Hubby Has a Woo Woo Moment

Hubby had to drive to the Twin Cities today. When he reached the Rogers area on I-94, he suddenly felt edgy. As he described it, the feeling wasn’t a normal too-much-traffic-in-the-Cities edginess. Instead, he had a sense that something bad was going to happen. He drove on through, ran all his errands and headed back. As he came to the Rogers area, he came upon the scene of a semi truck accident as it was being cleaned up.

He’s had this experience once before – the unexplained edginess of foreboding as he drove through a particular area on the highway, with the return trip revealing a semi accident. (Yes, it was a semi in both incidents.) He’s not sure how to explain this. He asked me how I would explain it because I tend to lean toward these woo woo things. I told him that while I’m open to the woo woo experiences of life, I have no idea how to explain them. I just think of them as interesting events that will remain inexplicable.

I also told him what a skeptic would say. “You had an uncomfortable feeling and you assigned that feeling meaning after a random event occurred that seemed to confirm it.”

Human beings want meaning in their lives, so I’d rather let them assign whatever meaning they like to the inexplicable instead of dismissing their experiences.

Choosing Physical Comfort

I was excited to hear the Dave Matthews Band will be playing at the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, this summer. I was revved to go, until I realized that the event is several days worth of music and involves camping. After some consideration, I realized that neither my hearing nor my back can take that kind of treatment, no matter how fun the rest of the event promises to be. I’ve reached a point where my physical comfort takes precedence over my musical obsessions. I guess this is what it means to become a grown-up.

Do Less With Less

Thinking long, thinking deeply about …

this: And Now for Something Different About Nonprofits and the Economy 1/1/09 by Jan Masaoka of Blue Avocado (The big nugget of truth in this article is to “do less with less.”)

this: Smithsonian Click-and-Drags Itself Forward by Joel Garreau of the Washington Post (I think Chris Anderson should take the his advice for curators and “get over” himself and museum professionals need to not go completely moon-y eyed over the latest technologist in the room. Curators and other museum professionals have proven to be thoughtful individuals as a whole and they have been trying to figure out how best to move into an online venue while taking into consideration the constraints of lack of time and funding. More thoughts, more thoughts, but these are the initial ones. Forgive the grousiness. Once I get beyond these, they become more positive.)

and this: The New Reality: Constant Disruption by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison at Harvard Business Publishing (If technological change is going to remain constant without anyone having a chance to really use a particular application to its fullest extent, how do museums plan for this? In discussion on this issue with Hubby, he brought up Emil Durkheim’s term “anomie,” which is a lack of norms or regulation that can lead to deviant behavior in society.)

More thinking to do. If you have any thoughts on these articles, please share them with me.

The Progressive Lady

If you regularly watch television, surely you have seen the bubbly Progressive Insurance lady.  Hubby and I saw one of her ads the other day and got to wondering who she was.  Her name is Flo in the ads, but in real life, she is actress/comedian Stephanie Courtney.  It takes two hours in hair and makeup in order to transform Stephanie into Flo.

With Flo, Progressive has created one of those magical commercial campaigns that strikes people’s fancy (like The Cult of Snuggie, the Budweiser horses, and the Geico Gecko).  Flo has gained her own following and Progressive is wisely capitalizing on her popularity by having signed her to do more commercials, allowing people to view her commercials on its website, and giving her a Facebook page, where you can get Flo Flair.

For more on Flo and Stephanie Courtney, check out the links below:

Progressive Insurance TV Commercials (official Progressive site – very smart, Progressive, very smart)

Facebook page for Flo (2,207 fans listed)

The Cult of the Progressive Car Insurance Chick by Jennifer Mathieu

The strange allure of the Progressive insurance girl by Chris Garcia

Flo Fever at Bubblegum Culture

A Special Gift For All You Flo Fans, also at Bubblegum Culture

Forum discussion at the Bubbler concerning Flo

Flo’s Wikipedia page

Stephanie Courtney’s Wikipedia page

IMDB Entry for Stephanie Courtney

Dusty Pajamas

It’s been a strange day. Mostly because I stayed in my pajamas until ten-minutes-to-five. That’s p.m., not a.m. Wearing sleepwear during the day is highly unusual for me, mostly because the only time I do it, I’m in a state of being death warmed over. I can’t remember the last time I was that sick.

Though I was in my pajamas, the day was not unproductive. I finished reading “The Big Sort” by Bill Bishop and started reading “98 Reasons for Being” by Clare Dudman. I also gave our bedroom a top-to-bottom cleaning, including a dusting of the ceiling, a vacuuming under the bed, and a washing of the bed linens. (Happy Clean Sheet Day!) This took much of the late morning and afternoon, with periodic breaks for food. I can’t believe how much dust settles in the nooks and crannies and how much time it takes to get it all out.

By four o’clock, Daughter was incredulous over my pajama-clad self and asked if I was going to get dressed. I considered not, after all it wouldn’t be too long before I was back in bed, but then I realized that my pajamas were full of dust and there was no way I was going to jump into clean sheets without being clean myself. So, I showered and got dressed. Gotta keep the sheets clean for a little while.

Why Aren’t Scientists Asking More Questions?

There are times that items I find online irk me. Such is the case with a blog post by Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy blog that is run through the Discover magazine website. According to Plait’s bio, “He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.”

While I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a scientist, I follow various scientific topics with avid interest. I can, in turn, be both gullible and skeptical, hopefully more of the latter than the former, but I’m willing to admit that I’m human and I can be taken in periodically. Hardcore skeptics, I’ve noticed, tend to want to paint those who disagree with them as being overly emotional and illogical – in other words, not like them – and will quickly dismiss anything their adversaries say. After all, they have Hard Science to back up their arguments.

Such is the case with Plait, who has posted several times about childhood vaccinations. The blog post that inspired me to write this is called Fight harder for vaccination! and in it, Plait says that model and actress “Jenny McCarthy is a walking antiscience disaster of the first order,” because she claims that vaccinations caused her son’s autism and by changing his diet, she cured him. Plait goes on to say that McCarthy is “a major public health threat.”

In several posts he’s done on the topic of vaccinations, Plait has called antivaxxers liars, antiscience, and “the Number One health hazard in America“. Further, he states, “Antivaxxers are not basing their conclusions on reason; it is a religious belief with them.“

While Plait is quick to negate antivaxxers with strong language, what I’m seeing in his posts is that he is just as emotional as the people on the other side of his arguments. In fact, his forcefulness on the topic comes across as the same sort of “religious belief” that he accuses the antivaxxers of.

What I’m not seeing in Plait’s posts is evidence that he has talked in-depth with any antivaxxers from the standpoint of a true scientist, without his own preconceived notions getting in the way. In short, he’s not asking them any questions.

If I were a scientist, here are some of the questions I’d be asking:

Why do antivaxxers continue to believe there is a connection between autism and vaccinations?

What sources are antivaxxers using to come to their conclusions?

What caused antivaxxers to come to the belief that vaccinations are dangerous? (While many scientists downplay the importance of case studies, they can give scientists insight into what they are trying to study.)

What role have health care providers played in parents’ decision not to immunize?

Are antivaxxers truly antiscience, or are they pro-science, but can’t get their lingering questions about vaccinations answered to their satisfaction?

From the standpoint of a parent, here are the lingering questions I’d ask of scientists:

If vaccinations wear off, and most adults don’t keep up with booster shots, why aren’t we seeing outbreaks of diseases among adults? (Or are we?) How does herd immunity truly work?

What are the effects of multiple vaccinations on the human body? Each supposedly gets tested on its own, but are they ever tested to see how they interact with each other?

What are the side effects of each vaccination? Who is most susceptible to these side effects? Children with a particular genetic disposition? Highly allergic children? Are side effects properly reported?

For whom are vaccinations contraindicated? Are doctors or pubic health workers knowledgeable enough to know when a vaccination shouldn’t be given?

How long does each vaccination get tested before it is added to the regimen of other required vaccinations?

Can vaccinations, in concert with particular environmental factors, trigger ill effects in the human body?

At what point do we decide that we’re vaccinating too much? (In other words, how many vaccinations are too many?) And why are we vaccinating everyone for relatively minor diseases (i.e. chicken pox)?

Vaccination is a medical procedure. Given this, why aren’t vaccination schedules tailored to the individual?

Antivaxxers want to be heard, not shouted at and called names. While Plait may not want to listen, someone does. In Ashland, Oregon, parents are being paid to talk to government health officials about why they don’t want to vaccinate their children. Ashland has the distinction of having one of the highest rates of vaccination exemptions in the country. Because they are choosing this route, the community would make a great control group against which to compare those who are getting immunizations. Instead of dismissing antivaxxers, we need to engage them.

FtTP: Cosby + Matthews

I would love to see a conversation between Bill Cosby and Dave Matthews.

Think about that for a moment. Shambling, gravelly, and, above all, humorous. Both have distinctive speech patterns that would play well with each other. Both Dave and Bill do great impressions of grumpy old men.

Btw, just got news today that Dave Matthews Band is scheduled to play at the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, this coming July.

Passive-Aggressive Americans

Our boss wanted us to be able to watch the inauguration today. We don’t have cable television at work and she knew this, so she suggested we close the museum and go somewhere and watch. After all, this was history in the making and, being historians, we should keep track of this sort of thing. It didn’t dawn on me right away that we could live-stream the inauguration via the internet (which we did) at the museum. Part of the reason I didn’t think of this was because I’m Gen X and my first thought for such events is television, not internet. The other reason is that we just got high-speed internet this past year, so it wasn’t that long ago that we were technologically incapable of live-streaming anything. What a difference in a short amount of time.

As I was watching the inauguration, and getting choked up, I came to a realization about the George W. Bush White House years. While we were in the midst of them, I kept getting angry that the American people didn’t hold the Bush Administration accountable for their actions. Why weren’t we marching in the streets over the stripping of our Constitutional rights, or the policy on torture, or the war in Iraq? Why didn’t we do anything?

As President Barack Obama delivered his speech and I looked at the crowd on the mall in Washington, D.C., it occurred to me that we DID hold Bush/Cheney et. al. accountable, but we did it in a passive-aggressive way. We argued amongst ourselves. We beat our chests. A gazillion books (more than I’ve ever seen, anyway) were written about how horrible this administration was. We grouched and grumbled in every way we could. The Bush Administration knew we were mad, even if they were in complete public denial.

There was no denying it today, though, because our previously foul national mood was immediately lifted with the crowd’s joyous reaction to Obama’s speech. The constrast was so stark that it slapped me in the face.

We have a talent for being passive-aggressive.

Midwest Teen Sex Show

Just before Christmas, my older brother came to visit. He brought along his iPod and played a number of video podcasts from Midwest Teen Sex Show for us. The podcasts are straight-talking and humorous and discuss various aspects of sex for teenagers (and their parents). I thoroughly enjoyed the ones my brother showed us and thought I should pass along a link for you.  All of the videos can be viewed on Midwest Teen Sex Show’s website, or they can be downloaded from iTunes. Midwest Teen Sex Show also has a Twitter feed.

Midwest Teen Sex Show is very clear on their About page that the videos are not intended for children under the age of 13, nor does the site contain porn. The creators of the site want people to use the information they provide to get people to discuss teen sex. They’re not out to promote teens having sex.

If you want a sense what of Midwest Teen Sex Show’s humor is about, the site’s logo is a silhouette of two cows doing it.

The Low Tide of Fixation

What follows is from one of my writing notebooks. It’s dated December 14, 2007. These are notes for a larger idea that I never developed. In rereading them, I thought the notes were poetic in and of themselves.

The low tide of fixation – pulling me out to sea

It’s in the small action, the overlooked detail.

High tide – tossed like a used jellyfish – deflated – onto the sandy beach.

The imagination – gallumphing at first, & then galloping –

Shocking the sensibilities – the dullness

A distant vessel – a thing of beauty – on the horizon – silhouetted by the sun – you think it contains all your hopes and desires & you project them onto the vessel, but it doesn’t – this is merely your mind, galloping ahead – placing what you hold into the hold of the ship.

The Psychology of Pricing

I have a problem that I’m hoping you can help me solve. I’m trying to price my Greenville novel. I’ve figured out the production cost that Cafe Press will charge me for each copy and, based on that, have a general ballpark range for the retail price – somewhere between $19 and $22. (The book is approximately 200 pages long, 5″x8″, perfect-bound paperback.)

Here’s my dilemma. When you purchase a book, are you more inclined to buy one that has a price that isn’t a round figure? For example, would you be more likely to purchase a book that is $19.95, rather than $20, or one that’s $21.95 rather than $21? Are you psychologically drawn more to even numbers or odd when purchasing a book? Is 20 a more attractive number than 21, or vice versa?

Try to set aside any price comparisons when you contemplate this, because I know that given identical books with different prices, most of us will choose the cheaper version. I’m trying to come up with a price that feels psychologically attractive.

Thanks for your help!

The Territorial Cop

I watched the movie Beverly Hills Cop last week. I’ve seen the movie many times before, but this time I was struck by something the head cop said. When Eddie Murphy’s character claims to be with the FBI, the head cop says that if there’s a federal investigation happening in his jurisdiction, he’d better know about it.

The same sort of thing happens in the first Rambo movie, with the sheriff getting all uppity about the military coming into his jurisdiction. He wants to deal with Rambo himself, by golly, federal government be damned.

I hear this territorial possessiveness from law enforcement all the time on TV shows and in the movies, so much so that the Territorial Cop is a cliche. What I want to know is whether this character is based in reality. When I watch what happens with law enforcement in my town, I see the County Sheriff working with the local police and the State Highway Patrol and federal investigators all the time. I’m not aware of any sniping between these agencies, nor of anyone invading someone else’s jurisdiction .

Has anyone got any real life examples of the Territorial Cop?