Eat That Cheese

Posted on March 18, 2010 by LtL

A very interesting article about lactose intolerance today on Salon.com. Of particular note:

Milk itself has a lot of lactose, but aged cheeses have very little (most of the lactose is drawn away in the whey, and what’s left in the curd is fermented by bacteria and mold). Yogurt with live cultures contains bacteria that break down lactose, and therefore causes fewer symptoms. Butter and full-fat cream cheese contain almost no lactose. Lactose intolerance do’s and don’ts – Nutrition – Salon.com>

Considering how many people I know who complain that they are lactose intolerant and seem to make a big deal about eating cheese, I wonder if they are perhaps doing a self-diagnosis that might, in the end, be false? And the next time someone tells you that human beings shouldn’t drink/eat dairy because we can’t process the sugars properly, ask them about their beans.

McCain Introduces Bill To Make Obama More Powerful Than A King

Posted on March 17, 2010 by LtL

S.3081 is obscene. S.3081 is profoundly anti-law. S.3081 allows for indeterminate detention for pretty much anyone the President “considers appropriate.” S.3081 is backed by Republicans who talk a big game when it comes to freedom and liberty and the rule of law, but who, as this bill demonstrates, are really bullies and thugs who have no regard for the Constitution, the rule of law, or basic ethical principles. McCain and Lieberman (and the others who have signed onto this bill) are doing the terrorists work for them by allowing the United States to become a land ruled by fear and imperial dictate rather than a system of justice that presumes innocence until guilt is proven.

Go ahead, someone prove to me why giving the President the power to label someone a “high-value detainee” based on whatever reasons that President decides to make up and then holding that person indefinitely is a good idea for a democracy. I thought the whole fucking point of the United States was that we didn’t live in a dictatorship/monarchy.

And I hope all you fucking teabaggers and libertarians take down the GOP for their desire to concentrate even more power in the hands of the President. But somehow I don’t think you will because you were perfectly happy to give up your rights to Bush and his cronies, and you’re now too busy whining about the fact that liberals want to actually get you better health care.

CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION OF INDIVIDUALS AS HIGH-VALUE DETAINEES- The regulations required by this subsection shall include criteria for designating an individual as a high-value detainee based on the following: (A) The potential threat the individual poses for an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the United States or upon United States citizens or United States civilian facilities abroad at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States. (B) The potential threat the individual poses to United States military personnel or United States military facilities at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States. (C) The potential intelligence value of the individual. (D) Membership in al Qaeda or in a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda. (E) Such other matters as the President considers appropriate. Text of S.3081 as Introduced in Senate: Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010… OpenCongress

via Glenn Greenwald

My New Blog

Posted on March 17, 2010 by LtL

As I mentioned recently, I am starting a new blog that will focus on my time and work as a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. I am pleased to announced that it is up and running at ThisThus.com. Over the next few weeks I will probably make adjustments to the look of the site as I tweak it here and there, but the first post is posted and I’m excited by the prospect of having a slightly more focused blog that will serve as both a place for me to reflect on my journey over the next several years, as well as a place to share what I learn along the way. Posts will be few and far between until the beginning to school, but I will be posting various items that have to do with preparing for both school and the move to Pittsburgh. When school starts, I hope to post regularly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

But you few, you fearless readers of Living the Liminal should fear not! I will be keeping this space for non-PhD related topics and will never forsake you. Never ever ever!

So if following two blogs isn’t a chore, or if you are genuinely interested in following me as I go from getting into a program of my choice to completing my dissertation and getting my doctorate, I hope you will drop by and check out the new digs at http://thisthus.com.

A Rant Against Reboot Mania

Posted on March 16, 2010 by LtL

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

This is a rant against reboots. Not the fact of their existence, but the fact that people keep using that term to mean any new version of a previous text. Look, the fact that they are making a new Conan movie does not make it a reboot. The movie was an adaptation of a story and I’m sure that they won’t be following the original movie any more closely than the original movie followed some of the original Robert E. Howard stories. Calling it a reboot would be like calling every remake of The Hound of the Baskervilles a “reboot” of Sherlock Holmes. This is especially true of franchises that were originally something else (story, play, comic, etc.), but applies to other things as well. If Spy Kids is remade it won’t be a reboot, m’kay? (No, really, I saw it here – and I don’t care if Rodriguez himself calls it a “reboot” – it’s not.)

And yes, I’m looking at you Slice of SciFi–though you are by no means the only example of this increasingly annoying tendency.

So let’s all stop it please. Thanks.

Grad School Update for March 2010

Posted on March 15, 2010 by LtL

I have accepted the University of Pittsburgh, Department of Theatre Arts offer and will be starting their PhD program this fall.

I plan to write more about my decision, as well as writing more consistently and diligently about the process of getting my PhD over the next several years. In fact, I will be setting up another site that will be dedicated to covering my journey toward my doctorate, as well as larger questions about graduate school, higher education, theatre in a university setting, technology and work-flows as related to scholarship and learning, and anything else that I feel impacts or is impacted by my graduate school experiences. I plan on keeping LTL going as a place for sharing interesting links, music, tv, and movie reviews, creative works and processes, random political rants, and the occasional deep musing on the nature of the universe . . . or silly kitten video, whichever makes more sense at the time. I expect that LtL will remain pretty much as it already is. Stay tuned for the launch announcement of the other site in the next week or so.

Food Policies Designed to Make Us Unhealthy

Posted on March 11, 2010 by LtL

This is not rocket science, people:

The government also purchases surplus foods like cheese, milk, pork, and beef for distribution to food assistance programs—including school lunches. The government is not required to purchase nutritious foods. (Link)

If anyone thinks that the Government isn’t already deeply entrenched in what you eat and what foods are available at low costs, they are either deeply misinformed or deliberately blind to the facts. We need smart policies that are designed for a healthy population instead of policies that line the pockets of the few at the expense of the rest of us. The surest way to keep the status quo is to fool people into thinking that diet and nutrition are entirely personal choices and not part of an economic and political system that effects each and every one of us.

Update: Stubborn Mule has an excellent article about the problems inherent with pyramid charts and how they distort numbers.

Writing on the iPhone

Posted on March 9, 2010 by LtL

I recently composed a short story, “Garlic in the Air,” entirely on my iPhone while I was at work. Why the iPhone? Primarily because I was having some issues with my wrist and what might be some mild carpel tunnel issues and the iPhone didn’t aggravate those symptoms. Because I’m using Writeroom on my phone, my work is automatically backed up to the Simpletext servers, which I can then access on any computer with web access or on my home computer which has a Simpletext application that syncs a local folder with the server. I don’t think I’d write stories on the iPhone if I didn’t have that kind of syncing capability.

But what, I can hear you asking, is the process like writing on that little touch-screen keyboard? Not great. I certainly can’t type as fast as I can on a keyboard and it’s even slower than writing on paper. However, I’m not sure that is always a liability. Having to slow down a bit makes me consider my words more. It means that I am paying slightly more attention to the individual words and sounds than I might otherwise. I type moderately quickly, somewhere between 65 – 80 wpm depending on the computer and the ergonomics. Often, this speed means that I’m typing the first thoughts as they come into my head and stream through and are then gone replaced by the next thought and the next thought. Being forced to go slower means that each thought gets additional . . . well, thought before being committed to pixels. Also, I’m learning to ignore errors more on the iPhone and keep going because it’s much more tedious to fix misspellings on the iPhone than on a computer or even by hand. The truth is that when I misspell something I don’t have to fix it while I’m writing since it’s easy enough to fix later. Yet on a computer, I’ll break my train of thought to go back and fix any word in read I see. So, while on the one hand I’m slowing my thoughts down, I’m also training myself to keep moving forward instead of breaking out of the flow of the story to fix the mechanics of it.

Would I sit down and attempt to write a novel straight through on the iPhone? No. But because of Simpletext, I’m thinking of routinely writing first drafts of stories using either Textmate or Writeroom and saving them in my Simpletext folder so that I have them accessible wherever I go, whether that is on another computer or my iPhone. Scrivener remains my choice for longer projects, and as a place where I may very well import short stories after a draft or two, but keeping it simple with plain text files and a server that provides access wherever I go is making me rethink the tools and workflow I use for short works and early drafts.

If you’d like to read “Garlic in the Air,” you can find it at The Dueling Quill.

Living the Liminal

reports from the land of betwixt and between

Monthly Archives: March 2010