"you are not used to this kind of life; therefore the indications bypass you. yet you are a serious person, but your seriousness is attached to what you do, not to what goes on outside you. you dwell upon yourself too much. that's the trouble. and that produces a terrible fatigue."
"but what else can anyone do, don Juan?"
"seek and see the marvels all around you. you will get tired of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind to everything else"
-- The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, Carlos Castaneda
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
cant i just farm for a while?
i went to do important things at the capitol too.
and this one because its funny. i really want this kind of leather jacket. but alas. fail.
and this one because its funny. i really want this kind of leather jacket. but alas. fail.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Travels With Herodotus
my own copy of Travels With Herodotus has a crease in the middle from ample time folded in my left back-pocket of my navy-blue skinny jeans. it is a book just large enough to fit in one such pocket. having been with me when I experienced one of Washington D.C.'s more dramatic storms this summer, it also bares the mark of water damage -- so much so that the blue of the jean material has rubbed off along the book's spine and page edges.
and yet, I feel that is how Ryszard Kapuscinksi, its author, would have preferred it to be. the polish journalist, who passed away in january of 2007, spent his working life writing reportage of the third world for the Polish Press Agency. his pieces tended to fall more towards the literary side of reportage rather than on the technical and objective edge. commentators often note how his pieces read more like novels than journalistic material. but Kapuscinski was always a writer of experience rather than the nitty gritty, finding ways to grab hold of something everyday and extrapolate it into its wider meanings.
which is what Travels most notably does. its 275 pages are an odd mix of reportage, autobiography, and ancient greek history -- something that would seem to not make sense. Travels is Kapuscinski's attempt, and his last piece at that, to draw out an overview of his years abroad, the people he met, the places he saw, but ultimately, how he felt and what drew him to each. above all, the book is a glimpse into why we travel, why we move. he sums it up best in the following lines, which alone were enough to keep me reading:
"I wondered what ones experiences when one crosses the border. What does one feel? What does one think? It must be a moment of great emotion, agitation, tension. What is it like, on the other side? It must certainly be -- different. But what does 'different' mean? What does it look like? What does it resemble? Maybe it resembles nothing that I know, and thus is inconcievable, unimaginable? And so my greatest desire, which gave me no peace, which tormented and tantalized me, was actually quite modest: I wanted one thing only -- the moment, the act, the simple fact of crossing the border."
and yet, I feel that is how Ryszard Kapuscinksi, its author, would have preferred it to be. the polish journalist, who passed away in january of 2007, spent his working life writing reportage of the third world for the Polish Press Agency. his pieces tended to fall more towards the literary side of reportage rather than on the technical and objective edge. commentators often note how his pieces read more like novels than journalistic material. but Kapuscinski was always a writer of experience rather than the nitty gritty, finding ways to grab hold of something everyday and extrapolate it into its wider meanings.
which is what Travels most notably does. its 275 pages are an odd mix of reportage, autobiography, and ancient greek history -- something that would seem to not make sense. Travels is Kapuscinski's attempt, and his last piece at that, to draw out an overview of his years abroad, the people he met, the places he saw, but ultimately, how he felt and what drew him to each. above all, the book is a glimpse into why we travel, why we move. he sums it up best in the following lines, which alone were enough to keep me reading:
"I wondered what ones experiences when one crosses the border. What does one feel? What does one think? It must be a moment of great emotion, agitation, tension. What is it like, on the other side? It must certainly be -- different. But what does 'different' mean? What does it look like? What does it resemble? Maybe it resembles nothing that I know, and thus is inconcievable, unimaginable? And so my greatest desire, which gave me no peace, which tormented and tantalized me, was actually quite modest: I wanted one thing only -- the moment, the act, the simple fact of crossing the border."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The District
c
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/07/monkeys-verbal-skills.html
an excerpt...
"Cotton-top tamarin monkeys may look like little fluff balls, but these primates are not lightweights when it comes to learning at least one basic component of language. A new study found that these monkeys can tell the difference between prefixes and suffixes.
The discovery, reported in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, suggests non-human primates, and possibly many other animals, share some skills associated with human language."
based on things i like reading, and what im doing in this internship, and how much i like reading Scientific American and Discovery News, im thinking maybe of going into science writing. not science journalism (although thats a part of it), but writing about public health, nature, and culture. that could be cool. MIT has a really good one year program.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
sometimes that feels like life.
im sick and dont know how that happened. im sitting here at work sneezing uncontrollably.
i woke up at 5 am today. dont know why either. i slept in my bed for the first time in weeks -- ive been sleeping on my couch usually because it reminds me of sleeping in a hammock and i like that.
i went to a hearing at Capitol Hill today on reinstating the Superfund tax. it was enjoyable. half of it was on background to Superfund and Love Canal so i was suprised how well informed i am. Lois spoke on the issue of hurricane and weather risks in relation to Superfund sites, something i hadnt put much thought into before.
her sister, who lives in Montana, gave a talk on mining in the region and the need to have a Superfund tax. a scientist from Portland's port authority gave his own pitch on the difficulties in reinstating Superfund when you dont have a single polluter and chemical to target -- such as, when, you have a port that has had 100 years of come-and-go industrial activity, with a wide range of toxic exposure.
but the speakers pointed to the need for the tax. Obama has outlined the importance of Superfund in his budget, but pushed it to the 2011 agenda. Gibbs and the others agreed that the time is now, more than ever, to push the bill forward. without the tax, it is impossible to clean up the thousands of thousands of sites across the country. Gibbs touted the "pizza" concept: for evert $10,000 of profit an industry makes, only $12 goes to Superfund cleanup if the bill is reinstated and financed through the federal government -- the price of a large pizza. also, without the legal tax, cleanup funds must come from taxpayers, all 100% of it. which is, unmistakably, unethical -- ask people suffering from cancer clusters, birth defects, and misscarriages to pay their own money to clean up an industry's pollutants = wrong.
port authority man made another good point -- for the EPA to do Superfund cleanup, they must take $s out of other environmental research agendas like global warming, infectious disease, etc. things that are important, in other words, get reduced funding for common-good issues because the government wont push polluters to pay.
in short, Superfund should be reinstated. Lois gave a quick memory from when Pres. Carter visited Love Canal to announce the evacuation of the 900 families there -- when Carter came, he told Lois that "there will never be another Love Canal." they were going to made a federal fund, a super fund, he told her, to make sure that people without financial resources wouldnt have to be ignored by the government. and yet thirty years later, sites still exist, now at more risk than ever due to climate change.
did i mention that all an industry has to do is declare bankrupcy to avoid Superfund taxes?
what else...
tomorrow i am voltar-ing to the Capitol Visitor Center once again with Stephen to go to a reception for the new director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. should be awesome. i get to shake hands and be known as "Dan the Intern". in fact, today I lent my laptop to the congressman's aide for his powerpoint presentation. only, my computer sucks and freaked out and didn't work, as usual. it wasn't too embarrasing. i managed to make my desktop pretty clear. except for a jpeg called "coffee", which is a map of coffee trade i posted earlier. which Lois and the port authority guys found hillarious. but then i helped out with technical difficulties the best i could, mad respect.
im incredibly exhausted but will be going into adams morgan tonight to relax with some people i met last week and went to fireworks with. i showed them Kramer's Books in Dupont Circle, where we had some pretty good veggie pizza and an awesome brownie sunday. i was tempted to buy an Irish Coffee because they are like crack and all, but $7 is pretty hefty.
oh and i went food shopping, if you can call it that at the 7/11, and bought mango, bread, milk, rasin bran, and 2 hard boiled eggs. the eggs come with a salt and pepper packet. which to me is exciting. this sunday i am going to the farmer's market in dupont circle and loading up on a weeks worth of actual produce. which is cheaper than the 7/11. and maybe find out if i can do some volunteer work at a farm nearby. i emailed Paul from the TLS department at Bard about working there or volunteering or i dont really care what next year, but, as the last time i emailed him, he didnt get back to me yet.
in Janurary Orion Magazine, this amazing collection of writings about place/nature/culture, accepts submissions on practically anything related to science, nature, agriculture, sustainability. my aim is to submitt a piece.
also thinking of starting doing something more productive on this blog than just writing about my life. seems somewhat egotistical. since all i do is read non-fiction now, im going to start posting book reviews. maybe ill also put them on Amazon.com, but ill start here and see what kind of feedback i get. that's a hint for leave feedback when i post a review.
within the week ill write one for John McPhee's Pine Barrens. im in the middle of Jan Morris's Trieste - and the meaning on nowhere, her reflection on her city, Trieste, which lies along the Adriatic coast to the very east in Italy. much like Pamuk's Istanbul, it seems to be about the legacy and experience of a city whose identity is very much now a memory, whose past is its only glory in the midst of empire, and who now, like its inhabitants, finds itself a liminal entity, betwixt and between, belonging-as Morris's title puts it-nowhere. although unlike the city of Istanbul, poised between East and West, Morris's Trieste "belongs" somewhere between the past glory of the Hapsburg Empire, the development of Western Europe, and the now diminished Eastern Europe. a place within Europe, but outside of it. its prose is slightly awkward at times, but of course i like the concept and its a good read.
one more.
i woke up at 5 am today. dont know why either. i slept in my bed for the first time in weeks -- ive been sleeping on my couch usually because it reminds me of sleeping in a hammock and i like that.
i went to a hearing at Capitol Hill today on reinstating the Superfund tax. it was enjoyable. half of it was on background to Superfund and Love Canal so i was suprised how well informed i am. Lois spoke on the issue of hurricane and weather risks in relation to Superfund sites, something i hadnt put much thought into before.
her sister, who lives in Montana, gave a talk on mining in the region and the need to have a Superfund tax. a scientist from Portland's port authority gave his own pitch on the difficulties in reinstating Superfund when you dont have a single polluter and chemical to target -- such as, when, you have a port that has had 100 years of come-and-go industrial activity, with a wide range of toxic exposure.
but the speakers pointed to the need for the tax. Obama has outlined the importance of Superfund in his budget, but pushed it to the 2011 agenda. Gibbs and the others agreed that the time is now, more than ever, to push the bill forward. without the tax, it is impossible to clean up the thousands of thousands of sites across the country. Gibbs touted the "pizza" concept: for evert $10,000 of profit an industry makes, only $12 goes to Superfund cleanup if the bill is reinstated and financed through the federal government -- the price of a large pizza. also, without the legal tax, cleanup funds must come from taxpayers, all 100% of it. which is, unmistakably, unethical -- ask people suffering from cancer clusters, birth defects, and misscarriages to pay their own money to clean up an industry's pollutants = wrong.
port authority man made another good point -- for the EPA to do Superfund cleanup, they must take $s out of other environmental research agendas like global warming, infectious disease, etc. things that are important, in other words, get reduced funding for common-good issues because the government wont push polluters to pay.
in short, Superfund should be reinstated. Lois gave a quick memory from when Pres. Carter visited Love Canal to announce the evacuation of the 900 families there -- when Carter came, he told Lois that "there will never be another Love Canal." they were going to made a federal fund, a super fund, he told her, to make sure that people without financial resources wouldnt have to be ignored by the government. and yet thirty years later, sites still exist, now at more risk than ever due to climate change.
did i mention that all an industry has to do is declare bankrupcy to avoid Superfund taxes?
what else...
tomorrow i am voltar-ing to the Capitol Visitor Center once again with Stephen to go to a reception for the new director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. should be awesome. i get to shake hands and be known as "Dan the Intern". in fact, today I lent my laptop to the congressman's aide for his powerpoint presentation. only, my computer sucks and freaked out and didn't work, as usual. it wasn't too embarrasing. i managed to make my desktop pretty clear. except for a jpeg called "coffee", which is a map of coffee trade i posted earlier. which Lois and the port authority guys found hillarious. but then i helped out with technical difficulties the best i could, mad respect.
im incredibly exhausted but will be going into adams morgan tonight to relax with some people i met last week and went to fireworks with. i showed them Kramer's Books in Dupont Circle, where we had some pretty good veggie pizza and an awesome brownie sunday. i was tempted to buy an Irish Coffee because they are like crack and all, but $7 is pretty hefty.
oh and i went food shopping, if you can call it that at the 7/11, and bought mango, bread, milk, rasin bran, and 2 hard boiled eggs. the eggs come with a salt and pepper packet. which to me is exciting. this sunday i am going to the farmer's market in dupont circle and loading up on a weeks worth of actual produce. which is cheaper than the 7/11. and maybe find out if i can do some volunteer work at a farm nearby. i emailed Paul from the TLS department at Bard about working there or volunteering or i dont really care what next year, but, as the last time i emailed him, he didnt get back to me yet.
in Janurary Orion Magazine, this amazing collection of writings about place/nature/culture, accepts submissions on practically anything related to science, nature, agriculture, sustainability. my aim is to submitt a piece.
also thinking of starting doing something more productive on this blog than just writing about my life. seems somewhat egotistical. since all i do is read non-fiction now, im going to start posting book reviews. maybe ill also put them on Amazon.com, but ill start here and see what kind of feedback i get. that's a hint for leave feedback when i post a review.
within the week ill write one for John McPhee's Pine Barrens. im in the middle of Jan Morris's Trieste - and the meaning on nowhere, her reflection on her city, Trieste, which lies along the Adriatic coast to the very east in Italy. much like Pamuk's Istanbul, it seems to be about the legacy and experience of a city whose identity is very much now a memory, whose past is its only glory in the midst of empire, and who now, like its inhabitants, finds itself a liminal entity, betwixt and between, belonging-as Morris's title puts it-nowhere. although unlike the city of Istanbul, poised between East and West, Morris's Trieste "belongs" somewhere between the past glory of the Hapsburg Empire, the development of Western Europe, and the now diminished Eastern Europe. a place within Europe, but outside of it. its prose is slightly awkward at times, but of course i like the concept and its a good read.
one more.
Monday, July 6, 2009
i find this crite-sheet to be hillarious.
"Solid student. Consistently high quality work. Good understanding of the material. Quiet in class, but did well engaging with his group."
im glad my biology professor had enough time to write full sentences. oh wait..
tomorrow for work i get to go to a Superfund hearing on Capitol Hill.
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