Makes Sense To Me

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/government-market-free-2171583-money-work?referrer=google

This was in the Sunday's Register's Commentary section. Greenhut also has a blog called Orange Punch.

CO2 Is Not Satan

Yesterday I attended a lecture put on by the Ayn Rand Institute titled "A Critique of Global Warming Science and Policy".  It was at USC and I didn't want to go alone so I took a friend from work.  After getting on the wrong freeway twice, parking as far away from campus as possible, and looking into every room of Taper Hall except the right one, we were half an hour late.  We snuck in the back of a room of about thirty or forty people and sat down, trying to catch onto what was going on.  The first speaker had already given his talk proving how Global Warming is pretty much false and data is skewed.  So if you ask me, "Hannah, what about An Inconvenient Truth and Mr. Gore's jaw dropping discoveries?  You can't say that's all false!"  I will say, "I wish I could tell you what Willie Soon said."  Because I really do.  But I did get to hear the majority of Keith Lockitch's speech about the policies and ridiculous amounts of funding caused by the global (sounds scary, doesn't it?) warming.  (Put the word "global" in front of anything and it sounds pretty intimidating.)  

After both speeches there was a time for questions and answers.  I listened to Mr. Soon repeat some of his findings after eighteen years of working on this issue.  So I was somewhat clued in.  I still had so many questions, though I could never ask them because it's likely that the question is either (a) unintelligent because and I was very uninformed compared to the rest of the audience or (b) just plain already answered in the first part of the lecture.  So I kept my hand down.  Except to move away a piece of hair from my face, which evidently caught Mr. Soon's attention.  He pointed at me, letting me ask the question he thought I had prepared.  I looked around,  hoping there was someone behind me (which is silly because the only thing behind me was a wall) who had their hand raised.  Alas, it was me everyone was looking at.  I made weird noises like, "Uh, mmm, oh."  And instead of saying, "Oh, sorry, I didn't have a question" like normal person, I proceeded to spout the most ridiculous, unintelligent, made from thin-air question.  I don't even want to write what I said.  (If you know me, you might know that I blush if anyone just looks at me.  I was probably Trojan red, but kept my eye contact with Mr. Soon, nodding my head as he answered my question.)  Of course, Mr. Soon didn't really understand my question.   I didn't even really understand my question.  Something about CO2.  

He answered briefly then took that subject and went on to explain that CO2 is not the problem.  Heat, the rise in temperature is the problem.  Yes, he says, there is a definite rise in CO2 level; no one can deny that.  "But people forget that CO2 is not bad.  It's good!  CO2 is not Satan!"  Mr. Soon got very passionate during that two hours.  "We breathe out CO2.  The plants need the CO2 to live!"  

I really wish I had enough sense to wear roller blades or heelies (those shoes with wheels that I've always wanted) or something to speed from our car to campus, but my foolish brain decided to wear ordinary sandals.  I did pick up some free pamphlets and such that have helped clue me in a little more about evil environmentalists. (really, I have one right here titled "Environmentalism:  A Doctrine of Man-Hatred")  But I am still totally uninformed about the science of the whole thing.  Disappointment.  

The same lecture is being held at UC Berkeley tomorrow.  Go to it if you can.  Then tell me what I missed!

Experiencing the Other

I'm a white girl and I work at a sushi restaurant.  Normally, no one points out that I'm the only blonde in the entire building.  I don't think it's that weird.  Our restaurant isn't super authentic or anything.  The owner is Korean and there are only a few Japanese people who work there.  

But tonight, this one drunk woman couldn't stop talking about how I wasn't, you know, asian.  Her husband pokes her and whispers, "Ask her.  Ask her."  

"Excuse me.  Why do you work here?"  

"I'm sorry?"  I'm a little confused.

"How did you start working here?"

I know what she means but I ask, "What do you mean?"

"You're not Japanese."

A revelation.  Everything is clear to me now.  My life makes much more sense now that I know that I'm white.

I push up my glasses and try to explain, "Actually, there are only a couple people here that are Japanese.  Everyone else is Korean or Vietnamese."

She thinks I don't understand.  "No.  You're not...asian."  Now, here's what gets me.  She actually whispers "asian."  Is it a crime to be asian?  I am thoroughly baffled at this point.  After a glass of wine and three beers, I can understand why  she's so talkative.  But when she says this I'm thinking she thinks I don't know I'm not asian and everyone else who is asian doesn't know that they are.  I leave her comment a little open ended so she understands what she is saying.  But she doesn't.  We proceed to talk about why I must have some asian roots or something, and I'm just reconnecting.  

"But you're a very smart girl.  You look very smart."

"Actually, I am smart."

"Yes.  I can tell.  I can tell you have a strong emotional intelligence."

Acting like I know what this means I thank her.  

I tried to avoid her the rest of the night but she was sitting right where I had to pick up the food from the chefs, so she always caught me.  She told me how she is part Portuguese and that she can get up and salsa dance right now.  I was not going to stop her.  Unfortunately, she stayed in her seat.  

I walked away after she told me I'm experiencing reverse discrimination.  Thanks for thinking I'm special and all, but I really don't think I'm being discriminated against.  Also, why on earth is it called reverse discrimination?  As if the only race that can discriminate against other races is white?  

Sometimes people get disappointed when they don't have an asian waiting on them, especially an asian girl.  She is thought of to be exotic and submissive and they'd rather her bring them a spicy tuna roll than a dorky blonde girl with glasses.  It's ridiculous but true.  Why is there no second thought when a non-white person works at a burger joint?  

And it's bizarre to me how many people clump all asian ethnicities together.  Just as long as they are considered "other than."  

(Don't try to get this from the OCC Library, because I have it right now.  But try back on September 30.)

Consider David Foster Wallace

Death is really the best publicity, especially when it’s dramatic. I’ve had a book by David Foster Wallace on my bookshelf for some months now and only picked it up to read after his suicide on September 12 of this year. I didn’t follow his work too closely, but I’ve always been interested in things he’s had to say. I’ve been surprised at how much his unexpected death has been on my mind. I’ve been reading The Broom of the System, his first novel, and starting to understand the development of his writing style.

Something I really like about Wallace is his ability to write about anything in the world and still make you think about it for the rest of the day. In 2004, he wrote an article, titled "Consider the Lobster", for Gourmet Magazine. His assignment was to cover a lobster festival in Maine. But he turned it into a piece about the ethics of capturing, boiling, dismantling, buttering and consuming lobster all for our personal pleasure. After discussing the history of these crustaceans and details about the possibility of their ability to feel pain, he asks the question, “…what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands (since of course refined enjoyment, rather than ingestion, is the whole point of gastronomy)?” But it was more than a PETA pamphlet. Wallace offers an open discussion, after presenting the hard facts of lobsters and their preparation, about the simple morality of inflicting pain on another creature. He was not vegetarian or vegan, just a thinker who was willing to research and discover for himself the truth behind the delicacy of lobster. And this was published in a magazine for gourmets and cooks to flip the pages for recipes on lobsters, and crabs, and chicken, and veal for the matter. He acknowledges his audience as such, but continues to keep them thinking, no doubt.

https://mail.vanguard.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?currentPage=1

The literalism of Roland Barthes’ essay titled “Death of the Author” in situations like these seems to evoke an opposite approach. Instead of deriving meaning out of an author’s work while ignoring his identity (including his views, race, childhood, religion, etc.), I cannot read a piece by Wallace without considering his history and his past up until the time he was writing. I can’t help but wonder about his psychological development while reading his novels, essays, and articles about inflicting pain on another creature. I had hoped for another forty years of writing. But some things that go on inside are too difficult to explain in a novel.