The Palms

It’s ironic that the more Spanish I learn, the more I’m enjoying Spanish television over English broadcasting.  What’s even more ironic is that I’m finding that Spanish-speaking news is actually covering the things I want to know.  Like, over the summer, there was that incident with that NICU grad in Brazil that was pulled out of a lake.  ‘Didn’t hear about any of that on American news.  I flipped back to American news and what were they showing?  More of that stupid Lacy and Scott Peterson shit.  Seriously.  Who gives a flying fig?  Women get killed every day in cities around the country, and why exactly does one guy deserve any more attention than any of the others?

And then, over the holidays, I was watching Spanish television again, and they actually covered Saddam Hussein’s infamous history, not just his hanging.  They’re also providing a decent balanced coverage of the happenings in Iraq.  When I flipped back to American broadcasting. . . a re-run of “Friends.”  Or something comparably inane, like a poll of “who is worse — Tom Cruise or Michael Jackson?  We asked our experts to answer this question.”

How infinitely sad.

The largest growing city right now is not in southern California.  It’s not in the Bay Area either.  In fact, it’s nowhere near California, which is growing as stale as an organically-grown watermelon that is sitting at a table next to buttercream-frosted red velvet cupcakes.  Nope, the largest growing city right now?  It’s Dubai.

And the makers of the sailboat-shaped hotel I love so much?  Oh, they’re busy on something else now.

The World

Some people make history.  Some people are just history.

The Palm

The Village Center
A few weeks ago, Matt came home kind of pissy.  For weeks, he had asked coworkers if they were going to cover the Space Shuttle landing.  The newscasters ignored his emails.  Then, on the day of the shuttle landing, they rushed in and begged him to record the feed.  He managed to find the tapes and hit the record button, just as the shuttle landed.  Aren’t newscasters supposed to be doing research into things that they want to report, days in advance?  I mean, it’s not like the shuttle landing was a surprise.  Shuttle landings are scheduled.  Seriously, are the people they hire to do U.S. news these days really that lame-brained?  Rhetorical question, that.

Winds of
Change

On a slow day in clinic, my attending
mentioned that there are no places to sail here.  I told him
he was wrong, and listed lakes.  He said, “Well, you have to
tack back and forth.  The sailing is better the bigger the
water.”  I disagree, but hey, I have my opinion and he has
his.

When I went sailing a few weeks ago, I did a
lot of tacking.  It’s true.  But, somehow it doesn’t
bother me if I’m approaching the shoreline, and I have to
tack.  Plus, the wind is shifty near the lakebank, and so one
is always having to adjust the sails as one approaches shore
anyway.  The more the apparent wind, the more I enjoy sailing,
even if it means I have to keep tacking to appreciate it. 
Seriously, when we were in Galveston sailing in the bay, we stayed on
the same tack forever, and the winds were so constant that it was
actually. . . almost boring.

Not so in my work
life.  In the hospital, I hate change.  I hate having to
adjust my sails, if the wind changes.  I hate having to tack,
if I’m approaching rocks.  But I do it.  It’s funny
how in my job, I hate apparent wind.  I hate the
struggle.  When I get to be as old as my attending (not that
he’s *that* old), I’ll appreciate being able to stay on the same tack
for longer.

As for now, I prefer sailing little
lakes, the challenge of tacking back and forth to reach the dam, and
the relatively relaxing downwind trip back to the
dock.

Roman Polanski’s “Knife in the Water”

Sawan Ka Mahina

More Boatbuilding Links — 2007

I see that I’m not the only one of the female gender, with no prior boat-building experience, who has pondered building a boat.

Excerpt from “Two Women and a Boat (to Say Nothing of the Dog)“ by Jane Cates “. . . The first thing that Lily and I noticed was that the class was composed of men: men in little canvas aprons with lots of pockets and lots of tools; men with canvas bags with lots of pockets and lots of tools. We put our Home Depot bags down on the workbench. We noticed that no one else’s tools still had bar code stickers. There was lumber sufficient to make seven canoes. Now this is a lot of lumber, none of it looking particularly like a canoe part. Bill Thomas, the instructor, explained his policy of “no boat left behind” and assured us that we would all be working together to make sure that everyone progressed at the same pace and that we all would go home with something closer to a boat than to a lumber pile. Why were all the guys looking at us? Lily and I busily arranged out tools in neat rows and plugged in the battery to our drill. We were all given sets of plans to take home and study. Lily and I admired the blueprints and noted that some of them looked like pictures of a boat. The instruction manual was in a code which remains unbroken to this day. But here was Bill’s promise, a promise which was true: every task, no matter how daunting it may seem, is just a series of small steps which, done carefully and in the proper order, can be accomplished by anyone who cares to try. Moreover, there are no insurmountable problems, just challenges, which can be overcome. . . .”

From a rather cool online magazine — Eclectica
http://www.eclectica.org/v10n1/cates.html

http://www.thewoodenboatschool.com/

Happy New Year

Being post-call, I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate the new year than to go sailing in 40 F weather.  Cloudless skies and 12 mph winds!  ‘Not a bad start for the new year!  I’m just really glad I invested in some good sailing gloves at the last Strictly Sail I attended.  Those gloves really do help!

Stereotype Threats?  How Lame.

Inadvertently, my mother taught me to be oblivious to stereotypes.  She never followed a stereotype, and so I never felt I had to either.  She loved being feminine, she loved working, she loved having a family, she liked having an education.  So, naturally, she always told me to just do what I want to do.  One of the first books she bought me was a book about a girl wanting to be the President of the United States.  That was in the 1970′s, folks.  Only a masochist would want to be the President, with all the bovine feces they get from their constituents.  I prefer to be self-employed.

So anyway, I had no clue that some dweeb got his master’s by publishing stuff about stereotype threats — the idea that if you expose someone to the theory that their race/gender/identification does worse at things than other groups, they will self-fulfill the stereotype.

I still subscribe to the theory that if one is weak enough to bend to propaganda, then one isn’t that intelligent, anyway.

If I ever had to blame someone else for ‘stereotyping’ me as a minority woman to keep me where I am today, then let me instead thank them for ‘stereotyping’ me so well!!

So I find it silly that so many women are offended by the following parody of video game systems.  I find it funny, myself.  (Matt says women don’t have a sense of humor.  I love you, Matt.)

Luckily this isn’t a real ad by Nintendo, because all those people who succumb to stereotype threats would be suing/bombing/otherwise displaying their idiocy online.  Oh wait.  They already are.