I had no trouble imagining how Katy Tur and Jacob Soboroff felt as they stood in front of the charred remains of their childhood homes in Pacific Palisades recently to report about the disaster on MSNBC. Nan and I spent the first year after our marriage in 1971 in the apartment created out of the servant's quarters in the garage behind a magnificent Spanish-style mansion at 2072 East Altadena Drive in Altadena, about five blocks from the entrance to Eaton Canyon, after which the Eaton Fire has been named. I was finishing my senior year at Caltech, and working as the student assistant to the JPL Historian. Nan was finishing up two years at Pasadena City College after having left Wellesley in her first semester there because she couldn't stand its smugly aristocratic campus culture. She had grown up mostly at 5164 Earl Drive in La Cañada, across the Arroyo and its famed Rose Bowl from Pasadena and Altadena, in a house where we stole our first kiss on the back patio before dinner one night, and where we were wed in the back yard under an olive tree. That, too, is located in the evacuation zone of the Eaton Fire, but as far as we can tell, it has not yet been seriosly threatened. We still don't know for sure, but from what we've seen so far, it's highly likely that our apartment in Altadena is in cinders. Certainly there are many, many places we knew and loved, such as the tasty Dutch-Indonesian restaurant on North Lake in Altadena, that are gone. As we await the Trump inauguration, we need these extra sources of depression like a hole in the head, of course. But having lived through Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, Reagan, and much else, I long ago chose to adopt the buddhist practices of accepting the Universe as it is, letting go, living in the present, and choosing to concentrate on what I can nonetheless still do to leave the world a better place than the one into which I was born. Kudos to Jimmy Carter for having the good grace to die just now, when we all need a refreshing and inspiring reminder of what it's like to live a life well-lived. It adds one last positive contribution to the long list of them that is his legacy. I recommend that all your readers focus on him, Rex, and follow his good example, rather than dwell on all the negative aspects of life in this particular vale of tears that we find ourselves in. Sun still comes up every morning. Happy New Year, everyone.
Thanks, Tom, for your always thoughtful commentary. Yes, I think Jimmy Carter's life is surely a model, and there's comfort in the hope of emulating that. I appreciate your Buddhist reference -- note that I quoted Pema Chodron in last week's column! -- but for me the model of Carter's well-lived time on earth suggests doing what we can in the midst of adversity. So rather than just accepting the reality of being buffeted by the chaos of the Trump era, I've got to do something that seems positive -- which for me includes writing this column. Onward, then, with hope.
8 years ago I went to Washington DC to be counted as one of millions who did not welcome the new administration and to let the world know that people were watching what went on in Washington. This time I am staying home. Not from exhaustion or apathy or resignation. But to keep a low profile, not attract attention. I will continue to conduct myself in a way to build community and make where I live a better place. I am keeping my ears open so that I know what others are doing to protect vulnerable groups but not publicizing that information, just ready to assist where needed.
I think (I hope) that the millions of people who marched 8 years ago are hunkered down, fortified and ready to do what needs to be done to put out any fires that spring up near them.
Thank you, Pamela. I think taking some time for deep breathing and staying a bit "hunkered down," as you write, isn't a bad idea at all. There will be a time and a place for resistance, so that we won't lose our progress toward a more just and safe world. We've got to keep hope alive.
A ..."fish ...kept stationary. ...the team projected images showing no progress no matter how hard the fish tried to swim. ... The fish will sense something wrong immediately, and we can tell because it'll swim harder at first and struggle more. And then eventually it'll just stop and sit there. ..: giving up behavior ..." (NPR)
"One of the biggest threats to American democracy right now isn’t nuclear war or terrorism, but the growing narcissism and nihilism of the public, says Tom Nichols ...: “You will have a technocracy that just doesn’t ask us our views anymore because they can’t get an answer out of us. And I always say, this will not be a takeover. Other people will govern us by default because we don’t care.”..." (The Harvard Gazette)
"If enough people had stood up then, on Kristallnacht, and said, "Enough! What are you doing? What is wrong with you?" then the course of history would have been different. But they did not. They were scared. They were weak. And their weakness allowed them to be manipulated into hatred."
Eddie Jaku (The Happiest Man on Earth, p.26)
"...males compete with each to form territories and access food, while females don't, says Zipple. "We have this really useful system where we have one sex experience and really intense competition and the other sex does not."...For example, an individual male mouse might just so happen to win a fight with its identical twin over food. That lucky break would help it become bigger than its twin, setting it up to win the next fight.
Those contingent experiences mattered a lot more for males than females...For males, "they pretty early on start to diverge into really high quality and low quality males, or males that are gaining access to resources and males that are being excluded from resources,"..." NPR
"According to .... Louis Rougier and Friedrich Hayek, the competition of neoliberalism would establish an elite structure of successful individuals that would assume power in society, with these elites replacing the existing representative democracy acting on the behalf of the majority." Wikipedia
"... we tested whether testosterone contributes to men's (N = 120, age range: 18-38 years) dehumanization of women. After administration of intranasal testosterone or placebo gel, men watched a video of a woman wearing either modest (i.e., conservative) or revealing (i.e., sexualized) clothing (between-subjects factor) and then completed three subtle dehumanization tasks, measuring emotion-based, personality-based, and perceptual dehumanization. We hypothesized that testosterone would increase dehumanization, especially for men who watched the "sexualized-clothing" video. Instead, we found that, while men engaged in emotion-based dehumanization toward the sexualized woman both when they had testosterone and placebo, testosterone increased emotion-based dehumanization toward the conservatively dressed woman" Francesca R Luberti et al. (Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2024 Dec)
"...UCLA Health researchers have found that people who experienced discrimination had pro-inflammatory bacteria and gene activity in their gut microbiome that was different from those who did not experience discrimination. The researchers could also predict with 91% accuracy...
"These findings are consistent with the idea that discrimination leads to micro-inflammation of your body,” Dong said, adding that chronic inflammation has been associated with various diseases." (UCLA Health)
"The mammalian host microbiome affects many targets throughout the body, at least in part through an integrated gut-brain-immune axis and neuropeptide hormone oxytocin. It was discovered in animal models that microbial symbionts, such as Lactobacillus reuteri, leverage perinatal niches to promote multigenerational good health and reproductive fitness. While roles for oxytocin were once limited to women, such as giving birth and nurturing offspring, oxytocin is now also proposed to have important roles linking microbial symbionts with overall host fitness and survival throughout the evolutionary journey." (Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology 2023 Aug)
"This is the most important thing I have ever learned: the greatest thing you will ever do is to be loved by another person.
I cannot emphasize this enough, especially to young people. Without friendship, a human being is lost. A friend is someone who reminds you to feel alive." Eddie Jaku (p.83)
Thank you. A much needed call to continue to strive for truth and dignity, and all that goes with that. It’s hard not to think of Jimmy Carter: character, character, character.
Yes, Bill -- Jimmy Carter was attacked and ridiculed, but his good work made a difference, both when he was in office and after. We may live by that example.
I had no trouble imagining how Katy Tur and Jacob Soboroff felt as they stood in front of the charred remains of their childhood homes in Pacific Palisades recently to report about the disaster on MSNBC. Nan and I spent the first year after our marriage in 1971 in the apartment created out of the servant's quarters in the garage behind a magnificent Spanish-style mansion at 2072 East Altadena Drive in Altadena, about five blocks from the entrance to Eaton Canyon, after which the Eaton Fire has been named. I was finishing my senior year at Caltech, and working as the student assistant to the JPL Historian. Nan was finishing up two years at Pasadena City College after having left Wellesley in her first semester there because she couldn't stand its smugly aristocratic campus culture. She had grown up mostly at 5164 Earl Drive in La Cañada, across the Arroyo and its famed Rose Bowl from Pasadena and Altadena, in a house where we stole our first kiss on the back patio before dinner one night, and where we were wed in the back yard under an olive tree. That, too, is located in the evacuation zone of the Eaton Fire, but as far as we can tell, it has not yet been seriosly threatened. We still don't know for sure, but from what we've seen so far, it's highly likely that our apartment in Altadena is in cinders. Certainly there are many, many places we knew and loved, such as the tasty Dutch-Indonesian restaurant on North Lake in Altadena, that are gone. As we await the Trump inauguration, we need these extra sources of depression like a hole in the head, of course. But having lived through Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, Reagan, and much else, I long ago chose to adopt the buddhist practices of accepting the Universe as it is, letting go, living in the present, and choosing to concentrate on what I can nonetheless still do to leave the world a better place than the one into which I was born. Kudos to Jimmy Carter for having the good grace to die just now, when we all need a refreshing and inspiring reminder of what it's like to live a life well-lived. It adds one last positive contribution to the long list of them that is his legacy. I recommend that all your readers focus on him, Rex, and follow his good example, rather than dwell on all the negative aspects of life in this particular vale of tears that we find ourselves in. Sun still comes up every morning. Happy New Year, everyone.
Thanks, Tom, for your always thoughtful commentary. Yes, I think Jimmy Carter's life is surely a model, and there's comfort in the hope of emulating that. I appreciate your Buddhist reference -- note that I quoted Pema Chodron in last week's column! -- but for me the model of Carter's well-lived time on earth suggests doing what we can in the midst of adversity. So rather than just accepting the reality of being buffeted by the chaos of the Trump era, I've got to do something that seems positive -- which for me includes writing this column. Onward, then, with hope.
8 years ago I went to Washington DC to be counted as one of millions who did not welcome the new administration and to let the world know that people were watching what went on in Washington. This time I am staying home. Not from exhaustion or apathy or resignation. But to keep a low profile, not attract attention. I will continue to conduct myself in a way to build community and make where I live a better place. I am keeping my ears open so that I know what others are doing to protect vulnerable groups but not publicizing that information, just ready to assist where needed.
I think (I hope) that the millions of people who marched 8 years ago are hunkered down, fortified and ready to do what needs to be done to put out any fires that spring up near them.
Thank you, Pamela. I think taking some time for deep breathing and staying a bit "hunkered down," as you write, isn't a bad idea at all. There will be a time and a place for resistance, so that we won't lose our progress toward a more just and safe world. We've got to keep hope alive.
A ..."fish ...kept stationary. ...the team projected images showing no progress no matter how hard the fish tried to swim. ... The fish will sense something wrong immediately, and we can tell because it'll swim harder at first and struggle more. And then eventually it'll just stop and sit there. ..: giving up behavior ..." (NPR)
"One of the biggest threats to American democracy right now isn’t nuclear war or terrorism, but the growing narcissism and nihilism of the public, says Tom Nichols ...: “You will have a technocracy that just doesn’t ask us our views anymore because they can’t get an answer out of us. And I always say, this will not be a takeover. Other people will govern us by default because we don’t care.”..." (The Harvard Gazette)
"If enough people had stood up then, on Kristallnacht, and said, "Enough! What are you doing? What is wrong with you?" then the course of history would have been different. But they did not. They were scared. They were weak. And their weakness allowed them to be manipulated into hatred."
Eddie Jaku (The Happiest Man on Earth, p.26)
"...males compete with each to form territories and access food, while females don't, says Zipple. "We have this really useful system where we have one sex experience and really intense competition and the other sex does not."...For example, an individual male mouse might just so happen to win a fight with its identical twin over food. That lucky break would help it become bigger than its twin, setting it up to win the next fight.
Those contingent experiences mattered a lot more for males than females...For males, "they pretty early on start to diverge into really high quality and low quality males, or males that are gaining access to resources and males that are being excluded from resources,"..." NPR
"According to .... Louis Rougier and Friedrich Hayek, the competition of neoliberalism would establish an elite structure of successful individuals that would assume power in society, with these elites replacing the existing representative democracy acting on the behalf of the majority." Wikipedia
"... we tested whether testosterone contributes to men's (N = 120, age range: 18-38 years) dehumanization of women. After administration of intranasal testosterone or placebo gel, men watched a video of a woman wearing either modest (i.e., conservative) or revealing (i.e., sexualized) clothing (between-subjects factor) and then completed three subtle dehumanization tasks, measuring emotion-based, personality-based, and perceptual dehumanization. We hypothesized that testosterone would increase dehumanization, especially for men who watched the "sexualized-clothing" video. Instead, we found that, while men engaged in emotion-based dehumanization toward the sexualized woman both when they had testosterone and placebo, testosterone increased emotion-based dehumanization toward the conservatively dressed woman" Francesca R Luberti et al. (Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2024 Dec)
"...UCLA Health researchers have found that people who experienced discrimination had pro-inflammatory bacteria and gene activity in their gut microbiome that was different from those who did not experience discrimination. The researchers could also predict with 91% accuracy...
"These findings are consistent with the idea that discrimination leads to micro-inflammation of your body,” Dong said, adding that chronic inflammation has been associated with various diseases." (UCLA Health)
"The mammalian host microbiome affects many targets throughout the body, at least in part through an integrated gut-brain-immune axis and neuropeptide hormone oxytocin. It was discovered in animal models that microbial symbionts, such as Lactobacillus reuteri, leverage perinatal niches to promote multigenerational good health and reproductive fitness. While roles for oxytocin were once limited to women, such as giving birth and nurturing offspring, oxytocin is now also proposed to have important roles linking microbial symbionts with overall host fitness and survival throughout the evolutionary journey." (Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology 2023 Aug)
"This is the most important thing I have ever learned: the greatest thing you will ever do is to be loved by another person.
I cannot emphasize this enough, especially to young people. Without friendship, a human being is lost. A friend is someone who reminds you to feel alive." Eddie Jaku (p.83)
Thank you. A much needed call to continue to strive for truth and dignity, and all that goes with that. It’s hard not to think of Jimmy Carter: character, character, character.
Yes, Bill -- Jimmy Carter was attacked and ridiculed, but his good work made a difference, both when he was in office and after. We may live by that example.