Stan Taylor

I enjoy reading the New York Times, but the paper regularly runs this type of article that seems to cater specifically to (a subset of?) the New York City area readership. These articles just get under my skin.

This is from Larry Vaughan, one of my favorite bloggers and someone I like to think of as an internet friend:

I have learned this lesson late in life. When I was young I thought that people who asked for my opinion actually wanted it. I would dig deep into my cerebellum and deliver (sometimes eloquently) my verdict. I’m laughing right now at the folly of it all. This is why most people have never followed my advice; they didn’t want it in the first place.
My new friend has reminded me of the power of attending. The only thing he wants; in fact, the only thing he needs, is to be heard. Not understood. Understanding would be nice, but at this point it’s just the icing on the cake. In telling his story he shares his life. Now two people carry the load.
No advice. No comprehension. Just listening. Not understanding. Not empathy. Just listening. Followed by change.

Side note: As I was preparing this post, I realized I didn’t have a category for this post. Usually when this happens, I just create a new one and make the post the first entry in this category. In this case, however, I couldn’t really think of a good pigeon hole for this post. Interesting.

I am the wind on the sea.
I am the ocean wave.
I am the sound of the billows.
I am the seven-horned stag.
I am the hawk on the cliff.
I am the dewdrop in sunlight.
I am the fairest of flowers.
I am the raging boar.
I am the salmon in the deep pool.
I am the lake on the plain.
I am the meaning of the poem.
I am the point of the spear.
I am the god that makes fire in the head.
Who levels the mountain?
Who speaks the age of the moon?
Who has been where the sun sleeps?
Who, if not I?
– Celtic poem by Amergin, as recited during The Inner Landscape of Beauty

This New York TImes article about school bullying and the corresponding discussion on MetaFilter brings back a lot of memories from high school.
I was picked on a lot in high school, and I spent many years trying to figure out why. After 25 years, I agree with the MeFi posters who say that bullying is all about enforcing social conformity. I think I was threatening to a lot of people–not because I was different, but because I was different and either didn’t know it or didn’t think anything of it.
For instance, I was tall and generally fit but not interested in sports. I realize now that I was fairly good looking but didn’t realize it (judge for yourself); I was smart but took it for granted; and I was ambitious, taking part and excelling in a variety of non-sporting school activities: band, choir, German club, and speech.
One particular provocation always comes to mind, and I think it’s a perfect example. My sophomore year, my assigned locker was in some out-of-the-way place, so my band friend Walter, a senior, offered to let me share his locker which was centrally located. Walter and I got constant hassling for sharing a locker, mostly by the ‘jocks’ and of the homophobic sort. Looking back at it, to have two band guys sharing a locker and not thinking anything of it must have been terribly threatening to the more narrow-minded and insecure among my high school peers. But at the time, that didn’t occur to me, that I remember.

I’ve started a new blog that focuses on my professional interests as a software quality assurance engineer. Check it out: Agile Testing.

Over at Slacktivist, Fred Clark delivered a rant today about the sad state of journalism. As usual, it’s a thought-provoking piece. However, what makes the post even better is one of the comments, which begins:

Wow. You have basically described my job.
I’m online editor at a smallish newspaper in the Midwest. Once a week, I am given a page to fill dedicated to exactly this sort of swill. And I am given a couple hours to come up with the copy and photos to fill that page. I literally am required to skim through the press releases, submitted poems, online comments sections, e-mailed photos and family-written profiles to come up with enough to fill that gaping hole in the paper. I consider it a good week when I can find something that is at least written in the first person. It is a relentless schedule. Every Thursday, I wade into the cesspool looking for shiny things, while a relentless clock ticks away in the background.
And that is really the rub. I don’t have more time, nor would my bosses allocate more time, for me to factcheck every one of these pieces. Or any of these pieces, for that matter. And since I have that blank page staring back at me, I am genuinely relieved to be able to insert that terrible poem. Or that diary about your backpacking trip to Nepal. And if you send a photo? Ohmigod, you are my most favorite person in the world. Because that big, white page must be filled. And if you don’t send your crap in, what in the world will I fill it with?

The rest of the comment is just as depressingly insightful.

I have no opinion on the foreign exchange student who lost massive amounts of weight while on his exchange program. However, I would like to relate my own exchange weight loss story as a data point:
I was an AFS student (from the US) to Austria in 1982-83. I lived with a family that owned a pastry (Konditorei) and bread (Baeckerei) bakery and two cafes (with the bakery and one cafe in the house), and I managed to lose 40-50 pounds in the 10 months I lived there (from a somewhat overweight 205 lbs to a very fit 160 lbs).
Torture? Starvation? No, I simply went from a typical sedentary, junk-food-filled American lifestyle to an active Austrian lifestyle. In the US, I drove everywhere, and I consumed an entire box of Fig Newtons when I got home from school in the afternoon (while watching Gilligan’s Isle).
In contrast, in Austria I walked and rode the bus everywhere, and had three meals a day plus maybe one piece of cake or other pastry. I can only imagine what it would have been like if the family had served vegan, not fat-filled meat-heavy Austrian, food.

I just listened to another interesting podcast from the Science in the City series: Callum Roberts‘ talk The Unnatural History of the Sea (I can’t link directly to it; go to the podcast listing and page in reverse chronological order until you find it. This podcast was released on October 26, 2007).
In this talk, Professor Roberts outlines human exploitation of the oceans thorughout history. It’s an interesting mix of biology and anthropology. However, it’s a depressing talk as well. Over and over in his talk, Professor Roberts picks a time and place and then outlines the stages of sea exploitation that took place.

The video is several minutes long, but it’s worth it to listen to it all, trust me.

(via Gordon Atkinson, aka Real Live Preacher)

What other kind of guide is there for intelligent design?

Here’s the publisher’s description of the book (emphasis added):

Intelligent Design is one of the hottest issues facing parents and educators to day, but it can be hard to separate the facts from the heated rhetoric. This expert and objective guide gets to the bottom of the questions: What is Intelligent Design? Should it replace or complement traditional science? What’s all the fuss about?

• Explains the terms, the controversy, and the involvement of the American courts
• Indispensable guide for concerned educators and parents
• Written by an expert in the field