seem to have any effect. And even the act of sitting down and put on the music is a feat in of itself. As though the body or the head somehow resists putting up the work. This is where this little tip more often than not have helped me tremendously.

Whenever I find myself in this deep hole, walls covered with brain-fog and with a heavy lid of procrastination on top, I clean my shit up.

Quite literally – whenever I end in this situation I will clean up my room/apartment. Whether it being putting everything back to its intended place, cleaning off dust or vacuuming – it just has to look mint again. The reason why this works for me might be that I make these small unconscious notes of where things are not in order or where in the apartment it needs cleaning. They are of themselves not that big of a deal, but they seems to pile up inside my head and at some point they tip over.

You need to clean up at some point anyway and if you are procrastinating you are not getting anything done anyways – so you might as well try cleaning your home.

As U.S. Navy Adm. William H. McCraven says in his commencement speech:

“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed”

And then goes on to say:

“Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”

The full commencement speech is here if it caught your interest:

Give it a shot – you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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Saddest Thing I Ever Heard

I just heard a woman tell her children, ” I hope I never see y’all grown.” I couldn’t believe it. I would never tell any child that; especially mine. Children look to their parents for encouragement, not to hear things like, “I have the worst kids ever.” How horrible is that? You may not have the best children, but you can encourage them to do better. Do kids need punishment? Yes, in the form of set consequences for certain bad actions. On the other hand, kids need to be given positive expectations to live up to and not negative ones to fulfill. Tell your children how much you love them and let them know how valuable they really are.


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Sunday Funday

January 30, 2011

Helloo everyone!

Rewind back to last night’s dinner.

We gathered the ingredients to make some pizza!!

Hummus, feta cheese, grape tomatoes, red onion, olive tapenade, pesto, spinach, roasted shallots.

I bought some already made pizza dough from TJ’s.  We drizzled some olive oil on it and baked it until almost done.

Then we took it out and layered the ingredients on the crust.  Starting with the hummus as the base layer.

Then we just layered the pizza however we felt like it.

The finished product was delish!! I had two slices!! It really was so much better than a frozen pizza and it didn’t take that much longer!!

We then had some tea and broke into our box of goodies from Amelie’s.  We ate this key lime meringue tart. SO good!! The meringue was so fluffy and marshmellowy.  <–not a word!

We also ate a coconut macaroon and the salted caramel brownie.

We took a few funny pictures.

Notice the side ponytail.  It’s how she rolls.

Katrina caught me blogging in action.

We watched Shutter Island [which I really liked] and then went to bed.

Today we had some cinnamon chip toast for breakfast, showered and headed on our way.

It was absolutely GORGEOUS out today!! Such crazy weather for January.  So we decided to do something outdoors.

We went over to Birkdale Village to walk the shops and grab some lunch.

Everything was so pretty!

This wall was a display in a clothing boutique.

Looked so cool in person.

Hung out on the benches for a while.

Decided to have lunch over at Eez.

We weren’t in the mood for sushi, so we went a little heavy on the carbs aka noodles!

I had a side salad with ginger dressing and the pad thai with chicken.

Katrina had the sweet basil beef [I think that’s what it was called].

Love the carrot curls.

Umm do you see what I see?

Opening February 11th!!!!  Cannot wait for fudge and creamy ice cream!

We went to TCBY for dessert.

I filled my cup with a few samplings of flavors.  Although I was a little disappointed.  I put a few chocolate covered raisins in the mix and I’m almost sure they were stale. Yuck.

We had the movies on the brain today!

To prepare we went to Target and got refreshments.

Water, goldfish, chips

Smuggling in action!! So worth it.

We were a little early getting to the theater.  When we walked in we were the only ones there!! We got a little out of control.

My loot.

Don’t mind if I do.  Kinda nice having a whole row to yourself.

The movie was really cute.  I love Natalie Portman and I wish I were just as skinny as her. Sigh.

Now we’re home and about to dig into our bakery goodies round #2.

I have to go into work tomorrow for a few hours, so see ya tomorrow!!!!

2 Comments leave one →
  1. Amy permalink
    January 31, 2011 8:23 am

    HI! I recently came across your blog through KathEats, and I just want to say I think your blog is amazing (I’ve read through most of it).

    Your pictures are absolutely beautiful – and you look gorgeous in that picture with a park bench in the background.

    You also have the greatest job 🙂 It’s cool to get a unique view from someone who works in the food industry and to be able to see the delightful-looking creations you come up with. Who knew salads could be so photogenic 😉

    Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for doing what do you, for sharing your love of food with us, and keep it up =) I hope this blog develops in popularity because I certainly believe it deserves to do so.

    • January 31, 2011 5:00 pm

      Thanks so much for all of the kind words!! I’m so glad you stumbled upon me! I hope the blog develops too!! 🙂 Hope you enjoy reading!

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Give Hyperlink the Finger.

Halloween looms. It sneaks up every year and scares the crap outta me.

Hyperlink cover for Createspace copy 1

But this year I’m ready. Because Hyperlink, arguably the perfect novel for Halloween, will soon be available from Amazon in paperback — an easier read than the e-book, plus you get that back cover. (“And I will show you my back parts!”) I provide the freaky footnotes; you provide the fingers. It’s already for sale in the Createspace store, and if anyone cares to buy it, I get a higher percentage royalty from there. Just sayin’.

Now: how do you feel about fingers? Personally, I consider them to be the original, handy, digital element that makes reading real books a joy. One can fly virtually effortlessly through the pages, with fingers. Fingers are magic…

Magic fingers! We love fingers! Halloween is for fingers — usually disembodied. But hey, we like ’em any way we can get ’em.

Fingers painting, fingers in a pie, fingers up a nose, fingers in your eye.1fd8b-morticia-addams-addams-family-20570385-500-369

I’m doin’ the Morticia dance to celebrate! Please do it with me!

And run your fingers down my spine.

(You know you want to.)

4 responses

  1. I wilt in the presence of your awesomeness. Will you write my next book?

  2. You see any rings on these fingers?

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