Hiatus

If you haven't noticed already, this blog is on hiatus until the new year. So in advance, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!

Noodle Soup

In my first mobile blog, soup in Flushing... aaahh!

Interview and citation

I find it interesting to see that I get about the same number of hits when I don't post for a month as when I post daily. What does that mean?

I saw an interview I did some time ago posted as part of this video. It's a short video, but I don't come on until about minute 1:40, and then I'm on here and there throughout.

I'm told I'm cited in Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, not on the global warming stuff but on my calculation of how many animals are killed for each American meat-eater.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving with the family.
Including some group Rock Band playing.

Thanksgiving play

More family time, including a friendly but competitive game of basketball with my nephews and sister's fiancé.

Thanksgiving

A brief report from Maryland, where I've just celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Yummy food, homey atmosphere, good stuff. Also, Frost/Nixon was good, not least because they somehow managed to make an engaging two-hour movie about an interview, for gosh's sake. Ink was just weird. Black Friday was fun. Ok, that's all for now, from the road.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Strange disconnect

The other day I was freaking out. I felt so stressed, like my heart was racing before a big presentation. The odd thing was, I didn't know why. I tried to think, why this intense feeling? I did have a huge amount of work due in just a few hours that I'd barely started, so logically that would be a plausible source of stress. Still, it didn't feel like the source of the stress. It seems like, you shouldn't have to logically deduce what's making you freak out, it should be obvious. It seemed bizarre to me that the response seemed so unconnected to the cause. Nevertheless, after I got my work finished -- at the last second by a hair -- the stress was gone, so the work must have been the reason after all.

Has that ever happened to you?

Martha Stewart against factory farms

I don't want to talk all the time about vegetarianism, but I can't help mention that Martha Stewart, on her show, raved about the movie Food Inc. telling everyone to watch it, talked about "torturing" animals, interviewed Eating Animals author Jonathan Safran Foer, and said her Thanksgiving was going to be vegetarian.

Eyebrow threading

With two of my friends in India right now, I am prone to giving extra thought to Little India, where I live. One draw we have here is Indian eyebrow threading. I'd never heard of it, but apparently they pluck your eyebrows using thread and dexterity. Although this wasn't recent, a friend came over and did it, and it was interesting to watch.

Also, reading about the Taj Mahal has introduced me to some interesting architectural terms. How many of these can you define: cenotaph, dado, spandrel, chamfer, finial, and my favorite (just for the sound of the word), plinth. Did you know even one of these words?

On Saturday Night Live weekend update this week, Al Gore listed a few things we should do to stop global warming, and on his list was "stop factory farming". I'm ecstatic to hear this become mainstream -- after all, he's from a cattle-ranching family. In an interview this month, he said he'd cut back on eating meat and that we all should. For so long, even the words "factory farming" were something normal people never heard or said. I hope this is a sign that society, and not just those groups concerned with the issue, will start taking on this evil, not only a top cause of global warming, but of every major environmental threat, and an atrocity for billions of animals.

Lolcat spacefiller

Antisemitism

Some statistics on antisemitism:

• 12% if Americans are strongly anti-semitic.
• 35% of foreign-born hispanics are strongly antisemitic (compared to 18% among US-born hispanics)
• 28% of blacks are strongly antisemitic.

These numbers are really high, especially among blacks. I'm also wondering where people in Hispanic countries are learning their bigotry, are there that many Jews in the Spanish-speaking world? The good news is, the overall percent is around the lowest it's been in 45 years. [Source]

In Europe, for comparison, antisemitism is much higher, particularly in Poland, Hungary, and Spain, where about half the population can be so categorized. Antisemitism appears lowest in the UK, at 10%. [Source]

Vegetarians calmer, sharper

Interesting tidbit from the Examiner:

Arizona State University researchers studied 39 participants all who were omnivores (eating both meat and plants). They divided them into into three groups: the control group made no changes to diet, the fish group at three to four servings of fish per week and eliminated all other meat, and the vegetarian group consumed no meat and no eggs. Researchers found that while the control and the fish groups showed no significant mood changes, the vegetarian group experienced both less tension and less confusion. [Source]

Pizza

Today, chocolate strawberry banana pizza! Need I say more? (Care of Monster Pizza on Bleeker.) Ok, this picture looks a little icky, but blame my photography, not this delicious snack. Still, malawach is better...

DC Conference

I had to take a break from posting to go to a press conference in Washington DC, and then a talk on global warming. The Hyatt Grand was beautiful, and it was the whole VIP treatment: make-up, red carpet, and of course a huge room packed with people, including some ambassadors. I also ran into Mike Gravel, presidential candidate in the last election.

As an aside, last year, in Israel, my name was the most popular given to male babies! Most popular female name? Noa!

Next highest Israeli boy names: Itai, Daniel, and David. Next highest girl names: Shira, Yael, and Tamar. [Source]

My building on TV

In an earlier post, I mentioned seeing Ugly Betty filmed around the corner from my home. Well, the episode has aired, and apparently much of it was filmed nearly right in front of my building! If you skip ahead to minute 5, you can watch my neighborhood in action here. Unfortunately, the imitation-meat wiener stand is entirely fictional. I could sure go for one of those around now.

Eating feces

Seeing this article: FDA urged to ban feeding of chicken feces to cattle, made me think. Did you know that chicken feces was a standard part of the diet of the cows you eat? It's obviously cruel to the cows, who have no choice but to eat it or starve. For profit-driven agribusiness, it makes perfect sense, since it's so cheap farms just give it away. But even for those who have trouble caring about the abstraction of individuals far away whom they don't see, they may care to know what they're putting in their mouths. Ew.

And it's not just cows. This article talks about the danger of mad cow disease, because that's something that might influence the FDA. But consumers should know just because, well, they're eating this stuff.

(On a separate note, Natalie Portman, a vegetarian for decades now, has just gone vegan, as she explains in the Huffington Post.)

Boston Vegetarian Food Festival

This weekend I went to Boston, where I'd been invited to speak at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. Having complained about the sad thing that New York called VegFest, I was amazed at the huge event they put together. It was huge, maybe tens of thousands of people, full of delicious food and free samples. New York was well represented, with places like Peanut Butter & Co (I tried their white chocolate peanut butter -- heavenly!) and May Wah, but plenty more. Coconut Bliss brand Naked Coconut flavor ice cream was just amazing, so ultra-creamy! There was also this amazing halva, and Indian semolina-based sweet which is nothing at all like the sesame-based Israeli snack. It wasn't all food, but come on, food is always the best part.

Having gotten on a slow train and arrived after I was supposed to begin speaking, I was rushed to the podium where someone else was killing time for the large crowd of hundreds, and went to it. I was well received. Someone asked for an autograph. A local station did a brief on camera interview. Afterwards people would stop me in the main convention hall and say things like, "I saw you in A Delicate Balance".

There were two vegan comedians performing, who'd put together a show called "Tofunny". Both were excellent. One of them, Myq Kaplan (pronounced "Mike"), is about to tape a "Comedy Central Presents" half-hour special. He was really good, watch for this guy.

Then a long ride back.

So, I didn't get to see much of the city, but I did have a Sudanese taxi driver who said America is not a free country, that the problems in Sudan are all America and Israel's fault, and that Sudan's leader (Omar Bashir, indicted war criminal and perhaps the most evil leader on Earth) was great and everyone in Sudan loves him -- I guess he's not counting anyone in the Christian south subject to forty years of genocide and slavery, or the Darfur victims of massacres and systematic rape. Wow.

Next up: big event in DC next week.

I endorse Bill Thompson for Mayor

On Tuesday, Bill Thompson and Mike Bloomberg face off in the mayor's race for New York City. Both are competent choices. Bloomberg has the advantage of being a known quantity, having run the city for eight years. I applaud his successful efforts to ban smoking and trans fats, and to close off Broadway to traffic, and his unsuccessful efforts to impose a commuter tax to clean the air and install wind turbines in the ocean, even as I criticize some of his other proposals like a Jets stadium in Midtown East.

However, if you believe in term limits, as I and most New Yorkers do; or if you just believe in democracy, that the city should have term limits if the people voted for it in a referendum as they did; then you have to stand by the implications of that belief. When an incumbent has served her or his terms, the people necessarily have to choose among other candidates. And among the other candidates, Bill Thompson is the best choice.

It really comes down to standing up for one's principles. Bloomberg has behaved like Hugo Chavez, changing the rules to allow himself another term. (Chavez at least let the people overturn term limits by referendum; Bloomberg overturned a referendum by decree.) He has done so with an unprecedented display of power and money. He has spent more on his election than anyone ever in all history, about a quarter of a billion dollars. (This year he's spending more per voter--about $85--than Obama did!) He is, essentially, buying an election. Now it's up to us: should this be acceptable? Is this the way a democracy should work?

For me, the answer is no, and this principle transcends the details of the candidates involved. In fact, to pick a candidate based purely on their merits is to oppose the very idea of term limits to begin with, since term limits intrinsically restrict one's ability to vote for someone you might consider best qualified. I strongly support term limits because the powers of incumbency distort the ability to have fair elections and commonly create quasi-dictatorial fiefdoms where leaders no longer feel accountable to the people, and public organizations, knowing that they will be stuck dealing with the same person indefinitely, are reluctant to publicly criticize their leaders for fear of retribution from those who hold all the strings.

On top of that, no one should be rewarded for buying elections. I would have preferred Anthony Weiner over Bill Thompson, but Weiner dropped out of contention simply because he felt he could not compete with Bloomberg's money machine. So, rather than expanding our choices, as term-limit opponents advocate, Bloomberg's avarice has narrowed them. (Another example: Christine Quinn, who is awful, also would have run for mayor.)

I therefore must disqualify Bloomberg as a candidate for consideration, even before comparing the candidates' credentials. He cannot be considered a legitimate choice on the ballot. Good news, then, that his opponent's credentials really are quite good. Thompson's competence has never been questioned, and he has life-long experience in politics. He knows what he's doing.

So: Up with democracy, Up with term-limits, Up with the next stage in our great city's future... Up with Bill Thompson!

...and whomever you support, don't forget to vote Tuesday!

Rat Rock

Today I went rock climbing in Central Park. Hanging on to a sheer face with no pad below, just rocks, somehow doesn't seem safe. I had a friend there to spot me, but he seemed to do so largely by turning his back to me and looking into the distance. Plus, without climbing shoes, I came to realize how floppy that extra inch of sneaker is that extends past your toe, very hard to step on a tiny foothold with that. Still, climbing is great.

Along the way, I stumbled across many wonderful things, including this amazing-looking place, whose name is too boring to be associated with such interior design.

Sarah Silverman has a heart

After posting the Sarah Silverman video, it´s worth also mentioning a quote from her in the November issue of Marie Claire:

"When I was 9 or 10 years old, my dad took me over to a neighboring farm to help get stuff for the meal. The farmer, Vic, told me to look at all the turkeys and pick one out. I saw a cute one with a silly walk and cried, 'Him!' Before my pointing finger had even dropped to my side, Vic had grabbed the turkey by the neck and slit [the animal's] throat. Blood and feathers went flying. I had sentenced that turkey to death! Up until then, I didn't know where meat came from—and I've been a vegetarian ever since."

Sarah Silverman's new idea

Ugly Betty visits

The other day, Ugly Betty was filming right around the corner from me. Betty was in a sausage costume, and her costar was in a bun costume. Both were sequined in an Indian-looking way, which would make some sense considering the neighborhood.


If that's not entertaining enough, a list of funny rhyming words!

hugger mugger
hoi polloi
harum scarum
hoity toity
lovey dovey
heebie jeebie
hanky panky
willy nilly
nitty gritty
namby pamby
hurly burly
roly poly
razzle dazzle
helter skelter

Enjoy!

Deaths from unsafe abortions

It was reported that 70,000 people die each year worldwide from unsafe abortions. It's sad, but what does this number really mean in terms of whether abortion should be legal? It really depends on what you think of abortion. If you believe that a fetus has no value at all, then this is an unmitigated tragedy. But if the life of the fetus has any value -- even if not the same value as a an adult -- then it becomes more complicated. So, for the sake of comparison, let's say that the life of a fetus is worth just 1% the life of an adult -- that is, one adult's life is of about the same importance as the lives of 100 fetuses. At 42 million abortions a year (or more than 1/4 of all pregnancies), it doesn't even come close: the abortions swamp the abortion-related deaths in sheer tragedy. Indeed, even if it took 500 dead fetuses to equal the life of one mother, these abortion-related deaths still wouldn't equal the value of the deaths of the fetuses, and provide no justification for legalizing abortion.

Now, my view is that such a crude calculation makes little sense. For me, a zygote of undifferentiated cells has no intrinsic value, since it has no thoughts or feelings at all, so like any other organ, growth, or germ, there is no one to be harmed in the abortion. However, days before birth, the child is fully developed, and it makes no difference if the baby is in the womb or outside of it, the killing is no less a murder. While this leaves open the question of where the line is drawn at which fetuses start having some value, and how much intermediate value the developing organism should receive, it puts a different spin on the above calculation. At what ages are these fetuses being aborted?

In the US and England both, the percent of abortions performed after 20 weeks is about 1.5%. If we take this rate to be representative of all countries, then that suggest more than half a million abortions are late-term. If we consider the lives of these developed fetuses each equivalent to an adult life, then these alone clearly outweigh the deaths caused by unsafe abortions.

So, broadly speaking, abortions are worse than deaths due to unsafe abortions. Does this mean we should ban abortion? Not necessarily. First, it depends on whether abortion rates are significantly reduced with a ban. If people are still getting the abortions either way, there is no advantage to making them less safe. However, though I haven't looked up the statistics, this seems unlikely to be a significantly mitigating factor, considering the margins in the calculations I made above.

Second, I haven't considered the number of women maimed but not killed by unsafe abortions. It would be hard to compare a maiming to a killing, though.

Third, early abortions (within 40 days) may not count into the equation at all, since at that point there is no neural activity in the embryo/fetus, and therefore presumably no mind or "soul" to harm, so a ban only on later abortions may suffice. This is in line with the position of most Americans: 80% oppose 3rd trimester abortions, and 65% oppose 2nd trimester abortions.

Note, as an aside, that if you subscribe to the idea that killing fetuses later in development is worse than earlier, you should oppose (as I do) a raft of efforts by conservatives to put barriers like waiting periods that force pregnant women to wait before getting the procedure. If it's going to happen, let it happen sooner, because one doesn't know when that first spark of consciousness arises, and the longer we wait, the greater the risk of snuffing it out. I find these efforts alarming, but they remain essentially unchallenged within the pro-life community.

Ah-nold and animals

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a ban on tail docking of dairy cows. This is a standard procedure nationwide in which cows' tails are chopped off without anesthetic. Imagine someone taking a tool like the one at right, and cutting off a finger, without painkillers, just leaving you to get over it! Merely one of so many abuses on factory farms. On top of that, cows are no longer able to protect their rears from irritants. The putative motivation for the practice is to keep their tails clean, but in reality this isn't an issue; tail docking is completely unnecessary, and the California Farm Bureau and Cattlemen's Association agrees. So it's good news, even if in only one state and only regarding one tiny cruelty among so very many. Life is still hell for these animals, but one less thing.

On the other hand, the governor vetoed legislation against puppy mills, those horrible places that turn dogs into breeding machines for pet stores, where they live in tiny filthy cages never able to socialize, often suffering from injury, infection, and psychological issues. Please, never ever buy puppies from pet stores, since you're only supporting this terrible industry. So many animals die in shelters for want of homes anyway, including purebreeds: that alone is reason to adopt instead. This was a cold-hearted veto of a bill with overwhelming support in the legislature.

It gets even more inexplicable. The terminator also vetoed legislation to ban felons convicted of animal abuse from having pets. I can't think of anything more commonsense than that.

Well, I don't live in California, though with 12% of the population, it's the big kahuna of states. (NY has half as many, though close to half of that is all in one city.) But I hope it wakes people up to the types of abuses routine on farms nationwide.

Diwali mela

Diwali isn't until Friday, but this weekend my neighborhood had their Diwali mela (party).


It was also VegFest which was pathetic. A vegetarian event without food? Come on!


It was also the first time I had green tea ice cream. Yummy.


Plus a homecooked meal! ありがとうございます,ミセス石戸谷さん!

For all my Taiwanese readers

The Food Issue

Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated, has a new book coming out called Eating Animals. An excerpt was published in the New York Times Magazine. It's interesting, especially how it ends. You can take a look.

In the same issue is an article on the Calorie Restriction Diet. I've written about it again and again and again and again. Clearly I am fascinated by the prospect of being able to live so much longer. And not just extending lifespan, but extending youth and health too! But it seemed too arduous to put into practice. Well, this article is on a study in which people were put on such a diet for two years, and while the results aren't in, what's clear is that it's not so bad! The key is to avoid hunger -- you're not to decrease portion sizes, but rather eat low-calorie foods, so the same amount of food adds up to fewer calories. Apparently apples are huge on the list, and people in the study find themselves eating apples all the time. They don't waste away, but lose weight until they plateau to a new constant weight. The fact that it's so doable really inspires me to try. The potential advantages are just unbelievable.

Oh, and Happy Shmini Atzeret.

Philadelphia, again

Last weekend I went to Philadelphia. I'm only mentioning it now because I was hoping to get my hands on the pictures first, but they may be gone. That city is more than just adorable (though I've always loved it). It is pregnant with nostalgic memories. I went to the old apartment I used to live in on 2118 Walnut Street. Except for a new buzzer, it looks like it used to. I don't go to Philly much, but almost every time I do, I find myself stopping by that old home, and thinking about all the wonderful memories there, some actually wonderful and others only wonderful through the spectacles of nostalgic memory.

I forwent, for the first time, my tradition of douhua with toppings, now that I've found it here in Flushing and have it every week. Instead, I struck a new path, and visited the Italian Market. In all my time living there, I'd never visited. It wasn't as far as I imagined. Neither was it Italian, as far as I could tell. Lots of fresh fruit and fish and such, but there was more Spanish than Italian, which seemed limited to the Italian names of certain stores. But other than an occasional Luigi's it should be called just the "Market". Still, cool that it exists. Cities outside of NYC can't be so picky.

I also continued my more recent tradition of trying Horizons restaurant but finding it closed. What kind of place is only open for dinner? You've foiled me once again, Horizons, but one of these days, just you wait...

In my last post, I said that the Bank of America building was the only glass box building that I ever liked, and I guess that's not true. There are so many badly designed shard-like structures that don't work. But I'm still a fan of the Cira center, which doesn't send chills up my spine but gets the right balance aesthetically. Plus, at night it's covered with colored lights that make moving images and define the city's nightscape.

It would probably be my second preferred city to live in on the East Coast, after NYC. And yet, it continues as the only major American city to lose population year after year. I wonder why.

Celebrating Sukkot and the Moon Festival

Dying to hear all about my two-day Sukkot/Mid-Autumn Festival celebration?

Friday night I visited the Chabad sukkah in Bryant Park for candle lighting, and listened to beautiful classical music on the gorgeous Bryant Park lawn. It was exquisite. It also offered the only view of a glass-box tower that speaks to me, if only when seen at just the right angle, that fortress shard the Bank of America building. On Saturday I and a friend had dinner at the sukkah in Union Square. It was nice, I never really had dinner in a good sukkah. The family ones we'd build back home were cheesy, this one felt special. Before dinner, then men gathered to pray, while the women were instructed to sit at the tables in back of the sukkah and just chat and bide time during the prayers. I was appalled. Why can't women pray? It felt like some kind of Jim Crow world. I know I must be naive, but even at orthodox religious services I'd been to, men and women were separated by a wall, but that was it. Women prayed just like men. This was something else entirely.

On top of that, it was Chabad, which I always feel a little uncomfortable about because while they act so much like Jews, they also believe some dude buried in Brooklyn in the messiah. Sounds like some cultish offshoot to me.

Those details aside, it was all warm and fuzzy. The guy next to us, asking about our veganism, mentioned that there's an entire website on Judaism and Vegetarianism, and started expounding on all the Biblical connections. I didn't want to ruin his speech by telling him the site was mine. But as an active chabadnik, the fact that he's been getting word from the site is encouraging: word spreads, and lives get saved!

Then there was the moon festival. Friday night was cloudy, but I got a bunch of friends together for Chinese food,






and after that enjoyed a view of the overcast dark from the rooftop bar at Hotel Gansevoort.

Saturday, though, was the perfect moon festival. I'm a big fan of this holiday, perhaps because watching the moon is so inherently romantic, and the stories are so cute. I try to celebrate every year, but it never completely came together until this year. Last night, sitting in Union Square Park in perfect weather, looking up at the moon, we told the stories of Empress Chang-e, of the rabbit churning lunar mochi, of the woodcutter punished to eternally chop, of the rebellion started by mooncakes. We cracked open a large yellow pomelo. And we ate a mooncake -- a vegan mooncake bought at Buddha Bodai in Chinatown -- and though I usually don't think much of the taste of these holiday pastries and had even dimmer hopes for the only vegan one I've ever heard of, it was by a mile the best mooncake I've ever eaten. It was delicious. This is the place to get your mooncake next year! It wasn't on the menu, I just asked it they had it, and they did, and all was right in the world. It was an absolutely perfect holiday evening.

On top of that, we tried Stogo, another newly opened vegan ice cream parlor. It was much bigger and fancier than Lula's Sweet Apothecary, and the ice cream fit the same bill. The flavors were bold and special, in comparison with Lula's more standard ice cream flurries and such. Flavors like red velvet, It was delicious. And I don't mean, delicious for a vegan ersatz. Delicious for anyone. While the texture was a little different from regular ice cream, it suffered not at all for it, and non-vegans would enjoy it just as much as the rest of us. I give it a big thumbs up, if you like your ice cream full of flavor. (Dairy-free ice cream has come such a long way since the Tofutti/Rice Dream days!)

Happy Sukkot!

Happy Moon Festival!

Shalit

Israel freed 19 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a videotape of the soldier captured by Hamas. Someone please explain how this can possibly be justified? I can't fathom it.

(Interesting aside on China's independence day: the country is likely this year to eclipse Japan as the world's second biggest economy. It is also the only non-democracy -- unless you count Russia -- anywhere near the top... the next highest would be Saudi Arabia at #23.)

Election yay

Bill de Blasio won the election for public advocate here in NYC. He has been a consistent supporter of pro-animal bills, and his daughter is a vegan, which ensures at least that he's familiar with the reasons for animal rights. So, yay.

Also, the Catalonia region of Spain is poised to ban bullfighting, that bloodsport in which a bull is repeatedly stabbed with spears in a spectacle of slow torture for gladiator-like entertainment. I don't understand how people try to excuse this barbarism as "culture", when they would never do so to defend prohibiting women from leaving the house as Afghan culture, or to defend slavery as southern culture.

Yom Kippur

Recently, I thought about spirituality. I remember Christopher Hitchens saying that he could never figure out what people meant by the word. And I understood the sentiment, since I was hard pressed to explain it. It's a feeling of being in touch with -- the spirit? Something. I can't think of a non-circular description. I was once very religious, particularly between ages 13 and 18. And while reason got the better of faith for me, I was always keenly aware -- in a way atheists typically are not -- of what I was missing. True or not, religion (at least Judaism, since I can't speak for others) provides something amazing. There is spirituality everywhere in your life. Everything you do, from how you get up in the morning to what you eat to how you pass through doorways, matters. It's all important. In everything, you can do things the right way and be a better person. In everything there is certainty and confidence that one is living the right way, so different from the aimlessness of the trudge through life without a compass. It's more than that, it's the feeling of living in touch with the divine, a feeling that I don't know if I can describe in a way that comes across. But it makes life so much richer, entire layers that are stripped away by the cold logic of non-belief, leaving an empty shell.

Blaise Pascal is said* to have said "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every [person]" and, though he was a Christian apologist, I don't have to believe in God to agree with this sentiment on human psychology. The non-religious do not know what they are missing, but they will always be incomplete without this. Their lives will always be shallow. I myself an am agnostic, and therefore suffer from this shallowness, but I know no escape. I can no more make myself a believer in God than I can a believer in leprechauns or spaghetti monsters. And I do fear the downsides of belief, and they are not few... but happiness is not among them.

I was thinking how long it had been since I'd felt spirituality. It may be as far back as college. Certainly years. And that seemed sad to me.

Every Yom Kippur, I fast. It's a little strange, really. We fast on this day so that we have no distractions from our prayer, so what's the purpose in fasting without praying? And yet, I fast, lest the most important Jewish holiday slip by entirely unacknowledged. It's not the kind of holiday that can be paid lip service with a hamentaschen or a latke. So I fast every year. This year, though, I felt like that wasn't enough, perhaps because the gesture of fasting made so little sense in and of itself, and perhaps because, if there is a God who is on this day sealing our fates for the coming year, it couldn't hurt to get in her good grace. I'm open-minded.

I didn't have a synagogue ticket, so I pulled up a high holiday machzor online and went through the prayers. And virtually immediately, I felt it. Spirituality. That feeling. Kavanah. I prayed and I felt it. It was not faith, but in spite of a lack of faith, the willingness to -- in the moment -- not worry about that question and feel the communion with the divine. Could it have been a learned association from childhood? My ability to remember prayers I hadn't recited in a decade did surprise me. It doesn't matter, whatever the analysis, it was there, whether God was there or not, that spirituality that made it all meaningful.

Like I said, those who have not experienced religion in their heart, they look at the religious and do not understand. The religious seem almost insane. Why would anyone do all that for an invisible magical fairy tale? All I can say is, you don't get it because you don't see what's there, but trust me, there's something there, and it's huge.

I did go to the synagogue for Ne'ilah, the closing service. Like I remember it, standing for hours after starving all day is really annoying. And I felt no spirituality in the service. But there was something nostalgic about being there, as I had every weekend growing up, with those sights and sounds of my childhood and shared by millions of others over millennia of history, all the exact same words and the exact same melodies across the span of time and across the face of the earth.

And when it was done, with a long tekiyah gedolah on the shofar, I broke the fast with some rugelach (one of the minority of Jewish foods that is delicious), and then went for Taiwanese food at 老華西街. If you've never had it, you'll have to search beyond the pig's ears and pig's blood and intenstines and kidneys to get at the edible stuff, but when you do you're in for a treat, though it takes some time to get used to the different flavors they favor. Ah, stinky tofu! Ah, silk melon!

Don't forget, Friday is Sukkot and the Mid-Autumn Festival. I already have my moon cake and pomelo...

Runoff election in NYC

Elect David Yassky and Bill de Blasio on Tuesday!

Eat a Vegan

A friend pointed out perhaps the most amusing article written about my global warming research, in the UK's Sunday Times. Although it mentions the organization I wrote it for rather than my name, and it's completely riven with unfactual nonsense, I am still amused.

Rosh Hashanah

Happy Jewish New Year, everyone! This Rosh Hashana I was supposed to meet up with a friend, but alas, when she didn't show up, I found out she was unable to make it. Not her fault--and she reads this blog, so I don't want her to feel bad about this, it could happen to anyone--but it was pretty annoying. Fortunately, I was in the Village on a beautiful summer evening, where the good food and the music from Washington Square Park soothed the soul. I also discovered an amazing live jazz spot called Next Door (at La Lanterna di Vittorio).

I had Rosh Hashana dinner with other fellow Jews (and a friend who went to Jewish and Catholic schools both) at Sacred Chow, which is usually just ok, but their Rosh Hashana menu was really yummy. They even had white chocolate blintzes (good, though I prefer the more traditional kind).

We are now in the ten days of repentance. Let me ask for forgiveness from any of you whom I may have wronged unintentionally, or otherwise. You can be quite sure that I meant no harm, but I do beg your pardon for any way I may have hurt or offended you. I really am sorry!

Birthday(s)

I looked up my birthday. It is on:

5th of Sivan 5733 (Jewish)
5月5日 (Chinese)

While this may seem like arcane and useless trivia, it's not when you note that people in Israel or China actually celebrate their birthdays by those calendars, often in addition to their Gregorian calendar birthdays. So, this gives you every reason to celebrate for me on those other days too! In 2010, you can Jewishly celebrate on May 18, or Chinesely celebrate on July 16. My sister just had a birthday, but both these other calendars peg this Saturday, September 26, as her day (8 תשרי or 8月8日)-- she should take advantage! Same goes for Kei, whose Jewish and Chinese day coincide on October 3 this year.

Of course, there are other calendars, like the Muslim (4th of Jumada al-awwal 1393), Persian (15th of Khordad 1352), and Indian (15th of Jaistha 1895), but those are all too much of a stretch for me.

Happy Birthday Doraemon!

Google's kudos to the Japanese robot cat from the future.

Progressive Radio Network

Today I was interviewed on the Progressive Radio Network about global warming. Media interviews are fun!

So long, Moriah

Tragically, Moriah is dead. I hope you lived happy.

The good news is, baby Corwin is adorable.

Rasmussen

The leaders of the world have converged upon the UN here in New York, and while it makes for a lot of police escorted black cars making their way through the streets, it also allows for an occasional sighting. Today I saw Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary-General of NATO and, until April, the former prime minister of Denmark. His secret agent body guards were very shifty-eyed while nodding disapprovingly at me as I stood by him while he answered questions with the TV cameras.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Today I watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. This short musical starring Neil Patrick Harris (aka Dougie Howser) was rather surprising for a Joss Whedon flick -- this guy is responsible for the rather weak but sufficiently entertaining shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Dollhouse. I never really saw him as a show tunes kind of guy. But the writing and composing are amazing, as is Dougie Howser's voice. Alas, listening to show tunes was really annoying, but I got over that the way I do with most songs: repetition. Somehow, if you listen to a song you don't like long enough, more often than not it grows on you. Funny how that works.

The plot is still silly and unsatisfying, but if you like musicals, it's worth checking out.

Chen Shui-bian

Today, Chen Shuibian, Taiwan's last president, was sentenced to life in prison for corruption. Besides the fact that I've never heard of such a severe punishment for corruption (outside of China, where they execute you, but since everyone's corrupt it's widely seen as just an excuse to get rid of political enemies), I wonder why that can't happen here. Can you imagine President Bush being brought up on charges, much less sentenced to life in prison? Why is it politically impossible here? His shredding of the constitution constitutes far more egregious crimes.

Get out of jail free card

I met a guy who showed me some "free passes" he got from a friend who's a cop. The idea is that he can show the pass to a cop after committing a crime, and the cop will let him go. It isn't legally binding, but any cop that doesn't respect this get-out-of-jail-free card is written up by other cops on a cop blacklist placed online, so no police officer wants to go there. Now, it probably won't work if you murder someone, but if you speed or run a red light, you're golden.

What do you think? My reaction is utter shock. These seems like pure corruption to me. Letting your friends break the law and get away with it is the very essence of cronyism, and the very antipode of justice, which our police force is supposed to be enforcing. How is choosing who can get away with stuff based on this any different than doing so based on racial profiling or anything else? Why does our government stand for it?

Why we need socialized healthcare

My question is, why are we paying twice as much for healthcare as in other industrialized countries who are healthier and have universal coverage? Is it prescription drugs? High doctor salaries? Malpractice awards?

Hotel Grace

Last night a friend introduced me to the Hotel Grace swim-up bar. The lounge has a small heated swimming pool, in dim lounge lighting but lit up from inside the water with colors that change over time, that comes right up to the bar, allowing you to order drinks while floating. Seeing the silhouettes of people chilling in the water seemed very cool and romantic.

After weeks away recovering from ligament wear, I tried rock climbing again, and my it was fun! I forgot how much. I was climbing 5.9's, which I'd never done before. That said, the climbing companion pointed out how many of my climbing friends have stopped climbing due to serious injuries. Putting my ligament thing aside, I did months ago knock my elbow causing what appears to be permanent nerve damange, since the entire left side of the arm remains numb. Apparently statistics show a 63% increase in rock climbing injuries, mostly because of increased popularity of the sport, "combined with the fact that rock climbers have a higher hospitalization rate than other sports and recreational injuries," according to a study. [Source] Should I be afraid, or are these just hazards of sports?

I also saw the movie Adam. Cute but nothing special.

Mighty Wallet

I love my new wallet, because it's made of paper! It's an origami wallet! Well, technically it's made of tyvek, the waterproof and unrippable paper they use for express mail envelopes. But the result is super-thin and light, and after a month shows no signs of wear. In tons of designs, they're $15 from Mighty Wallet, or settle for regular paper and fold your own.

NYC Primaries

September 15 is the primary election in New York City. Most people think the general election is the big deal, but not here, where the winner of the Democratic primary is all but a sure thing. So make sure you go vote in two weeks. (The exception is for mayor, but he is extremely rich and has already bought himself the election, by spending so much that his opponents have all dropped out. After getting term limits overturned so he could run again, in spite of the fact that term limits had been overwhelmingly passed by popular vote. That’s not democracy – we need public financing of campaigns.)

You probably don’t know the candidates, but if you care about animals, or things that caring about animals is a positive reflection on a candidate, then vote for these people endorsed by the League of Humane Voters:

Public Advocate: Bill de Blasio
Comptroller: David Yassky
Manhattan Borough President: Scott Stringer
Manhattan D.A. Leslie Crocker Snyder

For the New York City Council, look up the endorsement for your district here, but of special note is District 3 (West Village, SoHo, NoHo, Flatiron, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton, Murray Hill). If you’re in District 3, vote for Yetta Kurland. She’s not only very pro-animal, she’s running against the very anti-animal and very powerful Christine Quinn. As council president, Quinn has squashed every pro-animal legislation to be introduced.

If you don't know whom to vote for, go with the pro-animal choice!

Iron-looking Chef

Have you ever seen the show "Iron Chef"? Did you know it was all staged?

The chefs know the "secret ingredient" ahead of time. There's no huddling and planning with sous-chefs. They all already know what recipes they're doing and go do it. Nor is there any time pressure, as everyone cooks in a humdrum and relaxed manner. On top of that, the dishes you see them cook are not the dishes the judges taste. Rather, afterwards the sous-chefs recook for the judges, and what the judges taste includes ingredients not on the ingredient table. Ah, TV, is there nothing real? [Source]

Pure Food And Wine

I went to Pure Food and Wine, a raw restaurant in the East Village. The garden area was absolutely beautiful, one of the most beautiful places I've seen in New York, just stunning. I've never eaten at a raw food restaurant, but the food was very tasty. However, the portions were tiny and the prices exorbitant. My entree was beet ravioli, and with it I got six pieces of miniature ravioli, each the size of a quarter, for $26. My dessert, a strawberry shortcake, was one mouthful of cake for $16. So, it was good food but it would really have to be incredible food to justify the price, and that it's not.

Lessons in Happiness Research

Some miscellaneous facts on happiness:

• "A systematic study of 22 people who won major lotteries found that they reverted to their baseline level of happiness over time, winding up no happier than 22 matched controls"
• "Within a few years, paraplegics wind up only slightly less happy on average than individuals who are not paralyzed"
• "In wealthier nations ... increases in wealth have negligible effects on personal happiness"

The basic message is, things you think will make you happy really don't make much difference in the long-term, and things that you think will make you unhappy don't make that much difference in the long-term either. So, when travesty strikes, keep in mind that the suffering won't last, our ability to cope is far stronger than we conceive. And don't worry about money -- it can make some things easier, but it won't make you happier in general.

One interesting finding: "Unlike money, which has at most a small effect, marriage is robustly related to happiness..." although it's not clear what causes married people to be happier than unmarried people. (Children, on the other hand, are not correlated with increased happiness).

Republican surveys

As a follow up on Republicans being truly nuts, here are some statistics that astound me.

• A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll released last Friday found that 28% of Republicans don’t believe that Barack Obama was born in the US and another 30% are still “not sure.”
• A Gallup poll last summer found that 6 in 10 Republicans said they thought that humans were created, in their present form, 10,000 years ago.
• A Pew poll last month found that only 6% of scientists said that they were Republicans.

Now, not all Republicans are crazy people utterly detached from reality. Conservative ideas aren't wrong just because so many people who hold the beliefs are off the deep end. But the crazy ones are, it seems, in control of the party and the debate, alas.

Wingnuts

Sarah Palin, calling Obama's health care plan "downright evil", actually said this:

"In the America I know [people shouldn't have to] stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

Are Republicans totally insane? How could anyone believe this is part of the plan? (It isn't!)

It's not just Palin, who may be insane but seems to have more than 40% public approval. This plan of attack is the organized Republican strategy. The whole party seems way off the deep end. Like the conspiracy theories that Obama is not an American, I can't believe the Republican mainstream is taking this stuff seriously.

(500) and Ariyoshi

Thumbs up to (500) Days of Summer. I definitely enjoyed the movie, and it made me think about the stuff I'd been through and inflicted in relationships. However, later on looking back, I think the movie was ultimately small. The insights weren't deep and the subject simple, not the kind of thing you'll think about long after it's gone. Still, it was sweet and made you leave happy. In spite of the subject, it would make a good date movie, because as the narrator says at the beginning, it is not a love story, but it is a story about love.

Also enjoyed a new restaurant, Ariyoshi (810 Broadway) has nice decor and the food was yummy and seemed very authentic Japanese. I ordered the soba soup with mountain yam, which apparently is a white tasteless goo with a consistency like that marshmellow fluffernutter spread. I liked it.

Happy Rakhi and Tu B'Av

Happy Rakhi.

As I described last year, Raksha Bandhar (aka Rakhi) is 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.

So if you want presents, you should give me string :)

Also, Happy Tu B'Av. I didn't know about this Jewish holiday, never having heard of any traditional celebration. Apparently, according to the Talmud, Tu B'Av was a joyous holiday in the days of the Temple: Unmarried girls would dress in simple white clothing and go out to sing and dance in the vineyards surrounding Jerusalem. It is considered in modern times to be a sort of Jewish Valentine's day.

80 billion animals

I calculated how many animals each American meat-eater killed in 2008 -- the most complete such calculation that exists. [Note: these figures have been corrected and updated, so don't use them. See: AnimalDeathCount.blogspot.com]

In total, Americans killed 80 billion animals for food last year, including 9 billion land animals (almost all chickens), 6.5 billion fish, and 64 billion shellfish. The good news is, that's 3% less than the year before -- 300 million fewer land animals and 3 billion fewer animals overall. Huge numbers saved!

The average meat-eater killed 270 animals last year, including 1 1/2 fewer land animals and 1 fewer fish than the previous year. That breaks down to:

• 1/7 of a cow
• 1/2 a pig
• 1 turkey
• 27 1/2 chickens
• 22 fish
• 218 shellfish

Over an average lifetime, that amounts to 21,000 animals killed for food.

I'm sure many factors influence the drop in animal consumption, but it's encouraging to know that efforts to educate people about the benefits of vegetarianism are contributing to a very real reduction in suffering and death. Each person can make a difference -- and what a difference! Tens of thousands of lives spared!

So, vegetarian readers, feel good about yourself! And anyone else wanting in on that good feeling, the place to start with the most impact is chicken and fish -- really, how hard would it be to cut those out?

Interestingly, the Washington Post just had an article on the importance of cutting out meat for addressing global warming. Cool to see the work I started getting out there.

High Line

Yesterday I walked the High Line, the new elevated park created on what was for decades a defunct elevated rail line. It's nice, except that there's not much of a view from up there. They even have a seating area facing a large window through which you can see... nothing. Just the street. Or maybe it's so that cars below can look at the crowds? Perhaps now that there's a reason for people to go that far west, more attractive things will be built.

You know I'm an architecturephile. The one thing I did find interesting were some truly exciting pieces of modern architecture that you really would never see otherwise. In a universe where modern architecture generally means absolutely dull glass boxes of the International style, or post-modern glass boxes with an extra angle or curve thrown in, the High Line walk includes some truly aesthetically striking and attractive works -- most of which, I later discovered, were designed by world-renowned "starchitects".

I am a big fan of Gehry's IAS Building, like swirling mountain peaks, but I am also impressed by Nouvel's tower next door. I've seen so many buildings try the Mondrian-like array of rectangles to no real effect, but this one truly works. (Can't wait for his Tour de Verre in midtown.)

Then there's the Standard Hotel, which the High Line goes right underneath. It looks so very modernist and yet -- I hate to say this about any modernist work -- quite interesting. I am drawn to it. (Looks better when you're there.)

There's various other buildings worth mentioning, even if they don't impress, for example,

And I have to say that I have hopes for the planned High Line Building, which could be another cool modern attraction (although these things often fail in execution, so I'm not holding my breath).

Why don't people build attractive modern buildings everywhere else? Only in West Chelsea? I'm glad, at least, that they're all lumped together so that a new cool area of the city may be springing up, at least once the recession passes.