Less vs. Fewer

It's time for a grammar rant! This has been driving me nuts. I don't know why, but I've been noticing "less" and "fewer" misusage a lot lately, and it's almost always "less" being used incorrectly. It seems like everyone's afraid to say "fewer," or maybe they forgot its existence altogether. On TV I keep hearing about "less calories" and at the supermarket the "10 or less items" signs make me cringe.

It's an easy rule: Use "less" for uncountable items and "fewer" for countable things. Uncountable items include water, rice, love, corn and air. Countable things include carrots, kittens, shoes, books and pens. Notice a pattern? Countable nouns can be pluralized, often with an "s". You wouldn't usually say you're breathing airs or eating rices.

So I can say I drank less water today. I have less rice than you. I feel less love for parrots than for kittens. But: I ate fewer carrots today. I have fewer fleas than kittens. I bought fewer shoes this year.

Uncountable items can only be countable if talking about types. For example, Trader Joe's sells 14 Italian cheeses and 22 domestic beers; Safeway sells 8 and 27, respectively. So you could say Safeway sells fewer Italian cheeses and TJ's sells sells fewer domestic beers. But if you're talking mass, they aren't countable: TJ's sells less beer annually, but Safeway sells less cheese.

Now, for every rule there's an exception. In this case, there are three-- money, time, and distance-- and we use "less" with these. I earned $5,000 less this year. I'll be there in five minutes or less. It's less than two miles to my house.

And that's today's grammar lesson. See you in less than 24 hours.

Hiroshima, Mon Amour

I'm tired again (gee, what's new?), so wanted to write something short, and thought that writing about a photo might be fun. I lived in Japan for four years and have been "homesick" recently, so I opened up my Japan photo file, closed my eyes, took a stab, and landed on this one.



Children's Peace Monument, Hiroshima

The site of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima has been turned into Peace Park. The park comprises all kinds of monuments, including the A-Bomb Dome and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. This is the Children's Peace Monument, surrounded by strings of thousands of origami cranes, which symbolize peace. The girl on top symbolizes the world's children's prayer for peace and was inspired by Sadako Sasaki, who was exposed to the bomb's radiation at age two and died from leukemia at age 12. She's holding a likeness of an origami crane.

At the time of this visit, I wrote: I wish everyone in the world in any kind of power were required to visit these cities [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] at least once a year and maybe carry some kind of memorial with them-- perhaps it would make a little difference in remembering the fragility of life, our purpose on the planet, and what is really important after all. Why do some individuals find it so important to "divide and conquer?" How is killing, torturing and dominating a rational choice?

On a related note, the title of today's entry, Hiroshima Mon Amour, is the name of a beautiful film by Alain Resnais, written so poetically by Marguerite Duras. I encourage everyone to see it!

Things That Arouse a Fond Memory of the Past

I'm a very organized person, borderline anal perhaps, and I've always been a list-er of sorts: I have my shopping list, my wish list, my to-do list, my "places I've been" list, and so on. But ever since I read The Pillow Book, by Sei Shonagon, I've been even more obsessed with lists. Not just any lists, though— Sei's lists are special. They're on topics both rudimentary and idiosyncratic, and are often extremely poetic in their simplicity: Different Ways of Speaking. Depressing Things. Hateful Things. Things That Make One's Heart Beat Faster.

Here's my version of one her lists...

Things That Arouse a Fond Memory of the Past

An old song, maybe not even very good, but it was played a hundred times a day.
A pair of well-worn black 20-eye Doc Martens.
An old lithograph with an endearing inscription from one's love.
Triple-cream brie, and water crackers. And candlelight.
The scent of an Indian incense.
The memory of warm skin.

Green With Envy

I really do only have a minute tonight, so I'm going to take advantage of this awesome site I recently discovered (and how à propos for me!): The One-Minute Writer. The assignment: Write for one minute on "What makes you green with envy?"

I envy people who can live in the moment. I spend too much time worrying about my life's purpose. Am I doing something to benefit humanity? Are my actions deserving of good karma? Is this answer good enough? Meanwhile, much of life's beauty is passing me by...

Wow, that was a fast minute.
(Thanks, C. Beth!)

"The American People"

I'm tired, so this is going to be a brief rant.

There are a bunch of stupid Bank of America commercials that are all sappy and, I can only guess, trying to appeal to our patriotism. What first caught my attention was the phrase, "this is America," which is the common thread that ties the series of ads together.

Seems like I've heard phrases like "this is America" and "the American people" a lot in the past seven and a half years. And I mean, not just really often in normal usage, but way more often than necessary, like it became a prequisite for any public speech or commentary. Is it coincidence?

It could be— seven and a half years ago I returned to the U.S. after living abroad for three years. So, it's possible that "the American people" had always been common, but I just hadn't noticed it until it was "new" again.

But it might not be. That was also the same time that 9/11 happened— an event that sprouted mass, sometimes blind, patriotism.

Either way, it's annoying. I'm really tired of it, and I hope that everyone will grow out of it soon.

Time to Decriminalize?

I’ve believed for a long time that marijuana should be decriminalized. I’ve partaken in the weed, and am not ashamed to admit that I’ve inhaled. I enjoy its relaxing effect and the “deep” or silly conversations that result. Better yet, I like that I don’t wake up with a hangover the next day, or smelling like cigarette smoke.

I find it hard to believe that pot is still viewed as worse than alcohol and tobacco. Besides a glass of red wine a day being good for one’s heart, or its disinfecting properties, are there any other health or medicinal benefits to drinking alcohol? Are there any benefits at all to smoking tobacco? Yet research has found many medicinal benefits of marijuana—relief of glaucoma pressure, nausea, and chronic pain, to mention a few.

How many people have been killed by drivers high on ganja? How many fights or other acts of violence have occurred under the influence of grass? I’m not saying that there aren’t people who react poorly to the drug, but I wonder why we allow only alcohol and tobacco to be legal, when they are far more detrimental to us as individuals and communities? I don’t think Mary Jane is any more a catalyst to harder drug use as is Jim Beam or Captain Morgan—I think that’s an easy excuse. No, I suspect that it’s a pretty simple answer: the booze and cigarette purveyors can afford armies of lobbyists who keep the law working in their favor. If marijuana is legalized, the alcohol producers especially will see their profits fall. And those interests have done a good job of proliferating the “War on Drugs” and keeping the public under the influence of their own selfish concerns.

I know it’s a scary prospect, but perhaps it’s time we make concerted efforts to change the way we think about these substances, drug law, and how to deal with people who have tendencies toward addiction.

Portugal took this leap recently, decriminalizing drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Glenn Greenwald has written about “the success of drug decriminalization in Portugal,” which, “from an empirical perspective… has been an unquestionable success.” Furthermore, he learned through his research that “decriminalization is what enabled them to manage drug-related problems far more effectively than ever before, and the nightmare scenarios warned of by decriminalization opponents have, quite plainly, never materialized.”

That is not to say that it is an easy process without its own breed of complications, but perhaps it’s the “least bad” approach (see “How to stop the drug wars,” from the Economist, also linked from Greenwald’s article).

So maybe California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is on the right track with his recently introduced bill to legalize marijuana. The state would collect much-needed revenue, our courts would be less bottlenecked with petty possession cases, police would have more time to combat violence, and I’m betting that the snacking industry would happily see a rise in sales.

Climbing the Family Tree

Wow, time flies. At 3:00 today I opened up Ancestry.com to update my family tree, and in the past nine hours I've been as far back as 1850, and as far away as Italy and Switzerland.

My paternal grandma died in January, just six days short of her 102nd birthday. Today I finally went through the whole big bag of stuff I brought back-- photos, letters, birth certificates, funeral announcements, news articles, and other things I thought might help me put together a map of her life. Unfortunately, she wasn't a very sharing person, so it is bittersweet that now I am finally learning about the path her life took. But that path can only tell me so much; and I'm afraid none of these artifacts will really tell me who she was.

Be an ANTeater!

I’ve been listening to the Feel Better Fast and Change Your Brain, Change Your Life audio CDs by Dr. Daniel G. Amen. He offers some very common-sensical “prescriptions” for various brain conditions such as Alzheimer’s, depression, and ADD. The advice I particularly like, which anyone can easily put into practice, regards ANTs: Automatic Negative Thoughts. Negative self-thoughts themselves aren’t an original idea—if you’ve ever read up on cognitive behavior or been to CB therapy, you’ve probably heard these before. But I like the way they’re all packaged up into these pesky critters, metaphorically called “ANTs.”

Dr. Amen recommends that we become ANTeaters and kill the ANTs that destroy our good mental health. Here they are:

1. “Always” or “never” thinking – thinking in absolutes: No one will ever date me again.
2. Focusing on the negative – you only see the bad in a situation: Two people gave me negative feedback (but 25 gave me positive feedback).
3. Fortune telling – predicting the worst, even though you have no evidence: They’re going to think I’m fat and stupid.
4. Mind reading – you arbitrarily believe you know what someone else is thinking: Oh, my boss is in a bad mood (but really, she’s just constipated).
5. Thinking with your feelings – you believe your negative thoughts/feelings without questioning them: I feel like a failure.
6. Guilt beatings – I should… I ought to… I have to…: If I have to read a book, it’s boring, but if I want to, I enjoy it.
7. Labeling – attaching a negative label to yourself or someone else: Jerk… frigid… arrogant… irresponsible… You’re lumping them into a big group and then you can’t deal with them.
8. Personalization – innocuous events are taken to have personal meaning: My friend didn’t talk to me this morning, so she must be mad at me.
9. Blame – blaming someone else for your problems. You blame your partner for the situation so you become powerless (the victim) and can’t participate in fixing it.

How to be an ANTeater: when you’re feeling sad or mad, write out your feelings. Which ones are distorted? You don’t have to believe every thought you have—talk back to them! Someone will date me again! And he is going to see all the great things about me! Because I’m fabulous! And only I am responsible for my own thoughts.

I have a cheap fortune-telling pen at work, and one of the messages on it is “no one can make you feel anything.” It’s so true.

The “Average” Dilemma

After quitting dating seven months ago, I’m considering signing up on a dating website again. I’ve checked all the boxes, filled in the short answers, and had no trouble coming up with a cliché-free short essay about myself and what I’m looking for. But there’s one thing that still stumps me: the weight question.

Which best describes my body type? My choices are: slender, about average, athletic and toned, heavyset, a few extra pounds, stocky, big and beautiful, curvy, and full-figured.

The first problem is that none of these terms are necessarily exclusive of one another—that is, it is possible to be slender and athletic, or heavyset and stocky. That said, I can pretty easily narrow it down to three possibilities: about average, a few extra pounds, and curvy. But here’s where terminology nit-picking and man fortune-telling come in to play.

Let’s start with “about average.” “About” implies that there’s some leeway—average, plus or minus. Great. But what is average? Is it the CDC’s recommended healthy weight, or the real average weight of U.S. women? In the first case, I’m overweight by 14 pounds; but in the latter, I’m 4 pounds short of average. Take it a step further, and I would say that I’m 25 to 35 pounds over my ideal weight.

And how much leeway do we get if we claim to have a few extra pounds? Literally, a “few” means maybe three or four. But then it seems that “a few extra pounds” could mean the same thing as “about average,” and anyway, if our real average weight is overweight, then that is in fact the same as being a few extra pounds over.

And curvy? Well, don’t you have curves whether you are “about” average or a few pounds over? Or is it just a nice way to say “fat”?

Now, in the past I’ve selected both the “average” and “few extra” options. There are pros and cons to each. If I choose “average,” then I’m going on the assumption that I’m right in there with other random women on the street. But how many guys have met me and been disappointed because they expected someone twenty pounds less? If I choose “a few extra,” then I feel like I’m being honest with myself, but I’m probably closing out all those guys who think they’re only ok with someone “average” or “better,” but their definition of “average” is “few extra”?

Of course, the most important thing really is to find a guy who values my intelligence, wit, and artistic leanings more than my weight—someone who doesn’t care which body type I claim to be; someone who realizes that when we’re 80 years old, we’re going to value our minds and souls much more than having perfect bodies.

“No answer” is beginning to sound like a good choice.

(Statistics from the CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey [NHANES, 1999 – 2002].)

The Lyme Defense

{Note to self: Change “one minute a day” rule to “one minute a day except for weekdays when I'm out in the evenings, in which case it’s ok to talk about something and write about it later, and/or to think about writing.”}

Monday night my sister came over for dinner and we were talking about the guy who killed a pastor on Sunday in Illinois. The alleged gunman, Terry Sedlacek, has Lyme disease, which causes physical and mental illness, including lesions on the brain.

I find it interesting that a Yale “expert” on Lyme disease, Dr. Eugene Shapiro, said that “Lyme disease doesn’t cause people to shoot people” and basically dismissed the disease in being a likely cause or defense for Sedlacek’s actions.

How can Shapiro so easily dismiss this, in a disease that has not been extensively researched and is relatively new in the human timeline? There have been so few cases of such severe Lyme disease, just because a precedent hasn’t been set, how can he say with such confidence that it is not a characteristic?

Shapiro further explained that it was apparently pre-meditated; that Sedlacek had actually thought it out in advance, and by virtue of planning ahead, he therefore could not be “insane.” But is the ability to plan ahead really a reliable measure of one’s sanity? Can’t a person have totally crazy ideas, no common sense, and no ability for logical thinking, yet still plan ahead?

Obviously, if someone kills a person, there’s something wrong with them, whether it’s temporary or not, and whether labeled as “insane” or not. Does a reasonable person go around killing? And does it make a difference whether his mental state was caused by Lyme disease or by other factors? Should Sedlacek receive different treatment or punishment if his brain is ill from a tick as opposed to depression or schizophrenia or a football concussion?

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this case. Already, it has faded to the background with the news of a man shooting several family members in Alabama and a 17-year-old going on a school shooting spree in Germany.

Thank You, Sarah Palin

Is it cheating if my second post is the one I actually wrote four months ago? Well, maybe. But, I figure I'm writing for a minute right now, which completes my daily goal. Plus, since I referred to it yesterday, it makes sense to include it right away. Plus plus, it was the impetus for starting the whole thing. Plus plus plus, I still think it's relevant. So, there you are: 3.65 good reasons...

* * * * * * * * * *

(originally published 2008.10.18)

Thank you, Sarah Palin

Yes, I'm thanking Sarah Palin. I conceived this blog a few months ago and wavered back and forth, forth and back between birthing this slimy, toothy beast and exposing all my earthly inadequacies, versus squelching it, letting it starve and wither and die before coming to any sort of fruition. And then I saw a few minutes of Palin's interview with Katie Couric and could not find a valid reason not to express my disgust, anger, dismay, and offense. Frankly, the whole interview sucked (on Palin’s part, not Couric’s), but the bit that got me off the couch was Palin’s idiotic explanation as to why she hasn’t demonstrated curiosity about the world.

In case you missed the interview, it went like this:

Couric: In preparing for this conversation, a lot of our viewers … and Internet users wanted to know why you did not get a passport until last year. And they wondered if that indicated a lack of interest and curiosity in the world.

Palin: I'm not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world. No, I've worked all my life. In fact, I usually had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture. The way that I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me a lot of perspective on the world.

I realize she was trying to draw a distinction between herself and the "elitists" of this country. She doesn't need their votes; she needs the votes of "Joe Six-Pack" and his buddies at the sports bar. She's fishing for the votes of the population that undulates between “conservative values” and affordable healthcare. Isn't that why she was chosen to be the Number Two on the McCain ticket? (Aside from being a Hillary-offcast magnet and token [fill-in-the-blank], but that's a subject for another time.)

What really irks me, as a “middle-class” person who has lived and traveled somewhat extensively abroad and highly values those experiences, is that Palin might actually be able to convince some voters that people who travel are in fact somehow privileged.

How does it irk me? Let me count the ways…

1. She’s appealing to people in this country who will buy into her purported belief that people who travel are elitist, rich, priveleged. And by winning people over on that premise, she’s deceiving them—and that’s irresponsible and just plain dirty.
2. She’s deriding the curiosity, intelligence and fortitude of people who do travel—many of whom, like me, have worked multiple jobs to save the money and/or have secured jobs abroad in order to experience other cultures.
3. She’s trying to pass off incuriosity as being working class. Since when is one associated with the other? And how insulting is that, anyway?
4. She’s completely disregarding the fact that you can’t truly understand a culture unless you experience it first-hand, which includes walking the streets, meeting locals and living it through sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and hands-on experience.

Sorry, Sarah, you can read all you want (and what do you read, by the way?), and books provide excellent foundation for knowledge and insight, but no book can take the place of life. That’s why some people, perhaps your husband included, skip college to get on with life and get a job. That’s why one can’t just become a doctor from reading books—one has to complete a residency. And that’s why, as a candidate for our country’s next Vice President, you are ostensibly trying to convince people that you have enough experience to lead.

Now, that said, I really don’t think Palin is dumb enough to believe everything she says—it does take some kind of skill and insight to be able to win people over to your side. It’s just too bad that she thinks the way to do it is by siccing on people who are naïve enough to buy into her brand of “regular” (wink, wink). So listen here, gullible people: Understand that learning from books has minimal influence on how you will conduct yourself with foreign heads of state. And if they’re history books, say goodbye to any real cognition of current events. Being able to see Russia from your porch says more for your eyesight than your political foresight. And if one really has a desire to travel (and, ergo, to really learn about other cultures), well, where there’s a will, there’s a way—it’s that simple.

It’s disappointing that Palin has inadvertently (?) chosen to define herself as a stereotypical politician—selfish, dishonest, power-hungry—and set such low standards for future women politicians, when she could have chosen instead to be a beacon of respectability and admiration, something worth aspiring to. But again, that’s a topic for another day.

So thank you, Sarah Palin, for getting me riled up enough to get me off the couch and launch my thoughts into cyberspace. At least you’ve done one thing right.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
—St. Augustine

To Blog, or Not to Blog?

I actually started a blog four months ago. The subject was Sarah Palin, a woman who easily gets me riled up and irritated. I could have spouted off about her for hours, but alas, I do have a day job—one that took me away for three weeks, interrupting any chance I had at turning this into a habit.

I considered starting up again but then I wondered, who cares what I have to say? I’m not some brilliant intellect and I have no idea who I want my audience to be. Plus, why expose all my thoughts for the world to read? Am I really that egotistical? I finally decided that I don’t care. None of that matters to me. What does matter is that I have a place for all these ideas in my head to live, and maybe these ideas will even spark “conversations” once in a while. And more importantly, as a writer with perennial writer’s block, maybe if this can turn into a habit, I’ll unplug the block and it’ll all come out in the torrents I dream of.

So I hereby pledge to myself to start with baby steps: No matter how vile a mood I’m in, or how tired I am, or what kind of crazy-creative excuse I come up with, I will write at least one minute a day, for at least a year. I will turn off my self-judging mechanism. I will not obsess (too much) over grammar and semantics. I will say what’s on my mind. And I will not obsess about pushing the “publish” button!

To blog!