Confessions of an Errant Mind

Gillian Anderson is in the news again. For those unaware, she was the Scully of Scully and Mulder on the X-Files, the embodiment of rational skepticism. Apparently, she's expecting a second child. As much as a cultural phenomena as the X-Files was, it amazes me that this is still publicized news. It seems like ancient history culturally speaking. We rented a few episodes from the Files a couple of months ago and were reminded of why we liked them at the first place. At its best, it was both whimical, magical, and scary.

In other entertainment news, Ken Jennings thinks that Jeopardy could use some major changes. But Ken, did you really have to call Alex a robot? Given the fact that the show has made him a very rich man, one might expect him to use a little more tact.

Posted by Jerry Shannon at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I caught the tail end of Midmorning (our local NPR morning program) today in what sounded like a quite interesting conversation. The guest was a guy named George Galster from Wayne State University. He's been studying how middle class neighborhoods have been disappearing from urban areas--in essence, neighborhoods are becoming more economically segregated. One caller talked about how Brooklyn Park has made this explicit: in the northern part of the city, one recent zoning decision meant that only houses worth over $400,000 could be built. And lower income residents are also pushed out of the middle of the city, back toward our neighhborhood in north Minneapolis. He commented that because more affluent residents contribute more taxes and use less services, it's a good decision.

Sometimes I think about white flight and the suburban boom that accompanied it in the past tense, but from the little I heard, I'm reminded that economic segregation is a present day problem. I have hope for developments like Heritage Park close to downtown, ones that are mixed income by design. So many problems in poor urban areas are tracible to economic (and by extension, racial) segregation--the lack of hope and opportunity breeds a multitude of issues. It's one of the main things I'm interested in as I consider a graduate degree in Geography this fall.

Posted by Jerry Shannon at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm taking a class this week on new technologies and education, which has been a little mind-blowing. I've learned how whole companies are being formed to trade in tools in online games--a multi-million dollar industry. They employ people who play the games, win the tools, and then sell them on ebay. The growth of multi-player online games is also astounding--Everquest is one example.

I'm also learning about ways that tools like Flickr, YouTube, blogs, etc. are transforming the web landscape. For example:

-At MyHeritage.com, you can upload your picture to see what celebrities look like you. (My top 3: Kathleen Turner, Howard Dean, and Carson Daly)
-A mashup (page using multiple web services) called Spell with Flickr allows you to spell any word with pictures people have uploaded to their Flickr sites.
-Another mashup--www.chicagocrime.org--allows you to type in a Windy City address and see recent crimes in the area. It will locate it on a helpful Google Map.

Fun stuff!

Posted by Jerry Shannon at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An interesting article in the NY Times today about the rise in organic hot dogs. Interestingly, the overall trend in hot dogs is downward. Micah's certainly not responsible for that. He can eat his age in those things. Here's my favorite quote from the article:

[One woman] often buys packages with an organic label, however uneasily. After all, they're still hot dogs. "I really have to try not to think too hard about the fact that organic unthinkable meat scraps are still unthinkable meat scraps," Ms. Slonosky said.

The reasonable reader (and, certainly, the reasonable vegetarian reader) might be wondering why Ms. Slonosky gives her family hot dogs at all. But that reader probably does not have children and has never worried about getting enough protein into their little carb-stuffed bodies. Besides, why try to deny a kid a hot dog?

Why try indeed? We started buying turkey franks after MIcah's obsession with them began. They were five or six grams of fat a piece, which still seemed a little high. Then I looked at Ball Park's--25 grams or more. What had we been eating all those years!?

Posted by Jerry Shannon at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)