Happy Sukkot!!!

If you don't know what Sukkot is, here's a quick description.

Navy swastika

$600,000 of your tax money is going for camouflage for a naval barracks building that, from the air, looks like a swastika. Sigh. [Source]

No comments on any of my topical posts. You guys prefer the personal stuff? (Post your answer to this question in the comments section.)

Immigrants steal our jobs

Immigrants--legal and illegal--come here and take jobs, but they also make jobs. They need people to grow and sell them food, to provide them with housing, to cut their hair, to sell them cars and clothes and medicines, so they don't just take jobs, they make more jobs. If more people meant fewer jobs available, then we should be against a growing population. Yet the US population has grown at a clip for centuries, and we still haven't run out of jobs.

There may be some people who are hurt by immigration. If a boatload of physicists crossed the border, there might be less jobs for American physicists, even as there are more jobs for restaurants, doctors, and cell phone manufacturers. But those who say the overall economic effect is harmful are not looking at the big picture.

Plus, we should consider what dire situations cause people to risk their lives crossing deserts to get here. These are desperate people, and we should help them if we can, especially since they are not looking for a handout, just for a job, usually a hard and crummy job, with which to feed their families.

Illegal immigration does pose problems that legal immigration does not. These people are often afraid to go to the hospital when sick, afraid to go to the police when victims of crime, afraid to complain when mistreated by employers, and so on. In my mind, the solution is to make is easier to come in legally, and welcome the huddled masses. The second solution is to invest in the economies of developing nations so that they don't have to come here to eke out an existence. There is something ridiculous in the fact that a restaurant busboy in the US makes more money than a college professor in much of the developing world.

War cost

Bush's request for war funding for 2008 is about $190 billion. That's $1800 per US household. That's how much you're paying for the war in this one year alone. And don't think that's covered in your taxes, we're borrowing the money for the war, so you haven't paid it yet. The bill will come later, but it will surely come. The human price of the war far outstrips the economic cost, of course, but this gives an additional sense to help you answer the question of whether it's all worth it.

Gender happiness

In a recent happiness survey, men and women often gave similar answers about what they liked to do (hanging out with friends) and didn’t like (paying bills). But men apparently enjoy being with their parents, while women find time with their mom and dad to be slightly less pleasant than doing laundry. Could it be that women are doing work with their parents (planning events? paying bills?) while men are just watching TV?

Also, in the early 1970s, women reported being slightly happier than men. Today, the two have switched places. Women spend about the same amount of time on unpleasant tasks, but men work less and relax more than they used to. Back then, women spent 45 minutes a week more than men on unpleasant tasks; today it's 90 minutes.

It's true in high school too. About 25% of male high school seniors say they are very satisfied with their lives, up from 16% in 1976. Roughly 22% of senior girls now give that answer, unchanged from the 1970s. [Source]

Democracy fails in DC

Legislation to give voting representation to DC in the House of Representatives (and also an extra seat to Utah, so that it won't change the party balance) already passed the House, and had 57 votes in the Senate, but that wasn't enough to overcome a Republican filibuster. Yes, Republicans are against democracy for the people of DC, a population bigger than Wyoming. Shockingly to me, John McCain voted with the Republicans against the bill. I have always respected McCain and he's my favorite in the Republican primary -- or was. Anyone who doesn't support something as basic as democracy is off my list. (Two Democrats, Byrd and Baucus, joined Republicans in voting against cloture.)

中秋節快樂! Happy Moon Festival!

Look up at the full moon tonight, perhaps with a pomelo or mooncake in hand, and read the story of the moon festival. (You can find the story online. There are many versions, so just pick any one.)

Acupuncture, Kytofu, etc

Interesting study:

Six months of acupuncture provides more relief for back pain than conventional treatments, according to a large new study. But surprisingly, fake acupuncture works just as well as the real thing. Nearly half the patients in the acupuncture group reported significant relief, compared to just 27% in the conventional therapy group. But nearly as many people in the group given fake acupuncture — 44% — also reported significant relief. Real acupuncture did reduce the need for pain medicine. Only 15% of patients who received real acupuncture used extra pain medication, but 34% of patients in the sham group and 59% of patients in conventional therapy needed extra pain pills. [Source: NY Times]

If you're in need of lower back pain relief, ask your doctor about acupuncture, and if she doesn't know, berate her incompetence for peddling inferior treatment. I certainly don't know how many other maladies have effective non-drug treatments that doctors simply don't bother to learn about because it's not what they're used to, forcing "alternative medicine" into a realm where it's impossible to tell BS from the real thing. [Steps off soapbox]

Random health facts:
* In studies, the only food that has been shown to have an affect on the rate of mosquito bites (garlic doesn't) is drinking alcohol, which attracts them. [Source]
* A study found that hot tubs reduce male fertility, though the effect reverses after a few months. [Source]
* Hookahs are no safer than cigarettes. [Source]

I went to the Japanese desert place Kyotofu (finally). It was really good. Probably overpriced, at $10 a desert, they were good but not different from the higher-end quality deserts elsewhere. Maybe you pay for ambience and presentation, which was beautiful. Still, I enjoyed my sesame douhua served in a wineglass.

So few people answered my poll, I can't seriously believe so few people read the blog. Really, how hard is it to comment "yes" or "no"? I'm disappointed in you. But for those in the dark, a "butterface" is a woman who has a good body but an ugly face -- that is, who is attractive "but-her-face". And since no one asked about Raksha Bandhar (aka Rakhi), that was a national Indian holiday in which sisters tie a string bracelet around their brother's wrist as a bond of protection, meaning that if she needs help (say, when her husband is away), her brother will be there for her. The brother gives the sister presents. It doesn't have to be between biological sisters and brothers, it can be for anyone who takes that role for the woman. How sweet.

Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival.

My neighborhood in Queens

I live in Jackson Heights. Famous people who grew up here include Lucy Liu, John Leguizamo, Susan Sarandon, Carroll O'Connor ("Archie Bunker"), Don Rickles, and Gene Simmons of the rock group Kiss, among others. Charlie Chaplin had an apartment here. Scrabble was invented here.* It is home to the original buildings of the Garden City movement, buildings built around private gardens that I can't go into but which are now part of the Historic District.

It's a nice area. Even so, the 115th police district -- which includes a lot more than Jackson Heights, also East Elmhurst and Corona -- has so far this year seen 4 murders and 27 rapes. Damn. That may sound like a bad area, but it's not at all; the Greenwich Village precinct has also seen 4 murders this year. I guess New York just has a lot of people...

Walking at 5am you can see people in restaurants, with hijabs and robes, eating their breakfast before daybreak and Ramadan fasting (or, as the Bangladeshis here call it, Ramzan). Thinking about it is making me hungry...

*Also a bunch of other people I haven't heard of, but maybe you have: Kevin Dobson, Paula Garcés, Avi Roy, Juju of The Beatnuts, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Sandra Cisneros, Michael Gonsalves.

Inequality in America

This graph (from Paul Krugman's blog) showing the share of America's wealth that belongs to the top 10% earners is really interesting.

It shows that the era of prosperity dominated by the middle class, an era brought on quickly by Roosevelt's New Deal policies, was a temporary period that is now gone, a change that came with Reagan-Gingrich-type conservatism. Today, when you hear about the economy booming and notice that it hasn't changed your life much, it's not because the rivers of cash aren't flowing, it's that they are windfalls of income that are being absorbed entirely by the super-rich, while the rest of America has seem essentially no increase in wages. "Between 1979 and 2005 the real income of the median household rose only 13 percent, but the income of the richest 0.1% of Americans rose 296 percent." Also: "It’s important to know that no other advanced economy has seen a comparable surge in inequality."

Reminds me of my earlier post on our ridiculous wealth distribution.

Stupid roach

I saw a roach in my trash bag, so I grabbed the bag and ran to take it out to the trash chute, in such a hurry that I didn't realize until it was too late that I hadn't unlocked the door. I was locked out of my apartment, in the little vestibule that opens to the elevator, the trash chute, and two apartments. I had nothing, no keys, no phone.

And no pants.

This was bad.

I tried using cardboard to break in, but that went nowhere. I climbed up on the roof to look for something I could use, but to no avail. From up there you have a nice view of all Manhattan, and presumably they had a nice view of me too, but I tried not to think about that. Finally I sucked it up, went up a floor and knocked on another apartment door. A woman holding a baby answered. I said, "This is really embarrassing, but I was locked out of my apartment, can I please call the super?" She looked down at me in my underwear and said, matter-of-factly, "No." "I can't just make a call?" "No."

I stewed in the vestibule a while longer, tried banging on my door as if magically someone would be inside and open it for me, and finally went down a floor to try another apartment. A Nepali man in there was nice enough to let me use his phone. Of course, the super didn’t answer when I called. Neither did my roommates. I finally reached one via instant messenger, and he kindly left work to come back and let me in.

It’s a good thing that I telecommute. I wouldn’t want to be calling up my boss and saying, "It looks like I’m going to be late today, or not make it in at all, because, um, er... I’d probably get arrested on the way there..."

Multiple stab wounds may be harmful to monkeys

Margerinehead

To all of you who sent well wishes for the new year, thanks. And to all of you who sent well wishes for the new year, how friggin' unoriginal! May you have happiness and prosperity and everything you want and health and peace blah blah blah. How impersonal can you get? Translating this stuff into normal English reads: "Look, be happy you got something at all." Just for next time, to whoever you send well wishes, just put in a little effort, just enough to give the person some hope that there's some sincerity in there somewhere.

I learned a new word today: "Butterface". Just curious, an informal poll: do you know what it means? Just comment "yes" or "no" for me, thanks.

Happy 5768!!!

Paan

I know I've been raving about what a great place Jackson Heights is, but I went to Forest Hills today, and Austin Street is so much better, than I realize how relative it all is. I'm still happy because I'm so much closer to Manhattan, and I probably can't afford to eat out every meal in Forest Hills like I can here. But if you visit, keep your expectations in check.

I also tried paan, which is like an Indian candy or after-dinner mint It is a leaf filled with coconut and spices and sugar and stuff, which you chew on. It's tasty, but then I looked it up and found... apparently it's carcinogenic! The Betel leaf it's wrapped in is a stimulant and causes oral and esophageal cancer. Indians I talk to tell me, no, it's the tobacco that is often wrapped inside by people that causes cancer, but this sweet paan is something kids eat all the time. They are wrong! The tobacco does it too, but Betel leaf is itself bad. Which reminds me of when I tried betelnut in Taiwan -- people chew the nut with tobacco as an addictive stimulant there -- I was assured that it was ok because they left out the tobacco but now I'm not so sure.

Oh, did you catch from the earlier post, that the 5th ocean is the Southern Ocean? It was added to the other four in 2000, and surrounds Antarctica.

Starch did it

I went to L.A., got there around midnight local time, enjoyed time in a hotel (I love comfy-looking beds, and I had two of them!), then spent the morning filming. Because airplane noise made me stop talking every minute or two, I couldn't get a lot out, so I'm sure my contribution to the movie will be short. It sounds like a very entertaining film, though, and they hope it'll be in the coming Sundance Film Festival.

Have you heard that theory that hunting and meat eating is the reason that humans evolved such intelligence? One thing you should always know about theories on how we evolved is that they're all essentially conjecture -- we have almost no data, and so people just guess, and the dominant guesses of the field change with time. This particular theory has now shifted from blaming meat to blaming starch (as primates moving out of the woods started eating roots and tubers which are high in starches), because at just that time genetic selection for starch-digesting enzymes skyrocketed, and the teeth of early humans are not well suited for eating meat. While it's still not conclusive--like I said, this evolution stuff never gets even close to conclusive--it makes people who used this excuse for meat-eating look pretty stupid. [Source: NY Times]

Waverly Films

If you're looking to waste time, Waverly Films has a lot of funny/weird videos in their "clips of the week". Check out, for example, "Pick up the Phone".

Also, I added sound to my page, experimentally. What do you think, atmosphere or annoying? (This is "Early in Summer" by the Japanese musician Piana.) (To watch the Maria Mena videos, or any others, you'll have to click to the original YouTube pages or you'll have cacaphony.)

Maria Mena

Went to Forest Hills for Labor Day, the part across the railroad tracks with the beautiful brick houses that look like they come straight from old Europe, like stepping into another country. Party in the backyard of the house of a gay priest (not that I want to define people that way, but that's kind of special) with yummy make-your-own-pizza, grilled fruit, and more. (Can't show you pictures, because someone does not want any mention in this blog.)

I tried Dosa Diner, a badly decorated dosa restaurant here in Jackson Heights (the "Little India" which is apparently mostly Bangladeshi) and had uthappam and idli with sambar, very yummy. I may have had these before in restaurants but was totally unimpressed. Here it's something else, it's good. If you ever feel like eating Indian, just come up here. Really.

Max Brenner, the chocolate restaurant, is still decadently delicious (melty heart chocolate cake, ooh), though their new food menu means that delicious stuff I would used to get is gone (then again, a lot more vegan choices now), and so our the calorie listings which were really useful but perhaps unwise from a sales perspective for a place that specializes in guilty pleasure.

Stardust was a cute movie, not one that came together enough to become a classic, but a happy-making fantasy that is formulaic in the best it's-worked-since-fairy-tales sense and which probably came from a book that was a great read. (If Robert DeNiro can't do a British accent, why was he in the movie? He was weak, weak, weak.)

I've been listening to Maria Mena. Haven't heard of her? Neither have I. From Norway, apparently. Her songs, though poppy, are perhaps overly full of angst in an almost emo way (I've only heard one happy song, the rest are all about being miserable -- and they're all about relationships), but then again, aren't those overemotional moments perfect for what songs do?
Well, what do you think?

Off to L.A. tomorrow...

Michael Vick