In New York’s North Country, winter blew in with a white Halloween, followed by a white Easter, with nary a thaw in between. I dressed for the season: two pairs of socks, boots, thermal long underwear, corduroy pants, and flannel shirt – for inside the house.
One morning I borrowed my roommate’s car, promising to fill it up. I put on my outside gear that I’d wear even for a trip to the mailbox: a down parka, a wool scarf, and down filled mittens. One didn’t take chances in below freezing weather.
Along the road, the bottom layer of snow had packed into ice, the same process that forms glaciers. When I got to the gas station, I took off my mitten to use the key to unlock the gas cap. It wouldn’t turn. Aaargh! One more thing that wouldn’t work in this godforsaken subarctic climate. I was downright furious at the car, the weather, and general circumstances.
The gas station guy helping me said, “Aren’t your fingers cold?”
“No,” I said. They really weren’t although the morning’s breeze had moved the wind chill factor to well below zero.
Back on the road with a full tank, I pondered what had happened. I realized my frustration and anger had moved the blood down into my fingers and kept them warm. So, if my mind could warm my hands when I was angry, it could do the same thing without my getting angry and upset.
When I got back home, where the snow had blown under the door and hadn’t melted, I tried again to warm my hands. All I had to do was relax and move the energy into my fingers. I let it happen like when I fell asleep, rather than forced it to happen by using will power. Behold, I could think my hands warm!
Ten years later during my menopause, the ability to move the warm blood into my fingers came in handy. When I had a hot flash, I’d hold something cold like a glass of ice water and mentally move the heat out of my body through my fingers onto the cold surface. At night I’d lay my palm on the cool floor to dissipate the heat.
Last year, I learned that when beginning meditators can make their hands warm, they know they’ve made progress in their meditation practice. Hence, anyone can master what I learned by happenstance.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
A Radical Nerd on Food Miles
Still a radical many decades after the events described in the previous blog post, I examined the roots of locavorism and food miles. Locavores tell themselves that eating local means fresher, healthier, and tastier food, but couldn’t local food rot before it’s sold? They feel they’re supporting their local economy, but aren’t people who live somewhere else just as good as locals? They believe they’re increasing food security, but what if local crops fail and there’s no way to import food? They enjoy the drive out to the country to meet their personal farmer. Locavores claim buying local food uses less energy because the food doesn’t travel as far.
On the surface, the last claim, food miles, sounds plausible. It follows that imported food would cost more if the added cost of transport is factored in, but I recalled that local food often costs more than imported. I suspected that carrying tons of food for many families in one big eighteen-wheeler truck to a supermarket was probably as efficient as carrying pounds of food for a few families in a pickup to a farmer’s market, even though the semi got worse mileage and traveled farther.
Being a nerd, I did the math. First, I checked the internet for reasonable numbers to assign to the distances traveled, the mileages of the vehicles, and the amount of food carried per trip in the pickup versus the semi. Then I calculated how much gasoline it would take to move a pound of food in each vehicle – the truly relevant statistic rather than how far the food travels. I converted the answer to tablespoons, easier to visualize than decimal fractions of a gallon. No higher math required, just multiplication and division.
Let’s assume the pickup transports 500 pounds of food on each trip. It gets 15 mpg and travels 50 miles on each trip from farm to farmers’ market, so 50mi/15mpg = 3.33 gallons gasoline is used per trip in the pickup. If each trip moves 500 pounds of food, 3.33gal/500lbs = 0.00667 gallons to move each pound of food in the pickup, which is equivalent to 1.7 tablespoons of gasoline. [.00667 gallons x 256 T/gal = 1.7 T]
We can do a similar calculation for a big semi food truck. It gets only about 4 mpg, but it can carry 50,000 pounds of food. Let’s assume the truck travels 1500 miles, the oft quoted distance from farm to fork. So, 1500mi/4mpg = 375 gallons per trip. Divide 375gal by 50,000lbs and you get 0.0075 gallons of gas per pound of food. And, 0.0075 gallons = 1.9 tablespoons of gasoline, about 5/8 teaspoon of gasoline more than the pickup.
Guess what? The Sierra Club magazine agrees with me. The August 2008 “Ask Mr Green” column says, “A locavore's transportation footprint can actually be comparatively large, depending on loads and vehicles. Hauling 500 pounds of cabbage 50 miles in a small pickup, for instance, can burn about the same amount of fuel per pound of cargo as trucking 50,000 pounds 1,500 miles in an 18-wheeler. Plus, if the semi backhauls food, then it can be twice as efficient as a pickup that's returning empty or partially full.”
http://sierraclub.typepad.com/greenlife/2012/08/ask-mr-green-local-vs-organic.html
However, the family who drives 50 miles in their Prius (50 mpg) to meet their farmer uses more than five tablespoons of gasoline per pound of food if they carry back fifty pounds of food for the week. 50mi/50mpg = 1gal gas per trip. 1gal/50lbs = 0.02 gal x 256T/gal = 5.12 T.
If you can’t do the math, you can be fooled by false claims. The food miles fallacy is a perfect example of something that’s plausible but not true. When your teacher explained word problems, even though your eyes were glazing over, she had your best interests at heart.
On the surface, the last claim, food miles, sounds plausible. It follows that imported food would cost more if the added cost of transport is factored in, but I recalled that local food often costs more than imported. I suspected that carrying tons of food for many families in one big eighteen-wheeler truck to a supermarket was probably as efficient as carrying pounds of food for a few families in a pickup to a farmer’s market, even though the semi got worse mileage and traveled farther.
Being a nerd, I did the math. First, I checked the internet for reasonable numbers to assign to the distances traveled, the mileages of the vehicles, and the amount of food carried per trip in the pickup versus the semi. Then I calculated how much gasoline it would take to move a pound of food in each vehicle – the truly relevant statistic rather than how far the food travels. I converted the answer to tablespoons, easier to visualize than decimal fractions of a gallon. No higher math required, just multiplication and division.
Let’s assume the pickup transports 500 pounds of food on each trip. It gets 15 mpg and travels 50 miles on each trip from farm to farmers’ market, so 50mi/15mpg = 3.33 gallons gasoline is used per trip in the pickup. If each trip moves 500 pounds of food, 3.33gal/500lbs = 0.00667 gallons to move each pound of food in the pickup, which is equivalent to 1.7 tablespoons of gasoline. [.00667 gallons x 256 T/gal = 1.7 T]
We can do a similar calculation for a big semi food truck. It gets only about 4 mpg, but it can carry 50,000 pounds of food. Let’s assume the truck travels 1500 miles, the oft quoted distance from farm to fork. So, 1500mi/4mpg = 375 gallons per trip. Divide 375gal by 50,000lbs and you get 0.0075 gallons of gas per pound of food. And, 0.0075 gallons = 1.9 tablespoons of gasoline, about 5/8 teaspoon of gasoline more than the pickup.
Guess what? The Sierra Club magazine agrees with me. The August 2008 “Ask Mr Green” column says, “A locavore's transportation footprint can actually be comparatively large, depending on loads and vehicles. Hauling 500 pounds of cabbage 50 miles in a small pickup, for instance, can burn about the same amount of fuel per pound of cargo as trucking 50,000 pounds 1,500 miles in an 18-wheeler. Plus, if the semi backhauls food, then it can be twice as efficient as a pickup that's returning empty or partially full.”
http://sierraclub.typepad.com/greenlife/2012/08/ask-mr-green-local-vs-organic.html
However, the family who drives 50 miles in their Prius (50 mpg) to meet their farmer uses more than five tablespoons of gasoline per pound of food if they carry back fifty pounds of food for the week. 50mi/50mpg = 1gal gas per trip. 1gal/50lbs = 0.02 gal x 256T/gal = 5.12 T.
If you can’t do the math, you can be fooled by false claims. The food miles fallacy is a perfect example of something that’s plausible but not true. When your teacher explained word problems, even though your eyes were glazing over, she had your best interests at heart.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Becoming Radical
One morning when I was about nine, I was going on errands with my father in our new 1948 Packard. My father pushed a knob on the dashboard that soon popped out with its tip glowing red hot and touched it to his cigarette. He turned to me in his “I’m-right-so-don’t-argue” voice: “People like Bernice who live in public housing projects shouldn’t be allowed to vote!”
“What?” I said, “How come?” Bernice was our “colored” cleaning woman. I loved her.
“Because they don’t own property and so they don’t have a stake in running the country.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the little drawer that served as an ashtray.
I knew something was wrong with my father’s logic. I stroked the grey-beige plush seat covering with my fingers. Bernice worked and paid taxes in our country, didn’t she? Shouldn’t she have as many rights as anyone else? I knew I couldn’t convince my father he was mistaken, but I resolved to study hard so when I grew up I would have a comeback. I would be on the side of people like Bernice. People whom my father dubbed “The Great Unwashed.”
You can see that from an early age, I didn’t believe everything I was told. I was a radical, one who looks at the roots of things. In middle age, I became a Unitarian Universalist, hoping to continue as a radical with like-minded people.
“What?” I said, “How come?” Bernice was our “colored” cleaning woman. I loved her.
“Because they don’t own property and so they don’t have a stake in running the country.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the little drawer that served as an ashtray.
I knew something was wrong with my father’s logic. I stroked the grey-beige plush seat covering with my fingers. Bernice worked and paid taxes in our country, didn’t she? Shouldn’t she have as many rights as anyone else? I knew I couldn’t convince my father he was mistaken, but I resolved to study hard so when I grew up I would have a comeback. I would be on the side of people like Bernice. People whom my father dubbed “The Great Unwashed.”
You can see that from an early age, I didn’t believe everything I was told. I was a radical, one who looks at the roots of things. In middle age, I became a Unitarian Universalist, hoping to continue as a radical with like-minded people.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Cascadia's Fault, Not Ours
The movie, “Shock/Wave” shows what will happen when the Cascadia Fault off the northwest coast of the United States slips and causes a magnitude eight or nine megathrust earthquake and up to one hundred foot tsunami waves. Such a disaster could kill thousands and cause billions of dollars of damage, more damage than Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy combined.
Local communities are preparing for this eventuality with earthquake safe buildings, evacuation routes, and tsunami drills. We don’t know when this Act of God/Nature will happen, but we’re getting ready for when it does. More important, nobody is being blamed for earthquakes. Saving human lives is the highest priority.
Another imminent disaster on people’s minds is climate change. We can’t even predict whether this will really be a disaster; the latest [2013] IPCC report omits tipping points, climate refugees, increased storms and droughts, and accelerated sea level rise. However, much argument and name calling has ensued. Millions of dollars are being spent on costly mitigation schemes.
Unlike the Cascadia Big One, Climate Change has become politicized and moralized. When an issue is moralized, someone is to blame. Actually increased carbon dioxide is blamed for climate change, but since humans and their activities produce the demon gas, they are ultimately to blame – an ugly Malthusian subtext.
It’s unfortunate that we can’t look at climate change in the same way we look at the Cascadia Big One. Unlike the Big One that will do untold damage in less than an hour, Climate Change will happen gradually. We have plenty of time to prepare if we don’t waste it arguing, moralizing, and blaming.
Local communities are preparing for this eventuality with earthquake safe buildings, evacuation routes, and tsunami drills. We don’t know when this Act of God/Nature will happen, but we’re getting ready for when it does. More important, nobody is being blamed for earthquakes. Saving human lives is the highest priority.
Another imminent disaster on people’s minds is climate change. We can’t even predict whether this will really be a disaster; the latest [2013] IPCC report omits tipping points, climate refugees, increased storms and droughts, and accelerated sea level rise. However, much argument and name calling has ensued. Millions of dollars are being spent on costly mitigation schemes.
Unlike the Cascadia Big One, Climate Change has become politicized and moralized. When an issue is moralized, someone is to blame. Actually increased carbon dioxide is blamed for climate change, but since humans and their activities produce the demon gas, they are ultimately to blame – an ugly Malthusian subtext.
It’s unfortunate that we can’t look at climate change in the same way we look at the Cascadia Big One. Unlike the Big One that will do untold damage in less than an hour, Climate Change will happen gradually. We have plenty of time to prepare if we don’t waste it arguing, moralizing, and blaming.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
The Inherent Worth and Dignity of Selfishness
What is sin? Where does sin come from? Will we ever be able to totally eliminate sin and evil from the world? Do bad people have inherent worth and dignity?
Let’s fast forward to the 23rd century and hop aboard the Starship Enterprise. In an episode called “The Enemy Within” in The Original Series, a transporter malfunction splits Captain Kirk into two parts, his bad side and his good side. We see the bad Kirk, pupils dilated, prowling about the Enterprise, grabbing whatever he wants. And he wants it now. He forces the doctor to give him a bottle of medicinal brandy and gulps it down. Then he wants a pretty female officer so he assaults her. He fights with all who try to subdue him. This Kirk is totally selfish.
As we’ve all noticed, there are people everywhere who sometimes are like the bad Kirk, in that they do what they want regardless of other people. They range from the merely annoying like my neighbor who has a noisy heat pump under my bedroom window to downright dangerous like sociopathic killers. Not to mention political despots like Hitler. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker calls predation, dominance, revenge, and sadism our inner demons, which make us act like the bad Kirk.
It’s difficult to reconcile our observation that there are bad people whose inner demons take over with our Unitarian Universalist principle of the inherent worth and dignity of every person. One deceased member of our congregation used to say he didn’t believe a person as bad as Hitler had any inherent worth and dignity. Another congregant says people like Hitler have used up their quota of inherent worth and dignity. Which leaves some people, the bad ones, without inherent worth and dignity and seems contrary to our first principle.
However, there is an idea that reconciles the Unitarian Universalist principle of the inherent worth and dignity of every person and our observation there are bad people everywhere. That’s the idea that our selfishness is a necessary part of who we are, although it’s essential to keep it in check.
Back to the 23rd century and the Enterprise. As we observed, the bad Kirk is selfishness personified. Spock, always the rationalist as is his nature, says, “What makes one man an exceptional leader? We see indications that it's his negative side which makes him strong, that his evil side, controlled and disciplined, is vital to his strength.” Elsewhere on the ship, the good Captain Kirk shows signs of weakness. He loses his ability to give orders and commands. He no longer has the power of decision. The good Kirk says, “Somehow, in being duplicated, I have lost my strength of will. Decisions are becoming more and more difficult.”
Then Spock speaks directly to the good Kirk, “Your negative side removed from you,
the power of command begins to elude you.”
So we see just as Kirk’s bad side made him a strong leader, we all need some selfishness to make a difference in the world. We can do it constructively by starting a business, courting a partner, working for a cause, writing a memoir that will inspire others.
If, like the bad Kirk, we focus only on ourselves and separate ourselves from the community, we’re acting like sociopaths who cannot manage their will to selfishness. That’s what I define as sin. Obviously, some acts are more wrong than others. Catholics, I think, make a useful distinction between serious mortal sins that affect others in a big way and petty venial sins.
In the 23rd century, Spock muses, “We have here an unusual opportunity to appraise the human mind, or to examine, in Earth terms, the roles of good and evil in a man – his negative side, which you call hostility, lust, violence, and his positive side, which Earth people express as compassion, love, tenderness.” Spock continues: “Being split in two halves is no theory with me. I have a human half and an alien half at war with each other. I survive because my intelligence wins, makes them live together.” Spock reinterprets Steven Pinker’s list of our four better angels: empathy, self-control, morality, and reason.
As the 23rd century Star Trek allegory concludes, the transporter gets fixed, Kirk’s two halves are reunited, and Captain Kirk is able to make the decisions necessary to rescue the crew members stranded on a frozen planet. Watching the show, 20th and 21st century viewers learn about the benefits and drawbacks of selfishness.
Now we can answer the questions we posed: Where does sin come from? Sin, I propose, comes from the selfishness we all have, and which is essential to our functioning. Will we ever be able to totally eliminate sin and evil from the world? Probably not, because we can’t eliminate all selfishness without disastrous consequences. Do bad people have the inherent worth and dignity of every person? Yes, but they haven’t used their reason to balance their selfish and compassionate selves.
Meanwhile, what do we do with sinners? Marilyn Sewall, minister emerita from First Unitarian, Portland, believes that we need to remove or sequester bad people for the sake of the larger community. She states, “Tolerance of harmful behavior is not consistent with our principles, for it is in violation of the law of love and healthy respect for the larger community.” Prisons accomplish this function.
How does the Star Trek allegory relate to our own lives? Selfishness dwells within each of us and since we can’t function without it, it must have inherent worth and dignity. We have to be sure to keep selfishness in its place and use it for the service of the good. We can’t let our selfishness dominate. Remember, our reason allows us to keep a correct balance between selfishness and weakness.
As the great Rabbi Hillel, who died about the time Jesus was born, said, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I?"
Let’s fast forward to the 23rd century and hop aboard the Starship Enterprise. In an episode called “The Enemy Within” in The Original Series, a transporter malfunction splits Captain Kirk into two parts, his bad side and his good side. We see the bad Kirk, pupils dilated, prowling about the Enterprise, grabbing whatever he wants. And he wants it now. He forces the doctor to give him a bottle of medicinal brandy and gulps it down. Then he wants a pretty female officer so he assaults her. He fights with all who try to subdue him. This Kirk is totally selfish.
As we’ve all noticed, there are people everywhere who sometimes are like the bad Kirk, in that they do what they want regardless of other people. They range from the merely annoying like my neighbor who has a noisy heat pump under my bedroom window to downright dangerous like sociopathic killers. Not to mention political despots like Hitler. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker calls predation, dominance, revenge, and sadism our inner demons, which make us act like the bad Kirk.
It’s difficult to reconcile our observation that there are bad people whose inner demons take over with our Unitarian Universalist principle of the inherent worth and dignity of every person. One deceased member of our congregation used to say he didn’t believe a person as bad as Hitler had any inherent worth and dignity. Another congregant says people like Hitler have used up their quota of inherent worth and dignity. Which leaves some people, the bad ones, without inherent worth and dignity and seems contrary to our first principle.
However, there is an idea that reconciles the Unitarian Universalist principle of the inherent worth and dignity of every person and our observation there are bad people everywhere. That’s the idea that our selfishness is a necessary part of who we are, although it’s essential to keep it in check.
Back to the 23rd century and the Enterprise. As we observed, the bad Kirk is selfishness personified. Spock, always the rationalist as is his nature, says, “What makes one man an exceptional leader? We see indications that it's his negative side which makes him strong, that his evil side, controlled and disciplined, is vital to his strength.” Elsewhere on the ship, the good Captain Kirk shows signs of weakness. He loses his ability to give orders and commands. He no longer has the power of decision. The good Kirk says, “Somehow, in being duplicated, I have lost my strength of will. Decisions are becoming more and more difficult.”
Then Spock speaks directly to the good Kirk, “Your negative side removed from you,
the power of command begins to elude you.”
So we see just as Kirk’s bad side made him a strong leader, we all need some selfishness to make a difference in the world. We can do it constructively by starting a business, courting a partner, working for a cause, writing a memoir that will inspire others.
If, like the bad Kirk, we focus only on ourselves and separate ourselves from the community, we’re acting like sociopaths who cannot manage their will to selfishness. That’s what I define as sin. Obviously, some acts are more wrong than others. Catholics, I think, make a useful distinction between serious mortal sins that affect others in a big way and petty venial sins.
In the 23rd century, Spock muses, “We have here an unusual opportunity to appraise the human mind, or to examine, in Earth terms, the roles of good and evil in a man – his negative side, which you call hostility, lust, violence, and his positive side, which Earth people express as compassion, love, tenderness.” Spock continues: “Being split in two halves is no theory with me. I have a human half and an alien half at war with each other. I survive because my intelligence wins, makes them live together.” Spock reinterprets Steven Pinker’s list of our four better angels: empathy, self-control, morality, and reason.
As the 23rd century Star Trek allegory concludes, the transporter gets fixed, Kirk’s two halves are reunited, and Captain Kirk is able to make the decisions necessary to rescue the crew members stranded on a frozen planet. Watching the show, 20th and 21st century viewers learn about the benefits and drawbacks of selfishness.
Now we can answer the questions we posed: Where does sin come from? Sin, I propose, comes from the selfishness we all have, and which is essential to our functioning. Will we ever be able to totally eliminate sin and evil from the world? Probably not, because we can’t eliminate all selfishness without disastrous consequences. Do bad people have the inherent worth and dignity of every person? Yes, but they haven’t used their reason to balance their selfish and compassionate selves.
Meanwhile, what do we do with sinners? Marilyn Sewall, minister emerita from First Unitarian, Portland, believes that we need to remove or sequester bad people for the sake of the larger community. She states, “Tolerance of harmful behavior is not consistent with our principles, for it is in violation of the law of love and healthy respect for the larger community.” Prisons accomplish this function.
How does the Star Trek allegory relate to our own lives? Selfishness dwells within each of us and since we can’t function without it, it must have inherent worth and dignity. We have to be sure to keep selfishness in its place and use it for the service of the good. We can’t let our selfishness dominate. Remember, our reason allows us to keep a correct balance between selfishness and weakness.
As the great Rabbi Hillel, who died about the time Jesus was born, said, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I?"
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Is the Beloved Community Like a Toastmasters Club?
At Toastmasters clubs, you pay your dues for the privileges of attending the programs and associating with people who also want to become better speakers, but there’s no loyalty expected to or from the club. In fact, I’m going to drop out of my club for a month because I want to take a Spanish class that meets at the same time. At Toastmasters clubs, there’s no reason for the organization to concern itself with its members’ lives.
In Unitarian Universalist congregations, you likewise pay for the privilege of attending the programs and associating with people with similar goals. Except in our congregations we hear the phrase “The Beloved Community.” Doesn’t this phrase imply some kind of loyalty from the members to the institution and from the institution to the members? Shouldn’t a church organization be different from a booster club?
Christine Robinson’s blog (http://iminister.blogspot.com/2013/05/beloved-community.html) points out that some people object that only one’s family is beloved, not one’s fellow congregants. The latter are merely like neighbors.
But who is my neighbor, the young man asked Jesus? Jesus replied with the story of the Good Samaritan who acted as neighbor to the man who fell among thieves. The Good Samaritan, whom the Jews despised, went the extra mile for a stranger. Can members of a congregation be that kind of neighbor to each other?
In Unitarian Universalist congregations, you likewise pay for the privilege of attending the programs and associating with people with similar goals. Except in our congregations we hear the phrase “The Beloved Community.” Doesn’t this phrase imply some kind of loyalty from the members to the institution and from the institution to the members? Shouldn’t a church organization be different from a booster club?
Christine Robinson’s blog (http://iminister.blogspot.com/2013/05/beloved-community.html) points out that some people object that only one’s family is beloved, not one’s fellow congregants. The latter are merely like neighbors.
But who is my neighbor, the young man asked Jesus? Jesus replied with the story of the Good Samaritan who acted as neighbor to the man who fell among thieves. The Good Samaritan, whom the Jews despised, went the extra mile for a stranger. Can members of a congregation be that kind of neighbor to each other?
Monday, May 20, 2013
Training to Generalize
“New Yorkers are rude and pushy!” “Catholics believe suffering is good for you – no pain meds in their hospitals!” Sounds like trash talk from ignorant bigots, yet I’ve heard these remarks at my Unitarian Universalist congregation. However, everyone there has learned not to make rude remarks about Londoners or Jews. Why are some groups subject to verbal abuse and others not?
The answer lies in a dog training principle. Dogs need to learn a cue in different contexts before they can generalize. After I taught my dog Maggie that the cue “Wait!” meant wait for permission to exit at the back door, I had to teach her “Wait!” meant the same thing at the front door. Dogs can’t abstract and generalize as well as people, who have language, can.
I’ll still have to teach Maggie not to bolt out the gate, even though she knows to “Wait!” at the front door and the back door. Also, some members of my congregation need to learn that the cue, “know about a group” means to wait before making prejudiced comments about that group.
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