I finally broke down and went broke buying a Nikon D60. It finally arrived and it was worth every penny. I used to be an avid photographer, much like I used to be an avid blogger, but towards the end of my college days I stopped. Why? Partly because the industry was transitioning from film to digital cameras and I wanted to wait to see what developed. But also because I had lost interest. And this D60 has revived it! I finally had some time today to go outside and test it. Unfortunately, by the time I started taking pictures, the sun escaped behind a bank of clouds and Pittsburgh went from being vibrant to the usual winter gray. Oh well, I was still able to snap some shots like the graffiti shot on the left. And I primarily just wanted to get understand my camera and the myriad options I can tweak. So while it may take me a while to produce great shots, the D60 makes it really easy to take good shots.
What does it say about America when The View could be our best news source?
Perhaps McCain wasn’t expecting such direct and hard hitting questions and as a result we get a great interview. Or perhaps Barbara Walters and the rest of the the ladies on The View didn’t buy into talking points and tried to get at the actual truth. I only hope there will be more interviews like this, and not just from The View.
The penny irritates me. I dislike using them in transactions, I discard them when I receive them, and I generally feel they are a waste of time. Thus I enjoy reading about the debates to eliminate the penny from the US currency. A few days ago I came across this article that does a great job of summarizing the arguments for ridding us of the penny and discusses some of the details that are currently holding us back. What I like about the article is that the author doesn’t shy away from the idea of eliminating the nickel and dime as well. I think it is a telling trait that the author is trying to give an honest and impartial account of the currency debate.
This past Wednesday I found out that I shared the Herbert L. Toor award with my good friend David Durham. The Herbert L. Toor award is given to the EPP student with the best qualifier research paper that year. As such, David and I split the honor. This was quite a surprise to me. My research is great and has generated a lot of discussion within CMU and outside of it but my paper was not stellar. Readers of this blog can attest to my writing ability. While the heart might be there the mastery is not. As such I had mentally removed myself from the competition.
Thus it was a surreal feeling when the title of my paper was read before the assembled group. While I had mentally checked out I must admit I hadn’t emotionally. I did not have any reservations about not passing the research part of qualifiers. But CEIC, the electricity center for CMU, has had quite a record of Toor award winners, remarkable by itself, even more so considering the center is only 6 years old. Couple this with the fact that I was the only CEIC student my year taking qualifiers meant that present or not, I felt pressure to achieve the award.
Needless to say, with everything said and done, I felt more than relief when my name was called. I am honored to have my name on a plaque within the halls of Carnegie Mellon but I hope this is a start of what’s to come, not the last.
Time to get philosophical. I’ve been reading a philosophy essay about forgiveness in book titled “Philosophy for Life.” While the essay is a compilation of two previous works of Rupert Read and cannot be obtained online, one of the previous works is available here (from what I can tell it has the same primary arguments as the work I read). To sum up the essay, the author states that forgiveness is something that cannot be understood and does happen, albeit rarely.
It’s a very interesting piece of work and one that has kept me thinking about the true nature of forgiveness. I read the first half of the essay in December and I just finished the second half. The first half was about the nature of forgiveness and if it actually happens. For the next two months I had a few in depth discussions with a good friend about the arguments Rupert Read constructs for what forgiveness truly is (such as forgetting about an incident isn’t truly forgiving). Our debates ranged across a variety of arguments yet we never resolved what forgiveness truly is. Having just finished the second half of the essay, it has become apparent that we settled upon one of his conclusions that we did not tacitly acknowledge, that forgiveness is an act that simply cannot be understood.
What startled me in the second half of the book was the inclusion of political efforts to bring about forgiveness with the author concentrating on the efforts of South Africa to move on from its apartheid regime. South Africa, after the fall of the apartheid, set up a government body titled Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose function is best described by Dullah Omar, South Africa’s former Minister of Justice, as an “exercise to enable South Africans to come to terms with their past on a morally accepted basis and to advance the cause of reconciliation.” At the heart of my startle is that I expected a commission more along the lines of an apartheid crimes tribunal rather than a commission looking at the broader issue of reconciliation. The TRC is impressive and a committee I want to look closer at. Finally, to bring this post to a close, represents to me the progress that has occurred in governments and societies since WWII.
The Country of My Skull - Antjie Krug. A book about the TRC and South Africa’s quest for forgiveness.
Reason Papers - A free source of philosophy articles.
Forgiveness in Conflict Resolution - Another resource on the philosophy of forgiveness, applied particularly to the role it plays and should play in resolving conflicts.
Through the course of my daily routines I’ve noticed there are some facets that constantly irritate me. As such, I thought I might list a few and see what others had to offer. Note: I’ll be continually adding to this list. Who knows, one day you might be on it.
Bathroom signs that are not clear on what door leads to the women’s room and what door leads to the men’s room. Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate artsy, non-standard ways of doing things. But putting up ambiguous signs, say figures where you can’t determine who is the women and who is the man or even putting the words men and women in different languages, is not my idea of fun. Anytime I encounter this, I have to pause for a minute to figure out that I’m really going into where I’m supposed to be. And if I’ve had something to drink, the time required to discern where I should be increases. Adding time to me getting to the restroom…not cool. And making me nervous about going into the forbidden women’s room of flowers and waiting chairs (speaking of which, what’s up with the discrepancy between men and women’s bathrooms?), also not cool. That makes ambiguous restroom signs doubly not cool.
Faucets that I can’t tell how to turn on. You know the kind, the fancy new designs that rotate, twist and turn but yet no water seems to come out. They could at least give some indication of perhaps the minimum movement needed to turn it on. The reason these two are my first two on the list is a result of my encounter with both of them in one night. I went out to this nice restaurant (Caribbean, Southern, Pittsburgh food if you can imagine…but trust me, it’s good) and their bathroom, once I found it, had cryptic Caribbean sculptures designating the men’s and women’s restrooms. Then, inside, they had a faucet that took me a few seconds to figure out how to work it. All in all, I think that bathroom unnecessarily cost me a minute and a half of my life.
People who can’t walk. I’m not talking about the physically challenged. I’m talking about the individuals who are on their cell phones meandering about, seemingly incapable of walking in a straight line or noticing that I am trying to pass their slow incapable asses. I mean, come on, walking is like driving people. If you’re slow, move over to the right side of the sidewalk. If you’re merging, actually look to see if you are going to cut somebody off…namely me. In the very least, walk in a straight line. If you did only that I’d be a lot happier.
Man, last night was crazy. Went to the Warhol and listened to some good African Jazz music then walked around the museum a bit. Normally I don’t like the Warhol…it has 7 floors of what seems like repetitive art. Don’t get me wrong, Warhol did some cool things but 7 floors is more than enough of his work and artists similar to him. But last night there was an exhibit by a guy named Ron Mueck who does these huge, and I mean huge ladies, sculptures of humans. The image below is an example of his work…imagine this being larger than an Infiniti G35. If you have a chance to see any of his work, I’d recommend it…definitely surreal.
After that, it was kinda of random but went a house party to celebrate Nelson’s birthday (I barely know Nelson). He arranged for a band called Hood Gang to play…they’re a local band from Pittsburgh. They rocked. Nothing is better than a great band in a small venue. I’m definitely a fan now and am going to their next show. It was a random night but it ended up being a fantastic night.
For the past two years I’ve really gotten into the idea of New Year Resolutions. Not only defining them but actually trying to achieve them. As such, since it is near the beginning of the new year, I thought I might add some of the resolutions I’ve been thinking over and hope to achieve.
Publish a paper
Start taking pictures again
Start to learn a new language
Start to learn an instrument
The first goal obviously is a desire to progress along my career path. The second stems from a realization that I haven’t been a part of photography for a long time and it’s a part of me that I’ve missed (and I know you guys have missed too…no need to lie). The final two are life goals that I need to get cracking on if I’m gonna achieve them so why not start in 2008?
Brett said that. Multiple times. And he’s right, I don’t, or the way I see…at least I don’t yet.
The past two months I’ve been trapped in my room focusing solely on my qualifiers. It was a lot of work, more so than I imagined. After going through the process, I understand why it can be a major event in a person’s life. In fact, one of my professors, last semester, responded to the question of what was the toughest thing he ever did by saying “Qualifiers. No doubt in my mind.”
But with my usual great timing I started my blog right before I started qualifiers. As such, I’ve only had one post. I plan on changing that and in doing so, my plan is to post once a week. To make it a little bit more realistic or perhaps I should say more of a habit, I’m going to shoot for writing and submitting my post by Friday. And just to make my blog look a little bit more interesting, I’ll add an entry this Friday.
It’s a very interesting piece of work and one that has kept me thinking about the true nature of forgiveness. I read the first half of the essay in December and I just finished the second half. The first half was about the nature of forgiveness and if it actually happens. For the next two months I had a few in depth discussions with a good friend about the arguments Rupert Read constructs for what forgiveness truly is (such as forgetting about an incident isn’t truly forgiving). Our debates ranged across a variety of arguments yet we never resolved what forgiveness truly is. Having just finished the second half of the essay, it has become apparent that we settled upon one of his conclusions that we did not tacitly acknowledge, that forgiveness is an act that simply cannot be understood.