Freedom

I was asked about getting rid of things to free one's life. I own way too many things, but fewer than I used to---a lot fewer, so I think I can talk about it. I don't think I shared here my experience with my marathon medals. I kept them after many rounds of getting rid of books, clothes, etc. Eventually I realized I was ready to get rid of them so I did. I didn't run the marathon to win. On the contrary, I came in ten-thousandth place or so. The experience was its own reward, not some piece of medal. Despite this bold talk, not long after I got rid of my medals, I realized I shouldn't have. I regretted my action. But it…

A few months ago, maybe a year, my phone stopped reading the memory card. It couldn't access the 16 gigabytes on it, including all my saved music, pictures, videos, and several apps. My phone I kept putting off getting it fixed until earlier this month, when I brought it to a repair shop. In the meantime, I found myself preferring without the memory. When bored, instead of music, I paid attention to my thoughts or surroundings. Instead of showing pictures to friends or to myself to reminisce, I could talk to the friends, write, or some everyday, connecting means. I had to actively learn and act on what I wanted, not just passively watch and listen. Freedom The big difference was allowing many apps to…

This post is not about grammar. The first word of the title is a verb. When I was young, I was taught not to split infinitives, that "irregardless" was not a word, and other rules to follow. I planned to write this post about how I find splitting infinitives makes more sense. That is, "to boldly go" makes more sense to me than "boldly to go" or "to go boldly." I think the Latin roots of verbs were single words, so people used to consider "to go" one word. Therefore we shouldn't split a single word into two parts. Later I heard a view that native speakers of a language can't speak that language wrong. How native speakers speak defines that language. I don't need…

I met some friends in Central Park today -- teammates I went to college nationals with in 1989 -- to throw a disc around. I started walking there from my place in Greenwich Village just past noon. We tossed until about 3:30, then I went food shopping (at the 4th Street Coop), and walked home from the Lower East Side. It was in the low 80s and sunny. I put on sunscreen, though not enough to avoid a burn. I also didn't drink water until I was nearly home, in Washington Square Park, about 4pm. I wore a tank top so my sunburn matched this pattern, though not this intense. That means I was in the sun and heat, sweating for 4 hours with no…

What happens when, say, mostly men write and judge laws on abortion or mostly whites write and judge laws affecting people of color? What do you think about a system that underrepresents, say, women in STEM fields or government offices? Do you presume there is something broken in the system? I got an email about an NYU document: The Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Prison Industrial Complex, May 2019, available here. The report cover The committee introduced itself and the document with, "The Committee's formal charge was to examine how the University already addresses mass incarceration and other steps that could be taken in this arena, focusing on the core university missions of research, teaching, and service at NYU on its New…

The other day I concluded in my post Capitalism's Problems and the Environment that certain regulations made sense. A reader's response made sense and led me to refine what I wrote. Our dialog is in the bottom of that page, but I felt they deserved an full post. She wrote: One unintended consequence of the proposed regulation is that companies would pass on the higher cost to their consumers rather than bear the burden from their profits. This would drive up the cost of literally everything manufactured for everyone, including those already living at or below the poverty line. This price hike includes life saving medical devices and supplies that an already expensive medical and insurance system would have to absorb. I believe we can…