Op-Ed Columnist
Once Again, Into the Apocalypse
By GAIL COLLINS
A lot of people are worrying about the world coming to an end in 2012.
Bummer. I thought we’d gotten over all that in 2000.
The question of whether the End of Time will arrive during the holiday shopping season three years hence is already the subject of a veritable library of books. We also have what “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to 2012” claims are almost 600,000 Web sites devoted to worrying about it.
This seems to be the fault of Nostradamus, the Mayan calendar, angst on the left about global warming and angst on the right about the election of Barack Obama. Or the health care bill. Or government bailouts. Or the repositioning of “In God We Trust” on the nation’s coinage.
Really, for ultraconservatives, the last year has been one sign of the apocalypse after the other. Soon, the rivers will run red with Starbucks Raspberry-Flavored Tazo Passion Shaken Iced Tea. Owls will give birth to two-headed frogs who shriek the lyrics to Lady Gaga songs.
Hollywood is unleashing a raft of movies about humanity tottering on the edge of extinction. In “2012,” a G-8 summit convenes to discuss the fact that “the world as we know it will soon come to an end.” Actually, I would not be surprised if the participants found this preferable to another round of the Doha trade talks.
The film characters who are best prepared for the planetary calamity had been consulting the ancient Mayan calendar, which runs through more than five millennia and then comes screeching to a halt on Dec. 21, 2012. Some say that for the Mayans, this was just the end of a cycle, like completing a really long year, and that if they’d been able to hang around for a few more centuries they’d simply have issued a new, post-2012 calendar, this time perhaps including some nice pictures of puppies.
Others see more dire forces at work. In “2012,” the crust of the earth starts bouncing around like Tom DeLay in that cha-cha competition. No one can save us, not the black president or the governor of California with an Austrian accent. Certainly the Europeans can’t help, since not even the collapse of every tall building on the planet can get Americans to pay attention to non-American ideas.
Also coming soon to a theater near you are: “The Road” (Viggo Mortensen struggles across a barren landscape after a mysterious cataclysm) and “The Book of Eli” (Denzel Washington guards a book that could save post-apocalypse humanity from Gary Oldman). Obviously, Hollywood has determined that the reason all those Iraq-war-themed movies failed was that the moviegoers felt the scenery wasn’t bleak enough.
I’ve been disappointed that, so far, almost no one has noticed that St. Malachy’s List of the Last Popes has been running out of gas almost as fast as the Mayan calendar. Malachy was an Irish bishop who died in 1148, after allegedly having seen a vision of the future 112 popes who would reign until the end of the world. By this count, the current Benedict XVI would be 111.
Each of the popes gets a little hint as to his identity. For the most part, Malachy cannily chose to keep them general enough (“angelic shepherd”) that it was hard not to hit a lot of home runs. But good luck in figuring out how Benedict is “glory of the olives.”
Keeping things vague, or subject to multiple interpretations, is the real key to apocalyptic predictions. It’s what made Nostradamus a household name. He’d stare at a bowl of water for hours on end, and then come up with something like:
For the merry maid the bright splendor
Will shine no longer, for long will she be without salt.
With merchants, bullies, wolves odious,
All confusion universal monster.
Which is obviously a foretelling of the Sarah Palin book tour.
My own favorite prognosticator, The Amazing Criswell, always got into trouble with specificity, including his prediction that a black rainbow would circle the earth in 1999 and suck out all the oxygen. He lost a lot of credibility even earlier, after he announced that the United States would move its capital to Wichita and that pressures from outer space would turn Denver into jelly. Really, people tend to remember stuff like that.
I’m predicting that by the time we reach 2011, the 2012 Web sites will hit the million mark, not to mention the Twitters of Terror. But we’ve survived end-of-the-world panic many times before.
When I was a kid, the nuns at my school filled us with stories about prophecies of doom, frequently from Our Lady of Fatima. They always revolved around the Communist menace, and we were occasionally sent home on Friday with assurances that the End was coming by Sunday. We were credulous enough not to question why, in that case, there were homework assignments.
In this article the author uses a satire by satirizing the idea that the world is going to end in 2012. While reading this quote, I found it very humorous and vivid, “Really, for ultraconservatives, the last year has been one sign of the apocalypse after the other. Soon, the rivers will run red with Starbucks Raspberry-Flavored Tazo Passion Shaken Iced Tea. Owls will give birth to two-headed frogs who shriek the lyrics to Lady Gaga songs.” By the use of absurdness and hyperbole the authors achieves the satirical tone. Gail Collins used formal register for his article, he uses words such as, disappointed, noticed, multiple, vague and so forth.
I found this article very effective, for it uses evidence to prove his point. I do agree with him, why in the world do people still panic that the world is going to end when it has been said many times before? , “But we’ve survived end-of-the-world panic many times before.” It’s a very funny article, I loved the way it makes fun of those who do believe the world is going to end in 2012.
sábado, 14 de noviembre de 2009
Being Stuck Between Two Cultures
This memoir can be targeted mainly for Chinese-Americans, who can empathize with it. Those who can share those feelings and emotions of frustration. It is hard to continue following those restrictive traditions while living in The United States Of America, the land of the free. Being Chinese- American must not be easy. They are two extreme cultures, so different that being part of both must be like feeling you don’t belong in either. The sense of lost of identity. We can see these in the book when Kingston feels different from her American classmates and also from her own relatives. She can’t seem to find a place where she belongs, this causes frustration. The crush of cultures and traditions is the main reason. For there are many things which have different meaning depending on the culture. Also since Kingston has never been to China, she doesn’t seem to be able to sort out fiction and nonfiction stories she is told. She is expected to believe what she is told. It must be very frustrating.
I can relate to her a little, but not quite as much for my mom is American and my dad is Colombian. I have a multicultural background, and I have lived in both countries. Yet, I found these two cultures to be quite similar or at least my family’s traditions and I do feel a sense of belonging, for they are not so different.
I can relate to her a little, but not quite as much for my mom is American and my dad is Colombian. I have a multicultural background, and I have lived in both countries. Yet, I found these two cultures to be quite similar or at least my family’s traditions and I do feel a sense of belonging, for they are not so different.
Women Oppresion In Chinese Culture
In “The Woman Warrior” we can see how each chapter and each story is mainly about a woman that affects Kingston’s life. The whole book depicts the male-dominated society she lives in. This is done through the use of only women in the book, men are intentionally not included. This book shows the power full Chinese traditions. They are educated to and raised to believe they are worthless. As I read a women saying, "Better to have geese than girls". Kingston’s mother is a successful doctor, and yet she can’t stress more the fact that girls are disappointments to their parents, no matter what they accomplish. Kingston’s feels haunted by ghosts of Chinese girls whose parents abandoned them because they wanted sons. We can see it is a very masculine culture, were women and girls are oppressed but they learn to live with it, making it a part of their daily lives. To them it is the right thing to do, for many of us it’s simply absurd. You may ask yourself why they don’t stand up for what they believe, but the truth is most of them believe and practice their culture with no exceptions. This is why Kingston’s fantasy story includes all these admired humans roles, that depict women as very successful and a key tool. In her story women are given the value they deserve nowhere are they undermined. I think she does this because she is not in accordance with her culture, yet she has to follow it unless she leaves home.
lunes, 9 de noviembre de 2009
"Justice"
November 9, 2009
Editorial
Imprisoning a Child for Life
The United States could be the only nation in the world where a 13-year-old child can be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, even for crimes that do not include murder. This grim distinction should trouble Americans deeply, as should all of the barbaric sentencing policies for children that this country embraces but that most of the world has abandoned.
The Supreme Court must keep the international standard in mind when it hears arguments on Monday in Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida. The petitioners in both argue that sentencing children to life without the possibility of parole for a nonhomicide violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
The court came down on the right side of this issue in 2005 when it ruled that children who commit crimes before the age of 18 should not be subject to the death penalty. The decision correctly pointed out that juveniles were less culpable because they lacked maturity, were vulnerable to peer pressure and had personalities that were still being formed.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the practice of executing 16- and 17-year-olds violated the Eighth Amendment, conflicted with “evolving standards of decency” and isolated the United States from the rest of the world.
The Roper decision took scores of juveniles off death row. It also threw a spotlight onto state policies under which young juveniles were increasingly being tried in adult courts and sentenced to adult jails, often for nonviolent crimes.
The practice is even more troubling because it is arbitrary. Children who commit nonviolent crimes like theft and burglary are just as likely to be shipped off to adult courts as children who commit serious violent crimes. And the process is racially freighted, with black and Latino children more likely to be sent to adult courts than white children who commit comparable crimes.
The rush to try more and more children as adults began in the 1980s when the country was gripped by hysteria about an adolescent crime wave that never materialized. Joe Sullivan, the petitioner in Sullivan v. Florida, was sentenced to life without parole in 1989 — when he was just 13 — after a questionable sexual battery conviction. His two older accomplices testified against the younger, mentally impaired boy. They received short sentences, one of them as a juvenile.
The case of Terrance Graham has similar contours. A learning disabled child — born to crack-addicted parents — Mr. Graham was on probation in connection with a burglary committed when he was 16 when he participated in a home invasion. He, too, had older accomplices. He was never convicted of the actual crime but was given life without parole for violating the conditions of his probation.
These were two very troubled children in need of adult supervision and perhaps even time behind bars. But it is insupportable to conclude, as the courts did, that children who committed crimes when they were so young were beyond rehabilitation. The laws under which they were convicted violate current human rights standards and the Constitution.
How can the land of the free, violate an amendment? Ho w can in the land of opportunities be cruel punishment? The opening sentence says it all, “The United States could be the only nation in the world where a 13-year-old child can be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, even for crimes that do not include murder.” I actually believed the U.S actually gave chance to children under 18, apparently not.
I do believe it violates the Eighteenth Amendment, because sentencing a kid even more when he hasn’t killed anyone is simply cruel. As the article says there are many factors why a kid should not be life sentenced, “they lacked maturity, were vulnerable to peer pressure and had personalities that were still being formed.” Children don’t have enough experience to punish them with such drastic measures. They are in the process of making errors and learning from them, children do have the capability of learning.
Also we can see racism through the article when the author states, “And the process is racially freighted, with black and Latino children more likely to be sent to adult courts than white children who commit comparable crimes.” Isn’t this an equal nation for all? Where is the so called justice? The U.S believes to have the best justice system, but when it comes to applying it, it is the only country that does such inhumane acts.
Editorial
Imprisoning a Child for Life
The United States could be the only nation in the world where a 13-year-old child can be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, even for crimes that do not include murder. This grim distinction should trouble Americans deeply, as should all of the barbaric sentencing policies for children that this country embraces but that most of the world has abandoned.
The Supreme Court must keep the international standard in mind when it hears arguments on Monday in Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida. The petitioners in both argue that sentencing children to life without the possibility of parole for a nonhomicide violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
The court came down on the right side of this issue in 2005 when it ruled that children who commit crimes before the age of 18 should not be subject to the death penalty. The decision correctly pointed out that juveniles were less culpable because they lacked maturity, were vulnerable to peer pressure and had personalities that were still being formed.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the practice of executing 16- and 17-year-olds violated the Eighth Amendment, conflicted with “evolving standards of decency” and isolated the United States from the rest of the world.
The Roper decision took scores of juveniles off death row. It also threw a spotlight onto state policies under which young juveniles were increasingly being tried in adult courts and sentenced to adult jails, often for nonviolent crimes.
The practice is even more troubling because it is arbitrary. Children who commit nonviolent crimes like theft and burglary are just as likely to be shipped off to adult courts as children who commit serious violent crimes. And the process is racially freighted, with black and Latino children more likely to be sent to adult courts than white children who commit comparable crimes.
The rush to try more and more children as adults began in the 1980s when the country was gripped by hysteria about an adolescent crime wave that never materialized. Joe Sullivan, the petitioner in Sullivan v. Florida, was sentenced to life without parole in 1989 — when he was just 13 — after a questionable sexual battery conviction. His two older accomplices testified against the younger, mentally impaired boy. They received short sentences, one of them as a juvenile.
The case of Terrance Graham has similar contours. A learning disabled child — born to crack-addicted parents — Mr. Graham was on probation in connection with a burglary committed when he was 16 when he participated in a home invasion. He, too, had older accomplices. He was never convicted of the actual crime but was given life without parole for violating the conditions of his probation.
These were two very troubled children in need of adult supervision and perhaps even time behind bars. But it is insupportable to conclude, as the courts did, that children who committed crimes when they were so young were beyond rehabilitation. The laws under which they were convicted violate current human rights standards and the Constitution.
How can the land of the free, violate an amendment? Ho w can in the land of opportunities be cruel punishment? The opening sentence says it all, “The United States could be the only nation in the world where a 13-year-old child can be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, even for crimes that do not include murder.” I actually believed the U.S actually gave chance to children under 18, apparently not.
I do believe it violates the Eighteenth Amendment, because sentencing a kid even more when he hasn’t killed anyone is simply cruel. As the article says there are many factors why a kid should not be life sentenced, “they lacked maturity, were vulnerable to peer pressure and had personalities that were still being formed.” Children don’t have enough experience to punish them with such drastic measures. They are in the process of making errors and learning from them, children do have the capability of learning.
Also we can see racism through the article when the author states, “And the process is racially freighted, with black and Latino children more likely to be sent to adult courts than white children who commit comparable crimes.” Isn’t this an equal nation for all? Where is the so called justice? The U.S believes to have the best justice system, but when it comes to applying it, it is the only country that does such inhumane acts.
domingo, 8 de noviembre de 2009
Time Literary Supplement
While reading Factory Girls TLS book review, I found it very well organized. The author starts off by giving background information of life in China. The author uses a lot of vividness, so it truly impacts the reader, “They live in factory compounds, sleep in crowded dormitories and eat canteen food.” This is just one example of imagery. The author uses a common place when he talks about Addidas, Nike, and Rebook, for they are very popular brands many people buy from. The reader even though it is talking about a foreign country can have a sense of identity and belonging with the article.
While giving a brief taste of what the book is about, the author does very well again using vividness, “She skipped meals in order to take computer classes.” When I read this I could picture how hard life had to be for them, it truly impacted me. Even though the author wrote in formal register, his word choice was very adequate, it was eloquent but easy to understand. The author reveals the perfect amount of information to give the reader a perspective of what the book is generally about.
By the use of real life events, the author gives surprising facts, “The ideal man must be at least 1.7 meters. In China height is often a proxy for status or even class.” Also the author says that some jobs require a minimum height for applicants. When learning about a culture you find many things which seem very “weird”, but they all have a meaning behind it. I wonder what the meaning behind height is. The author uses specific details like this one, which makes the reader live this foreign culture and learn from its diversities.
While giving a brief taste of what the book is about, the author does very well again using vividness, “She skipped meals in order to take computer classes.” When I read this I could picture how hard life had to be for them, it truly impacted me. Even though the author wrote in formal register, his word choice was very adequate, it was eloquent but easy to understand. The author reveals the perfect amount of information to give the reader a perspective of what the book is generally about.
By the use of real life events, the author gives surprising facts, “The ideal man must be at least 1.7 meters. In China height is often a proxy for status or even class.” Also the author says that some jobs require a minimum height for applicants. When learning about a culture you find many things which seem very “weird”, but they all have a meaning behind it. I wonder what the meaning behind height is. The author uses specific details like this one, which makes the reader live this foreign culture and learn from its diversities.
Ghosts?
Personally, I do believe in ghosts, I have never witnessed to see one, but I’d rather not. I am very scared of that topic and rather not talk about it. While reading this book I could connect with it by how the author describes both perspectives of ghosts. One of them exactly describes me and the other my twin sister.
In the example of the book when the girls were all together and they heard a thump and a creak, “The girls would jump closer together giggling.” I felt a sense of connection with the narrator because I have been there. I reacted exactly the same way.
On the other hand, my twin sister is very “brave” as she thinks of herself that way. She doesn’t really believe in them, just like the mother. As the mother said, “That was somebody who fell asleep reading in bed and dropped her book.” I wish I could think like this, but I can’t I am a very nervous person and thinking it was just a coincidence, simply doesn’t go with my brain.
At the end we will never know if ghosts really do exist. It is a complex topic with millions of unanswered questions and I believe this is what gives me the uncertainty when they are talked about. I rather believe than not believe because what if they do exist? Some people say if you don’t believe they appear to show you they do exist, so I might as well believe for the mean time!
In the example of the book when the girls were all together and they heard a thump and a creak, “The girls would jump closer together giggling.” I felt a sense of connection with the narrator because I have been there. I reacted exactly the same way.
On the other hand, my twin sister is very “brave” as she thinks of herself that way. She doesn’t really believe in them, just like the mother. As the mother said, “That was somebody who fell asleep reading in bed and dropped her book.” I wish I could think like this, but I can’t I am a very nervous person and thinking it was just a coincidence, simply doesn’t go with my brain.
At the end we will never know if ghosts really do exist. It is a complex topic with millions of unanswered questions and I believe this is what gives me the uncertainty when they are talked about. I rather believe than not believe because what if they do exist? Some people say if you don’t believe they appear to show you they do exist, so I might as well believe for the mean time!
A Collision Of Two Cultures
As we collide with different cultures we think we are normal and the other culture is not, yet they think the same as you do. So in the end what really is normal? I found it very interesting how in this book the mother doesn’t understand why Americans smile in the pictures she says, “What are you laughing at?” In her culture there is no point in smiling for a picture.
Another example of culture and customs is about putting away the straw hat before fall began, “If you want to save your hat for next year, you have to put it away early or else when you’re riding the subway or walking along Fifth Avenue, any stranger can snatch it off your head and put his foot through it.” Someone who doesn’t know about this tradition might become very angry and scared, yet people do it as a tradition, it’s not evil intentions. It is their way of celebrating the change of season.
This is why when you move it is so difficult to adapt. All the customs you were used to have become new ones, and some of which may seem ridiculous to you. There many different cultures, traditions, and customs all over the world this is due to the fact that people believe different things according to the environment that surrounds them and their ancestors.
Another example of culture and customs is about putting away the straw hat before fall began, “If you want to save your hat for next year, you have to put it away early or else when you’re riding the subway or walking along Fifth Avenue, any stranger can snatch it off your head and put his foot through it.” Someone who doesn’t know about this tradition might become very angry and scared, yet people do it as a tradition, it’s not evil intentions. It is their way of celebrating the change of season.
This is why when you move it is so difficult to adapt. All the customs you were used to have become new ones, and some of which may seem ridiculous to you. There many different cultures, traditions, and customs all over the world this is due to the fact that people believe different things according to the environment that surrounds them and their ancestors.
viernes, 6 de noviembre de 2009
Imagination: No Limits!
November 3, 2009, 9:30 pm
License to Wonder
In the wake of my column last week about how the faces you make when speaking different languages might affect your mood, several people wrote and accused me of speculating. I admit it! Indeed, I said as much in the piece.
One of my favorite things to do is to take a set of facts and use them to imagine how the world might work. In writing about some of these ideas, my aim is not to be correct — how can I be, when the answer isn’t known? — but to be thought-provoking, to ask questions, to make people wonder.
I mention this because science is usually presented as a body of knowledge — facts to be memorized, equations to be solved, concepts to be understood, discoveries to be applauded. But this approach can give students two misleading impressions.
One is that science is about what we know. One colleague told me that when he was studying science at school, the relentless focus on the known gave him the impression that almost everything had already been discovered. But in fact, science — as the physicist Richard Feynman once wrote — creates an “expanding frontier of ignorance,” where most discoveries lead to more questions. (This frontier — this peering into the unknown — is what I especially like to write about.) Moreover, insofar as science is a body of knowledge, that body is provisional: much of what we thought we knew in the past has turned out to be incomplete, or plain wrong.
The second misconception that comes from this “facts, facts, facts” method of teaching science is the impression that scientific discovery progresses as an orderly, logical “creep”; that each new discovery points more or less unambiguously to the next. But in reality, while some scientific work does involve the plodding, brick-by-brick accumulation of evidence, much of it requires leaps of imagination and daring speculation. (This raises the interesting question of when speculation is more likely to generate productive lines of enquiry than deductive creep. I don’t know the answer — I’d have to speculate.)
Vittorio Luzzati/National Portrait Gallery in London Rosalind Franklin in 1950.
There are plenty of (probably) apocryphal tales about what inspired a great discovery, from Archimedes in his bathtub, to Newton and his apple. But there are also many well-documented accounts of inspiration — or lack of it — in the history of science. Among the most famous is the story of Rosalind Franklin and her non-discovery of the structure of DNA.
Franklin was an expert at getting x-ray diagrams from crystals of molecules. The idea is that the array of spots in the diagram will reveal how the atoms in the crystal are arranged. When Franklin started working on DNA, she obtained superb x-ray diagrams; one of her contemporaries described them as among the most beautiful of any substance ever taken. Indeed, it was from one of her diagrams that James Watson and Francis Crick deduced what the correct structure of DNA must be. (The picture was shown to Watson without Franklin’s knowledge.)
She had the data. Why didn’t she reach the solution? There are several answers to this; but one is that she had a fixed idea about how the problem should be solved. Namely, she wanted to work out the structure using the methods she had been taught. These methods are intricate, abstract, and mathematical, and difficult to use on a molecule as complex as DNA. Watson and Crick, meanwhile, were building physical models of what the diagram suggested the structure should be like — an approach that Franklin scorned. What’s more, their first model was ludicrously wrong, something that Franklin spotted immediately. But they were willing to play; she wasn’t. In other words, she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, adopt a more intuitive, speculative approach.
Our ability to make scientific discoveries is limited in a number of fundamental ways. One is time: it’s hard to do good experiments that last for more than a few weeks. Experiments that run for years are rare; as a result, we know relatively little about long, slow processes. Another constraint is money (no surprise there); a third is ethics (some experiments that would be interesting to do are ethically impossible). Some questions remain uninvestigated because no one stands to profit from the answers. Still others are neglected because they have no obvious bearing on human health or welfare, the areas of research are unfashionable, or the appropriate tools haven’t been invented yet. Some problems are just overwhelmingly complex.
But there’s one way in which we should not be limited: imagination. As Einstein put it, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
This op-ed is written by Olivia Judson, I found it quite interesting because it is a response to many comments people wrote on her op-ed about smiles and language, which I also wrote on. (See blogs below.)
Many readers accuse her of speculating, without any facts. Therefore, she defends herself with a great deal of examples and famous people. She also goes further in to explaining, why science wouldn’t work without speculation. I couldn’t agree more with her, point of view.
Olivia has a great way of putting her thoughts into writing. When I read her articles, I can sympathize very much with her. By making me link with her, she has done the hardest thing a writer must do.
In the world we live in almost everything is a mystery, and as the years go on by all this errors other people obtain questions, until one day someone gets the answer. As Olivia said, “While some scientific work does involve the plodding, brick-by-brick accumulation of evidence, much of it requires leaps of imagination and daring speculation.” There is nothing wrong with speculating, because as a banner in my classroom says success is getting up when you fall. Cowards don’t speculate because they are afraid of being wrong, but the truth is we are all humans and we learn from making mistakes.
In the society we live in mistakes are seen as something negative, but in reality they are positive, for they teach us more than anything can. As long as we learn from our mistakes and don’t repeat them, a mistake is a positive thing.
I loved how Olivia ended her article with a strong quote from Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” personally I am addicted to quotes. Therefore without speculation, there would be no discoveries!
License to Wonder
In the wake of my column last week about how the faces you make when speaking different languages might affect your mood, several people wrote and accused me of speculating. I admit it! Indeed, I said as much in the piece.
One of my favorite things to do is to take a set of facts and use them to imagine how the world might work. In writing about some of these ideas, my aim is not to be correct — how can I be, when the answer isn’t known? — but to be thought-provoking, to ask questions, to make people wonder.
I mention this because science is usually presented as a body of knowledge — facts to be memorized, equations to be solved, concepts to be understood, discoveries to be applauded. But this approach can give students two misleading impressions.
One is that science is about what we know. One colleague told me that when he was studying science at school, the relentless focus on the known gave him the impression that almost everything had already been discovered. But in fact, science — as the physicist Richard Feynman once wrote — creates an “expanding frontier of ignorance,” where most discoveries lead to more questions. (This frontier — this peering into the unknown — is what I especially like to write about.) Moreover, insofar as science is a body of knowledge, that body is provisional: much of what we thought we knew in the past has turned out to be incomplete, or plain wrong.
The second misconception that comes from this “facts, facts, facts” method of teaching science is the impression that scientific discovery progresses as an orderly, logical “creep”; that each new discovery points more or less unambiguously to the next. But in reality, while some scientific work does involve the plodding, brick-by-brick accumulation of evidence, much of it requires leaps of imagination and daring speculation. (This raises the interesting question of when speculation is more likely to generate productive lines of enquiry than deductive creep. I don’t know the answer — I’d have to speculate.)
Vittorio Luzzati/National Portrait Gallery in London Rosalind Franklin in 1950.
There are plenty of (probably) apocryphal tales about what inspired a great discovery, from Archimedes in his bathtub, to Newton and his apple. But there are also many well-documented accounts of inspiration — or lack of it — in the history of science. Among the most famous is the story of Rosalind Franklin and her non-discovery of the structure of DNA.
Franklin was an expert at getting x-ray diagrams from crystals of molecules. The idea is that the array of spots in the diagram will reveal how the atoms in the crystal are arranged. When Franklin started working on DNA, she obtained superb x-ray diagrams; one of her contemporaries described them as among the most beautiful of any substance ever taken. Indeed, it was from one of her diagrams that James Watson and Francis Crick deduced what the correct structure of DNA must be. (The picture was shown to Watson without Franklin’s knowledge.)
She had the data. Why didn’t she reach the solution? There are several answers to this; but one is that she had a fixed idea about how the problem should be solved. Namely, she wanted to work out the structure using the methods she had been taught. These methods are intricate, abstract, and mathematical, and difficult to use on a molecule as complex as DNA. Watson and Crick, meanwhile, were building physical models of what the diagram suggested the structure should be like — an approach that Franklin scorned. What’s more, their first model was ludicrously wrong, something that Franklin spotted immediately. But they were willing to play; she wasn’t. In other words, she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, adopt a more intuitive, speculative approach.
Our ability to make scientific discoveries is limited in a number of fundamental ways. One is time: it’s hard to do good experiments that last for more than a few weeks. Experiments that run for years are rare; as a result, we know relatively little about long, slow processes. Another constraint is money (no surprise there); a third is ethics (some experiments that would be interesting to do are ethically impossible). Some questions remain uninvestigated because no one stands to profit from the answers. Still others are neglected because they have no obvious bearing on human health or welfare, the areas of research are unfashionable, or the appropriate tools haven’t been invented yet. Some problems are just overwhelmingly complex.
But there’s one way in which we should not be limited: imagination. As Einstein put it, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
This op-ed is written by Olivia Judson, I found it quite interesting because it is a response to many comments people wrote on her op-ed about smiles and language, which I also wrote on. (See blogs below.)
Many readers accuse her of speculating, without any facts. Therefore, she defends herself with a great deal of examples and famous people. She also goes further in to explaining, why science wouldn’t work without speculation. I couldn’t agree more with her, point of view.
Olivia has a great way of putting her thoughts into writing. When I read her articles, I can sympathize very much with her. By making me link with her, she has done the hardest thing a writer must do.
In the world we live in almost everything is a mystery, and as the years go on by all this errors other people obtain questions, until one day someone gets the answer. As Olivia said, “While some scientific work does involve the plodding, brick-by-brick accumulation of evidence, much of it requires leaps of imagination and daring speculation.” There is nothing wrong with speculating, because as a banner in my classroom says success is getting up when you fall. Cowards don’t speculate because they are afraid of being wrong, but the truth is we are all humans and we learn from making mistakes.
In the society we live in mistakes are seen as something negative, but in reality they are positive, for they teach us more than anything can. As long as we learn from our mistakes and don’t repeat them, a mistake is a positive thing.
I loved how Olivia ended her article with a strong quote from Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” personally I am addicted to quotes. Therefore without speculation, there would be no discoveries!
Subliminal Message, Behind Elections?
November 4, 2009, 3:41 pm
Reading the Election Tea Leaves
By David Brooks and Gail Collins
Steve Helber/The Associated Press Voters at a polling place in Glen Allen, Va., on Tuesday.
David Brooks: Gail, I love elections generally and this one was perfect. It cut through the great illusion of political life. The great illusion is that American politics is divided between people who read The Huffington Post on the one hand and people who listen to Rush and Glenn Beck on the other. We all know intellectually that this is not the case but it’s hard to keep it in mind day to day.
Related
Room for Debate: What Did the Election Mean?
Gail Collins: I don’t actually think the election tells us much of anything except that New Jersey is a mess, the Republican Party in New York is a mess and the Democrats in Virginia picked a terrible candidate.
But I love the fact that two people can draw entirely different conclusions from them.
David Brooks: I’m sticking to my guns. This election reminded us of a couple truths. One, that there are twice as many conservatives in this country as liberals, and only one-fifth of the people in the country considers themselves liberal. This means that 80 percent of the people are inclined to be skeptical of government and worried by federal haste and exploding debt.
People who are center-right do well when a Democratic president is raising fears and anxieties.
It also reminded us that there are more independents than Democrats or Republicans, and that these independents have been shifting slightly rightward over the past year. They are more skeptical of government than they were when Barack Obama took office. They are more hostile to unions and other interest groups. They are more opposed to greater regulation.
The election reminded us that 2008 has not turned into a realignment. The country is still a bell curve. Moderate Republicans that run calm campaigns can do well, even in Democratic areas like northern Virginia and New Jersey.
It reminded us most satisfyingly that reckless “tea-bag” conservatives, fueled by Sarah Palin types, cannot easily win, even in conservative parts of the country, like upstate New York. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty made a horrible decision in throwing himself in with that lot by endorsing the Conservative candidate in that House race.
All in all, politics is not brain science. The country is center-right. People who are center-right do well when a Democratic president is raising all sorts of fears and anxieties.
Gail Collins: David, you look at the results from Tuesday and deduce that they show Americans are, in general, thoughtful folks who are concerned for their fellow men but suspicious of big government and a bit right of center. In short, you look at the country and see many variations on you.
I would be extremely happy if I thought that the Republican Party would be fielding a large number of David Brookses in different shapes and sizes and genders. So would most American women since as voters they hate nothing more than guys who yell a lot.
New Jersey is a mess, the Republican Party in New York is a mess and the Democrats in Virginia picked a terrible candidate.
The tea-party folks have more yelling guys than any group of Americans this side of professional football fans. You are heartened by their defeat in that upstate Congressional race. Did you know that the last time a Democrat won up there, Ulysses Grant was president? (Have you noticed how many loser presidents we elected before and after Abraham Lincoln? I like to contemplate that every once in a while when I begin to get gloomy about the current state of the electorate. We might have gone for George W. Bush twice, but when it comes to failing upward, even W. can’t hold a candle to Franklin Pierce.)
I digress. While the loonies did not manage to win the actual race, they still feel totally empowered by their ability to destroy a moderate non-yelling Republican woman with a Conservative candidate whose defects included the fact that he did not live in the district and seemed to lack an ability to blink.
They will be back, and their craziness will turn the Democrats crazy, too. While Democrats would not like to lose to a bunch of David Brooks clones, they are totally terrified of letting Congress fall into the hands of a mass of Michele Bachmanns. I can’t totally blame them for feeling that they have the right to do anything, no matter how duplicitous, to fend off that terrible fate.
So the 2010 campaigns are not going to make you happy, and I want you to bask in the glow while you can.
David Brooks: Have I mentioned that I love elections?
After reading this op-ed article, I found it very interesting how the authors’ because there are two, ask each other questions to give us their point of view. It is another creative way to write an op-ed article.
Even though it was an op-ed article it was also a bit informative. It gave the reader information of what happened in the elections and who won, recently.
I was really surprised about how many states, who were always either republican or democrat, have now switched sides. How can we interpret this, are they trying to send us a message? Why this drastic change? For example how it happened in New Jersey. Is there something hidden behind these elections?
As Gail Collins says, “ you look at the results from Tuesday and deduce that they show Americans are, in general, thoughtful folks who are concerned for their fellow men but suspicious of big government and a bit right of center.” Is this a protest against president Obama? From my view point I believe he hasn’t been as successful as how everyone thought he would be, and many Americans are mad, they are waiting for these promises to be made, yet they continue waiting. As stated by David Brooks, “All in all, politics is not brain science. The country is center-right. People who are center-right do well when a Democratic president is raising all sorts of fears and anxieties.” Americans will do something about it if Obama doesn’t get his act together. Americans are so concerned many will even sacrifice their vote, in order to get themselves heard. Obama has had plenty of time, what really is going on? Can he not handle being the president of the United States of America, many ask themselves.
Reading the Election Tea Leaves
By David Brooks and Gail Collins
Steve Helber/The Associated Press Voters at a polling place in Glen Allen, Va., on Tuesday.
David Brooks: Gail, I love elections generally and this one was perfect. It cut through the great illusion of political life. The great illusion is that American politics is divided between people who read The Huffington Post on the one hand and people who listen to Rush and Glenn Beck on the other. We all know intellectually that this is not the case but it’s hard to keep it in mind day to day.
Related
Room for Debate: What Did the Election Mean?
Gail Collins: I don’t actually think the election tells us much of anything except that New Jersey is a mess, the Republican Party in New York is a mess and the Democrats in Virginia picked a terrible candidate.
But I love the fact that two people can draw entirely different conclusions from them.
David Brooks: I’m sticking to my guns. This election reminded us of a couple truths. One, that there are twice as many conservatives in this country as liberals, and only one-fifth of the people in the country considers themselves liberal. This means that 80 percent of the people are inclined to be skeptical of government and worried by federal haste and exploding debt.
People who are center-right do well when a Democratic president is raising fears and anxieties.
It also reminded us that there are more independents than Democrats or Republicans, and that these independents have been shifting slightly rightward over the past year. They are more skeptical of government than they were when Barack Obama took office. They are more hostile to unions and other interest groups. They are more opposed to greater regulation.
The election reminded us that 2008 has not turned into a realignment. The country is still a bell curve. Moderate Republicans that run calm campaigns can do well, even in Democratic areas like northern Virginia and New Jersey.
It reminded us most satisfyingly that reckless “tea-bag” conservatives, fueled by Sarah Palin types, cannot easily win, even in conservative parts of the country, like upstate New York. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty made a horrible decision in throwing himself in with that lot by endorsing the Conservative candidate in that House race.
All in all, politics is not brain science. The country is center-right. People who are center-right do well when a Democratic president is raising all sorts of fears and anxieties.
Gail Collins: David, you look at the results from Tuesday and deduce that they show Americans are, in general, thoughtful folks who are concerned for their fellow men but suspicious of big government and a bit right of center. In short, you look at the country and see many variations on you.
I would be extremely happy if I thought that the Republican Party would be fielding a large number of David Brookses in different shapes and sizes and genders. So would most American women since as voters they hate nothing more than guys who yell a lot.
New Jersey is a mess, the Republican Party in New York is a mess and the Democrats in Virginia picked a terrible candidate.
The tea-party folks have more yelling guys than any group of Americans this side of professional football fans. You are heartened by their defeat in that upstate Congressional race. Did you know that the last time a Democrat won up there, Ulysses Grant was president? (Have you noticed how many loser presidents we elected before and after Abraham Lincoln? I like to contemplate that every once in a while when I begin to get gloomy about the current state of the electorate. We might have gone for George W. Bush twice, but when it comes to failing upward, even W. can’t hold a candle to Franklin Pierce.)
I digress. While the loonies did not manage to win the actual race, they still feel totally empowered by their ability to destroy a moderate non-yelling Republican woman with a Conservative candidate whose defects included the fact that he did not live in the district and seemed to lack an ability to blink.
They will be back, and their craziness will turn the Democrats crazy, too. While Democrats would not like to lose to a bunch of David Brooks clones, they are totally terrified of letting Congress fall into the hands of a mass of Michele Bachmanns. I can’t totally blame them for feeling that they have the right to do anything, no matter how duplicitous, to fend off that terrible fate.
So the 2010 campaigns are not going to make you happy, and I want you to bask in the glow while you can.
David Brooks: Have I mentioned that I love elections?
After reading this op-ed article, I found it very interesting how the authors’ because there are two, ask each other questions to give us their point of view. It is another creative way to write an op-ed article.
Even though it was an op-ed article it was also a bit informative. It gave the reader information of what happened in the elections and who won, recently.
I was really surprised about how many states, who were always either republican or democrat, have now switched sides. How can we interpret this, are they trying to send us a message? Why this drastic change? For example how it happened in New Jersey. Is there something hidden behind these elections?
As Gail Collins says, “ you look at the results from Tuesday and deduce that they show Americans are, in general, thoughtful folks who are concerned for their fellow men but suspicious of big government and a bit right of center.” Is this a protest against president Obama? From my view point I believe he hasn’t been as successful as how everyone thought he would be, and many Americans are mad, they are waiting for these promises to be made, yet they continue waiting. As stated by David Brooks, “All in all, politics is not brain science. The country is center-right. People who are center-right do well when a Democratic president is raising all sorts of fears and anxieties.” Americans will do something about it if Obama doesn’t get his act together. Americans are so concerned many will even sacrifice their vote, in order to get themselves heard. Obama has had plenty of time, what really is going on? Can he not handle being the president of the United States of America, many ask themselves.
miércoles, 4 de noviembre de 2009
The Woman Warrior
“Vegetables burst out and mixed in acrid torrents.”
Acrid: Unpleasantly sharp, pungent, or bitter to the taste or smell.
“Whenever we did frivolous things, we used up energy; we flew kites.”
Frivolous: not serious in content or attitude or behavior;
“Could such people engender a prodigal aunt?”
Prodigal: a recklessly extravagant consumer
“She stood tractably beside the best rooster.”
Tractably: Easily managed or controlled.
“The fear did not stop but permeated everywhere.”
Permeated: To spread or flow throughout.
Acrid: Unpleasantly sharp, pungent, or bitter to the taste or smell.
“Whenever we did frivolous things, we used up energy; we flew kites.”
Frivolous: not serious in content or attitude or behavior;
“Could such people engender a prodigal aunt?”
Prodigal: a recklessly extravagant consumer
“She stood tractably beside the best rooster.”
Tractably: Easily managed or controlled.
“The fear did not stop but permeated everywhere.”
Permeated: To spread or flow throughout.
"Sinatra With A Cold Is Picasso Without Paint"
This I found this feature article,http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ1003-OCT_SINATRA_rev_#ixzz0Vt9ZMLMl very well written. It amazed me how the author uses very simple events and makes them in a fascinating story. He used specific details and events of Frank Sinatra at the time. This article was written more than 30 years ago (1966), yet it still is read by many. I think this is because the structure the author uses telling what happened. You can hear the same story a million times, but what makes one different from the other is by how it is told. He uses one main tool: vividness.
This article not only gained worldwide recognition, but also created a new way to journalism, “New Journalism -- a work of rigorously faithful fact enlivened with the kind of vivid storytelling that had previously been reserved for fiction.” Instead of restating the big highlights of Frank Sinatra’s life, which most of us are familiar with and wouldn’t bother reading. He took something as simple as Frank Sinatra’s cold and developed it into, “one of the most celebrated magazine stories ever published.”
In the part where frank is having a conversation with Vincenzo , “Sinatra was silent for a moment, then said, "Yes, but it's very good for her to get her education first, Vicenzo." Shows he is a well rounded man, even though he lives for his music and lives of his music he believes that education comes first no matter what. Education is essential to life. It is pieces as simple as a conversation like this, which build Frank for us.
The author portrays Frank as more than just his songs. His songs have a meaning and were inspired by some outsource in his life. The author analyzes Frank’s life more than just a famous singer. My question is how can this journalist tell Frank Sinatra’s life through something as simple as a cold?
This article not only gained worldwide recognition, but also created a new way to journalism, “New Journalism -- a work of rigorously faithful fact enlivened with the kind of vivid storytelling that had previously been reserved for fiction.” Instead of restating the big highlights of Frank Sinatra’s life, which most of us are familiar with and wouldn’t bother reading. He took something as simple as Frank Sinatra’s cold and developed it into, “one of the most celebrated magazine stories ever published.”
In the part where frank is having a conversation with Vincenzo , “Sinatra was silent for a moment, then said, "Yes, but it's very good for her to get her education first, Vicenzo." Shows he is a well rounded man, even though he lives for his music and lives of his music he believes that education comes first no matter what. Education is essential to life. It is pieces as simple as a conversation like this, which build Frank for us.
The author portrays Frank as more than just his songs. His songs have a meaning and were inspired by some outsource in his life. The author analyzes Frank’s life more than just a famous singer. My question is how can this journalist tell Frank Sinatra’s life through something as simple as a cold?
A Language of Smiles
Say “eeee.” Say it again. Go on: “eeee.”
Maybe I’m easy to please, but doing this a few times makes me giggle. “Eeee.”
Actually, I suspect it’s not just me. Saying “eeee” pulls up the corners of the mouth and makes you start to smile. That’s why we say “cheese” to the camera, not “choose” or “chose.” And, I think, it’s why I don’t get the giggles from “aaaa” or “oooo.”
The mere act of smiling is often enough to lift your mood; conversely, the act of frowning can lower it; scowling can make you feel fed up. In other words, the gestures you make with your face can — at least to some extent — influence your emotional state.
(The notion that facial expressions affect mood isn’t new. Edgar Allan Poe used it in his story “The Purloined Letter”: one character reports that when he wishes to know someone’s mind, he attempts to compose his face to mimic the expression of that someone — then waits to see which emotions arise. And the idea was developed, in different ways, by both Charles Darwin and William James. But telling stories and developing arguments is one thing. Showing, experimentally, that making a face can make a mood is harder; it’s only in the past 30 years or so that data have started to accumulate.)
Exactly how frowns and smiles influence mood is a matter of debate. One possibility is classical conditioning. Just as Ivan Pavlov conditioned a dog to associate the sound of a bell with the expectation of food, the argument goes, so humans quickly come to associate smiling with feeling happy. Once the association has been established, smiling is, by itself, enough to generate happy feelings. Another possibility is that different facial gestures have intrinsic properties that make them more or less pleasant, perhaps by altering the way that blood flows to the brain.
But here’s what interests me. As anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language will know, different languages make you move your face in different ways. For instance, some languages contain many sounds that are forward in the mouth; others take place more in the throat. What’s more, the effects that different languages have on the movements of the face are substantial. Babies can tell the difference among languages based on the speaker’s mouth movements alone. So can computers.
Which made me wonder: do some languages contain an intrinsic bias towards pulling happy faces? In other words, do some languages predispose — in a subtle way — their speakers to be merrier than the speakers of other languages?
As far as I can tell, no one has looked at this. (It doesn’t mean no one has; it just means I haven’t been able to find it.) But I did find a smidgen of evidence to suggest the idea’s not crazy. A set of experiments investigating the effects of facial movements on mood used different vowel sounds as a stealthy way to get people to pull different faces. (The idea was to avoid people realizing they were being made to scowl or smile.) The results showed that if you read aloud a passage full of vowels that make you scowl — the German vowel sound ü, for example — you’re likely to find yourself in a worse mood than if you read a story similar in content but without any instances of ü. Similarly, saying ü over and over again generates more feelings of ill will than repeating a or o.
Of course, facial gestures aren’t the whole story of emotions; moreover, languages can potentially influence emotions in many other ways. Different languages have different music — sounds and rhythms — that could also have an emotional impact. The meanings of words may influence moods more than the gestures used to make them. And just as the words a language uses to describe colors affects how speakers of that language perceive those colors, different languages might allow speakers to process particular emotions differently; this, in turn, could feed into a culture, perhaps contributing to a general tendency towards gloom or laughter.
Separating these various factors will be difficult, and the overall impact on mood through the facial gestures of a language may well be small, if indeed it exists at all. Nevertheless, I’d love to know whether some languages, by the contortions they give the mouth, really do have an impact on their speakers’ happiness. If it turns out that there is a language of smiles, I’d like to learn it. In the meantime: have a giggle with “meeeeeee.”
I found this article very interactive, the author created a way so you not only read it, but put yourself in their shoes to better understand his point, “do some languages contain an intrinsic bias towards pulling happy faces? In other words, do some languages predispose — in a subtle way — their speakers to be merrier than the speakers of other languages?” I had never thought about this, yet as he begins his article she says, “Say “eeee.” Say it again. Go on: “eeee.” I automatically did it, and made the connection that by saying “eee” unconsciously you were smiling.
She mainly talks about how, “the gestures you make with your face can — at least to some extent — influence your emotional state.” Since humans in all over the world smile in the same language as they say. We have ever since linked a smile with happiness, it’s a universal symbol.
The author argues that since the different languages, have different vowels and pronunciation, which makes us smile, frown or scowl therefore being part of creating our mood.
Yet, mood has so many factors that it hasn’t been scientifically proven. I find this idea very interesting and valid. Hopefully it can be proven, I would love to know if this really happens! I love how I think so similarly to the author, “I’d love to know whether some languages, by the contortions they give the mouth, really do have an impact on their speakers’ happiness. If it turns out that there is a language of smiles, I’d like to learn it.” I love smiling!
Say “eeee.” Say it again. Go on: “eeee.”
Maybe I’m easy to please, but doing this a few times makes me giggle. “Eeee.”
Actually, I suspect it’s not just me. Saying “eeee” pulls up the corners of the mouth and makes you start to smile. That’s why we say “cheese” to the camera, not “choose” or “chose.” And, I think, it’s why I don’t get the giggles from “aaaa” or “oooo.”
The mere act of smiling is often enough to lift your mood; conversely, the act of frowning can lower it; scowling can make you feel fed up. In other words, the gestures you make with your face can — at least to some extent — influence your emotional state.
(The notion that facial expressions affect mood isn’t new. Edgar Allan Poe used it in his story “The Purloined Letter”: one character reports that when he wishes to know someone’s mind, he attempts to compose his face to mimic the expression of that someone — then waits to see which emotions arise. And the idea was developed, in different ways, by both Charles Darwin and William James. But telling stories and developing arguments is one thing. Showing, experimentally, that making a face can make a mood is harder; it’s only in the past 30 years or so that data have started to accumulate.)
Exactly how frowns and smiles influence mood is a matter of debate. One possibility is classical conditioning. Just as Ivan Pavlov conditioned a dog to associate the sound of a bell with the expectation of food, the argument goes, so humans quickly come to associate smiling with feeling happy. Once the association has been established, smiling is, by itself, enough to generate happy feelings. Another possibility is that different facial gestures have intrinsic properties that make them more or less pleasant, perhaps by altering the way that blood flows to the brain.
But here’s what interests me. As anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language will know, different languages make you move your face in different ways. For instance, some languages contain many sounds that are forward in the mouth; others take place more in the throat. What’s more, the effects that different languages have on the movements of the face are substantial. Babies can tell the difference among languages based on the speaker’s mouth movements alone. So can computers.
Which made me wonder: do some languages contain an intrinsic bias towards pulling happy faces? In other words, do some languages predispose — in a subtle way — their speakers to be merrier than the speakers of other languages?
As far as I can tell, no one has looked at this. (It doesn’t mean no one has; it just means I haven’t been able to find it.) But I did find a smidgen of evidence to suggest the idea’s not crazy. A set of experiments investigating the effects of facial movements on mood used different vowel sounds as a stealthy way to get people to pull different faces. (The idea was to avoid people realizing they were being made to scowl or smile.) The results showed that if you read aloud a passage full of vowels that make you scowl — the German vowel sound ü, for example — you’re likely to find yourself in a worse mood than if you read a story similar in content but without any instances of ü. Similarly, saying ü over and over again generates more feelings of ill will than repeating a or o.
Of course, facial gestures aren’t the whole story of emotions; moreover, languages can potentially influence emotions in many other ways. Different languages have different music — sounds and rhythms — that could also have an emotional impact. The meanings of words may influence moods more than the gestures used to make them. And just as the words a language uses to describe colors affects how speakers of that language perceive those colors, different languages might allow speakers to process particular emotions differently; this, in turn, could feed into a culture, perhaps contributing to a general tendency towards gloom or laughter.
Separating these various factors will be difficult, and the overall impact on mood through the facial gestures of a language may well be small, if indeed it exists at all. Nevertheless, I’d love to know whether some languages, by the contortions they give the mouth, really do have an impact on their speakers’ happiness. If it turns out that there is a language of smiles, I’d like to learn it. In the meantime: have a giggle with “meeeeeee.”
I found this article very interactive, the author created a way so you not only read it, but put yourself in their shoes to better understand his point, “do some languages contain an intrinsic bias towards pulling happy faces? In other words, do some languages predispose — in a subtle way — their speakers to be merrier than the speakers of other languages?” I had never thought about this, yet as he begins his article she says, “Say “eeee.” Say it again. Go on: “eeee.” I automatically did it, and made the connection that by saying “eee” unconsciously you were smiling.
She mainly talks about how, “the gestures you make with your face can — at least to some extent — influence your emotional state.” Since humans in all over the world smile in the same language as they say. We have ever since linked a smile with happiness, it’s a universal symbol.
The author argues that since the different languages, have different vowels and pronunciation, which makes us smile, frown or scowl therefore being part of creating our mood.
Yet, mood has so many factors that it hasn’t been scientifically proven. I find this idea very interesting and valid. Hopefully it can be proven, I would love to know if this really happens! I love how I think so similarly to the author, “I’d love to know whether some languages, by the contortions they give the mouth, really do have an impact on their speakers’ happiness. If it turns out that there is a language of smiles, I’d like to learn it.” I love smiling!
Death
November 2, 2009, 8:25 pm
Happy Ending
By Todd May
In the spring of 2004 I took a flight from my home near Greenville, S.C., to New York to visit my dying step-grandmother. We had been close, and it would be one of the last times I would get to see her. As the flight was about to land, it abruptly ascended and headed toward the Empire State Building. The passengers on the plane became quiet; the aura of 9/11 was hanging in the air.
We flew over the Empire State Building (but too close to the antenna for my comfort) and circled back to La Guardia. As it turned out, a small commuter plane had decided to land without taking account of our aircraft, so the pilot had had to make a quick move. But in those moments when it seemed I was aboard another human missile, I revisited my life. I realized, almost to my surprise, that I would not have traded it in for another life. There had been disappointments, to be sure, but my life appeared to me to have been a meaningful one, a life I did not regret. This is not to say that I was not nearly paralyzed with fear. I was. At the same time, strangely, my life appeared to me as worth having lived.
There are two lessons here. The first, and most obvious one, is that death is terrifying. Here in the United States, we have the technology to defer death, so we often pretend it will never really happen to us. There is always another procedure, always a cure in sight if not in hand. But in our sober moments we recognize that we will indeed die, and that we have precious little control over when it will happen.
The harm of death goes to the heart of who we are as human beings. We are, in essence, forward-looking creatures. We create our lives prospectively. We build relationships, careers, and projects that are not solely of the moment but that have a future in our vision of them. One of the reasons Eastern philosophies have developed techniques to train us to be in the moment is that that is not our natural state. We are pulled toward the future, and see the meaning of what we do now in its light.
Death extinguishes that light. And because we know that we will die, and yet we don’t know when, the darkness that is ultimately ahead of each of us is with us at every moment. There is, we might say, a tunnel at the end of this light. And since we are creatures of the future, the darkness of death offends us in our very being. We may come to terms with it when we grow old, but unless our lives have become a burden to us coming to terms is the best we can hope for.
The second, less obvious lesson of this moment of facing death is that in order for our lives to have a shape, in order that they not become formless, we need to die. This will strike some as counterintuitive, even a little ridiculous. But in order to recognize its truth, we should reflect a bit on what immortality might mean.
Immortality lasts a long time. It is not for nothing that in his story “The Immortal” Jorge Luis Borges pictures the immortal characters as unconcerned with their lives or their surroundings. Once you’ve followed your passion — playing the saxophone, loving men or women, traveling, writing poetry — for, say, 10,000 years, it will likely begin to lose its grip. There may be more to say or to do than anyone can ever accomplish. But each of us develops particular interests, engages in particular pursuits. When we have been at them long enough, we are likely to find ourselves just filling time. In the case of immortality, an inexhaustible period of time.
And when there is always time for everything, there is no urgency for anything. It may well be that life is not long enough. But it is equally true that a life without limits would lose the beauty of its moments. It would become boring, but more deeply it would become shapeless. Just one damn thing after another.
This is the paradox death imposes upon us: it grants us the possibility of a meaningful life even as it takes it away. It gives us the promise of each moment, even as it threatens to steal that moment, or at least reminds us that some time our moments will be gone. It allows each moment to insist upon itself, because there are only a limited number of them. And none of us knows how many.
I prefer to think that the paradox of death is the source not of despair but instead of the limited hope that is allotted to us as human beings. We cannot live forever, to be sure, but neither would we want to. We ought not to mind the fact that we will die, although we really would rather that it not be today. Probably not tomorrow either. But it is precisely because we cannot control when we will die, and know only that we will, that we can look upon our lives with the seriousness they merit. Death takes away from us no more than it has conferred: lives whose significance lies in the fact they are not always with us.
Our happiness lies in being able to inhabit that fact.
Todd May is a professor of philosophy at Clemson University. He is the author 10 books, including “The Philosophy of Foucault” and “Death.”
This essay is the last in the 2009 incarnation of Happy Days. The editors would like to thank the diverse group of contributors and the readers of Happy Days for their many thoughtful, incisive, funny and often moving comments. We hope to resume the project in the future.
This article talks about death. This is a topic which really freaks me out. I try not to think about it, for as stated in the article, “There is always another procedure, always a cure in sight if not in hand.” Many of us suppress this thought by thinking this isn’t going to happen to me, but the truth of the matter is you can die in a matter of seconds. This uncertainty of not knowing when you are going to die is what scares me mostly. I often ask myself, if I die today will I ever see my mom or my dad again? What if the last thing I told a person I love, was not nice? What if they died now and that was the last thing I told them?
Death is a reality someday we all need to face because as said in the article, “It may well be that life is not long enough. But it is equally true that a life without limits would lose the beauty of its moments.” If we knew we weren’t going to die, we wouldn’t do many things. Death is an inspiration in our daily lives. If we had no time limit of being on this earth, we would have enough time to do everything over and over again.
The author ends his article by saying “It gives us the promise of each moment, even as it threatens to steal that moment, or at least reminds us that some time our moments will be gone. It allows each moment to insist upon itself, because there are only a limited number of them. And none of us knows how many.” This is what really scares us, he couldn’t have said it in any other way. I thought I was the only one who felt this way, apparently not.
Even though death is terrifying, this article approaches dying in a positive way. It talks about the cruel reality of dying but gives reasons why we need to die. I found the author had a very interesting angle, while talking about death.
Happy Ending
By Todd May
In the spring of 2004 I took a flight from my home near Greenville, S.C., to New York to visit my dying step-grandmother. We had been close, and it would be one of the last times I would get to see her. As the flight was about to land, it abruptly ascended and headed toward the Empire State Building. The passengers on the plane became quiet; the aura of 9/11 was hanging in the air.
We flew over the Empire State Building (but too close to the antenna for my comfort) and circled back to La Guardia. As it turned out, a small commuter plane had decided to land without taking account of our aircraft, so the pilot had had to make a quick move. But in those moments when it seemed I was aboard another human missile, I revisited my life. I realized, almost to my surprise, that I would not have traded it in for another life. There had been disappointments, to be sure, but my life appeared to me to have been a meaningful one, a life I did not regret. This is not to say that I was not nearly paralyzed with fear. I was. At the same time, strangely, my life appeared to me as worth having lived.
There are two lessons here. The first, and most obvious one, is that death is terrifying. Here in the United States, we have the technology to defer death, so we often pretend it will never really happen to us. There is always another procedure, always a cure in sight if not in hand. But in our sober moments we recognize that we will indeed die, and that we have precious little control over when it will happen.
The harm of death goes to the heart of who we are as human beings. We are, in essence, forward-looking creatures. We create our lives prospectively. We build relationships, careers, and projects that are not solely of the moment but that have a future in our vision of them. One of the reasons Eastern philosophies have developed techniques to train us to be in the moment is that that is not our natural state. We are pulled toward the future, and see the meaning of what we do now in its light.
Death extinguishes that light. And because we know that we will die, and yet we don’t know when, the darkness that is ultimately ahead of each of us is with us at every moment. There is, we might say, a tunnel at the end of this light. And since we are creatures of the future, the darkness of death offends us in our very being. We may come to terms with it when we grow old, but unless our lives have become a burden to us coming to terms is the best we can hope for.
The second, less obvious lesson of this moment of facing death is that in order for our lives to have a shape, in order that they not become formless, we need to die. This will strike some as counterintuitive, even a little ridiculous. But in order to recognize its truth, we should reflect a bit on what immortality might mean.
Immortality lasts a long time. It is not for nothing that in his story “The Immortal” Jorge Luis Borges pictures the immortal characters as unconcerned with their lives or their surroundings. Once you’ve followed your passion — playing the saxophone, loving men or women, traveling, writing poetry — for, say, 10,000 years, it will likely begin to lose its grip. There may be more to say or to do than anyone can ever accomplish. But each of us develops particular interests, engages in particular pursuits. When we have been at them long enough, we are likely to find ourselves just filling time. In the case of immortality, an inexhaustible period of time.
And when there is always time for everything, there is no urgency for anything. It may well be that life is not long enough. But it is equally true that a life without limits would lose the beauty of its moments. It would become boring, but more deeply it would become shapeless. Just one damn thing after another.
This is the paradox death imposes upon us: it grants us the possibility of a meaningful life even as it takes it away. It gives us the promise of each moment, even as it threatens to steal that moment, or at least reminds us that some time our moments will be gone. It allows each moment to insist upon itself, because there are only a limited number of them. And none of us knows how many.
I prefer to think that the paradox of death is the source not of despair but instead of the limited hope that is allotted to us as human beings. We cannot live forever, to be sure, but neither would we want to. We ought not to mind the fact that we will die, although we really would rather that it not be today. Probably not tomorrow either. But it is precisely because we cannot control when we will die, and know only that we will, that we can look upon our lives with the seriousness they merit. Death takes away from us no more than it has conferred: lives whose significance lies in the fact they are not always with us.
Our happiness lies in being able to inhabit that fact.
Todd May is a professor of philosophy at Clemson University. He is the author 10 books, including “The Philosophy of Foucault” and “Death.”
This essay is the last in the 2009 incarnation of Happy Days. The editors would like to thank the diverse group of contributors and the readers of Happy Days for their many thoughtful, incisive, funny and often moving comments. We hope to resume the project in the future.
This article talks about death. This is a topic which really freaks me out. I try not to think about it, for as stated in the article, “There is always another procedure, always a cure in sight if not in hand.” Many of us suppress this thought by thinking this isn’t going to happen to me, but the truth of the matter is you can die in a matter of seconds. This uncertainty of not knowing when you are going to die is what scares me mostly. I often ask myself, if I die today will I ever see my mom or my dad again? What if the last thing I told a person I love, was not nice? What if they died now and that was the last thing I told them?
Death is a reality someday we all need to face because as said in the article, “It may well be that life is not long enough. But it is equally true that a life without limits would lose the beauty of its moments.” If we knew we weren’t going to die, we wouldn’t do many things. Death is an inspiration in our daily lives. If we had no time limit of being on this earth, we would have enough time to do everything over and over again.
The author ends his article by saying “It gives us the promise of each moment, even as it threatens to steal that moment, or at least reminds us that some time our moments will be gone. It allows each moment to insist upon itself, because there are only a limited number of them. And none of us knows how many.” This is what really scares us, he couldn’t have said it in any other way. I thought I was the only one who felt this way, apparently not.
Even though death is terrifying, this article approaches dying in a positive way. It talks about the cruel reality of dying but gives reasons why we need to die. I found the author had a very interesting angle, while talking about death.
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