[ed. Thanks, Hilary]
Friday, October 7, 2011
A Game Plan for Effective Communication
The Ground Rules below are meant to give you tools to help your communication with one another.
Speaker Rule #1: Pick the right time
While there is no perfect time to raise a difficult issue, some times are more appropriate than others. Use care in determining what those times may be. Try to pick a time when you and your partner are free of other distractions. This time should be when both you and your partner can approach it positively and give your full attention. For example, this time is likely not during a favorite TV show, immediately upon coming home from work, or during another scheduled activity. As the speaker, you can initiate the discussion by gauging what the most appropriate time may be or simply asking your partner when a good time to discuss an important issue is.
Speaker Rule #2: How You Start is How You’ll Finish
The way in which the speaker raises an issue is often a big predictor of how the discussion will go. If you begin the conversation in a harsh way by attacking or blaming your partner, you are likely to have an angry discussion. It is important to avoid creating an environment where the listener feels they need to defend themselves rather than simply discuss. In these cases, your message is not being heard because the listener is too busy defending themselves. Softening the way you begin the conversation with a calm, positive approach will increase the likelihood that your communication will be viewed as non-threatening. A non-threatening or safe communication environment will make the discussion seem worth participating in to the listener. Think of it as a “soft-beginning” where your words and tone are free of criticism or attack. Here are examples of harsh and soft beginnings.
Harsh Beginning—“You didn’t put gas in the car and I was late for work this morning.”
Soft Beginning—“I appreciate it when you put gas in my car, but when you can’t do that for me, let me know so I can make time to stop before work.”
Speaker Rule #3: Speak for Yourself
Stick to talking about how you, the speaker, feels. Also, describe the issue at hand for you, rather than stating what you may assume, think or observe to be the problem with your partner. Use the words “I” and “me” to describe things from your point of view. Beginning a conversation with “you” statements, can feel like an attack or attempt to blame the listener. Let’s use the issue of housework as an example:
“I” statement—I get frustrated when I come home from work and the kitchen is messy. This statement conveys a feeling of frustration about a messy house.
“You” statement—You don’t ever clean up after yourself. What have you been doing all day? This statement assigns blame on the listener for the messy house and attacks the listener by implying that they are lazy.
Nervous American Voters Worried About Botching Another Election
"When I think about how bad things are already, I can't help but worry that it's going to get infinitely worse once we step into the voting booth next November," said Gavin Daniels, 34, of Columbus, OH, one of 1,200 registered voters who participated in the survey. "This country has repeatedly screwed itself over at the ballot box, and I have this really sickening, unshakable feeling we're going to do it again next year. That's just sort of what we do."
"I keep asking myself, 'Am I going to completely fuck things up by dropping the ball on my vote for president and sending someone patently corrupt or incompetent to Congress?" he continued. "And the answer for me and millions of other American voters is yeah, probably. God knows we do almost every time."
According to the poll, 9 out of 10 likely voters said they did not trust themselves to make choices that were in the nation's best interests, three-quarters said Election Day panic would likely cause them to base their votes entirely on hearsay, and 93 percent admitted that when it came to state and local races they would probably only recognize the names of candidates who had been featured prominently in attack ads.
In addition, almost all respondents said they feared being unable to summon the self-discipline required to read any proposition or ballot initiative running longer than 150 words.
The poll also suggested that despite a presidential campaign season that now lasts a full year and a half, American voters feel they still fail to acquire useful information about the relative merits of a candidate, acknowledging that on the whole, they cannot make the sound decisions required of a functioning electorate in a representative democracy.
"In the end, I just know I'm going to hear one catchy sound bite and make a terrible, emotionally driven decision that's going to screw us over for another two, four, or six years," said Kyla Simpson of Denver, a working mother of three who confirmed she routinely elects officials whose actions damage the health, safety, and economic security of her family. "I always wind up going with my gut instinct and making an impulsive choice that sends everything straight to hell."
"Goddammit, why do I keep doing that?" she added.
Read more:
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Beyond Brownies
by Matthew Kronsberg
In her forward to the Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, M.F.K Fisher claims to have never eaten one of the pot brownies that made the book a countercultural touchstone. She writes that she is told that the brownies (or “Haschich Fudge,” as the recipe calls it) can taste, “slightly bitter, depending on how much pot is put into them, and that (1) they are absolutely without effect and (2) they are potentially lethal.” Her description pretty neatly sums up the common expectation of eating marijuana: a bit of psychoactive Russian roulette with a strange aftertaste.
Marijuana’s use in food and drink, of course, didn’t start with the Toklas cookbook’s publication in 1954, nor did it stop there. In the United States, medicinal use of marijuana is now permitted in 16 states, and that permission has spawned the rise of “medibles,” or medical marijuana in edible or drinkable form. Variants on the Toklas brownie abound, but visitors to cannabis dispensaries can also expect to find a near limitless variety of cutely named goods ranging from “High Mountain Trail Mix” to “RedEye Pies” to “LaGanga” (lasagna), all designed to swiftly deliver a dose of THC with none of the smoke or taste typically associated with pot.
Should marijuana ever become completely legalized, however, this strong dose/weak taste approach to ingestion may prove to be the exception, rather than the rule. Examples from the traditional cuisines of Southeast Asia and the vanguard of New American cooking point intriguingly to possibilities of a culinary style that embraces the plant’s grassy, herbal flavor profile while moderating its psychoactive effects. And even more than at the table, the future of marijuana ingestion may be found at the bar; liquid extracts allow nearly any drink to be infused with cannabis, and beer and winemakers have already begun to embrace the possibilities of fusion.
Beer probably has the most natural affinity with marijuana; after all, hops and marijuana are botanically speaking, kissing cousins. Boutique brewers in Europe and home brewers in the U.S. have been known to use cannabis tincture and plant matter to create THC-infused beer. Within the bounds of American law, Nectar Ales in Paso Robles, California, makes Humboldt Brown Ale with denatured hemp seeds (containing no measurable THC). The toastier, nuttier quality of the seed is highlighted rather than the herbal, funky character one would get from the plant itself. It is an interesting, unexpected expression of hemp, enjoyable even without its famous effects.
Jeremiah Tower, seminal in the creation of New American cuisine, first during his time as a chef/owner at Chez Panisse (1972–78) and later at Stars, knows a thing or two about letting ingredients speak for themselves, and letting them kick, if that’s what they want. He gives cannabis a clear, though not overpowering, voice in his Consommé Marijuana, recalled (with recipe!) in his 2004 memoir California Dish. The consommé was created in the spring of 1969 as the third course of a “self-consciously decadent” 11-course meal he prepared in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Made with 1 cup of marijuana stems steeped in 6 cups of rich chicken stock, it was strained and served over a chiffonade of nasturtium flowers and basil. As Tower recalls, the dish: “provided another level of stimulation. But not stoned. The brew takes forty-five minutes to reach the brain, by which time (as the menu planned) we were on to dessert, tasting strawberries and cream as we’d never tasted them before.”
Read more:
In her forward to the Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, M.F.K Fisher claims to have never eaten one of the pot brownies that made the book a countercultural touchstone. She writes that she is told that the brownies (or “Haschich Fudge,” as the recipe calls it) can taste, “slightly bitter, depending on how much pot is put into them, and that (1) they are absolutely without effect and (2) they are potentially lethal.” Her description pretty neatly sums up the common expectation of eating marijuana: a bit of psychoactive Russian roulette with a strange aftertaste. Marijuana’s use in food and drink, of course, didn’t start with the Toklas cookbook’s publication in 1954, nor did it stop there. In the United States, medicinal use of marijuana is now permitted in 16 states, and that permission has spawned the rise of “medibles,” or medical marijuana in edible or drinkable form. Variants on the Toklas brownie abound, but visitors to cannabis dispensaries can also expect to find a near limitless variety of cutely named goods ranging from “High Mountain Trail Mix” to “RedEye Pies” to “LaGanga” (lasagna), all designed to swiftly deliver a dose of THC with none of the smoke or taste typically associated with pot.
Should marijuana ever become completely legalized, however, this strong dose/weak taste approach to ingestion may prove to be the exception, rather than the rule. Examples from the traditional cuisines of Southeast Asia and the vanguard of New American cooking point intriguingly to possibilities of a culinary style that embraces the plant’s grassy, herbal flavor profile while moderating its psychoactive effects. And even more than at the table, the future of marijuana ingestion may be found at the bar; liquid extracts allow nearly any drink to be infused with cannabis, and beer and winemakers have already begun to embrace the possibilities of fusion.
Beer probably has the most natural affinity with marijuana; after all, hops and marijuana are botanically speaking, kissing cousins. Boutique brewers in Europe and home brewers in the U.S. have been known to use cannabis tincture and plant matter to create THC-infused beer. Within the bounds of American law, Nectar Ales in Paso Robles, California, makes Humboldt Brown Ale with denatured hemp seeds (containing no measurable THC). The toastier, nuttier quality of the seed is highlighted rather than the herbal, funky character one would get from the plant itself. It is an interesting, unexpected expression of hemp, enjoyable even without its famous effects.
Jeremiah Tower, seminal in the creation of New American cuisine, first during his time as a chef/owner at Chez Panisse (1972–78) and later at Stars, knows a thing or two about letting ingredients speak for themselves, and letting them kick, if that’s what they want. He gives cannabis a clear, though not overpowering, voice in his Consommé Marijuana, recalled (with recipe!) in his 2004 memoir California Dish. The consommé was created in the spring of 1969 as the third course of a “self-consciously decadent” 11-course meal he prepared in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Made with 1 cup of marijuana stems steeped in 6 cups of rich chicken stock, it was strained and served over a chiffonade of nasturtium flowers and basil. As Tower recalls, the dish: “provided another level of stimulation. But not stoned. The brew takes forty-five minutes to reach the brain, by which time (as the menu planned) we were on to dessert, tasting strawberries and cream as we’d never tasted them before.”
Read more:
Current Events: Hit List
by Glenn Greenwald
Here is what the Democratic President has created and implemented, and what many party loyalists explicitly endorse (when there’s a Democrat in the White House) — from Reuters:
Read more:
Here is what the Democratic President has created and implemented, and what many party loyalists explicitly endorse (when there’s a Democrat in the White House) — from Reuters:
American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions . . . . There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council . . . . Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate. . . . The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process. . . .
Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing. The process involves “going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president” . . . .Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described. They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval . . . But one official said Obama would be notified of the principals’ decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified, the official said.So a panel operating out of the White House — that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates — is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider. It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that; I genuinely wonder whether the Good Democrats doing so actually first convince themselves that if this were the Bush White House’s hit list, or if it becomes Rick Perry’s, they would be supportive just the same. Seriously: if you’re willing to endorse having White House functionaries meet in secret — with no known guidelines, no oversight, no transparency — and compile lists of American citizens to be killed by the CIA without due process, what aren’t you willing to support?
Read more:
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
88 Important Truths
[ed. Good list. Also worth checking out another post about the miraculous things we take for granted.]
by David Cain
Everyone gets drilled with certain lessons in life. Sometimes it takes repeated demonstrations of a given law of life to really get it into your skull, and other times one powerful experience drives the point home once forever. Here are 88 things I’ve discovered about life, the world, and its inhabitants by this point in my short time on earth.
1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.
2. It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.
3. If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about whatever you’re talking about than you do.
4. The cheapest and most expensive models are usually both bad deals.
5. Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.
6. Bad moods will come and go your whole life, and trying to force them away makes them run deeper and last longer.
7. Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.
8. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.
9. Yelling always makes things worse.
10. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.
11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.
12. You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.
13. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.
14. Managing one’s wants is the most powerful skill a person can learn.
15. Nobody has it all figured out.
16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.
17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.
18. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.
19. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works alone can teach you everything you need to know about living with grace and happiness.
20. People embellish everything, as a rule.
21. Anger reveals weakness of character, violence even moreso.
22. Humans cannot destroy the planet, but we can destroy its capacity to keep us alive. And we are.
23. When people are uncomfortable with the present moment, they fidget with their hands or their minds. Watch and see.
24. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.
25. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.
26. Credit card debt devours souls.
27. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what’s going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.
28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.
29. A person who is unafraid to present a candid version of herself to the world is as rare as diamonds.
30. The most common addiction in the world is the draw of comfort. It wrecks dreams and breaks people.
31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.
32. The greatest innovation in the history of humankind is language.
by David Cain
Everyone gets drilled with certain lessons in life. Sometimes it takes repeated demonstrations of a given law of life to really get it into your skull, and other times one powerful experience drives the point home once forever. Here are 88 things I’ve discovered about life, the world, and its inhabitants by this point in my short time on earth.
1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.2. It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.
3. If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about whatever you’re talking about than you do.
4. The cheapest and most expensive models are usually both bad deals.
5. Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.
6. Bad moods will come and go your whole life, and trying to force them away makes them run deeper and last longer.
7. Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.
8. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.
9. Yelling always makes things worse.
10. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.
11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.
12. You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.
13. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.
14. Managing one’s wants is the most powerful skill a person can learn.
15. Nobody has it all figured out.
16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.
17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.
18. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.
19. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works alone can teach you everything you need to know about living with grace and happiness.
20. People embellish everything, as a rule.
21. Anger reveals weakness of character, violence even moreso.
22. Humans cannot destroy the planet, but we can destroy its capacity to keep us alive. And we are.
23. When people are uncomfortable with the present moment, they fidget with their hands or their minds. Watch and see.
24. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.
25. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.
26. Credit card debt devours souls.
27. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what’s going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.
28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.
29. A person who is unafraid to present a candid version of herself to the world is as rare as diamonds.
30. The most common addiction in the world is the draw of comfort. It wrecks dreams and breaks people.
31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.
32. The greatest innovation in the history of humankind is language.
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