Fat-Shaming vs. Health

Hi, all.

Now that application season #1 is (finally) over, I can return to the blog, my taekwondo studio, and hilarious things on the interwebs.  Here, I relate thoughts on a (rather inebriated) conversation at the Thanksgiving table.

Fat-shaming has been getting a lot of attention in the past few years, thanks to a disturbing prevalence of eating disorders and the pejorative use of the word “fat.”  Here, I relate my feelings on the subject.  Bear in mind that it applies to men and women equally.

It seems that in many circles, discussing one’s body shape has become an utterly taboo subject.  There are reasons for this, of course; eating disorders are an all-too-real concern, and despite what advertising would have us believe, healthy body types come in many shapes and sizes.  Fitness should be a personal decision, and we cannot fit all body types into a single mold.

Nonetheless, the rendering of fitness as a completely taboo subject worries me.  The simple fact is that, as a society, we are overweight.  I use the royal we, of course; I suspect that most of the people reading this are perfectly healthy.  However, my social circle is very much an intellectual elite; we went to college, most of us will go to graduate school, we pay attention to events in the wider world, and we have been raised to consider our health and fitness.  But, despite the jokes, statistics don’t lie: some 67% of the United States population is clinically overweight, and around 30% is obese.

Now, it’s popular to blame large corporations, poverty, lack of education, metabolic differences, the loss of time, and any of a dozen other things for this.  Those are all factors, and they should be addressed.  Nonetheless, in many (not all, but many) cases it is a lifestyle choice.  Options for healthy living are available, particularly in urban areas; the spread of healthy food and active lifestyles has been slow but real.  It’s a question of using them.

Now, here’s the bit that concerns me.  In the United States—and, I can only assume, many other Western nations as well—discussing personal fitness is something of a taboo subject.  We’re afraid of offending someone by noting an extra few pounds, and we’re afraid of triggering an eating disorder in “fragile” people.  Some have gone so far as to make overweight “normal,” or beautify it, or make it positive.  That concerns me.  It’s one thing to oppose using “fat” as an insult; it’s quite another thing to make it positive.  The science linking weight with a host of health problems is long, detailed, and damn near ironclad.  When we have a 60% overweight population, “fat” should not be positive; it should be a description of a solvable problem.

I feel that I’m trying to pull off a rather delicate balancing act here.  It’s vital to note that there’s a huge range of healthy body types; I’ve met attractive people who were stick-thin, voluptuous, and everything in between.  Anyone within the “normal” BMI range is almost certainly healthy and has nothing to worry about (yes, I know that BMI is imperfect, but it’s a start).  We can’t all look like supermodels; frankly, many supermodels shouldn’t look like supermodels.  And, as many people note, there are more important things than having a perfect body; a career path, healthy friendships, and a social life come to mind.  

I think an honest discussion of the problem, along with supportive suggestions, might be a good start.  It might help address the obesity epidemic if the sufferers were told of their affliction.  Aristotle once said that ignorance is the worst disease, because the afflicted does not know of the affliction.  To get to that point, however, will require some delicate maneuvers.

First of all, I don’t like the use of “fat” as an insult.  It’s a physical problem, not a mental one.  Like most problems, it can be fixed with dedication and hard work, and there are no shortcuts.  So one step would be to stop the use of “fat” as an insult, and use it instead more like a diagnosis.  If you think that’s impossible, well, cancer and AIDS used to carry stigmas.

This might might help the other end of the spectrum as well.  The use of “fat” as an insult has led to the assumption that “non-fat” is a good; saying “You’re looking skinny” is automatically considered a complement.  This is not always the case; I’ve seen a number of people where my immediate reaction was, “Someone needs to tell them to put on a pound or ten.”  Frankly, I think we should be more willing to say “You’re skinny; are you eating enough?”

I should clarify that, to my mind, thin is a body type: the flesh is sparse, but proportionally distributed on the frame and, well, healthy-looking.  Several boys and girls I know have been thin as long as I’ve known them, and they’re all healthy individuals.  Skinny, on the other hand, suggests that there’s not enough flesh to cover the frame.  I’ve seen people like that as well, and being ten pounds shy is at least as unattractive as being ten pounds generous.

I guess what I’m saying is to have an honest discussion about weight and healthy eating.  Being overweight is not something to be proud of or to glorify, but neither is being unnaturally thin.  Too many calories are bad, but so is too few, and so is the wrong kind.  Personally, my extended family comes in all shapes and sizes, but the healthiest tend to follow the Michael Pollan food rules: Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.

Final note: I understand why billboard supermodels are taken as “standards of beauty.”  They’re perfect.  So perfect, in fact, that I can’t find anything to like in them.

That last sentence may sound strange, but the fact is I do not find advertising models attractive.  They look like statues or gods, not humans; they radiate haughty detachment, not welcome.  I have no desire to befriend or love a statue.  Imperfections, to me, are a door; they make a person approachable.  Flaws make character, and character counts for more than perfection.  I wonder how many others feel the same.

On Doing Nothing

Sometimes we need to do nothing at all.

Sometimes we need to stop and think for a time.

Sometimes we need to reexamine our road.

And that’s okay.

Because sometimes, the only way to find yourself is to stop looking so hard.

It’s been a while since I my last post.  That’s largely because I’ve been driving myself to drink with job applications, master’s applications, doctoral applications, and wondering how I’ll buy Christmas gifts (or anything else) when I’m unemployed and broke.  It’s about as miserable as you’d expect…I loathe applications.

That said, I have had free time for the first time in a very long time.  For the first time in my memory, there’s no homework, there’s no social pull, there’s no responsibility after 21:00.  For the first time in my life, I can spend time researching and considering future options full-time, rather than feeling the push of the rat race again.  For the first time in memory, I can stop and think for a while.

As part of that research and reflection, I’ve reexamined my future path.  I assumed that I would hurtle down the doctoral path at full speed, looking for a neuroscience Ph.D with the shortest possible lag time, so that I could start my research career as soon as possible.  Since starting full-time graduate school research, however, I’ve been plagued by doubts.  Basically, it came to the following: how much do I love physics and engineering?  To what extent, if any, am I willing to leave physics behind?  Do I want to jump straight into neuroscience, or take a longer but more mathematical and physics-based route?

The answer, somewhat to my surprise, was that no, I am not willing to sacrifice physics as completely as I believed.  Strange and slightly masochistic though it may be, I liked physics.  I like the surety of it, the sense of accomplishment in solving problems, the mathematical certainty of equations and manipulations.  Yes, there was pain and struggle involved, and I certainly wasn’t the best in my class (on a related note, anyone who says girls are bad at math or physics is either living the 1950s or has their head inserted up a particularly unpleasant part of their anatomy).  But, despite all that and some spectacularly bad instructors, I liked my physics education, and I want to make use of it.

As a direct result of this conclusion, I’ve revamped my job hunt, reexamined my educational plans, and rebooted my plans for the next couple of years.  My initial assumption was a year or two of work, followed by neuroscience doctoral research.  Now, I may delay the doctoral work in favor of a M.Sc. in biophysics or biomedical engineering, to be followed by a Ph.D.  I’m still not sure where that Ph.D will go; although neuroscience remains the most likely suspect, I like the clarity of mathematics and physics much more than the wetwork of biological dissections and chemistry.

This seems like a minor change, and in the long term it is, but it’s one that I was certain would never happen a month ago.   A month ago, I had not questioned the swift, certain road to neuroscience, and I was ready to fly towards it.  I would not have questioned this approach, had I not had the time to think it through.

Here comes the point: I never thought about this before.  Or, more accurately, I never thought deeply about it.  I had assumed I would follow the neuroscience route directly, never considering what that might entail or whether it was the best fit for me.  I only considered the consequences and what best suited my needs and skills when I was forced to stop and think for a while.

You’ll notice that I used the word “forced.”  This is because, well, I was forced.  Given my druthers, I would have jumped straight into the work environment and never thought twice about my path ahead.  I hated, and still hate, having nothing to do.  Yet sometimes, that is what we need.

This is a largely anecdotal piece, obviously.  Yet I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that this time to decompress is not only valuable, but absolutely and vitally necessary.  In fact, The Economist ran this piece on this very subject; modern businesses encouraging their workers to stop and think for a while.

In today’s world, we feel a constant pressure to work longer, harder, and faster.  Increased competition means that, to land a job or a studentship, we must be far more qualified than our parents were.  The miracle of modern communication means we are connected to employers and friends 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no respite.  This has its advantages, one of which is that you can read this, yet the pressure to be always on can make us forget how much it matters to unplug.

Deep insight, personal or otherwise, seldom comes in the midst of constant bombardment.  It requires time, and thought, and quiet.  I never fully appreciated how necessary that time is until I found it again.

The Reason I Write

The following touches on a dark spot in my mental and emotional history.  It is my considered opinion that I have addressed the situation since then, and I continue to do so.  I am no longer depressed, I am no longer silent, and I am not alone.  The first, I was; the second, I almost was; the third, I have never been.

Hi, all.

My thoughts have been aflutter for the couple of weeks, with the result that I've been writing a lot.  Hopefully some of it will be publishable soon.  At some point, however, I had to question; why do I write so much, at such length?  I used to loathe writing, yet now I barely go a day without it.  What changed to draw me to it?  I'm not completely sure, but here are some suspicions:

• I have more free time.  This is a no-brainer; I'm (still) unemployed, and I can only spend so much time a day studying for the GRE or chasing applications.
• I have been catching up on some topics that I previously neglected.  A lot of these thoughts occurred during the school year, but I didn't have time to write then.
• I am reading about issues that strike a chord.   In particular, I have found a trove of mental illness blogs and comics, and have blazed through them.  It's a subject that troubles me.
• I find it easier to express involved thoughts in writing; there's less chance of interruption, and I have more time to order my thoughts.
• It's therapy.

The first three topics seem rather self-evident, but the last two require some more explanation.  Let's start with the first of those.

I've always found verbal communication a challenge.  It's not that I can't speak to others--obviously I can--but doing so requires a stupendous amount of energy.  The amount of energy necessary increases with the rapidity and degrees of freedom of the conversation (degrees of freedom being the number of people involved).  With so many sensory inputs coming in, my brain diverts the energy necessary for output to processing; as such, I often fail to respond quickly when faced with unexpected inputs.

The topic of the conversation matters as well, of course, as does the company.  I can discuss politics, philosophy, science, or literature with relative ease, and among my close friends I can discourse with great comfort.  When discussing personal or emotional topics, the energy requirements go up a hundredfold; the same is true when in a less well-known audience.  Perhaps it's a culturally instilled aversion to some topics, perhaps it's concern of giving offense, perhaps it's fear of making myself vulnerable, perhaps it is a mixture of the above, but sometimes simply speaking requires breaching a wall of hesitation and fear.

Finally, there is the question of forming understanding.  Arguably, the whole purpose of language is to bridge the gaps in understanding and viewpoints between two people.  That's certainly what I believe, and as such, I believe that honesty is the best policy, always.  I believe that we, as a society, need to be franker and more willing to communicate, if we are to bridge the gaps in comprehension that plague us.

Yet even with small gaps, it is not an easy thing to do.  So, sometimes I fail to explain myself, not because it is impossible, but because I feel like the effort required to confer understanding in the other party is not worth the energy necessary to instill it.  At times like that, I can see a (to me) simple topic dragging into a long and draining argument, with no guarantee of perception from either side.  It's simply easier to gloss it over with a "nothing much" or "it doesn't matter" than to build the bridge necessary to cross that canyon.

At other times, I want to build the bridge but I lack the materials necessary.  The message I want to convey simply dwarfs the words that I can use to convey it; to put it in words would mean abandoning the largest part of what I wish to say.  Sometimes I can't even unpick the knot myself at that moment, much less explain it to someone else.

As for the therapy part…well, sometimes it's simply that I want to be heard and express myself clearly.  Other times, it's more than that.

Disclosure: I experienced a bout of depression over winter and spring quarters of the past school year (2013).  There was a reason for it, a reason that I have absolutely no desire to discuss, and I was fortunate enough to recognize and address the situation.  However, the fact remains that I was depressed and that I cut off contact with much of my social circle, because I could not endure the strain of socialization on top of everything else, and I could not express what I was feeling to my friends without causing pain.

Around this time, I discovered writing.  I discovered it because, although I could not bounce my thoughts off my friends, I could bounce them off myself.  I could use the written word to analyze my thoughts, my actions, and my emotions.  Perhaps, by writing, I could exorcise some of the demons I felt.  Perhaps, by writing, I could communicate some part of what I felt, even if only with myself.  Perhaps, by writing and choosing what to reveal, I could begin to heal myself.

So I wrote.  I wrote, to express the helplessness and disillusionment that I felt.  I wrote, because not to write was to keep a tempest in a teacup, and the tempest had grown larger than its container.  I wrote, in order to trace the path I had taken from the mountaintop to the valley.  I wrote, to cast light on the demons hiding in plain view.  I wrote, because writing let me be a part of something; it was a line to throw; it pulled me to earth when I felt myself letting go.

That last may seem odd, but it's strange what can ground you, when you feel yourself being swept away.  I have three main methods to recover myself; strenuous exercise, walking, and writing.  The first forces an endorphin flood; the second helps me think; the third lets me express those thoughts.  That expression is a powerful therapeutic tool, when mere speech seems unable to carry you.  Perhaps more important, that expression reminds us that we can communicate with others, and thus, that we are not alone.

So I write.  I write because I cannot speak, but words must be said.  I write, because writing gives me the time to think, to untie the knot, to build the bridge I need.  Yet, in the end, that bridge must reach from my side to another.  The three methods I mention above ground me in an emergency; for the long term, sanity lies in belonging.  It lies in friendship.  It lies in a mission.

In short my friends—you—are my best anchors.

Here are a couple of links I found that sparked this.  The common thread I see is a need to speak, and a sense that speech cannot do so adequately.

• Just be honest for now • I DO NOT HAVE AN EATING DISORDER
• A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words
• depression comix

An Analogy for the Debt Limit

Given the likelihood of a debt limit showdown, I'd like to outline my views on the subject.

We hear a lot of analogies on the debt limit, most of them about why it should stay low.  The most common example is this: if you already owe $10,000 in loans, you shouldn't borrow another $20,000 to pay it back.

Unfortunately, this fails to adequately capture the situation.  A better analogy, to my mind, is this; the budget is like a home contract, the debt limit the loan for the property.

Let's say you're selling a house, and someone wants to buy.  You haggle a bit, and eventually settle on a price, let's say $500,000.  The buyer signs the contract, agrees to pay on such-and-such a date after moving in, and everything looks swell.

Now, let's suppose the payment due date rolls around, but the buyer tells you, "I only have $100,000 in the account.  Take it or leave it."  When you demand to know why he can't pay the full $500,000, he replies "I don't want to take a loan."  Not "I can't take a loan," but "I don't want to take a loan."

Obviously, as the seller, you're steaming mad now.  This man signed a contract, moved into your house, and now he's saying he won't--not can't, won't--pay his bill.  In fact, you can sue the guy, and any reasonable court would rule in your favor; the man broke his contract, and he's on the hook for the other $400,000.  If he needs a loan to find it, he'd better take the loan.

Here's how this relates to the debt limit.  When Congress passed the budget, it essentially signed a contract saying "I will pay X amount of money to creditors and agencies Y."  By signing that contract, Congress has committed to paying.  The debt limit is the loan that allows Congress to pay.  It's all very well to argue that we can't go deeper in debt--that is an argument that needs to be had--but Congress has already agreed to pay the money, so it needs to find that money from somewhere.  If the only way to find the money is to borrow, we had best borrow.

Okay, so question: when should we have the spending and revenue debate?  When we pass the budget.  The budget sets how much money we spend, how we spend it, and where it comes from; as such, we get to debate those things when we pass the budget.  However, once the budget is set, we are going to spend the money one way or the other--we've contractually agreed to do so--so having this debate after the budget passes serves no purpose.

In sum, here is the situation on the debt limit and why holding it hostage is the height of stupidity:

• We've already set our spending levels, so not raising the debt limit won't affect spending one red cent.
• We've already set revenue levels, so keeping the debt ceiling won't magically generate revenue.
• By not raising the debt ceiling, we essentially say, "We don't like these bills, so we won't pay them," even though we have already legally agreed to pay them.  That's called a default, it's illegal, and it casts doubt on the security of U.S. bonds.
• The world considers U.S. treasury bonds the safest investment.  Throw the world's safety net into doubt, and we risk a financial and economic crisis that makes 2008 look like a mouse against a tiger.

In short, there is absolutely no advantageous effect for anyone from not raising the debt ceiling, and catastrophic results for everyone unless we do.  So holding it hostage is moronic; sooner or later, the bluffer has to blink.

On Compromise and Democracy

Hi, all.

So, in the spirit of the first government shutdown in 18 years, I think it's high time for a discussion of compromise and why the government needs it.

Now, the first rule of democracy is that the majority set the rules.  A danger is that the majority may enact rules that unjustly persecute a minority of the population.  Thus, the a good governing document will provide protections and means of recourse for a minority.  In the United States, the first recourse is compromise between different parties of Congress; the last recourse comes from the court system.

A dirty little secret: no one likes compromise.  Hell, the Founding Fathers disliked compromise, not least because they fought like cats and dogs.  Why?  Well, because no one likes giving up their position, and the first rule of compromise is that everyone has to give up something.  Not everything, but something, and presumably something they want.  My father (a lawyer) likes to say that a good compromise leaves all parties equally unhappy.

Now, the Founding Fathers may not have liked compromise, but they recognized its necessity.  Their recognition may have been helped by the fact that no two Founding Fathers agreed on much of anything; if Jefferson and Hamilton couldn't agree how to organize an economy, there were certainly going to be other disagreements.  It was also helped by a mutual agreement that no one side has a monopoly on truth; the best course is seldom the most extreme one, and compromise helps protect the minority.  As such, the Senate was designed to foster compromise between differing views.  Over the centuries, it has, by and large, done so--the largest counterexample was a little thing called slavery.  You may have heard of that one.

So what happened?  It seems that compromise is dead in Congress, despite the entire legislative branch being designed for compromise.  I mean, we have a supremely inactive legislature, we are still fighting a fight four years old, and yesterday the government stopped paying itself, all because no one is willing to meet anyone else halfway.

Now, personally, I largely blame the House Republicans, but hey; I'm liberal, I've made no secret of that.  I'll lay out some thoughts of mine: feel free to challenge them.

• The President of the United States does not respond to blackmail, and neither does the Senate.  They can't afford to.  End of story.
• The President has tried to speak with the opposition, but the hard right wing has grown so nutty that even speaking with the President is anathema for hard conservatives.  I am not exaggerating; it's like he's a leper.
• The hard line will not give up anything.  Their way or no way.  Well, see the first rule of compromise.  As long as they won't give anything up, they can't compromise.  [Edit: I have received criticism that the Republicans have offered to negotiate.  Well, what have they offered in return for defunding the ACA?  Funding the government?  That's not a concession.  If they demand surrender and offer nothing in return, it is not compromise.]

How did we get here?  I mean, politics is always a high-stakes game, but this is absurd.  Well, I'm no political action expert, but here are some initial thoughts.

• The Fathers never intended a two-party system.  They envisioned something more like the coalitions of Europe, where a large number of small parties, each of which has a narrow political focus, compete and negotiate for leverage.  This would be a much clearer, more transparent system; the current two-party system makes for some strange bedfellows and masks the true priorities of the voters.
• Gerrymandering has become both commonplace and absurdly extreme.  Most Congressional districts are not competitive in any meaningful way.  That shifts importance to the primary, not the general election, and the person who most excites the base--i.e., the extremist--has an advantage in primaries.
• The Internet allows for unprecedented communications, but also for an unbelievable echo chamber.  Voters and politicians can easily find views and pseudo-science that backs their view, even if those views and "facts" are the fringe of the fringe.  It's too easy to shut out reality online, and ignore the reasoning of the other side.  Example: the claims that "no one is seriously affected by the shutdown," despite suspension of national parks, SNAP benefits, army pay, etc., etc.  By the way, a whole lot of army guys are on SNAP, so double whammy.  Congrats.

So now what?  Personally, I have no desire to live in a society ruled by a government that can't fund itself--I like my food inspectors, drug regulators, environmental protections (including air and water--you know, that stuff we breathe and drink), and so on, thanks.  Again, I'm a physicist, not a political expert--and I find physics far more comprehensible, frankly--but here are some proposals to reduce the insane partisanship in the House and Senate:

• No more legislature-drawn Congressional districts.  Let an independent panel or algorithm draw the districts.  This should reduce the number of hard-line Congressmen; competitive districts force the candidates to play to the center, not the extreme wings.
• Lock Representative and Senatorial pay with performance.  In other words, government shutdown also suspends Congressional pay and benefits.
• Force Congressmen to meet opposition member when they start their terms, preferably without labels.  I'm thinking a cocktail party or reception where no one has party affiliation tacked to their coat.  It's harder to demonize a group if you know or respect some members of said group.
• Term limits.  As of now, the number one priority for most congressmen is reelection (can't enact laws without a seat).  Maybe if the politicians were less obsessed with winning the next election, they'd be more focused on doing their jobs.

Will all of these work?  Probably not.  But it's a start.  Lord knows, we need a start at least.

The New Normal of Violence

     By now, most of you are aware that there has been a mass shooting in the Washington Navy Yard, in a government building, not at all far from my house.  You are aware that twelve people are dead, that the shooter had a history of mental illness, that there were multiple legal and historical indications of his condition, and that he had no difficulty whatsoever in buying a gun.  You know that the gunman was aware of his condition, had been treated for it, was actively seeking help not a month before.  And despite it all, today, September 23, 2013, the nation held another funeral for those dead from the barrel of a gun.
     If you know all of this, you are almost certainly aware that there is scarcely a murmur of gun regulation, mental health screening, or any other legislation moving because of this.  In the past year, we have, as a nation, endured more mass shootings than I care to think about, including Newtown, Connecticut, and we have proven unable to pass even the most basic protections to keep high-powered weapons from mentally unstable or criminal hands.  I’ve made my views on gun control perfectly clear to most of you, so I won’t go into detail; suffice it to say, if we can keep a driver’s license from a dangerous individual (or a group, for that matter), we should be able to keep a semiautomatic from him too.  But that’s not the argument I want to have here, nor, in truth, is gun control (or its lack) what truly frightens me.
     What frightens me, what keeps we worried, what compels me to write this piece even though I wanted to sleep an hour ago, is this: when I saw this headline, my first thought was, "Oh, another shooting.  No big deal; the police and paramedics will have it squared away, and I know no one in Navy Yard."
     Then I realized what that meant.
     It meant that this is no longer shocking.
     It meant that this is no longer unthinkable.
     It meant that this is...normal.
     And I don't want it to be so.
     Consider what this means for a moment.  The fact that we, as a nation, can look at catastrophe like this, unable to muster enough outrage for even a cursory review of the matter, means that we have grown used to such mass murders.  And growing used to such atrocities is one step towards accepting them--not even the first step, at that.
     Let me say that again.  We, as a nation, have grown so used to mass violence and death that we no longer try to stop them.  It is a short step from "not trying" to "permitting," and a shorter from "permitting" to "accepting."  In short, we have, as a nation, accepted atrocities as normal.
     I do not wish to live in a society where atrocities, death, and murder can be considered "normal."  That is not normal to me.  That is war.  And I have no wish to live in war.
     Stalin once said, “If you kill one person, it’s a tragedy; if you kill a million people, it’s a statistic.”  I fear that we see that true.  Remember, if you can; each man, woman, and child killed in this and every other shooting was an individual.  He or she had hopes, loves, hates, laughs, sorrows, dreams, fears, much like you or I.  He or she had friends, family, relatives, brothers, sisters, parents, daughters, sons.  He or she is more than a name; he was a man, she a woman.  We weep for one man, one woman; why so much harder to weep for two?
     To round off, let me give you some well-known thoughts of war:
     War is hell.
     War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.
     In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons.
     I have seen war.  I have seen war on land and sea.  I have seen blood running from the wounded….I have seen the dead in the mud.  I have seen cities destroyed…I have seen children starving.  I have seen the agony of mothers and wives.  I hate war.

Festival of Nations stories

Hello again, friends!

            So, as many of you know, I participated in Festival of Nations last weekend.  What is Festival of Nations, you ask?  It’s an annual International House tradition that celebrates the diversity of the International House population.  Essentially, the International House hires a number of performers (this year, our own Haniya Yameen on the tabla, as well as taiko, capoeira, various dance groups) and presents them in sets for three hours.  More important, the various nationalities in I-House can form teams to cook dishes emblematic of their region and sell them during the festival.

            Now, you might ask, why did I participate?  After all, we already live in America.  In short, I participated because of the stereotype that Americans do not care about what they are eating and do not know how to cook.  As an American who does, in fact, like to cook (and eat, and read recipes, and follow seasonal crops, and…you get the idea), I wanted to take that stereotype and blow it into little bitty pieces.  Or at least prove that America has regional cuisines the equal of most other nations in the world.

            For the above reasons, I chose to represent the Mid-Atlantic, specifically the Chesapeake Bay.  This is my home region, a land of fertile farms and (once) plentiful fish.  As a native of the District (no, not District 51, the District of Columbia) with roots in Pennsylvania Dutch country and New Jersey’s fishing industry, this area was a given.

            The first step was finding one or two good recipes.  This is not as easy as one might think.  The United States is such a colossal nation that there is no central “American” cuisine.  Each region cooks and eats very differently—for instance, the Dixie South and the Mid-Atlantic (or Texas) are totally different.  This is one reason that the image of “American” cuisine goes to hot dogs and hamburgers; they are universal in this country, despite not really representing any particular region.

            Another problem is that Mid-Atlantic food tends to either be rather blah, very time-consuming, or very expensive.  I needed something interesting, quick, easy, and relatively cheap.  In particular, I wanted to make something with crab.  The blue crab is to the Chesapeake Bay what lobster is to Maine; it is the defining food of the area.  But, like lobster, crab is very expensive.  So finding recipes and a supply was a challenge.

            Eventually I found a cheap(ish) supply of crab meat and settled on crab cakes from Old Ebbitt’s Grill.  A landmark bar in the District, Old Ebbitt’s makes a damn fine crab cake; almost all crab meat, with just enough mayonnaise and cracker crumbs to hold it all together.  Better still, they’re dead easy to make—rather like making crab meatballs.  That was definitely an important factor.  Perhaps most important, this dish encapsulates what has happened to a great deal of American fare.  Once simple bar food due to the enormous supply of crabs in the Bay, it has become haute cuisine due to the severe drop in crab population and subsequent fishing regulations imposed in the Chesapeake.  The same story applies to lobster.  Or brisket.  Or bison.  But fundamentally, it’s still simple, almost working man’s food.

            As a secret treat, I wanted to introduce people to rhubarb.  Now, I can hear a couple of you ask: “What is rhubarb?”  First, I’m going to answer that question.  Then, I’m going to forget you asked it, because everyone should know and appreciate rhubarb.

            Rhubarb is a vegetable that, like celery, has crunchy, fibrous, but edible stems.  The flavor is extremely tart, but somewhat more complex than a lemon; it’s like a mix of lemon juice and aged vinegar, I think.  However, the leaves are very bitter and quite poisonous; be sure to cut them off if you intend to cook rhubarb.

In temperate zones, rhubarb is among the first food crops to start growing, so its arrival comes as a sign of spring.  We’re right in the middle of its season as I write.  Further, many spring sweets use rhubarb as a base.  Of particular note, rhubarb and strawberries are a classic spring combination in American cooking.  A rhubarb pie or crumble is a classic Pennsylvania Dutch spring treat, and though it’s not as delicate or complex as French or Austrian pastry, it is simple, fresh, and honestly delicious.

Okay, question answered.  But you have to experience it to appreciate good American down-home cooking.  So, I decided to try making a rhubarb bar.  It took about an hour of combing Smitten Kitchen to cobble together a recipe I liked: quick, easy, but with a promise to be fabulous.  Like the crab cake recipe, this is included below.

Now, the organization.  In retrospect, I should have mustered more aid to my cause.  However, all this was happening at a very bad time for me, so I only barely obtained the materials in time, and had no time to request aid.  Nonetheless, it all got done, largely by doing it beforehand.  The beauty of crab cakes is how easy they are to make and how easy they are to freeze.  The same was true of my rhubarb bars.  So, I put everything together the night before, froze it, and cooked it the day of (amid chaos, as some can attest).  Took maybe three, four hours by myself, would have taken about half that with help.  It didn’t help that I had overscheduled that morning.  But, whatever.

The event itself was great.  I got a much better sense of the I-House community that day than I had from hanging out in the lounges.  That’s partly because I am terrible at hanging out, so I don’t do it much.  It’s also because I didn’t have the time or energy to hang out for most of the year, for academic and personal reasons.  That’s the subject of another post.  But in any event, the event was great.  Lots of delicious food, engaging banter, interesting people, and a chance to proudly represent my home region.  I wish more people had come.  Also, I wish that I’d handed out the rhubarb bars earlier.  Too many people were full at the end of the event, so even a week later I’ve still got a quarter tray of bars left!  By the way, if you want some, ask me for some.  I’ll be happy to hand some out.  Or make more.  Or both.

Okay, prelude over.  Now for what you all actually care about (the recipes).

Old Ebbit Grill Crab Cake

This is pretty straightforward.  The initial recipe came out a bit salty, though, so in the future I’d drain and rinse the crabmeat more thoroughly.  Old Bay is a very salty seasoning, too, so you may be better off trying to mix your own.  The recipe for homebrewed Old Bay is on the Internet, although the official recipe is secret.

Makes four servings.

• Ingredients
• One pound (0.454 kilogram) jumbo lump crab meat.  Do not use backfin.  You get what you pay for here.
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
•  2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
•  4 saltine crackers
• Method
• If crabmeat is canned, drain it thoroughly.  Pick over crabmeat for shells and cartilage.
• Mix the mayonnaise, Old Bay, parsley, and mustard together until smooth.
• Thoroughly mix the crabmeat into the mayonnaise mixture.  Do not break the crabmeat into smaller lumps.
• Crush the saltines into crumbs and mix them into the crab mixture.
• Form the mixture into four patties.  To cook, pan-fry or broil until the cakes are golden brown.
• Serve with a side of vegetables.  These make fine sandwiches too, but really should be eaten straight.

Rhubarb Bars

This recipe was an amalgamation of two Smitten Kitchen goodies: Blueberry Crumb Bars and Rustic Rhubarb Tarts.  I took the pastry dough recipe from the blueberry crumb bars and used the compote recipe from the tarts in place of the blueberry filling.  If I do say so myself, the results were fantabulous.

• Rhubarb vanilla compote
• Ingredients
• 1.5 pounds (0.68 kilograms) rhubarb stalks, washed and trimmed of leaves and root ends
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• ½ vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
• Method
•  Cut rhubarb stalks in half lengthwise (unless they’re very slim) and then on the diagonal into 3/4-inch chunks.
•  Put 3 cups (about a pound) of rhubarb into a large, heavy-bottomed pot; save the other 1 1/2 cups.
•  Add the brown sugar, vanilla bean seeds and pods to the pot and turn the heat to medium low. You want to start at a low temperature to encourage the rhubarb to release its liquid. Unlike most compotes, this one adds no water.
•  Cook the rhubarb mixture, covered, for about 15 minutes, or until the mixture is saucy.  Remove the cover and increase the heat to medium, cooking an additional 15 to 17 minutes, or until the rhubarb is completely broken down and thick enough that a spoon leaves a trail at the bottom of the pan.
• Discard your vanilla bean pods and add remaining rhubarb chunks to the compote.
• Remove compote from heat and allow to cool.
•  Pastry
•  Ingredients
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
•  3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup cold unsalted butter (2 sticks or 8 ounces)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
•  Zest of one lemon
• Method
• In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder.
• Mix in salt and lemon zest
• Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly.
•  Combination
• Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.
• Pour cooled compote over dough in pan and spread it evenly.
• Sprinkle other half of pastry dough over the compote.
• Bake for 45 minutes, until top is slightly browned.
• Allow pastry to cool completely before cutting.
• Devour.

Meals, Health, and Reclaiming Time

Before you ask, no, this is not an attack on the American diet per se.  It is a discussion on how we eat today, not what.  And I hope that, by the end of it, I will convince you that what I say has merit.

First, some background.  My family has always eaten together.  As long as I can remember, we’ve eaten meals, particularly dinner, as a group.  There are exceptions, of course—if my parents are on a business trip, or if I or my sister or brother had a night with friends—but as a rule, we ate family dinners.

By the phrase “family dinners,” I mean that came downstairs at the same time, sat at the same table, and ate the same food.  There were no televisions.  There was no radio.  There might be music, but it was strictly background.  Our only method of sensory stimulation was each other and our conversation—and, of course, the food.

Now, this had a couple of effects.  First, we developed tight family bonds.  We know each other, and know we can depend upon each other for support when necessary.  Second, it forced us to stop for a little while.  We needed to shop, sit down, and share time together every day.  And we learned how to make time for that.

Now, here is a dirty truth about America: we have forgotten how to make that time.  We are constantly on the move; we study and work to madness.  This is part of the John Henryism of our society, in which we believe that anything is possible if we work harder.  This is where the billable hour comes from; we believe that more time = more value = more success.  We sacrifice the meal as part of this.  Witness the advent of the working lunch.  Witness the encroachment of extracurriculars and schoolwork on meals and social time.  We are obsessed with more, more, more, more, more, because society tells us that if we’re not pulling 60 hours of work a week plus three hobbies plus two hours of exercise a day, clearly we’re inadequate, and who has time to eat or sleep anyway?

The fact is, though, that the billable hour is a stupid idea.  Study after study after study shows that more time does not equal more value.  Any student can tell you that when studying, there is a beautiful period of two to four extremely productive hours after which, you stop focusing.  You read, but you stop processing the information.  You can’t see the obvious solutions.  Your brain, in short, needs rest.

This is why the Ten Commandments include the Sabbath law.  This is the reason that most successful cultures maintain a tradition of daily rest.  Witness the coffee break in the Northeast, the espresso stop in Europe, the siesta in Spain, the teahouse in China.  The human being is not a machine; he (or she) needs rest every few hours in order to continue working well.  For a very long time, in common life, that rest took the form of a meal.  Not food; a meal.

Let me explain what I mean when I say “Not food; a meal.”  It is entirely possible to eat without revitalizing, or even to drain further.  The working lunch is one example.  Eating while working does not revitalize.  Your brain is still working—indeed, it is working harder, since now you must navigate two tasks instead of just one.  So, food per se does not provide the mental energy and strength to navigate daily life.  If I want to regain energy, what I must do is step away from the desk, leave my current task, and do something else.

Additionally, eating alone often depresses energy rather than boosting it.  Eating alone is, frankly, an incredibly lonely experience.  Such an experience saps energy rather than boosting it.  And it is easy to be lonely in modern society.  It is frighteningly easy to be planted in the middle of a crowd and be completely, utterly, and hopelessly alone.

So, when I say, “a meal,” what I mean is an experience shared with friends, family, or even friendly strangers.  When presented with friendly faces and good conversation, even the darkest mood often lightens.  The promise of the family or friendship dinner is not just the food; it is the group, the conversation, the feeling of belonging.  The basic instinct of belonging in a group comes out in the meal.

Why a meal, you may ask?  Well, consider this: our places of meeting, greeting, and gathering are frequently restaurants, cafés, bars, and the kitchen.  That is no accident.  Humans grew up around the hearth.  Indeed, many studies indicate that we literally evolved around the hearth; that cooking food shrank our gut, enlarged our brains, and fundamentally changed our way of life.  Perhaps most important, the sharing of food and drink smoothes differences, softens edges, helps reconciliation, builds trust and friendship.  I’m not certain how, but if I had to guess, I would say that sharing a meal signals an induction into the tribe.  It is a very visceral act of sharing, an ancient way to say “Yes, you belong here.”

The issue is, as a society, many of us don’t belong anymore.  Consider that the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation has jumped from 2% to 17% in the past two decades, particularly among the educated white elite, and even more particularly among the male part of that elite.  That is a loss of identity.  We no longer belong to a church.  And that loss is not unique to the churches any longer; we are more isolated from everything.  How many of us know our neighbors?  City council?  Roommates, even?  As the world has shrunk, it has become more atomized.  As we travel more, we lose the ability to build long, lasting connections.  And so, we have a class of people in the world that no longer belong anywhere. And that is a terribly lonely state.

For the above reasons, it is easy to be lonely in modern society.  I suspect this is one reason that we see the advent of social networking sites, or why the rate of mood disorders such as depression have risen so rapidly.  Of course this is not the only reason, but it is a factor.  To be lonely for a long time is depressing.  To not belong to a group is depressing.  Quite literally depressing.  Many studies have shown that not having a stable social network means a higher chance of depression, greater likelihood of illness, even a shorter life expectancy.  I know.  I’ve gone there.  I’m still looking for the way out.

The collapse of the meal is, like it or not, both an effect and a cause of this problem.  To share a meal is, as I said, a very basic and essential way of saying that a person belongs.  But in order to have such an experience, one must belong—or at least, have a group to which you want to belong.  One cannot create it from nothing.  You must find others to share it with.

The thing is, though, that most of us have others with whom we would like to share a meal.  The challenge is who, and when.  As part of the individualization and atomization of society, we no longer have a set schedule as a society.  People have activities all over the map, and they grab food when they can.  They don’t have time to sit down to eat a meal with friends.  Sharing a meal with a friend has become so rare that it comes with an element of romance attached.

I have to ask: does it have to be so complicated?  Why has eating, one of the most basic and fundamental experiences of being alive, become so rare, so difficult, so troublesome that people are working on food replacement pills?  Why, in short, have we allowed ourselves to become so busy that we cannot even care for our health and our relationships?  Can we really say that this makes us happy?

 As for the time argument—most of us do have time to share a meal.  We have far more time in our schedules than we think.  You may even find that, by stopping, resting, and recuperating, you have more time.  You will work better.  You will work harder.  You will have something to anticipate.  You will have a goal.

I suspect that some people will read this and think it is an excuse, that we should work more.  Yet, I would pose the question: why?

Why do we need to work more?

Why should we work more if we make enough money, work enough hours, have met our goals of productivity for the day?

What if what we want cannot be obtained through more hours at the office?

What if, in fact, work are compromising what we really want?

Is work, per se, redemptive somehow?

In short, is work the end goal of working?

I value work.  I try to work very hard on my studies and my research.  But I don't work for the sake of working.  I work for a goal that is separate from the work itself, be it discovering a new scientific law, starting a new student group, or anything else.  And one of those goals is to have time.  Time to sit.  Time to think.  Time to meet friends, to talk, to laugh, to share something.  Because like it or not, we are social animals.  We do not just like social interaction.  We need it.  Or we die.

Few and far between are the people who, on their deathbed, wish they had spent more time in the office.  Most of us wish we spent more time at the hearth.

Kind Cruelty

            Considering all of the personal and interpersonal things I’ve been writing lately, I thought it was time to elucidate the concept of kind cruelty.  This oxymoron runs through the concept of my Friend-Zone post and the discussion of masks, and has been a recurring feature of all my social interactions.

            Essentially, the premise of kind cruelty is this: sometimes, a harsh act is the quickest and least painful method of addressing a difficult situation.  For instance, telling a friend that you cannot return their romantic feelings may be cruel, but it (probably) clarifies and closes the situation for both people involved.  Cruel, yes, but swift; the stroke cuts deep but clean.  Given time, such a wound will heal, and the scar will likely be small.

            To see the logic behind this idea, consider the converse; if cruelty can be kind, then it stands to reason that kindness can be cruel.  To mirror the example listed above, entering a relationship despite a dearth of feelings or your part will most likely be cruel, even if meant kindly.  Eventually, the truth will out, likely after a long period of doubt.  When the truth is revealed, it will hurt not once but twice: once from the hard nature of the news, and twice from the knowledge that this person lied.

Kind cruelty has at least two elements: honesty and closure.  Honesty because it says that I trust the person, closure because it allows the wound to close.

Honesty is vital because it says I trust you. I neither give nor receive trust lightly, and I have no gift more precious.  To trust another person is to be able to tell them your thoughts, your feelings, your joys and sorrows, and to know that they will accept them, understand them, endure them, help you with them, and never speak what is not theirs to tell.  Few are those whom I trust, precisely because trust requires that I lower my guard.  To lower your guard to the wrong man (or woman) exposes one to cruel cuts, and such blows land deep.  If I trust you, I must know you will not level such blows intentionally, at least not without trying to drive me from greater pain.

 As for closure, there are few experiences I can think of that are more painful than waiting for an answer that never comes.  Failing to give an answer always has the logic that eventually, the person who asked will forget about it.  That never happens.  If the question mattered, the person who asked remembers.  Answering the question allows healing, even if it requires a hot iron to cauterize the wound.  Better the clean pain of the surgeon’s knife than the deep, numbing poison of cancer.

Given the theory of kind cruelty, it is easy enough to see how cruel kindness arises.  The white lie, the failure to give a hard answer, such things are no kindnesses at all.  In my opinion, lying to another human being may be the cruelest thing one can ever do.  Lying says that I think you will reveal my weaknesses, that I think you cannot endure the truth.  It rends the bonds of trust asunder, for if I lie, it says that not only do I not trust you with the truth, but also that I value you so little that I will give you false goods.  Thus, lying is cruel, and wrong at any time.  To lie to another for kindness’s sake is no kindness at all, but a second blow laid upon the first.

Almost as painful as lying is failing to answer a request or overture from another.  No reply is crueler than waiting for an answer, for waiting keeps the barb in the wound.  To ask a question is to open a wound upon yourself, a gap in your defenses; failing to answer is to keep the injury open until it fills with pus.  Such an injury might bleed less than the surgeon’s knife, but its pain poisons, and if it finally heals the scar is deep and wide.  To open the gash with the knife, allow the poison to drain, and seal the wound with a hot iron; such an operation hurts, yes, but at least the pain is clean.

The theory of kind cruelty, in short, comes to the difference between clean pain and infection, between inflicting a single blow or two.  It is not easy, nor pleasant.  But it is the lesser of two evils, and sometimes that is the choice with which we are left.