Abdul Kargbo hits exactly what I'm talking about:

Listening to this guy talk about his experience of living in Southeast Asia and “discovering” Indonesian cuisine instilled in me an overwhelming desire to reach inside the radio, grab him by the shoulders, and shake him until his head fell off.

OMFG yes!!!  I love you, Abdul, whomever you are.

It’s a recipe for beef rendang which, by the way, he pronounced with the most dreadful American accent despite his many months in Southeast Asia. After all, he made a point of credentialing his “expertise” on Indonesian cooking by mentioning the several months he spent in the country, staying at the family home of a friend.

[...]

Nothing annoys me more than the habit—almost unique to the affluent—of exoticizing and intellectualizing everything. After all, it’s food we’re talking about here! Isn’t eating one of the most basic human activities? Yet this jerk cannot help but elevate it to the level of haute culture. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m as much of an intellectual snob as the next guy but . . .. OK, that’s clearly not true. But my greater point is that, for the millions of Indonesians who are lucky enough to eat beef rendang, it’s just a meal, not an artistic or intellectual experience. [Emphasis mine].

M-effing WORD.  This guy captures my thoughts to a tee.  A glorious golf tee. (Is that what the "tee" in the expression "to a tee" refers to?)

Alternatively, why do these people insist America lacks a culture or a cuisine?  Culture is not static, but that is the presumption behind this perspective.  None of the food in this country, these people would say, is truly American, because it was brought over by Italians or Chinese or Russians.  What one considers American, like hamburgers, is derided as not genuine, created by McDonalds.  It is funny how some white Americans seem to attach cultural meanings to every ethnicity but their own.  At some point, Americans became a non-culture-the Targets and Olive Gardens and subdivisions the neutering force.

I bet there would be a lot to go into on this subject from an anthropological perspective, but what interests me is why people who become experts on another culture affect a knowing attitude about it.  I guess there has long been an appeal in seeming worldly, and the culturally-savvy white person is just the latest incarnation.

I'm a 24-year-old member of the hookup generation -- I've had roughly three times as many hookups as relationships -- and, like innumerable 20-somethings before me, I've found that casual sex can be healthy and normal and lead to better adult relationships.

[The fact that she's 24 and an assistant editor in Salon makes me feel old and washed up. Good for her.]

She then launches into her relationship and sex history, which makes fine conversation with a friend but seems almost like bragging in an online magazine article. She doesn't really acknowledge the reasonable defenses of other approaches to getting sexually involved with people, like the view of one of the article's response letters:

Most of the world religions attempt to teach restraint, not chastity. For the Jews, sexual restraint is incumbent on both genders, especially men. For other religions, modesty and restraint come in all shapes and sizes. What is universal, however, is the noble idea that we're not supposed to act like mindless animals.

Yet, I discern a fundamental commonality from the casual sex loyalists and the abstinence loyalists which is that they are all looking for devoted companionship, a mature relationship, perhaps the love of their life. Also, they both also talk a hell of a lot about sex, whether it be how much they have or how they aren't having it.

Whenever I read these articles--yes, maybe I should stop--I always come away resenting that some over-confident 20-something is shoving their views in my face, be they "you're a prude if you have problems with casual sex," or "you don't respect yourself if you are having sex with someone you don't love or aren't married to."

Particularly, with Clark-Flory's article, I resented her insistence that her approach of throwing herself into relationships, hookups first, is a way of "vetting" her future companion is silly. There are plenty of people whose approach is to only get involved with someone who she is very much into and find their future lover or husband that way. I don't believe that finding someone you love and love spending time with is quite the same as test driving til you find your perfect car. Still, I think the thing that can be said in favor of Clark-Flory's approach is that it often reveals what you don't want in a relationship, which is useful too. Most of all, approaches differ.

It would be ideal if women would stop turning on each other in these fruitless fights that pit "prude" versus "slut," and, in the spirit of positive feminism channel the vituperation into more on tangible problems in which we all have an interest: equal pay in the workplace, friendlier workplace policies toward women who are pregnant, more help for daycare, equal parenting responsibilities between husband and wife (if that is what the couple wants), and so on.

And in the meantime, as the saying from the '90s about abortion went, could we try to keep public disclosures about one's sex life "legal, safe, and rare?"

Τον τελευταίο καιρό παρατηρώ ότι όλο και λιγότεροι άνθρωποι έχουν πλέον κέφι. Τι εννοώ?

Εννοώ....ότι δεν έχουν κέφι να μιλήσουν,  να διασκεδάσουν, να τσακωθούν, να γελάσουν, να κάνουν πράγματα.......κέφι να δημιουργήσουν. Και αναρωτιέμαι...είναι η εποχή? Πως είναι δυνατόν να είμαστε νέοι, φοιτητές, εργαζόμενοι, δημιουργικοί στη θεωρία και τόσο φτωχοί στην πράξη. Έτσι νομίζω, είμαστε πλούσιοι στη θεωρία και μίζεροι στην πράξη, λες και κάποιος άλλος θα έρθει να προσπαθήσει για εμάς, για τη ζωή μας, για αυτά που αγαπάμε και που επιδιώκουμε. Μάλλον γι' αυτό δεν έχουμε κέφι, βαριόμαστε, τα πάντα, σε λίγο θα βαριόμαστε και που ζούμε. Και δε μπορώ να ακούω συνέχεια για τα άσχημα οικονομικά, "τι να σου κάνει το παιδί, προσπαθεί". Άλλο προσπαθώ να τη "βολέψω" και άλλο προσπαθώ να ζήσω όπως θέλω και μου αρέσει. Τι να κάνουμε, η προσπάθεια μετράει.

Και ο "άλλος", ο "διπλανός" δεν υπάρχει πουθενά, λες και όταν είμαι δημιουργικός, με κέφι για ζωή αυτό δεν ακουμπά τους γύρω μου, δεν βοηθιούνται και εκείνοι.

Ντενεκεδάκια μου γλυκά, η ζωή θέλει κέφι, θέλει φαντασία, θέλει χαμόγελο και τραγούδι

Μόνο έτσι η Ντενεκεδοπολιτεία δείχνει όμορφη, μόνο έτσι κάθε ντενεκεδάκι είναι μοναδικό

Άντε, λίγο κέφι ρε παιδιά!

Their idea is to stand between the content provider and the consumer, demanding a toll to guarantee quality delivery. It's what Timothy Wu, an Internet policy expert at Columbia University, calls "the Tony Soprano business model": By extorting protection money from every Web site -- from the smallest blogger to Google -- network owners would earn huge profits. Meanwhile, they could slow or even block the Web sites and services of their competitors or those who refuse to pay up. They'd like Congress to "trust them" to behave.

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use -- all subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with telephone and cable giants.

It certainly would be naive to trust that cable and phone companies would not take advantage of internet de-regulation in order to make a profit. 

I have to say that I do not totally understand the architecture of the internet under net neutrality versus under deregulation, which is why stories about the subject should be clear, include definitions of seemingly basic terms (e.g. "net neutrality") and more directed at laymen, especially because it seems not many people are aware of the potential impact of deregulation.

Ο J. Huizinga είναι γνωστός για το βιβλίο του "Homo Ludens" (ελληνική μετάφραση: Ο άνθρωπος και το παιχνίδι, εκδ. Γνώση, 1989) όπου βασικό θέμα είναι η σχέση κουλτούρας και παιχνιδιού και ιδιαίτερα το πως το παιχνίδι, ως βασική δράση της ανθρώπινης προσωπικότητας, επηρεάζεται από το πολιτισμικό περιβάλλον στο οποίο εμφανίζεται.

Γιατί κάνω την εισαγωγή; Βασικά θυμήθηκα το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο διαβάζοντας ένα άρθρο σχετικά με τη βία και τα βίντεοπαιχνίδια. Ο Patrick Kierkegaard (University of Essex) παρατηρεί ότι σε έρευνες που έχουν πραγματοποιηθεί δεν φαίνεται να επιβεβαιώνεται η άποψη ότι τα βίντεοπαιχνίδια, παιχνίδια Η/Υ κλπ συνεργούν στην αύξηση βίαιων συμπεριφορών από τους παίκτες τους. Το ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέρον όμως είναι ότι παρατηρείται το ακριβώς αντίθετο, δηλαδή από την είσοδο (για Αμερική μιλάμε πάντα, μην ξεχνιόμαστε) των βιντεο παιχνιδιών το 1990 στην αγορά μέχρι σήμερα υπάρχει μείωση των περιστατικών βίας.

Όπως και να έχει οι έρευνες θα συνεχίσουν να γίνονται όσον αφορά το πόσο επηρεάζουν τη ζωή μας τα βιντεοπαιχνίδια, τα on line παιχνίδια κλπ, το σημαντικό όμως είναι να γνωρίζουμε όλες τις όψεις του νομίσματος. Έχει ενδιαφέρον να δούμε σε πιο βαθμό η διάχυση αυτών των παιχνιδιών επηρεάζει την καθημερινότητά μας, τις δεξιότητές μας, προσωπικές και κοινωνικές και όυτω καθεξής.

Διαβάζοντας το παραπάνω αρθράκι πραγματικά θυμήθηκα το "Homo Ludens"! Το παιχνίδι είναι δραστηριότητα της ζωής μας, μεγαλώνουμε και μαθαίνουμε μέσα από αυτή τη διαδικασία....όμως όλα τα παιδιά δεν παίζουν με τον ίδιο τρόπο, τα ίδια παιχνίδια. Ανάλογα με τις πολιτισμικές τους καταβολές, τα ήθη και τις συνήθειες κάθε κοινωνικού πλαισίου υιοθετούνται στο χώρο και στο χρόνο ίδιες ή διαφορετικές συμπεριφορές στο παιχνίδι.

Το ερώτημα είναι μήπως η ζωή μας είναι περισσότερο βίαιη απ'ότι μπορούμε να αντέξουμε και γι' αυτό βρίσκουμε διέξοδο μέσα από ένα δυνητικό περιβάλλον, μέσα από τα παιχνίδια; Μήπως εκεί, μέσα από νέες περσόνες αισθανόμαστε περισσότερο επιθετικοί απ'οτι πραγματικά είμαστε;

Και τελικά μήπως αυτή η συμμετοχή σε παιχνίδια που, ομολογουμένως, έχουν υψηλά ποσοστά βίας έχει κάτι να μας πει για την κουλτούρα μας, τον τρόπο ζωής μας; Μήπως έχουμε ανάγκη αυτή την virtual εκτόνωση;

Για να δούμε τι θα δείξουν οι έρευνες  :)

Ε, κάπως έτσι προσεγγίζουμε και το Ιντερνετ...Είναι, πραγματικά, ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέρον να παρατηρήσει κανείς, τον τρόπο παρουσιάσης του διαδικτύου τόσο από μηυμένους του μέσου όσο και από μή.

Ακούω συχνά αξιακές κρίσεις και επιθετικούς προσδιορισμούς "καλό"/"κακό", "σωστή"/"λανθασμένη" χρήση, "χρήση"/"κατάχρηση", "εξάρτηση", "εθισμός". Και σκέφτομαι.........μα το διαδίκτυο δεν είναι επικοινωνία? Δεν είναι "κάτι" ("εργαλείο", "όχημα", "μέσο", όπως θες πες το βρε αδερφέ, δεν θα κολλήσουμε στους ορισμούς) που εσύ και εγώ και ο άλλος μπορούμε και ανταλλάσσουμε απόψεις, πληροφορίες, ιδέες, αντιρρήσεις. Αυτό δεν κάναμε και πριν το ιντερνετ? Δεν επικοινωνούσαμε ή μήπως μας τρομάζει ξαφνικά η ιδέα ότι η επικοινωνία ίσως και να είναι περισσότερο εύκολη απ΄ότι θεωρούσαμε? Υπάρχει "καλή" και "κακή" επικοινωνία?

Θα έλεγα ότι σε κάθε μορφή επικοινωνίας ο λόγος που παράγεται και ενδυναμώνεται από τις κινήσεις και τη στάση του σώματος εμπεριέχει ένα κώδικα συμπεριφοράς τυπικό ή άτυπο και χρονικά και κοινωνικά συμβατό για να είναι αποδεκτός και να υπάρχει συνέχεια μεταξύ των εμπλεκομένων μερών. Κάτι αντίστοιχο συμβαίνει και στο διαδίκτυο, υιοθετούμε παλιές συμπεριφορές, τις προσαρμόζουμε σε νέες, απορρίπτουμε και επαναθεωρούμε. Πάντα θα υπάρχει το "παράξενο", το "λάθος" για εμάς και το "σωστό" για κάποιον άλλο. Ας υπάρχει, αρκεί να έχουμε τη δυνατότητα να το διακρίνουμε και να επιλέξουμε.

Επομένως, ίσως είναι περισσότερο χρήσιμο να εξασκηθούμε στην επικοινωνία, στην κριτική και συνδυαστική σκέψη, στην αναζήτηση και στην επιλογή και όχι στον περιορισμό των πληροφοριών.

Η ζωή και η καθημερινότητα όλων μας είναι πολύπλοκη και πολλές φορές συγκρουσιακή αλλά αν αρχίσουμε να παρατηρούμε τα μικρά καθημερινά γεγονότα μπορεί να καταλάβουμε πιο εύκολα τη σημασία τους, να ξεπεράσουμε τους δισταγμούς μας, να εξοικειωθούμε με τους φόβους μας, να εκτιμήσουμε ό,τι έχουμε και να συνεργαστούμε για ένα ομορφότερο κόσμο.

I was in a room stockpiled with hipster prototypes. While occasionally someone could consider me a hipster based on the geographical location of my apartment, my musical tastes, and my tendency to call myself a fine artist without ever actually physically making any art in years, I felt like an outsider in this crowd: Mullets, mustaches, giant ugly glasses, and guys in short shorts were everywhere. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t wearing a fanny pack, or any other ironic style of clothing, but I was barely cool enough to be hanging out in Bushwick at Ridgewood Masonic Temple. It was a Todd P show, in Brooklyn, so I had to expect the onslaught of irony, but I don’t think I had ever witnessed such an overwhelming exhibition of hipster culture over the years that I’ve covered the music scene.

So ironic! (Shudder)

Bio-fuel production is being blamed for the world's food shortage. [Link]

If you can believe it, homeowners may be even more over-extended in the UK and Spain than in the US. [Link]

Many U.S. retail chains are either closing or down-sizing, including the Sharper Image, Foot Locker, and Ann Taylor.  According to the Times, the closures are "expected to remake suburban malls and downtown shopping districts across the country."  For one, consumers will have to go elsewhere for intense chair massages. [Link]

Then, check out the comments.  They are hilarious. Some gems:

| Posted by Erich
2 of 42 | warn tnr | respond

Snootily over-analyzing and dismissing harmless Internet ephemera. Another thing white people like.

Posted by Jonah Mavesin
14 of 42 | warn tnr | respond

Adam completely misses the main source of smugness that the site elicits in its audience. The whole gag is that white people, as the majority, have never been self-aware of themselves as an ethnic or cultural group -- they just assumed that "everybody" likes things like Whole Foods. The point of the site is that the growing awareness among white people of their own quirky cultural attitudes is a reaction to their emergent understanding of other ethnicities' valid differences. The site pokes fun at the naive sense of self-discovery among whites who have become racially aware -- "Gosh, I always knew black people did such-and-such, but you know, we white people do funny things too!" On the one hand, yes, this is about white smugness. On the other hand, yes, it is definitely a good thing that privileged whites are evolving a racial self-awareness (lord knows my parents still lack it) and have the ability to chuckle at it. Adam's humorless review notwithstanding.

| Posted by Jim D
16 of 42 | warn tnr | respond

Can't take being made fun of? Lucky you aren't a Southern, gun toting, redneck that you liberals make fun of very day of your pathetic lives.

| Posted by Winslow Theramin
30 of 42 | warn tnr | respond

I think the site is great, not only because of it's content but because of the reaction it elicits. People like Sternbergh here obviously can't disentangle themselves from the self-reflective, Gordian knot of irony that pervades throughout. They want to gain purchase on some thin ledge of perspective but it just slips away out from under them. It's funny. Just get over it and enjoy.

| Posted by Richard
36 of 42 | warn tnr | respond

this article reminds me of those articles that take other people to task for liking to watch E! or read about celebrities. Ie. it's just another way for one person (the author) to look down on the ways a different group likes their humor/entertainment. since there's often little overlap between the audience of the article and the group being made fun of, it's a waste of time at best, and sniping at a group you aren't part of at worst. lame. this one strikes me hard as a bit of "i don't see myself as part of any group because I'm such an individual, and seeing that group made fun of makes me feel like a tool". face it - you're probably part of the cliche too... and besides, (to paraphrase elvis costello) isn't criticizing or explaining humor like dancing about architecture?

Heard Christian Lander on NPR, and started telling my white friends about how great this segement I heard on NPR was!

I have a couple of suggestions for the blog that may well have been sent to you already.

White people like

(1) Helping Africans and Latin Americans. Despite that there are plenty of poor, uneducated, unhealthy families residing in the backyards of white people (SE DC, Appalachia, Camden, NJ), they love to travel across the globe to help people deemed even poorer: Latin Americans and Africans. In particular, white people find that the best way to help these populations is by taking photos of them as freelance photographers and educating other white people about how bad these populations have it. (This goes along with the white penchant for "Awareness" illustrated earlier). When asked to explain their passion for this type of "work," white people will rattle off about "human rights," "social justice," "global community," and "interdependence."

Fortunately for white people concerned with the size of their carbon footprint, there has not been enough "awareness" shed on the dent that footprint makes each time a white person flies to South Africa, yet.

(2) Learning non-"Western" languages. At a certain point, learning French went from being romantically intellectual to being a sign of white cultural ignorance, unless that French is to be applied in one of the Francophone countries in Africa. These days, white people are learning Farsi, Hindi, Chinese, and Arabic. Spanish is still okay, but only if you have plans to use it for social justice purposes.

Hope these aren't too repetitive. Keep up the great work. As I'm sure you've heard, I recognize so many people (including myself) in your blog posts.

Cheers (a sign-off that white people like),

Elaine Meyer

Those of us who smile at our familiarity with this blog's critiques have probably been in one too many conversations where a white person bragged about going to the most preserved, un-corrupted-by-tourists part of a foreign country, or wrang their hands at the dearth of really authentic Mexican food in their locality, or talked about their marathon-training regimen.  I'm always amazed at the need for some people to exhibit their pedantic knowledge on the most useless of things, assured that their rendering of say Buddhism or yoga or computers is right (and that other people care).   

For instance, those self-congratulatory people who are always saying how healthy they feel because they are training for a marathon fail to entertain the possibility that maybe what they think is good for them actually is not.  In the whirlwind bytes of information that are hurled at us every day, we tend to seize on those that confirm what we desire to believe.  This is why, when a white person talks of something self-assuredly, I always have to question what underlies that certainty beside a sort of blind faith (similar to some forms of religious belief, which white people often criticize, unless--a nod to Stuff White People Like-- it's an Eastern religion). 

The other thing this blog points to is how these white sub-cultures are so bent on finding the best of everything: the best wine, the best coffee, the best sushi.  As the writer often says, "a lot of cultures love [insert universal item here]...but white people love [it] on an entirely different level."  'Tis the curse of riches and leisure time, I guess.

With this in mind, I have an idea that I may or may not try out next week: designate a day for each folder.  For instance, on Monday, I would go through my Journalism folder (Romanesko, Columbia Journalism Review, etc.), on Tuesday I would read my Music folder, Wednesday the Fun Folder (Jezebel, Kottke), and so on.  A couple drawbacks to this method are that it makes for a day of subject homogeneity and that many blog entries lose their exigency after a couple of days; on the other hand, I may be more efficient at getting through all of my blogs if I approach reading them more like a book and less like an outlet for my attention deficiency.

As a recent article in Vanity Fair lamented, the days of glamorous Washington dinner parties are long gone. Indeed, some hostesses today aren’t above serving Costco salmon, nicely dressed up with a dollop of crème fraîche.

For one, it does not really note whether Costco shoppers, the likes of Sally Quinn (yuck), Richard Perle (ugh), and Ann Jordan, wife of Vernon (indifferent), are replacing shopping at places like Dean & DeLuca and Whole Foods with Costco or just making additional purchases there. Also, Costco does have a barrier for entry that might attract elite in that unlike other comparable bulk shopping sources like Walmart and Target, patrons must pay a membership fee of 50 dollars to shop there.

Moving further down in the article, and out of nowhere, the writer draws this ridiculous conclusion:

Against the backdrop of an unpopular war, rising oil prices and a subprime mortgage crisis, a certain thriftiness seems to have crept into the city’s dining rooms.

I find it hard to believe that D.C. elites are touched by this.  Really, how many of them have been forced to default on their subprime loan? Even those who have been impacted by the troubles in the stock market are certainly investing for the long term, and furthermore, I bet all of the people profiled in this silly article were shopping at Costco before the dawn of this purported new age of thriftiness.

Another stupid assumption that this article makes is that the change in menus from standard upper crust fare of the 1960s means that the dinner parties are somehow less elite:

“I don’t think anyone would dare serve caviar as a first course today, and instead of filet mignon, there are a lot of other beef dishes,” said Letitia Baldrige, the etiquette writer who was Jacqueline Kennedy’s social secretary. “Embassies don’t have the pocketbooks they used to. And to have these opulent menus for these parties here, it looks bad.”

Maybe the caviar apostasy signifies a broadening of dinner party menus, which might suggest that more time is devoted to thinking up menus for these affairs, and in turn, that the elite activity of throwing fancy dinner parties is even more fetishized today. (Full disclosure: I'm not against and have even been to my share of dinner parties).

Even the facts in this article vindicate that Costco is actually a middle and upper-middle class destination and does not signal that one is slumming it by going on a bulk paper towel and sheet cake shopping spree:

To its benefit, Costco has carefully fashioned an upscale-downscale image, and their stores do better in high-end locations, said the company’s chief financial officer, Richard Galanti.

In these uncertain, spartan times, there's nothing thriftier to do than get a good deal on shiitake mushrooms:

Mr. Perle knows no such shame. “The book section, the cheese section, the seafood, I almost always get some fresh produce there,” he said, rattling off his favorite Costco haunts. “I just bought chanterelles there the other day, and they often have fresh shiitake mushrooms.”

There is less priority on finding fulfillment from relationships in the young adult years, so people focus instead on finding it from jobs (There was a study that recently came out indicating that people have fewer close relationships today than they used to. When I have more time, I'll dredge that up).

Edited to add: The study was of course referred to me by my friend and frequent commenter Chris!  Here's the Boston Globe article about it.

I have some doubts about whether Wilner's solution is workable, though I do think it represents the most enriching route.  Self-expression may be one of the most enlivening feeings, and the reason office work can be deadening is because it requires the individual sublimate his expression for a group objective that can run far afield from his personal concerns.  Thus, fields like writing, visual arts, and performance are the ones associated with high personal fulfillment.  These are also some of the most difficult fields to break into.  Basically, too many people are vying for success at being personally enriched and enriching others.

I would hypothesize that jobs have not gotten less interesting since our parents transitioned into the job market but rather that job seekers have become more demanding.  People may prioritize finding personal fulfillment in their job more than in the past, when job and financial security may have been greater concerns.  If this is true, the existential crisis theory of young adulthood may be overblown.  Perhaps there should be efforts to reformulate the economy to value personal fulfillment in work--I don't claim to know how this could be achieved--and to become more adjusted to the fact that most young adults will take longer to find careers than people used to, that this is a socio-demographic phenomenon (if we want to be all social sciencey about it).

Besides meeting the usual requirements of being young, urban, and a professional, I've found that to be a good yuppy, one must also be an afficianado. The more afficianado feathers in one's cap, the more legitimate a yuppy he is. Yuppy afficianado-ism works best in the realm of consumption, in particular, with products that have a luxury/organic/fair trade market or that are part of an expensive hobby. I've found that the best afficianadoes, the ones who can expound on command, are the following: coffee appreciators, wine connoisseurs, cyclists, hike-campers, beer enthusiasts, foodies, and techies.

However, a solid yuppy can sound like a commanding authority in any dinner party conversation. A solid yuppy is, in effect, an afficanado's afficianado--not a jack of all trades, but an expert on all trades. He can tell you where to backpack in South America away from all of the tourists, where to get bike parts and how to replace them (and when to go to the bike store that he assures you is the best one in town), or which restaurant has the most legitimate relationship with local farms.

I am in this regard a bad yuppy. I have very limited pockets of specialized knowledge, and those areas with which I am familiar are not very glamorous. The other day, for instance, my roommates expressed surprise at my off the cuff tutorial on gauging our dishwasher's efficacy at cleaning the dishes properly and what to do if it is not (check for food in its parts, get a dishwashing cleanser that will run in a cycle by itself, turn on the hot water in the sink before running the dishwasher). This information was imparted to me by my father.

Unfortunately, as a child and teenager, I took relatively little interest in absorbing facts and how-tos in favor of thinking about more abstract questions, and as a result, I was not instilled with an appreciation for holding pedantic stores of knowledge on semi-relevant subjects. This is not to say that I avoided learning; in fact, I probably thought too much about cerebral, meaning-of-life questions as a young person and not enough about practical ones. Today, this leads me to wonder, with some admiration when I endearingly ask about how to fix my bike's front gears or what red wine pairs well with X food item, how do people know about this stuff?

The offset is among the most unusual of commodities. It's substance is intangible, the absence of something. Some pollution would have existed, somewhere, sometime, the seller says, and now it won't.

An offset is often not a reduction of emissions but its subversion altogether. You cannot reduce something that never existed in the first place, contrary to the perception that when one pays to offset carbon, they reduce existing carbon emission.

Offsetting does not a represent progression either, really, because progress is moving forward, and the goal of reducing carbon means curtailing the sort of activity that societies past referred to as progress. Of course, working towards a goal still sets up a framework for making progress, but it is a not a traditional paradigm for progress. Usually production and accumulation yield progress; now reduction and conservation are the means towards it.

This begs the question: is real emissions reduction a major retreat from the old paradigm of industrialization and production? Will there be a new, more environmentally conscious type of industrialization, will First World countries try to prevent Third World countries from industrialization, or will a third way emerge in the form of offsets projects in the Third World that advance modernization and limit emissions?

This got me thinking about how at some point, eco- this and green that became hot, and I do not really know why. Was it the Al Gore movie? Discovery Channel specials on melting icecaps? Americans are constantly accused of living ignorant of anything that is not an immediate threat to our way of life, and yet, people still get motivated by a melting polar icecap, which I don't think is going to set off an orange alert anytime soon. Again, it begs the question, why now? (I suppose it's my cue to break out Malcom Gladwell's Tipping Point).

In any case, few things interest me more than the special lingo that accompanies a new trend and how readily people embrace it. Think the enthusiastic usage of metrosexual several years back. The global warming movement has no shortage of terms, my favorite being the ubiquitous one used by my dad, "carbon footprint." The technology boom brought us liberally applied "e-" and "i-" prefixes and now this renewed bout--or hopefully an era--of environmental awareness brings us "carbon footprint."

Today, I was trying to puzzle out the accuracy of this metaphor, and I got stuck on the idea of "reducing" one's carbon footprint. Does this mean that by using less carbon-emitting products, one treads more lightly on the theoretical sand of our ozone, or does it mean that one's footprint actually decreases in size? The latter is impossible for a footprint to do, as far as I know, so reducing a carbon footprint must refer to making a lighter impression. Thoughts?

Because it is easy to forget how high the standard of this nation's water is, and how much effort goes into keeping it that way and bringing it to parts of the country that are not in areas of high precipitation or that are subject to droughts, people use their sprinklers with impunity. However, some communities have the right idea. Take the city of Santa Monica, which does not allow lawns to be watered during peak daylight hours, regulates against the use of water in ponds and fountains, and makes it illegal to hose down "hardscapes." On that last point, can I just say how incredibly annoying it is when cityworkers or building workers hose down sidewalks in order to clean them? It just makes the sidewalk slick and slimy and weakens friction between shoe and ground.

As an aside, during my research for this article, I unearthed the existence of The British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association or BAFSA.

Although Pollan is knowledgeable and his argument sophisticated, he does not escape a fuzzy nostalgia for the preindustrial past. In Pollan's breakthrough book, his 1991 Second Nature: A Gardener's Education, he considers how man should relate to nature and puts forth a metaphor of man as gardener. Perhaps this construct, which encourages a small-scale and piecemeal view of our food world, explains where he goes wrong.

[...]

The ideas are powerful, but the garden is not a useful way to think about food markets. Pollan does not acknowledge how much his garden construct is historically specific. Early crop-growing, circa 5000 B.C. or even 1700 A.D., was no fun. The labor was backbreaking, and whether it rained, or when the frost came, was often a matter of life or death. And proper gardens—as a source of pleasure rather than survival—became widespread only with the appearance of capitalist wealth and leisure time, both results of man's dominion over nature. The English gardening tradition blossomed in the 18^th century, along with consumer society and a nascent Industrial Revolution.

In other words, the garden ideal is possible in some spheres only because it is rejected in so many others. It is the cultures of the scientists and engineers that have allowed gardens—and also a regular food supply—to flourish in the modern world.

I love historical perspective!

In the last month, I have made two trips to the National Archives of the United States of America to see the Constitution and the original Declaration of Independence. Before an Archives guard releases the group mostly comprised of tourists into the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom, he warns us to disable the flash on our cameras or risk confiscation. In this dimly lit hall, visitors nonetheless attempt to take flash-free photographs of the faded, partially illegible documents that are protected by thick glass. Rather than even attempt to read these historic documents, these tourists reflexively reach for the camera to take a photo that surely will not make the words of the document more lucid nor captivate the poor friend or relative who is subject to a slideshow of the family trip to the Nation's Capital.

As someone who enjoys taking photos a little too much, I sympathize with the impulse to document every site seen on a trip, especially the famed and fabled ones, but there's a point where this need for the Kodak Moment takes away from the real moment. Sure, the undocumented site may not live in material memory, but certainly a viewing of the Mona Lisa or the Constitution will forever live in the mind, and sometimes that is enough. When those tourist photographers were madly snapping away at the Mona Lisa, I wondered whether they even liked the painting, whether a critical thought about the painting passed through their minds.

The other problem with taking photos in museums is that it is intrusive. For the moments when the camera-wielder is taking his photo, the line of sight between his camera and the painting is his zone. If one walks through a gallery with many amateur photographers, one has to constantly be mindful of not intruding upon their attempts at photos. Engaging with the art, which can be a peaceful, private activity is intruded upon by their obtrusiveness. No longer is the museum a place centered around the objects viewed; it becomes a series of snapshots for the future-thinking picture taker who imagines the slide show or photo album that will come of this visit instead of the history and background of the object at hand.

As I was walking behind a lady with my gaze modestly cast downward toward her feet, I observed her shuffling, skewed-toe gait. I realized that the reason for this acute foot angle was to better prevent her little flip-flops from flying off. The net result of this understandable and natural flip-flop preservation mechanism is to create an overall walk that is actually more of a waddle. And then I began to see it everywhere - all the girls wearing flip-flops were walking in this kind of undignified trundling manner. What happened to stodgily-dressed, conservative DC? I long for the smart and classy fashion of women in old Hollywood. The casual look has gone too far. I guess the equality of the sexes has really come to pass - now women are as slovenly as guys. This flip-flop hegemony has got to end. I want to see women walking with their toes out in front of them, tall and proud. Have some dignity, have some posture, ban the flip-flops, bring sexy back!

I agree with D.C. sidewalk blogger that flip flops precipitate a dragging gait, but neither "sexy" nor "classy fashion of women in old Hollywood" has been a hallmark of D.C. style.  If anything, D.C. style is the best it has ever been.  Nancy Pelosi, the most prominent female politician, has eschewed the primary-colored-power-suit-matching-pumps for a more refined, chic look.  Even Hillary Clinton, no foe of the power suit during her husband's presidency, has at least settled on a softer yellow that does not quite jump out the way the hideous 90s ensembles did.

Still, D.C.'s dress code remains counter-intuitive to its weather, particularly in the hot, humid summer.  If anything, flip-flops make amazing sense and are long overdue.  The conservative formality of this city instates a dress code of suits and closed-toed dress shoes that quickly precipitate the sweat storm that is a thing of daily existence for area residents.  (I will grudgingly admit that in this environment, seersucker suits make sense).  I am a firm believer that style and comfort need not be mutually exclusive, but the D.C. fashion scene seems to miss both by remaining wedded to impratical dress codes.

In other cities that I have visited, the predominant fashion aura matches the city landscape and its climate.  In San Francisco, people sported comfortable shoes and casual but funky, layered clothes, a natural choice in a temperate, hilly setting with lots of temperature variance in short spans of space.  The frequent rain in Paris seemed to have influenced the city's residents to rely upon shawls and scarves to warm up, and though Parisians displayed a formality unfamiliar to American cities, the practicals like shoes and coats favored (stylish) comfort over sacrifice. 

Why shouldn't D.C.'s women be able to freely adapt to their city's climate, which happens to be incredibly uncomfortable in the summer?  In this vein, sandals of any kind make the most sense, and the style is not uniformly unglamorous.  That this author is willing to give men a pass for looking "slovenly" but wills that women squeeze into pumps or stillettos or other signifiers of glamor makes his rant even more patently and ridiculously archaic.