Impolite Company

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Not in Front of the Children

Having grown up in a family where there weren't ever any serious disputes aired in front of the kids, I've always been relatively certain that I've had to do a fair amount of trial and error work on my own to figure out what's fair in a fight.  From the model I had as a kid, as far as I knew a married couple never fought and so for me, even the least cross word seemed devastating.  Not only in dating relationships but even just in day-to-day life it was a major milestone for me give myself license to show my temper.  Even today I have a tendency to rush in immediately to try to make amends.  Dig if you will the picture:

Graham:  You fuckin' bastard, why'd you do that to me?
Other Person:  Sorry.
Graham:  No, I'm sorry, I just had to get that out.  Are we cool now.
Other Person:  You're weird.

Now there's a study out that shows fair fighting in front of the children can be a good thing and far from the trauma that many folks think it might be, It May be OK to Fight in Front of the Children:

Experts have long cautioned that children can experience serious psychological harm if they witness their parents fighting. But a new study, published in the Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, suggests that children might actually benefit from watching their parents sort problems out.

“In some ways, kids benefit from seeing their parents disagreeing — and even being mildly angry,” says study co-author Patrick Davies, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. “It gives them a lesson on how you can come to a mutually acceptable solution through compromise.”

I love it when psychology finally catches up with my view of the world!

This Little Piggy Takes Antibiotics (even though he isn't sick)

Back some time over the past week, Nicholas Kristof posted a couple of reports on possible links between the hog industry and an increase in antibiotic resistant staph infections (MRSA) and the use of antibiotics on healthy animals.  My brother was kind enough to pass the links on to me and I'll do the same for you.  I'm not sure that the links are proven to the point that we should panic yet, but there are plenty of questions about the use of antibiotics in our farm industry and whether that has led to more strains of resistant antibiotics.  These issues should at the very least supply us with another reason to turn a skeptical eye on our industrial farming methods--if the ethical problems of raising animals in concentrated animal feeding operations isn't enough to get you there are plenty of practical ramifications from disposing of the waste, to increased risk of disease and health problems related to animals eating what we think they should eat rather than what their nature dictates.  The articles are:

Our Pigs, Our Food, Our Health on the ties between MRSA and health problems in a small, rural Indiana town.  And Pathogens in Our Pork looks at the heavy use of antibiotics on healthy pigs:

Yet the central problem here isn’t pigs, it’s humans. Unlike Europe and even South Korea, the United States still bows to agribusiness interests by permitting the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feed. That’s unconscionable.

The peer-reviewed Medical Clinics of North America concluded last year that antibiotics in livestock feed were “a major component” in the rise in antibiotic resistance. The article said that more antibiotics were fed to animals in North Carolina alone than were administered to the nation’s entire human population.

“We don’t give antibiotics to healthy humans,” said Robert Martin, who led a Pew Commission on industrial farming that examined antibiotic use. “So why give them to healthy animals just so we can keep them in crowded and unsanitary conditions?”

The answer is simple: politics.

Thanks, Gibbs.

One Giant Step

 Hi guys, I'm back in action.  For the most part--while moving some cinder blocks for a new raised garden bed last night a few of my fingers got caught in an argument between two of the blocks, which isn't the best news for my typing speed but it's really a minor challenge.  But it's catch-up time and so I thought I'd start by replying to a question from Robin about the picture to our immediate left (taken by Jeremy Preacher and posted to Facebook--thanks, Jeremy!).  I don't often get to see myself in this position as I'm usually otherwise involved and don't get the chance to notice.

So what's going on in this picture?  This is one of the moves in the fifth Pinan kata, which is common to many of the Japanese karate systems and was also part of my curriculum in Tang Soo Do.  Kata are prearranged combinations of techniques that have been developed over time as a method for practicing martial arts as an individual without partners--in the past I've described them as "choreagraphed fights" against opponents in your mind.  Some practitioners also believe the kata hide "pressure point attacks"--specific combinations of strikes to pressure points that have debilitating and/or fatal consequences for the target.  Kata practice is one of the main pillars of traditional martial arts practice but is less important in mixed martial arts systems and other more modern systems that put a heavy influence on practical fighting skills.

This particular move has been described to me in the past as jumping across the room from one attacker to another, landing with a low x-block in a kneeling hooked stance.  Unpacking that, this is the middle of the move and I'm getting ready to land in a crouch with my feet crossed, my knees bent, my back hopefully straight, with my arms crossed at the wrist and my hands in fists (the X).  I'm not sure that it makes a lot of sense to think of this as flying across the room to block something with an X-block, simply because if I'm way over here and someone way over there is kicking at something, even me, there's really no reason for me to fly over there to block something that has no chance of hitting me.  Which is why imagining kata as choreographed fights doesn't always work out.  You could also think of the move as flying across the room, landing on an opponent's back and doing a double strike to their neck, but that seems pretty violent (never x-block a man in the back when he's down!).  But it makes perfect sense as a challenging way to perform a move that's designed to improve your balance, strength and coordination and also as a particularly pretty move as part of the expression of a martial art.

Black Belt Promotion

It's over and it was a good day at Sun Dragon.  I was too brain dead yesterday at the end of it all to post anything and won't be doing anything significant here today, just posting a couple of pictures for now and I'll be enjoying some time with friends the rest of the day.  Well, maybe I'll write some later today but I doubt it.  I feel forty years old today!

First, a picture of the black belts involved in yesterday's festivities, including the two of us who promoted (kneeling).  Sensei Joy is in the center of the picture and is flanked by her instructors, Jun Shihan Nancy Lanoue on her right and Kyoshi Sarah Ludden on her left, both of Thousand Waves Martial Arts & Self Defense Center in Chicago and the World Seido Karate Organization:

One more picture on the other side...

Pres. Obama's Budget

I don't think I posted this earlier when it came out and this morning I ran across a crazy, ranting GOP'er complaining about how Obama hadn't submitted a budget and so in the interest of making it as easily available as possible on the web so that maybe "anonymous" will stumble across it at some point I'll embed it here:

Obama's FY2010 Budget - Free Legal Forms

Overcoming

Two of my dearest friends are great inspirations to me, not only because they are bright, intelligent, funny and engaging, not only because they are loving and involved parents but largely because they were able to overcome some pretty limiting circumstances early in their lives to get where they are today.  Both of them grew up in communities where there wasn't any emphasis on scholarship, not a lot of excitement for things like literature and art, and yet both of them found their own way to richly diverse lives with plenty of creativity and intellectual curiosity.  To put it in rather bland, made for the internet terms, neither of them had the most stable of home lives.  And so when I think of these two and what they've become I'm always at least a little bit awed that they were able to do so despite their early obstacles and I'm always more than a little bit proud of them.

Spike Gillespie has a nice post today talking about her own upbringing and how she was able to find her own way despite circumstances conspiring against her being anything more than beaten down secretary with a gaggle of kids at home.  It resonated with me because it reminded me of my friends and because it sounds like she's moved beyond bitterness over what might have been, while acknowledging the obstacles she had to negotiate on her way.  Welcome to Harry Potter High School:

Like my son, I too, found my passion early, wanting very much to be a writer from the age of 8. An excellent student, I ranked fifth in my graduating class. And I was accepted at a prestigious private college, one I would not be able to attend. My father believed college was for posers. Even if he’d had the money to send me to school, it wasn’t an option he would’ve been interested in. The map he drew for me involved staying a small town girl, finding a husband, and cranking out babies. If I was going to get a job as I waited for a spouse to materialize, then, like two of my three older sisters, I could be a secretary.

Mr. Mister--Hmmmph!

A friend of mine, within these very electronic pages, seems to have jumped to the conclusion that I might not like Mr. Mister's song "Kyrie Eleison" because of the religious connection.  The real truth is that I couldn't possibly like any music by a band called Mr. Mister.  I realize that some of their music is pretty good but I'll never get over the name, I'm just petty like that.  The band name is probably even more problematic than Wham! (though when combined with the album title "Make it Big" Wham wins [or loses] hands down [there's a very poor George Michael pun in their somewhere]).  I absolutely love the Kyrie in Mozart's Requiem (4:25):

An Essay on Healthy Eating

It's more than just picking up "organic" products, it involves making the shift away from overly processed foods and the average two pounds of animal products that we consume every day (can that be true?) and to more fruits, vegetables and grains, whether they're organic or not.  At least that's what Mark Bittman of the New York Times writes and I tend to agree with him.  Granted, I favor organics, particularly when it comes to dairy products and I've got a thing for locally produced stuff.  But my love of the local has a lot of different reasons behind it, some related to economics, some to protecting food supply and some just based on quality issues.

The most efficient and far-reaching change we can make in our eating habits that will help our personal health and the health of the planet is to shift away from eating huge amounts of meat everyday.  I still hit the Whataburger now and again and I'll probably never stop eating meat altogether because it's a good treat and it also provides things that are hard to get otherwise without a fair amount of menu planning.  But I have largely turned away from meat as a primary source of calories and I feel a whole lot better as a result.  But why listen to me, I'd like to invite you to read the full essay by Bittman that the following snippet is taken from, Eating Food That's Better for You, Organic or Not:

To eat well, says Michael Pollan, the author of “In Defense of Food,” means avoiding “edible food-like substances” and sticking to real ingredients, increasingly from the plant kingdom. (Americans each consume an average of nearly two pounds a day of animal products.) There’s plenty of evidence that both a person’s health — as well as the environment’s — will improve with a simple shift in eating habits away from animal products and highly processed foods to plant products and what might be called “real food.” (With all due respect to people in the “food movement,” the food need not be “slow,” either.)

From these changes, Americans would reduce the amount of land, water and chemicals used to produce the food we eat, as well as the incidence of lifestyle diseases linked to unhealthy diets, and greenhouse gases from industrial meat production. All without legislation.

Brain Scans Bely Rational Economic Decision-making

(Post headline is brought to you compliments of the theory that you should say what you're going to say in the headline--it appears that such a policy produces clunky headlines)

A recent study involving neuro-economists, brain scans and investment decisions indicates that when people get expert advice on investment decisions, the portion of their brain that does the tough analytical work shuts down and they do what Jim Cramer says (or whomever they think is an expert).  Though Lynn might argue that's how my brain works when Paul Krugman says something, I would like to point out that I have been critical of him (especially when he's critical of Pres. Obama!  Yeah, Obama!! Obama trumps Krugman!!) in the past.  This sort of calls into question the whole idea that humans are rational decision-makers when it comes to economic decisions.  But it seems to be a pretty preliminary study and we shouldn't jump to huge conclusions based on it.  It does indicate that at least to a certain extent we still have some sort of hardwiring that promotes respect for authority and this makes sense--it's easier, it's less brain-resource intensive, to make a decision based on what an expert says rather than trying to do all the legwork necessary to gather all the facts and do all the analysis yourself.  Read about the study at Given "Expert" Advice, Brain Shuts Down:

A brain-scanning study of people making financial choices suggests that when given expert advice, the decision-making parts of our brains often shut down.

The problem with this, of course, is that the advice may not be good.

"When the expert's advice made the least sense, that's where we could see the behavioral effect," said study co-author Greg Berns, an Emory University neuroscientist. "It's as if people weren't using their own internal value mechanisms."

Gardasil and Boys and Sex

Merck & Co. is trying to get permission to sell Gardasil to boys--Gardasil is the drug Merck introduced a few years back that was marketed as a protection for women against certain types of cervical cancer.  The cancers develop from certain sexually transmitted diseases and the drug actually prevents those std's rather than directly preventing the cancer itself.  Please allow me a moment to state the obvious:  boys don't get cervical cancer so in vaccinating boys the focus would be on preventing the std's and genital warts.

There's an argument to be made that cutting back on the numbers of people infected with these std's in the general population will reduce the chances of women developing cervical cancer as a result of exposure.  But these are expensive vaccines and the CDC has some serious work to do on the cost-benefit analysis.  But the big cultural question is how the issue is being approached.  Back when states were proposing mandatory vaccinations for girls the big sticking point was whether or not it would increase sexual activity in girls.  But now that the cancer link is weaker, the issue that's dominating the discussion isn't whether it will make boys more sexually active, it's the cost-benefit question.  Interesting how we still have that little double standard when it comes to sex, A Vaccine Debate Once Focused on Sex Shifts as Boys Join the Target Market:

When a vaccine designed to protect girls against a sexually transmitted virus arrived three years ago, the debate centered on one question: Would the shots make young girls more likely to have sex?

Now the vaccine's maker is trying to get approval to sell the vaccine for boys, and the debate is focusing on something else entirely: Is it worth the money, and is it safe and effective enough?

"We are still more worried about the promiscuity of girls than the promiscuity of boys," said Susan M. Reverby, a professor of women's studies and medical history at Wellesley College. "There's still that double standard."

Buena Vista Social Club

I haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet but I'm so excited to see that Buena Vista Social Club is now available via Hulu.com.  I love the music from this band and have always meant to watch the movie but have never gotten around to it--I'm even more enthusiastic now that I realize the documentary is by Wim Wenders, the man behind Wings of Desire:

In Bloom--Nirvana (ukulele)

Cobain may be dead but by God, we've still got Eric Bradford from Sweden on the ukulele.  Hell yeah! to Robin for posting this (4:25):

More music on the other side...

Women's History Month: Women in Science

I'm not very hip to keeping up with what month is in terms of what we're supposed to be saluting, but I just ran across a good post over at Science Women that is an interview with the writer's mother, a biology professor who first started teaching back in the dark ages of 1974, back when only 10% of the students in high school and college math and science classes were women.  It's always good to be able to look back and see where we've come from when we're evaluating where we are now--just like electing an African American president doesn't mean we've fixed the whole racism thing, the fact that we're getting higher numbers of women in the sciences doesn't mean we've fixed the gender bias thing, but we are making progress.  Trailblazing Teacher and Role Model:  An Interview with a Woman Scientist Who Went Before:

Over the course of two hours, I had a wonderful conversation with this woman scientist, who earned her PhD in 1974. Her research focused on ecology, and after a two-year stint at a private liberal arts college, she spent the rest of her career at an undergraduate only public institution. She taught 36 classes in 32 years, averaging 6-8 different courses per year. She never had any help from teaching assistants, so she did all of her own grading, lab prep, and lab teaching. And she also raised two kids, most of the time as a single parent. My interviewee would like to remain anonymous, so for the purposes of this post we'll call her "Dendro." Most of the time, I simply call her Mom.

The Deadly Hamburger

Zoinks!  A new study is out saying that folks who eat 4 ounces of red meat, which includes both beef and pork, have a an increased chance of mortality within the next ten years of up to 30%.  Four ounces.  That's a quarter of a pound, which means a Quarter Pounder (or a Royale with Cheese**).  Jill Richardson wrote about the original story, which was in the Washington Post, over at La Vida Locavore and had this to say about the situation, Red Meat Kills:

This doesn't come as a surprise to me, but it's always nice to back up hunches with facts. What I think WILL be surprising to a lot of people is how little red meat (4 oz/day) made a difference. Four ounces is within the Food Pyramid's guidelines for how much meat you should eat daily, although they do encourage you to "choose [fish, nuts, and seeds] frequently instead of meat or poultry." (The Food Pyramid does NOT tell you to avoid beef - just "choose lean cuts" of beef.)

So put down that burger!  But keep in mind that this doesn't really mean that if you eat a burger a day you're going to die within ten years but that your chances of doing so increase.

**Jules: Well, if you like burgers give 'em a try sometime. I can't usually get 'em myself because my girlfriend's a vegitarian which pretty much makes me a vegetarian. But I do love the taste of a good burger. Mm-mm-mm. You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France?
Brett: No.
Jules: Tell 'em, Vincent.
Vincent: A Royale with cheese.
Jules: A Royale with cheese! You know why they call it that?
Brett: Because of the metric system?
Jules: Check out the big brain on Brett! You're a smart motherfucker. That's right. The metric system. What's in this?
Brett: Sprite.
Jules: Sprite, good. You mind if I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down?
Brett: Go right ahead.
Jules: Ah, hit the spot.

Mmmmmm, IMDb!

The Geithner Troubled Asset Plan

I'm being totally lazy on this and not working through the details--I just don't have time this week.  But I don't want my own schedule to prevent you, my dear readers, from having the sort of direct access to stimulating and scintillating government documents that you've come to expect around here (or, at least, for Lynn who may be the only one out there who's reading the docs!).  So, here's a link to the five page summary and explanation of the plan--have at it!  Public-Private Investment Plan Whitepaper:

A variety of troubled legacy assets are currently congesting the U.S. financial system. An initial
fundamental shock associated with the bursting of the housing bubble and deteriorating
economic conditions generated losses for leveraged investors including banks. This shock was
compounded by the fact that loan underwriting standards used by some originators had become
far too lax and by the proliferation of structured credit products, some of which were ill-understood by some market participants.

The resulting need to reduce risk triggered a wide-scale deleveraging in these markets and led to fire sales. As prices declined further, many traditional sources of capital exited these markets, causing declines in secondary market liquidity. As a result, we have been in a vicious cycle in which declining asset prices have triggered further deleveraging and reductions in market liquidity, which in turn have led to further price declines. While fundamentals have surely deteriorated over the past 18-24 months, there is evidence that current prices for some legacy assets embed substantial liquidity discounts.

Hamilton Pool Cleanup

Hamilton Pool
Originally uploaded by azurechaos

Hamilton Pool is one of those uniquely Austin places that everyone should see at least once. Which is exactly the number of times I've been out there and it was a lovely experience. The pool, as you can see from the picture, is a naturally formed swimming hole surrounded by limestone cliffs.  It's far enough out of town to make it a bit of an effort to get out there and they regulate the traffic, limiting parking on sight and carefully regulating when you can swim due to high bacteria counts.  But it's definitely worth it once you get out there and make the short hike from the parking area. 

Here's how the Hamilton Pool Natural Preserve website brief describes the situation:

Hamilton Pool Preserve is a historic swimming hole which was designated a preserve by the Travis County Commissioner's Court in 1990. Located 3/4 mile upstream from its confluence with the Pedernales River, Hamilton Creek spills out over limestone outcroppings to create a 50 foot waterfall as it plunges into the head of a steep box canyon. The waterfall never completely dries up, but in dry times it does slow to a trickle. However, the pool's water level stays pretty constant, even during periods of drought.

Now the bad news.  Back in 2007, sediment from an improperly mediated construction site mucked up the works and damaged the pool.  Travis County has just signed off on a $2.1 million settlement with the company to pay for clean-up of the pool and Hamilton Creek, so hopefully they'll be able to get things back to normal soon, Travis OK's Hamilton Pool Settlement:

In May 2007, officials noticed that a large amount of sediment had washed into the creek shortly after heavy rains that caused flooding through the Hill Country. Travis County officials blamed the Ranches at Hamilton Pool, a housing development along the Hays-Travis county line that included 29 homes on about 1,221 acres.

On Oct. 30, 2007, a lawsuit was filed in 98th District Court claiming that construction of the development "disturbed the land without effective pollution control measures" and caused the pollution of Hamilton Creek and damaged Hamilton Pool. The lawsuit alleged that the developers did not fix the problems and violated the Texas Water Code. The builders agreed in November 2007 to halt construction during the lawsuit.

Femmes for All Occasions

It's Gonna Rain (4:11):

Seven Year Old Fights Back

Last Saturday, one of the parents in my 'wee ones' class of 6-8 year old karate students pulled me aside and told me about a teachable moment she was wondering if I could follow up on.  Her daughter and a friend had been approached by strangers as they were walking a few hundred feet from one girl's house to the other's house.  It turned out to be a relatively benign interaction but it sparked conversations about talking to strangers and who a stranger is, especially as there was a story in the news about a man trying to grab a seven year old in a nearby part of town.  I finally found the story in the Statesman today, 7-Year Old Girl Fights Off Attacker--the girl and her ten year old brother were flying a kite:

The girl told police the man had approached the children without saying anything and grabbed at the girl.

The girl kicked and punched the man until he let go of her and ran off.

Neither child needed medical attention, police said.

I don't always respond to requests for what to do in a given class, though I'll grant you that the request usually comes from one of the students and involves playing games for the entire class.  But this seemed like a good idea, particularly since we like to talk to the kids about self defense issues anyway, so we spent ten or fifteen minutes talking about who they should talk to when their parents aren't around and how they can tell which adults are ones that their parents trust.  Some time in the next couple of weeks I hope to talk to them about things they can do to fight back if something ever happens to them and when that's appropriate. 

It's funny, when I was on the radio show Friday the moderator asked something to the effect of, are there things that you do in your children's classes to get the parents involved.  I mentioned how we always encourage parents to watch our classes and that we have many parents who do so but I didn't mention one of the most important things we try to do, which is to mingle with the parents after the class and talk to them about what's going on in their kids' lives. 

Teaching young children is such a difficult alchemy and often you'll see atypical reactions from a child in class and you won't know what it is that's caused them to be more withdrawn or aggressive than usual.  Contact with the parents is an incredibly important part of the process--it helps you figure out why certain approaches don't work with an individual child, gives you a heads-up when kids aren't feeling well or may be tuckered out and most importantly, makes karate class more of a collaborative effort.  It helps us reinforce lessons the parents are trying to teach in their homes and lets the parents know what we're trying to do with their children.

Backyard Birds: Chicken Coop Tour in Austin

I doubt I'll ever get to the point where I want to start raising my own chickens, for eggs or otherwise--having a couple of cats to keep alive is enough for me right now.  But I have a number of friends who do so and actually get my weekly eggs from one of them.  If any of you in Austin are interested in joining the trend or are just curious about what a backyard chicken coop or run might look like, there's a tour of Austin chicken houses coming up April 11th.  You can get more info at Funky Chicken Coop Tour:  Keep Austin Funky:

Come join us for the first Austin Texas Funky Chicken Coop Tour! Have you been thinking about keeping urban chickens? Do you need coop design ideas? Interested in the slow food/locavore movement? Then this is the tour for you! Hey, this is even for those of you that already have backyard chickens and are thinking about changing your coop design(there's always room for improvement, right?). Also, feel free to come peck(oops, meant pick ;-) our brains on raising chickens.

Thanks for the heads-up from Texas Locavore.