Andrea Sends a Letter, Volume III

Episode 1, series finale: At 11:05 AM EST (or EDT??), Your Fearless Leader Mailed a Letter. It was easy. She said no when they asked if she wanted more than one stamp.

Andrea Sends a Letter, Volume II

• Episode 1: After writing blog post about failing to send letter, notice the full, cold truth of how pathetic lack of letter sending is. Vow to send letter that afternoon.
• Episode 2: Afternoon passes. No letter sent.

Andrea Sends a Letter, Volume I

• Episode 1: Spend a day finding a card that isn't obviously from a drug store discount bucket but also doesn't cost $7.95.
• Episode 2: Keep card and envelope in bag for 2-2.5 weeks. (I'm traveling! I can't write CARDS!)
• Episode 3: Return from travels. Wait several days. Call someone to get address of recipient. Write address on a used post-it note found in car. Put post-it in bag with card.
• Episode 4: Two days later, address envelope, be grateful key post-it is still there. Write first half of card. Discover it is glossy and thus smearing everywhere. Stop.
• Episode 5: Carry open card around another hour. Finally close it, hope ink doesn't get destroyed.
• Episode 6: 3 week days and 2 weekend days later, finish second half of card.
• Episode 7: Keep it open on desk for several hours. Close it, lick envelope. Put in bag.
• Episode 8: Leave in bag until there is time to go to Post Office to get stamp. But the Post Office closes at 5 PM. Also, it is cold out. 2 more days pass.

TO BE CONTINUED!

A Day in the Midwest

Yours Truly is in a Prominent Bank on a Prominent Street in a Town in Michigan, when a nearly toothless man in a wheelchair rolls in at top speed from a very snowy sidewalk. He has a backback that looks empty and the biggest Grin you have ever seen.

He halts, spins around once to take everyone in. Someone asks how his Christmas was. He shouts: "In my old age, I don't need anything new! I just want to be able to come in and say hello to my favorite bankers!"

Everyone exclaims hello back, asks how he has been since Christmas. He is, as you might expect, Outstanding.

He wheels up to the counter and addresses the gentle old lady teller with the salutation, "Hello, Marvelous!" Her response is not audible.

Immediately following that is the most rip-roaring conversation anyone has ever heard about how Kroger is the best grocery store anyone could have asked for. Everyone is involved and has a laudable thing to add about our Humble Grocery Chain.

When they run out of praises to sing, one lady helps him get something out of his backpack. He leaves in a flash, having done no banking. Everyone carries on. Yours Truly waits more.

(Insider tip: don't even think about going to Meijer unless you feel like waiting for a hundred years at their slow self checkout lines!!)

(Insider counter-tip: Yours Truly attended a Luncheon once with Hank Meijer, son of owner. He is, it turns out, a very Nice man, is writing a biography of his father, and is very Philanthropic to good causes like Microcredit. This post in no way intends to reflect the Opinion of Anyone, except for those stated herein, and heretofore.)

Some Days I am Organized. Some Days I work well under Pressure. Other Days, I Despise My Team Members.

Earlier This Week, Yours Truly overheard a Woman in a Café participating in an event that very exactly approximated a Job Interview. Your Fearless Leader overheard her proclaim about herself that she had a "dynamic skill set."

Your Leader wonders: does this mean that what she is good at changes?

If Anyone Reading This is a Character Developer for Heroes (if that show is still on), Yours Truly has three words for you:

You

Are

Welcome!

Springtime* Competition!

Dear Readers!  In the past two weeks, Your Fearless Leader has engaged in the Modern Act of causing the transfer of funds out of her bank account and into the bank account of something or someone in another place.  But, these were not just any old transfers to any old places!  No sir, they were transfers to -- this is important --

TWO PLACES THAT ARE FORSAKEN BY GOD.

One is Indiana.  The other is Azerbaijan.

And now ... the question on everybody's mind: Which is MORE FORSAKEN?!

VOTE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*not springtime.

Do this, actually

I just read about a website called FutureMe on my fine friend Daniel Leary's blog. It's a site where you can compose an email to yourself and then designate its delivery for a time in the future. (Interesting in itself, though I feel like regular old email has that function?)

BUT: I invite and encourage you, dear readers, to go this very instant directly to FutureMe and click on "view public entries". There, you can all experience for yourselves the stunning discovery that at the core everybody's problems are exactly the same. More evidence that our contexts are our only differences?

Deal with that!

You may also feel free to wonder (1) why people elect to send themselves messages about bad things and not good ones, and (2) why people don't email themselves "big" questions. We wonder what colleges we'll get into, not why we all devised the institution of education in the first place. A survival mechanism, presumably. Questioning the status quo is difficult (and for a few good, solid reasons, at least in the short run).

As for not going back even further and wondering why we're all here in the first place to think about life -- much less eduation, much less what college we're going to go to, much less why we are bothering to email ourselves about it ... well ....

Once you're done with that, do this.

Firmly Resolving the Debate Once and For All

The fundamental flaw with all Cirque du Soleil music, for all who are interested, is that it is all too very "ta da" in nature.

Back on my high horse

Writing a dissertation is like going to the gym ---- Just kidding, dear readers! This blog entry is decidedly not about my dissertation (whew). Instead, it is about this article. But you are busy people, so instead of expecting you all to read the article, I will present the main points for your convenience, information, and discussion. First, here is the background:

1. The cost of food is on the rise around the world.
2. This is mostly because demand is skyrocketing as people in developing countries get wealthier.
3. The world's stockpiles of grain are the lowest since world stockpiles of grain made sense as a concept.
4. High prices of food are contributing to inflation in the US
5. High prices of food are contributing to social unrest and violence in many countries
   

Now, to be sure, farmers all over the place are responding to the demand by growing as much as they can. But it's all mostly wheat and grains. (Fun fact: there was a one-day pasta strike in Italy last year!) Apparently demand for bread is huge in a lot of places that don't traditionally include it in their diets:

"Between 1995 and 2005, per capita wheat consumption in Nigeria more than tripled, to 44 pounds a year. Bread has been displacing traditional foods like eba, dumplings made from cassava root." It's even gotten to the point where, if you think about it in terms of a substance, people are basically addicted to it. (On this subject, read this book.)

Add to this that demand for other American-style foods is also increasing -- In addition to bread, people all over the place now want things like pork, dairy, and beef. (I've belabored the point elsewhere about how eating all of these things basically makes our healthcare costs ridiculously high and probably is what gives us all degenerative diseases.)

It used to be that the Standard American Diet was the sort of thing that was bad for our health, sure, and, ok, also terrible for the environment. But at least the environmental impact was somewhat mitigated by the fact that it was mostly just Americans eating this way. Then our harmful and unsustainable habits spread to parts of Western Europe. Then they caught on in China. Now they're really ramping up everywhere.

Thus, in the midst of global concerns about overpopulation and global warming, the very lifestyle that contributes most to healthcare costs, costs of living, and environmental damage is spreading like wildfire. Or like a disease!

As if all of this isn't bad enough, the US Government is actively limiting the ability of local farmers in the US to (a) increase how much they grow, and (b) grow things that are not corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and cotton -- which are the five federally subsidized commodity crops. For more on this terrifying story, go here.

How is it possible, you ask, that in the face of what looks to be a flat-out global economic, health, and food crisis, the US Government isn't changing its policies drastically to try to prevent it, or at least strongly minimize its effects? Alas, my friends, THAT is the subject of my dissertation.

Damn! But before I go, a piece of advice: Even if they tell you you can't have more than one Blockbuster account, you actually can.
Piece of advice #2: Don't incorporate in Nevada.
Piece of advice that I never follow: Brevity, friends, brevity!

No way to know!

Our perspective controls everything, even things that happen as -- what we at least thought were -- seemingly straightforward chemical reactions in the body! Before you dismiss that sentence as making no sense, fine readers, let me explain: there's an article in the NYTimes today on drinking and why people do it and how people in different cultures react to excessive consumption of alcohol. Now, not only do people in different cultures act differently when they're drunk (Americans get aggressive, Japanese sing, Brazilians in some areas get really reserved. Are you surprised by any of this?), but also how our body responds to alcohol can depend on whether we think we're drinking it! Apparently in the 80s a series of studies were conducted where study participants were either given alcoholic drinks or a placebo. The ones who thought they were getting alcohol but weren't acted just as ridiculous as the ones who actually were. And vice-versa, those who only thought they were not drinking acted the same as who actually were not drinking. Most amazing of all:

"One participant insisted that she could not have been drinking because alcohol always made her flush.

“We told her that, yes, in fact she was drinking it,” Dr. Marlatt said. “She immediately flushed.”

Incredible, right?! I'm telling you, 90% of what we do has everything to do with what we think is going on, not what's actually going on. Well, maybe not 90%, but I bet it's high. I'll say it: maybe even higher! I suppose there's no way to ever know, unless humans start getting tested by aliens. Otherwise we're trapped in our own perception nightmare.

Oh, and not only that, but people in different cultures drink for different reasons. Apparently Western cultures are more prone to excuse drinking as a needed "mental vacation" than other cultures. Just more evidence that the Western political/social/economic model is not the cure-all some purport it to be.

Finally, if nothing else, this article has one of the most aesthetically pleasing sentences I've read in a long time: "the disconnect between the conventional wisdom and the available evidence is even now so scandalous as to exceed the limits of reasonable toleration.”

I love that shit. If you still want to read the actual article even though I've spoiled all the highlights for you, you can find it here. In the meantime, I'll work on spoiler alerts.