The Deception of the Thrush

Ok, so I check my UMN email account for the first time in months yesterday. And I've got two emails from TCF saying that I need to update my account information. Come again? I've never had an account with TCF. So, this gets me slightly unnerved because I've had some issues with people walking away with my wallet once when I left it in my car (d'oh!) on Lake Street. So I've taken all the precautions I can but I'm still on the lookout for weird things happening in my name. But then, I go to tcfbank.com and there's apparently this whole deal going on with "phishing," a delightful activity in which people send you emails that look like they're from your bank, asking for your personal financial info. Any of you ever receive these? My guess is that my umn address was targeted because the U has such close connections to TCF.

Posted by Karin Cox at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Okay, so here's an issue that I meant to touch on earlier this week but was too consumed with work to do so. I got a kick out of the popular frenzy kicked off by Lawrence Summers' comments on gender and innate ability differences, particularly in math and natural science. Sometimes, you've got to appreciate people making random provocative comments like that, because they create public discussions that are much more interesting than obsession with, say, Brad and Jennifer's breakup.

Two Comments. One: Natural selection--which had all the say in deciding what "innate" characteristics men and women would have-- operated mostly before people were doing things like matrix algebra or organic chemistry. So the mental abilities shaped over our evolutionary lifespan have been fairly elementary. These elementary processes can of course can be used to gain the practice and knowledge required to acquire higher learning. But it seems to follow that any differences between men and women are going to concern these fairly fundamental processes. Now, here's my hypothesis: Higher-level math and science can be performed using a variety of strategies. So to the extent that an individual is *relatively* weak in terms of one mental process, s/he can complement those processes with others. The brain is an organ of redundancy: even simple behaviors could arise from multiple cortical areas and mechanisms. So citing these relatively minor, elementary-level gender differences as a serious component in determining women's success rate in these disciplines seems like a stretch.

Point Two: I remember sitting in one of my Spanish literature classes and people diverged onto a discussion about differences in how women and men make claims and arguments. This was really interesting, and I'd be curious to see if others would support these opinions. First of all, several people in the class thought that at least in the course of casual conversation, men, as opposed to women, tend to cite ideas that were not theirs originally, without attributing them to their original source. So Man A and Woman B might see the same news story on CNN that presents a really interesting idea. Later when that idea becomes really useful in conversation, Man A presents it without citing CNN, while Woman B is quicker to do so.

And then the second idea that was proposed was that women, as opposed to men, are more likely in both speech and writing to qualify their assertions with "I think" or "I feel" or "believe" or whatever. Something recognizing their subjectivity and lack of absolute authority in the domain.

Anyways, forgive me if I'm just crafting new and equally unhelpful stereotypes here. It's an interesting idea though, and I'm seeing how differences in assertiveness could play a substantial role in how well women rise through the math-and-science ranks. These disciplines look for clear truths (well, nothing in science is ever "true", but you know what I mean). So making a strong mathematical or scientific claim is, in a sense, almost kind of audacious. You have to push your theory past the competitors, be certain that you have the answers. And if you don't have that certainty, you won't be a good promoter of your work.

Posted by Karin Cox at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Hi kids.

Well, I almost felt kind of silly about it, but last night I was up the whole live long night, writing a paper for a class. To be honest, no one in gradschool coursework-land had ever asked me to write a paper before, and resurrecting that finely mastered skill of bullsh*ting that I haven't had to use since Macalester proved to be a bit more time consuming and awkward of a process than I thought. So, yeah, I haven't been asleep since Wednesday morning.

Now you think I could just go home and fall asleep, but it doesn't really work that way. First, I had no groceries and I was hungry, since I had the upcoming-paper-deadline lunch special of Pop Tarts from the fourth floor vending machine. So, I'm home from the grocery store and satiated but now I really can't sleep until I've digested a bit.

Though I can feel myself fuzzing in and out here. I can't always remember what kind of clothing I'm wearing, I keep thinking I have a wool sweater on but it's really a fleece shirt.

I mean, as negatively as it will affect me to have taken this one night of sleeplessness, I still appreciate the trippy-ness of sleepwalking through a day. Such a fascinating process of the body and mind. The only bad thing is that my face gets really really pale, such that I look like Death Who Hath Come to Take Your Soul.

So many things you think about, when you haven't slept. I think of people who I've forgotten, which I consider rightful forgetfulness given that they forgot me first. I also get along with people I normally want to suffocate--something about the half-delirium makes everyone just lovely.

And funny how most of the day I was neither hungry nor thirsty nor particularly sensitive to hot or cold--though at some point throughout the day I was vulnerable to all of these states. It's like I cut off all sensation. Which is weird because usually when I'm sleep-deprived, I feel hyper-sensitive to the environment.

I went to the grocery store, as I said, and I don't know how long I looked at the toothpaste. I thought, my god, when did they come up with so many different kinds of toothpaste? Have I been living in a hole? (answer: yes) And, what is up with the pricing scheme on toothpaste? Why do some cost more than others? Why would I want my toothpaste to be fruity-flavored? Who would pay for a $6 tube of rembrandt?

Yeah, I'm fading, I feel like a dark background occasionally settles in behind my laptop screen. How long will I be asleep? What crazy dreams will I have? Have I, in my half-numb state, blocked out things that will return to harrass me in the morning?

So what happened this week, Johnny Carson died? Who next? Are you with me, fellow 23-year-olds, or 21, 22, 24 -year-olds, whatever, do you feel on the threshold of watching all the icons fall? Reagan, the man who dominated our birth decade, he is gone, who is next? What scares me--tell me if I'm wrong--is that I bet if I stopped a random Pitt undergrad on the street, especially a first year, they may have never seen the Johnny Carson show, and even worse, might not even be aware who he was.

ok...before I have a keyboard imprint on my forehead...good night.

Posted by Karin Cox at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Poor Pittsburgh. They'll have another chance.

It would be very easy and tempting to put a cheesily sentimental spin on this, interpreting the punishing loss as symbolic of the Rust Belt, which keeps trying to renew itself, Phoenix-like, only to be knocked back down by more affluent regions.

But, it is just football. I shall renounce all such romanticizing.

Most people I have encountered seem to be putting on a stoic face. Though here at ye olde Learning Research and Development Center, some folks did drag themselves in kind of late, and were rather muted for a while. Very much like the post-election hangover. Though not that bad.

Posted by Karin Cox at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It doesn't headline the major newspapers, like the Inaugural did. But you can find it scattered throughout the AP briefs in smaller newspapers, like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Dick Cheney is smirking and muttering something ominous again, clues to the future, clues that the US is gearing up for a war against Iran.

Now, I'm not usually the paranoid, conspiracy-theorist type. I'm far too naive for that. You can point out all you want the promises to "pursue diplomacy first." But consider the lead up to the Iraq war. Was it not just like this? Iraq is a threatening place...of course we would really really hate to have to use military force and would exhaust all our diplomatic resources before doing so...You remember those days of widespread speculation of a second Gulf War, with President Bush acting all disgusted, like the media was putting words in his mouth? Soon after, troops were being steadily flown into the Middle East, while Hans Blix was issuing a declaration of no WMD's that would fall on deaf ears.

Just because it's a quiet matter right now--just Cheney on the Don Imus show, promising "diplomacy"-- don't think it won't explode into something bigger. These are the same hints we had before. If you're the activist type, then this is the time to start writing letters, and most importantly, the time to start educating the public. Otherwise, the Bush/Cheney agenda will educate them for you. A year and a half ago, when I was visiting the Vietnam wall in D.C., I saw a group of kids and their teacher, and one of the girls asking, "So why exactly are we in Iraq?" The teacher was tongue-tied. Now what will we say when she asks why we are in Iran?

Posted by Karin Cox at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

great Doonesbury from Monday...

Posted by Karin Cox at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I need to replace the car with something. It looks weird, filling up my whole screen.

There's this new book out that has been getting reviewed everywhere I look. It's called Blink, and it's by Malcolm Gladwell. Read a review on it--either the one I linked or any review you can find--and see what you think. In short, it's a story of intuition, a series of anecdotes linked to demonstrate the remarkably accurate millisecond decisions that people have made.

Ok, in comes the ranting cognitive psychologist, excuse me while I play the stereotypical "expert" role (though of course I'm far from expert, right now). First of all, we have known for eons that much of the success of the brain lies in what happens "backstage", and that conscious thought is this tiny tiny tip of the iceberg. So, this book is old news. Second, don't let popular books, even if written by somewhat respected researchers (or in this case, some guy from the New Yorker), convince you that all this evidence for the "backstage" should overthrow years of common wisdom that, you know, you should think before you act. I mean, there's a reason why impulsivity is not usually considered a quality character trait. Yes, the cortex has a remarkable ability to pick up statistical regualarities in the environment, such that an input pattern that looks something like X will immediately generate a prediction of Y, in cases where IF X THEN Y is very frequently true. But the deal is, there are many situations in which the X input pattern might be accompanied by qualifying information that should modify your understanding, or response to, X, and the more automatic, "dumb" processes of the brain have some problems with that.

Also, relying on your gut takes something of an assumption that you know everything already. If you like living with that kind of hubris, then that's your business, but I find that it's especially unhelpful if you want to get to the truth behind someting. There's myriad examples of the mind taking information that makes no sense, and turning it into something that seems perfectly coherent to the perceiver. Optical illusions provide a good example in the perceptual domain, but the rest of mental life is full of delusional thought as well. People in psych experiments have read contradictory texts, oblivious of the contradiction, or watch movies that have men in gorilla suits running through the scene, totally missing the gorilla suits.

So, when deciding whether or not to depend on your intuition, I guess I would say that you're sort of making a gamble. If you're willing to believe that this situation is going to be in line with most of what you have previously experienced in the world, and that the most appropriate response is aligned with how you have responded to previous situations in the past, then go for it. This works especially well when you're carrying out a skill: piano playing, driving, and so on. Ditch the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus--they really could slow you down, be stumbling blocks.

One case in which I would not recommend over-contemplating: Recalling blocked information. So, say you forget a name. My belief (somewhat of an armchair philosophizing belief, I can't site empirical evidence): By ruminating on the need to remember the name of "that guy", you're just repeatedly producing the following input patterns in your brain: "that guy" "why can't I remember the name of that guy" and "I must be going senile because I can't remember the name of that guy." Now, look, if "that guy" were going to be a successful retrieval cue, you would have thought of the name hours ago. The obsession over your forgetfulness is also going to be lousy at making connections with the neuron cluster that is encoding the name. So, here's what I suggest: Just start thinking of all the mental images you have of that guy. So if it's Brad Pitt whose name you've forgotten, think of all the images you saw of him on CNN when that obnoxious anchorwoman was getting all choked up about his breakup with Jennifer Aniston. And think of all the movies you've seen him in, and his various haircuts, and appearances on People magazine, and so on. And I predict that the name will come to you. Now, if you're a professional memory researcher, you can proceed to tell me why I'm wrong. But it works for me.

Posted by Karin Cox at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I traded in my car. Here's a jpg of my new car from the dealer's website:

Good thing I got it yesterday too, because today is the first of a series of snowy days.

Oh, and Pittsburgh won, in a very close and dramatic game.

Posted by Karin Cox at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was wrong-- the game is actually Saturday at 4:30. Against the Jets. Here.

Interesting hearing the techs at the MR Center talk about the game.
One of them, Joyce, had just talked to her parents on the phone, who said: "We're both wearing our Steelers sweatshirts today! The mayor said to!" Of course Joyce was concerned because then they would have no freshly laundered Steelers apparel to wear for Saturday.

I also heard that the Vikings squeaked into the playoffs...now that would be a game, Vikings/Steelers, my past versus my present. I would have to cheer for the Steelers though--Pittsburgh has the greater need for a victory. Minnesota has high school hockey.

Posted by Karin Cox at 10:03 AM | Permalink

If you follow the NFL or do not live under a rock (criteria I usually do not satisfy), then you will know that the Steelers have had an exceptional season and are favorites in the playoffs. This prompts any and every major news outlet to write stories not just on the team, but on the city of Pittsburgh. Here's one I just saw today in the Times: Pittsburgh: A Big Happy Company Town

For those who don't know me or read this blog frequently: I go to grad school at Pitt, and live in the city (otherwise it seems pretty random to put up a story about Pittsburgh)

Posted by Karin Cox at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ok, I finally checked this Charles Bukowski book out of the library and found the poem:

the road to hell

if only there were more magic people
to help us get through
this strange life.

surprisingly there are a few.

the problem being that often
their magic doesn't hold up
for long
mainly
because they begin to
think it's because
they are special

when really
it's almost an off-hand thing
like some damned crazy unearned
gift

and when the magic people
begin to misuse their
prowess
begin to use it
in the wrong ways
then
it
vanishes

and
that's a
LAW

and
it's one of the most
unalterable laws
of the gods and the
universe

and there is
nothing sadder
or more
frightening
than the once-gifted ones
still trying to work their
magic
for the
crowd

which never offers,
but only
accepts
mercy.

Posted by Karin Cox at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I went to Monroeville today and dealt with several things that are uncommon in my daily existence. First of all, suburbia, and suburbanites. Second, a car dealership. Third, television.

A puzzle that continues to baffle me: How do they get those cars into the showroom? I checked out the doorways and they didn't look wide enough. Do they just remove the windows?

Second: Why does automotive retail always like to present itself as one big party? I mean, think of the commercials, and the balloons announcing whatever sale or finance plan they're promoting, and the strings of triangle-flags, and gaudy banners outside. This place even had a popcorn machine. (And a spiffy machine with free coffee, that didn't hurt) I don't know, something about the whole theme strikes me as troubling, like a seduction of the masses who really don't have enough to spend on an SUV.

Also, car dealers oftens seem to be the patriotic type, and I don't know if that's because they're in bright-red suburbia, or because they're just trying to impress consumers with their love-of-country, or what.

So I was waiting on my old car in the service waiting room and there was a TV with Fox News and I really tolerated it OK for a while, but then I saw that their financial show is called "The Cost of Freedom" and that was just too repulsive. So I changed to CNN which was treating the breakup of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston as headline-worthy news and I couldn't handle that either. Dumb TV.

Anyways it looks as if I am going to have to trade in my car, which needs far too many repairs in order to be legally Pennsylvaniafied. We'll see what happens.

Posted by Karin Cox at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Oh come on I just felt the need to do something different with my life but I felt too tired to move away from my laptop. Yeah, it kind of nauseates me as well.

quote of the day on the tag from my tea: "Anything too stupid to be said is sung." --Voltaire

I sometimes wonder if I am becoming compulsively, helplessly, destructively saracastic. Every other sentence out of my mouth, it seems. Is that a problem?

I've been trying to find a poem on the internet by Charles Bukowski, called "The Road to Hell" or something of the like and I can't find it.

It is quite unfortunate that Alberto Gonzalez is smooth-sailing his way to attorney-generalship. This is the nth proof that this administration has no shame.

I think it started raining. Again.

You know I wonder if paradigms that involve developing a preference for one of two stimuli due to relative history of reward feedback are truly dependent on the putamen and that the caudate does not play a critical role.

Sometimes, I think, people are nicer to me than I deserve.

Have you ever felt temporary acute pain--say, at the dentist's office or whatever--and you start imagining colors, or different textures, or even animated figures, like you're visualizing that pain?

i promise i'll change the template soon.

have a good night all. best rollie fingers to your good health.

Posted by Karin Cox at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

How do you close your emails?

Emailing, just as letter-writing and card-exchanging, has of course developed its own conventions. Most of my emails are requests for information or assistance and therefore usually end with "thanks" or some phrase containing that word. I would almost never use "love" or "sincerely". If I'm writing a friend, I may use "bye" but often not even that; I just try to end the message with a sentence or paragraph that gives it some sense of closure.

But in my emails exchanged at work/school, I often see one of the following two closing greetings:

Best,
Bob

or....

Cheers,
Bob

I can't think of any other time in common discourse when I ever hear these kinds of good-byes. "Best" what? "Best wishes" I suppose, though behind that pleasant interpretation, the author's intentions could be anything, from "Best you leave me alone" to "this is the Best email message I have ever received". "Cheers?" What, have we joined the United Kingdom? Are we proposing a toast? But you have to admit, they both sound kind of sophisticated, worldly. I guess.

Then for opening lines, you have to hand it to the Europeans. If you've ever written a stranger in the UK or Germany you've probably seen the first sentence of the reply say something like "Thank you for your email." Why, you're very welcome, but why are you thanking me for it? But this is a great convention, I often tell myself that I should adopt the habit. I've never been to Europe, are folks there just generally more polite? Once when I was still working at the U of MN I had to call a service representative in Ireland and she was so lovely and cordial I felt like a better human being for the conversation. I do wonder if it has something to do with the fact that most Western European workplaces offer better vacation policies than we have in the US and therefore the workers are so content with their jobs that they're grateful for the very emails that clog their Inboxes.

So, that is all for now. Hope you have a good week.

Best,
Karin

Posted by Karin Cox at 07:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I went to the dentist this morning. It was the first time that I had visited ths place. It was awash in fancy-schmancy technology. The x-rays were all digital and displayed on a computer monitor overhead. I got to watch a video showing me the signs of periodontal disease (yay). And I had to pull my lips up and out while a woman took pictures of my teeth, holding a camera within inches of my mouth. Good times. The dentist said everything looked fine; the hygentist said I had "inflamed gums." Oh.

I also went to the notary public and continued the endless bureaucracy of Pennsylvaniafying my car. It is sitting at an auto shop so tomorrow morning it can be inspected, and they can determine what all $400 services it needs.

It has rained, much of the day. Nothing new.

I am tired. Nothing new.

Tomorrow I go back into work/school/whatever it is. I would rather not.

According to the tag on my teabag, Pancho Villa's last words were "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."

I was thinking sometime today, or maybe it was yesterday, how people always tell you to live like it was your last day on earth. And you know, I think that used to knock me in line, like I could imagine myself with a week to live and then I would see all my grievances as petty and want to be a good person and appreciate my friends more and so on. And now, I don't know, if I were in that scenario I don't know if it would grant me the bravery and change of heart necessary for that kind of transformation.

I've seen all sorts of old people today who have trouble walking. A total of three in the dentist's office--I think he caters to the elderly in my neighborhood--there was one woman in a wheelchair with an oxygen tube, and another woman who came in with a walker, and a guy who barely was able to sit in the chair next to me before he began to wheeze. And then the notary I worked with had to use a cane to get out to my car. I look at old people like that and I wonder if they are in pain or discomfort all the time, and how they deal with that, and especially how they can maintain normal social interaction with people. If I have some ache or if I'm uncomfortable, usually everyone around me pays, and my work gets sadly compromised, because all I can think about is how to get rid of this sensation that is bothering me.

While I was home for the holidays I was talking with my father about the weak US dollar (I think of really lame dinnertime conversation). Anyways I was frustrated because I did not understand the full significance of the issue--I know it leads to a trade imbalance that favors U.S. exports but that's about all. So I recently saw a story on the weak dollar: "Reacting to a dollar with no muscle." Now we can all be informed. Yep.

Frankly the strong public support of tsunami disaster relief has been quite surprising to me. Forgive my cynicism but I didn't expect Americans to care all that much about Southeast Asia. I've been proved wrong. Though I do wonder if the response would be the same if similar humanitarian disaster had been imposed by military conflict or political oppression, rather than natural forces. Maybe the "it could have just as easily happened to me" sense inspired by natural disasters is what drives people, whereas the more human-generated causes of suffering seem more foreign and distant. I don't know, I'm just speculating. Maybe it's a practical thing, and people feel that their donations will not be as helpful if the local government is unlikely to support their distribution.

Have you ever had a salmon burger? I bought a pack of these, frozen, from Whole Foods, God knows why. I was thinking of those Omega fatty acids or whatever they are. I think that's what I'm having for dinner.

Posted by Karin Cox at 04:38 PM | Permalink

Happy New Year.

I remember that I began the integrity conversation when reflecting on the relationship between dignity and integrity. We subsequently exhausted the integrity theme, at least for now, but dignity remains and what better day than the first of the year to start talking about dignity. Recall that Dylan wrote a whole song on the topic...

"Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed/
Dignity never been photographed..."

Dignity, in part, corresponds to a something much deeper and more basic than integrity does. Integrity often emerges out of higher-level forces: individual intellects, moral systems, cultural forces, societal needs. To the extent that one's integrity colors one's dignity, then dignity may be influenced by similar forces. But I sense that in evaluating the dignity of a person, we react to some core attributes whose value is less complexly determined than the standards by which we assess integrity. For example, if an elderly person can no longer feed him or herself, then his or her grandchildren probably need not be very old to appreciate the loss of dignity that that person may be suffering.

Losses or gains of dignity may arise from both external circumstances and personal behaviors. As I mentioned in my original post on the topic, Google told me that several nonprofits place the word Dignity in their titles; in these cases, the externally-generated form of dignity is highlighted. Responsibility for individual dignity is not just placed on the individual, but on society as well. Society can influence people's material situation--i.e., help raise them out of poverty--but it also plays a role in deciding how particular individuals will be perceived, since dignity, like integrity and anything else in the world, is formed in the act of its perception.

But the reason why dignity might serve as a fitting January 1st topic derives from the fact that personal behaviors might influence one's dignity as well. The classic New Year's weight loss resolution demonstrates a desire for personal dignity -- at least in North America, and especially for females, I'm certain that one's figure is very tightly connected with one's sense of dignity. (Note that just because I say this, doesn't mean that I agree with that kind of judgment.) And given the basic, deep need that dignity represents, it's no wonder that the gym is packed on New Year's, and that other goals, that might be more associated with integrity and/or morality, aren't prioritized quite as high. It's one thing to reflect upon yourself in quiet times and think about whether or not you respect what you have accomplished. It's another thing to look in the mirror and fear that people won't respect you.

Anyways, there's my kickoff of a dignity discussion. Chime in at any time.

Posted by Karin Cox at 08:40 PM | Permalink