I anagram, I

Twelve plus One = Eleven plus Two
12 + 1 = 11 + 2

The Spice Trade

Four centuries ago spices and tea had some role in the colonization of India. Come on, spices! When we were there, we went to Kashmir, one of the few places in the world that arguably the most valuable spice, pound for pound, saffron is grown. It can bring in anywhere from $500-$700 a POUND.

What is saffron anyway? It’s the stigma of a flower…this little strand inside bud the flower and there are only 2-4 inside each flower. So that means that 166 flowers have to be hand picked to make a gram (as heavy as a paper clip). Usually, most spices are sold by the ounce, so for those of you keeping track that is 4,700 flowers, hmm…that’s a lot of flowers, can you picture 4,700 flowers in a field, flowers in bloom. If you do the math the numbers just become mind blowing, but there are 16 ounces in a pound which make roughly 75,000 flowers!!!

Imagine 75,000 or so flowers in a field all in bloom...$500 seems like a bargain.

Culture Merchants

Wal-Mart has a laundry list of…alarming, to put it lightly, statistics. Over a quarter TRILLION dollars in sales (~4% GDP), accounts $120B trade deficit with China, roughly 20 lawsuits daily just to name a few…and trust me there are MANY MANY more. There is just no way to really grasp the influence and impact a gargantuan company like Wal-Mart can have on the economy and the country.

The hypnotic effect statistics often have, make us overlook something which may be just as alarming as the numbers that get thrown around. Media. Wal-Mart is America’s largest seller of books, magazines, music, AND dvds. Scary huh? Scary to think that “Will Wal-Mart Buy It” is an important consideration made by companies producing this media. All of it ‘censored’, as it were, by a giant corporation with its own agenda.

How many books, magazines, and movies will you never come across because Wal-Mart doesn’t deem them appropriate to carry in their stores?

just for fun?

I used to be competetive. I had this bloodlust that was just brought out in me in certain activities. And I was good...I had this confidence, this cockiness and it helped me do good in school, it helped me kick peoples' but in wrestling, and once upon a time win in tennis. And then one day a long time ago that competetiveness just disappeared. Now, I usually just play for fun, as soft as that sounds. Well, twice a year I spend a long time nerdily preparing for exams and I go in to those exams with tons of confidence and even if it doesn't show a certain amount of cockiness...actually a lot of it. Not to be confused with some elitist attitude, I am not smart, but I am prepared and I have studied and I am not modest about that. For a brief moment I really have that competetive spirit, mostly within, but I can feel it coming back. I can go into pressure situations and handle them with a certain amount of grace. I have that confidence, that was in hiding, back, and I am ready to be a person who gives direction rather than one previously so apt to take it.

Free Trade

What are your opinions on free trade? Everyone else seems to have an opinion and ‘credible’ supporting data. It can be misleading and all these ‘stats’ should be taken with a grain of salt, and unfortunately they rarely are.

Free trade is great, it leads to lower prices and ‘allows’ more efficient production which ‘puts’ more money in consumers’ pockets and they have all these stats about how the ‘net social gain’ is positive…increases in GDP, blah blah blah.

The words in quotes are deceiving. ‘Allow’, allow? Does it mean jobs are eliminated and those out of work have the privilege to be more efficient? That’s nonsense.
Lower prices means more money for consumers…this is a tricky sentence, lower prices ultimately are a result of lower, if not eliminated, wages…not lower profits, no body cuts profit to lower prices.
Net social gain…basically means those made better off will benefit by an amount more than those made worse off…it doesn’t consider WHO is made better off and the utility (the usefulness) of one more or fewer dollar.

The US has a $220 billion dollar trade defecit. Why is that bad? Think about it this way, if it takes 10 jobs to produce 100 tvs for export, that’s an extra 10 jobs, and conversely if 100 tvs are imported, that’s 10 jobs lost.

For economic wealth, for there to be winners there has to be losers.

Tankman

It never ceases to amaze me that a single person and come along and change the world.

This person inspired millions by standing up, literally. It isn't even known who this person is, but this act, this picture inspired a whole country to stand up...and continues to influence the world.

In 1989, Communist China dealt with a huge pro-Democracy demonstration in Tianamen square. Martial Law and a force of 300,000 were sent in to quell the demonstrations. After the army takes control this man, fed up, stood up to these tanks in a final act of defiance, but his story and inspiration live on.

It inspires me to believe I can stand up for what I believe in.

Fortune cookie

The sweet yellow fortune teller says
"statistics are no substitute for judgement"

and my lucky numbers are 3, 5, 11, and 19

family dinner

Expecting!

We’re expecting…a niece or a NEPHEW! They are almost 4 months along, and it is fascinating that this little life is GROWING inside. I have seen sonogram pictures over the past few weeks and they are amazing themselves, but they don’t compare to what I heard this weekend.

20 magical seconds. I listened to a recording of the baby’s (I don’t know what to call it/HIM/her) heartbeat. Unbeleivable! I don’t know where to begin describing it. It was so strong and fast, beating rhythmically, frantically…pumping blood to what? The few inches of body? The heartbeat was so strong and so fast, like the little one was running sprints...does it even have legs yet?

That’s the thing that amazes me…it is not yet 4 months, and yet there is this incredible, real, loud, pounding heart that is just beating away…yet so much else of the baby has probably yet to form…probably doesn’t have any digits, other “vital” organs haven’t formed, eyes?, ears?, lungs? All of the things that make us human are lacking, except for heart…there was a heart, perhaps the thing that makes us most human?

Hanging Orchid

This is an old-style thai house. It has none of the frills and stuff that we ceaselessly accumulate to fill the space we have. This traditional house had nothing but aplank to sleep on, a floor, a roof, and these flowers. Thats it. No walls even.

Earth From Above

My sense of enormity was inspired last night as I saw the world from above. I saw the city from the 96th floor, atop the John Hancock building, staring out into the man made sea of buildings. This land of a million lights for miles and miles….all lighting up a million different universes make up Chicago.

You may remember a hundred years ago, there was a small fire that burned a few of the buildings down.

Since then, hundreds upon hundreds of buildings have gone up in their place. Awe inspiring is just not descriptive enough. When you think that men, like little ants, built up the city one stone, one brick, one floor, one building at a time…reaching skyward as the city spilled over and was then corralled by the lake. And still under construction!

All man made? Is that possible? There must have been some divine intervention, I mean just LOOK, is this not comparable to Niagara Falls, Muir Woods, or the Grand Canyon? The lights, towers, the silent mayhem that is going on below. People filling every space, every floor, every room…life teeming out of every concrete corner. The lights! There are so many, too many to count. Top to bottom, east to west, north to south….light upon light upon light. Can we have made this? So much energy in this place, rivaled only by the sun it seems.


I was battling an anxiety to get out of what I thought was so familiar…so Chicago, but going up and seeing for miles and just realizing that ‘downtown’ as it is generically called by suburbanites like me is divided into 20 distinct neighborhoods, just in “the loop” alone. The thought that just a couple buildings could EASILY house my entire suburb, made me just realize that there is so much city left to be discovered.

I have lived here my whole life and this is the first time I have been here. WHY HAVE I NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE?

Night Hancock

Sea Foam

Physics 112

I can remember back to my first college physics classes studying light and fluid dynamics and magnetism. I am so fascinated with the way thoses classes explained the world. A bird in flight, a traffic signal, the tide, a pool ball. I can still recall coming out of each class(feeling a bit nerdy)and being in awe of just having learned how this or that works while fitting so nicely into the principles of what i was learning.




I saw this glass while at a lecture recently. I noticed that it was half full:p and also noticed the reflection of the words on the screen transposed in the reflection of the water. The rays of light bouncing around in the glass and totally understanding why...i wish i could say the same for the lecture.....so naturally i swiped the glass so i could take some pictures. I look at this picture and i feel a sudden(and brief)insight into the world, just like my weekly freshman physics revelations.

Mishkat

House Boat

Recommendation

I happened by a couple pieces of paper that caught my eye and made me pay close attention. The pages were brownish and old looking. It was stationary, but old and it had come from a type-writer, not a printer.

My eyes searched for the date, January 1985. I started reading, realizing they were references or recommendations. Not just run of the mill recommendations, but full page almost gushing recommendations of work ethic and dependability and accuracy and most notably, ‘likability’.

This last part was what made most impression on me. Yeah sure, you think about the work that is to be done, that’s what you are looking for. A person who can get the job done. But being liked…that’s such an intangible quality, and one that is so often overlooked in a work relationship.

The pages both used the words, “character”, “likable”, “nice to be around”. I was very proud to read this on letters of recommendation for my dad and wish him the same experiences in his new job.

life less ordinary

Sad how easy it is to fall back into life. Didn't even miss a beat, it seems. Everything around is so comfortable and so much as it always has been.

So much of the everyday just comes and goes, passes us by. Though, about a year ago, everything was different, every single thing...from going to the grocery store to GETTING to the grocery store on the back of a crazy motorcycle taxi! The sights and sounds are still very real in my mind. I can smell the slightly offensive strange food being sold on the street and hear a low roar of people buying and selling in the marketplace so vividly in my head.

This is a picture i took of some fruit being sold in the market. Just stacked one on top of the other, like the many sensations, i felt one on top of the other...it brings me back to that place that had a pulse all its own.

northshore

sunset beach

attention