Bright-Sided

In her latest book, Barbara Ehrenreich explains how that motivational poster in your office can lead to detachment from reality, victim blaming, and complete economic collapse.

First, may I just say how much I love smart sarcastic liberal women. I wish they had their own baseball cards so that I could collect them all and trade them with my friends. Which, come on guys: totally marketable idea.

Ehrenreich is the author of Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America. (Here she is discussing the book on The Daily Show.) This is the first book of hers that I’ve read, and I hear from some guy on the bus that Nickel & Dimed is worth a look too.

Bright-Sided was a good chaser to the preachy fantasy story I was moaning about before, and a breath of fresh air after all the political and economic nonsense that’s been going on lately. In a tone that is a combination of seasoned journalist and trusted friend talking for hours over coffee, Ehrenreich tackles the obsessive “positive thinking” culture that often blinds us to our problems instead of helping us fix them.

St. Paul's Chapel

ABC News has obtained newly-released photos of the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11. There's not much I can say.

I went to New York City for the first time last October. On my second day there, I went downtown and saw Ground Zero for myself. I also stopped for a while in St. Paul's Chapel, the oldest church in Manhattan. It survived the attack and later served as a sanctuary for rescue workers and volunteers.


If you ever have the chance to go to this church, go. It's an amazing place. Love, grief and hope linger in the air and sink deep into you the moment you step inside.

On the postcard I picked up at the door as I left, there's a poem that describes it pretty well:

St. Paul’s Chapel
by J. Chester Johnson

It stood. Not a window broken. Not a stone dislodged.
It stood when nothing else did.
It stood when terrorists brought September down.
It stood among myths. It stood among ruins.

To stand was its purpose, long lines prove that.
It stands, and around it now, a shrine of letters,
poems, acrostics, litter of the heart.
It is the standing people want:
To grieve, serve and tend
celebrate the lasting stone of St. Paul’s Chapel.

And deep into its thick breath, the largest banner
fittingly from Oklahoma climbs heavenward
with hands as stars, hands as stripes, hands as a flag;
and a rescuer reaches for a stuffed toy
to collect a touch;
and George Washington’s pew doesn’t go unused.

Charity fills a hole or two.

It stood in place of other sorts.
It stood when nothing else could.
The great had fallen, as the brute hardware came down.

It stood.

ScienceGate

Okay, this? Is driving me up the wall.

Some top officials of a Nobel Prize-winning climate-science organization are acknowledging the panel made some mistakes amid a string of recent revelations questioning the accuracy of some of the information in its influential reports. [...]

[T]hough they say each revelation itself is small, they worry that the continuing string of them is damaging the IPCC's credibility—not just with experts who question the premise of human-induced climate change, but with the public at large.

I’m definitely angry with the scientists at the IPCC. I’m counting on them to be the rational reliable people in this debate and it does nobody any good when they cut corners and don’t own up to mistakes.

But what really gets me is that every time scientists do admit to a mistake, no matter how minor it ultimately is, the anti-science crowd start screeching at the top of their lungs. This disproves the entire theory! It’s all a conspiracy! Environmentalism is nothing but a cult!

Of course this makes massive headlines, which is all the deniers really want to do – not address the evidence or improve our understanding, but simply shout the whole thing down. And in the meantime scientists have to run around trying to convince the public that they're not evil, instead of focusing on scientific issues that really do need scrutiny and debate.

For the last time, nutjobs – true science is not a religion. It does not attempt to define the great cosmic Truth of the Universe. Science is about gathering evidence and creating, as best we can, a series of models that explain how the world works. If you find a mistake, you fix it. If you want to scrap an entire model, you come up with a better one. Those are the rules. If you’d paid attention in high school Chemistry class, you’d know that.

Gawd.

10 Reasons Sarah Palin Exasperates Me

I’m too lazy to actually write this evening, so here’s another silly list to tide me over. I went all fangirly over Rachel Maddow earlier, so I figure why not get both extremes out of the way.

I think the best place to start would be:

1. This stupid Runner’s World photo, which sums her up perfectly. I’m a runner too, lady. We don’t lounge about in our living rooms in full makeup with perfect hair. And the American flag draped over the chair is tacky and disrespectful, and the two Blackberrys? Why exactly?
2. She single-handedly reinforces the stereotype that women are silly, manipulative bitches who aren’t qualified for positions of power.
3. She makes me feel like a bad feminist. I know I should always speak out against sexism, but when Palin blatantly uses her sex appeal to control people I get so angry that I come dangerously close to thinking she deserves whatever she gets.
4. She gives a fresh new face to intolerance and ignorance, ensuring their survival for at least another generation.
5. She makes headlines in New Zealand all the time, forcing me to explain, over and over again, that not all Americans are like that. I thought that chore was over once Bush left office, but oh no!
6. The winking. And the “you betchas” and the “doggone its” and the doin' the bad sentence structure also.
7. She won’t shut up, and the media won’t stop falling all over themselves covering every word she says, and I’m hopelessly addicted to all of it.
8. Her new gig at Fox News. Actually I’m kind of grateful for that because it’s the one thing she’s done that makes perfect sense.
9. One of these days she’s going to make Andrew Sullivan lose his damn mind, and then whose blog will I read with my morning coffee every day?
10. During the infamous Katie Couric interview, Palin was asked why she didn’t get a passport until the year before the election. She answered, “I’m not one of those [...] who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world. Nooo, I worked all my life.” Seriously, bite me.

And look, I know, I know I’m only feeding the media frenzy and that’s exactly what she wants, but I honestly can’t help it. If Rachel Maddow represents my newly discovered progressive ideals, Sarah Palin is a funhouse-mirror version of my former Bible-thumping, flute-playing, distance-running Republican self. It’s like my subconscious invented her and now she’s burst forth into the world to torment me.

In which case, um, sorry guys.

Wellington, NZ

by Dinah Hawken

In the world of
possibilities why
am I here?

This view has an island
and half a heavenly
harbour in it

If I'm here to give
an inkling
of it with the sky
so finely featured
by mute explosions
of feathers and flowers
I think I'll settle under them
for no reason

I'll fling open my home
to any type of joke
or blessing, to any
random selection of the changeable
and simultaneously
occurring cavalcade
of supra-worldly
worldly
and under-worldly events

that exhibit here

Kia ora Aotearoa

Today is Waitangi Day. It is also the three-year anniversary of me arriving in New Zealand. I can't describe how much this country is leaving its mark on me. Thanks for everything, Aotearoa.

Paulo Coelho Says “Follow Your Heart”, Pisses Me Off

I should know by now to distrust a novel that declares it will “CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER” and has discussion questions at the back.

At first glance The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho seems like a story I would like. A young shepherd in Spain has a vision and sets off on a journey to Egypt to find a mysterious treasure that awaits him, learning along the way that his goals are possible even if everyone around him says they aren’t. I’ve done my share of dream-chasing and I love a good quest story, so I should have eaten this up.

But while I did read the whole thing in one evening, Coelho only managed to annoy me. First of all, he’s so determined to shoehorn a lesson into every scene that I can’t immerse myself in the journey. It also makes it seem like Coelho isn’t sure what his point is. Should the shepherd trust strangers or shouldn’t he? Does the crystal merchant need to take that pilgrimage to Mecca or not? And why is each nugget of wisdom explained to me like I’m an eight-year-old no matter which character is talking?

Official Spokesbird

Okay, name me another country that would take a joke like "shagged by a rare parrot" and embrace it so completely that the FREAKING PRIME MINISTER gets in on it. Hint: You can't.



Rachel Maddow has been all over this story today, so I have to tell you, it's a proud day for all New Zealanders.

More information about Sirocco, our Official Spokesbird for Conservation, can be found at www.spokesbird.com.

Pretty Much Sums It Up

Bad cyclist, bad.

From the "Oh Geez, I Actually Wrote That" File

May as well be up front about it, really.

When I was in college, I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. I mean like "watched Fellowship of the Ring twelve times at the cinema" obsessed. Embarrassing to admit, but I was studying computer science at the time and the LOTR films came out right in the middle of Finals Week and I NEEDED ESCAPISM OKAY.

So I was idly reminiscing about it today and I remembered this:

The Story of Legolas and Enoreth

That right there is a complete, novel-length LOTR fanfiction story about Legolas Greenleaf, written by me. And a satire, no less. Fanfic about fanfic, how meta.

I'm blushing just looking at it, but you know, the story has its moments. The bit with the talking raccoon still makes me laugh. Poor Legolas, the Mary Sues will be the death of you.

I once wrote Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanfiction too, but damned if I'm going to show you where that is.

The Art of Travel

Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel:

If we find poetry in the service station and motel, if we are drawn to the airport or train carriage, it is perhaps because, in spite of their architectural compromises and discomforts, in spite of their garish colours and harsh lighting, we implicitly feel that these isolated places offer us a material setting for an alternative to the selfish ease, the habits and confinement of the ordinary, rooted world.

New Year's Resolution

This year, I will stop creating blogs and then abandoning them to starve to death. Poor blog. *pets*