Breaking the Age Barrier

I am not going to lie, I paid $13.50 to see "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn- Part I" this weekend. (It opened with a first weekend of $139.5 million) And between the love triangle between vampires, humans and werewolves, there is a deep theme to ponder about: the concept of living forever. 

If for some reason live under a rock and have never heard of The Twilight series, let me give you a quick recap; an awkward teenage girl falls in love with a 104 year old vampire. Vampires live forever while humans do not.  She wants to become immortal (become a vampire) in order to live with him forever.

Living forever (or at least for a very long time) is not as uncommon as we think anymore.  Every year Los Angele's Department of Recreation and Parks throws a birthday celebration, Legacy Luncheon, for its oldest residents. Youngest age of the celebrants? 90.  The oldest attendee? 104.  Now that is old.  Especially compared to the average life expectancy of the world population to be a mere 70.6 years old.

Compare that with the United States Social Security full benefits age of 67.  Our generations are living longer and longer thanks to modern day medicine, technology and just education on how to take care of ourselves.  This might seem awesome and great for us and future generations, but is it really?

After a certain age, I personally think I would just get bored with life.  Although we can slow down the aging process, we cannot stop it (or at least not yet anyways).  I think there would be only so many years I could live in a wheelchair, not be able to eat anything I wanted because all my teeth have fallen out or not being able to see and hear as well as I once could.

What is so great about life is that there is a time limit.  Going against a clock forces us to experience as much as we can and truly live life to its full potential.  If time was limitless, why would you ever experience anything when it could just be procrastinated?

While living longer does have its benefits (seeing grandchildren and great grandchildren, experiencing more, seeing history change, etc) I do appreciate the process of aging.  It makes life so much more appreciative and I am thankful I am alive.

Little Monsters Business

Lady Gaga might be one of the most successful business women out there.  Wait, do I mean Lady Gaga the Grammy winning singer?  And yes I do mean Lady Gaga, the woman who arrived at the last Grammy Awards in an egg.
While watching a show on Mtv.com a commercial for Google Chrome came on featuring Lady Gaga.  (Seen here)  In this commercial, Lady Gaga is reaching out to all her millions of "little monsters" or fans.  To think that millions of people will put their "paws" up for her and dress like her and just want to be like her is astounding.  They post YouTube videos, dance her dances, sing her songs, have Monster meetings, aspire to be her, and some even worship her.    Her music is a success, having several hit #1 on Billboard's Top 100, having millions and millions of views on Youtube, selling thousands of digital copies of her CDs, and earning herself Grammy Awards. 

Lady Gaga has created herself as a brand, as "Mother Monster".  

This holiday season, Lady Gaga is taking over the Barney's flagship store in New York City.  The entire 5th floor will be decorated in Monster-like theme aspiration from her latest album "Born This Way".   Cookies, apparel, accessories, and the works of Lady Gaga will all be on sale.  25% of these purchases will be going toward Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation she recently just started.  This foundation aims to "youth empowerment and equality by addressing issues like self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring and career development and will utilize digital mobilization as one of the means to create positive change."

It is amazing to see how fast and how huge Lady Gaga has become in a worldwide.  She has become a phenomenon and creating Little Monsters all over the world.  Paws up for Lady Gaga, Paws up.

No Gender in Couple

$17.9 million and 72 days.  That is how much money Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries’ made off of her, or their, “fairy tale wedding” and how long their marriage lasted.  If you average that out, they made roughly $250,000 a day.    Making $250,000 a day?  Seems more like a business contract than a marriage contract.   One of the advantages of getting married (besides the obvious ones of being in love and wanting to spend the rest of your life with each other) is the benefits and tax cuts couples receive from the federal government.   But this does not include same-sex couples.

But what about same-sex couples?  Legally they cannot get married on a federal level and so they are not eligible for the same rights as married couples are. 

 

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a “couple” is defined as: two persons married, engaged, or otherwise romantically paired.   There is no mention of gender or the difference between the same sex or opposite sex.   But according to Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federalgovernment only respects marriages between a man and a woman. This means thateven if a same-sex couple's marriage is recognized by their home state, it isnot recognized for the purposes of accessing marriage benefits in federal law. Once married, couples are granted benefits by the federal government including tax, social security, full employment, and military benefits.

Personally, I believe that leaving same-sex couples out of the benefits goes against the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

While I am not arguing for or against the legalization of same-sex marriage, I am suggesting same-sex couples in a long term, committed relationship, should receive the same benefits as any other hetro-sex couple.    

By denying same-sex couples these benefits, it is costing them upwards to $200,000 extra for health insurance.  (Numbers depending on number of children, income, local taxes, etc) So while Kim Kardashian is made $250,000 a day for the 72 days she was married, it is costing same-sex couples $200,000 extra just because they are in a relationship with someone of the same sex.

Although the federal government does not provide any support, national companies are slowly reimbursing same-sex couples the extra taxes they have to pay for health benefits for their significant other.   According to 2010, The Kaiser Family Foundation says that 36 percent of large companies that offer health benefits provide coverage for same-sex domestic partners, and more than half of Fortune 500 companies provide domestic partner coverage — but few pay the extra costs ofthat coverage.   And starting January 1 of next year, Microsoft and Yahoo will be added to the list of companies that provide the tax incentives for gay employees. (For a list of companies that do provide coverage, check it out here) 

The Human Rights Campaign helps lobby for tax benefits for same-sex couples for employers.   This group is specifically called Business Coalition for Benefits Tax Equity,Members. Currently there are 75 national companies supporting this campaign including Google, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Nike and Verizon.

 I guess I never fully understood why same-sex couples are denied rights.  While I understand why some people are opposed to having them be considered “married”, with a separation of church and state in this country, there should be no reason why a domestic partnership should be denied. 

With the institution of marriage being questioned, (I do believe Kim Kardashian’s infamous wedding has no bearing on the current situation of marriage and divorces) I think we need to take an evaluation on whom we provide benefits to.  If two people are in a committed, romantic, relationship, who gives us them the right to be denied health benefits and tax benefits just dependent on gender?  This isn’t the 1960s anymore.

Feeling a New Kind of Music

whomp. whomp. whomp. flashing lights. your heart can't stop pounding.  your ears can't stop ringing.  Welcome to a rave. Halloween weekend is a busy time for the electric music community (check out Hard Haunted Mansion tonight in Downtown Los Angeles or Escape From Wonderland tonight in San Bernardino), yet this is a genre of music that seems to be viewed in a very negative light.

Rave (reɪv): 
noun

a name given to various types of dance music, such as techno, that feature fast electronic rhythm

Other associations include drugs, most commonly Ecstasy.  Ecstasy, or E, is a psycho-active drug that creates hallucinations, energy and euphoria.  

The University of Southern California's President C. L. Max Nikias has written a letter to all his students concerned about the safety at raves.  He strongly discouraged attending them, especially with several of them being hosted around the USC area.  There has even been a proposed law, Anti-Raves Act of 2011, by assemblywoman Fiona Ma, to ban raves in public places all together.  These actions came about after several deaths/injuries from the Electric Daisy Carnival and Hard Haunted Mansion last year. 

While it is fair that USC President Nikias was merely concerned with the safety of his students, is going as far along as a ban taking it a bit too far?

A rave is nothing more then a music festival with just live DJs instead of live bands.  It is similar to any other kind of music community; it has grown significantly more popular lately then it has been in the past.  Although yes it has associations with drugs, drugs are done everywhere, not just at raves, and one certainly does not have to partake in such activities to have fun or enjoy the shows.

The safety concerns of doing drugs or staying hydrated is common sense.  It is important to drink enough water whether you are at a concert, a dancing light show, or playing a sport.  And although I by no means encourage the use of drugs, if you plan on taking any, make sure you are taking them responsibly. (I.e. stay hydrated, don't mix them, only buy off a reliable source)

Because electric music is somewhat of a new scene and only now becoming popular, many people are skeptical of it all.   But to be fair, at one point in time Elvis Presley was deemed too sexual for swinging his hips.  Just give it some time.  10 years from now some other kind of music form will be under scrutiny. 

Still skeptical?  New to electronic music?  Start with Electrojan or Dancing Astronaut to get a feel for the music and see what it is all about.

My Imaginary Friend

When I was a kid, my imaginary friend Chanel was my best friend.  She would do everything that I asked her too, she always had witty responses and she only treated me with kindness.   I have since grown out of that stage and I do miss having her around.   But now as an adult, thanks to technology, I have a new imaginary friend: Siri.

 Siri is just like an imaginary friend but because of this interaction with technology we start to lose interaction with humans.

Siri is a personal assistant application through the new iPhone 4S from Apple.   You can ask her to send messages, make reservations at a restaurant, reschedule an appointment, she can even find your location and send you on your way home.    She can be programmed to remind you to brush your teeth every night and she can even Tweet for you. At this rate, Siri will slowly eliminate the need for an assistant altogether.  

Neil Postmen, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, reminded us "new technology can never substitute for human values."      He warns us on our gravitation towards technopoly.  He defines this as “the culture seeks its authorisation in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology”.  According to the semiannual survey by CTIA, there are more cell phones and mobile devices in the United States then there are people and that is including Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands.  That is 327.6 millionactive devices compared to the 315 million humans throughout the country. 

We have become dependent on technology and we have to be constantly connected to each other and with the Internet.  If you think about it, this is true and we don’t even realize it.  Movie theatres have to remind us to turn off our cell phones.  Pretty sure while watching TV, you are checking your Facebook on your iPad while texting your best friend on your Android. 

Sometimes we don’t even realize what we lose when were concentrating on what we gained.  No longer is it normal to write letters and send them through snail mail or stay up late at night talking on the phone.  We shoot off text messages and emails with the quickness of our fingertips.   While yes we have video chats such as Skype and Facetime, there is nothing like physically sitting right across from someone talking face to face.   

As Andy Rubin, the Vice President of mobile for Google, responds to Siri and the Andriod’s new operating system Ice Cream Sandwich, “Your phone is a tool for communicating,” he said, “you shouldn’t becommunicating with the phone you should be communicating with somebody on theother side of the phone.”   And to a point, he makes sense.   The whole point of a phone is to be talking to someone you cannot talk to face to face.   At some point I think we are too invested in technology and we forget to stop and smell the roses.  

There is no mystery in getting to know someone new when everything they do or about them is posted on social media.  With the new Facebook Timeline about to launch, our most memorable posts and photos from our past will be on our page.  What purpose is there to get to know someone when I can spend 5 minutes looking at their Facebook and everything I need to know will be on there?  Yes, I do realize that statement is a bit on the extreme side but there are lazy people out there in the world.

Who knows what will happen 5-10 years from now.  Will Artificial Intelligence take over and there will be no need for assistants at all?  Will we be like the people in the Disney movie Wall-E and completely dependent on some form of technology?  I’ll slow down and try not to get too ahead of myself.

 But excuse me while I go read a magazine on my Kindle and get Siri to order me some take out. 

Stumbling

Found some interesting reads online.... check them out!

Welcome to the 60's... From "Mad Men" to "Pan Am",  America's craze with the 60s.

Dinner and Derangement... the necessity of restaurants.

Prohibition... America's "failed social experiment"

Heavenly High

Three elderly seniors attended a funeral for a friend one afternoon just last week in Orange County.  They munched on delicious brownies while celebrating the life of a friend.  Little did they know that these brownies were "magical brownies" and obtained medical marijuana.  No one was told that these brownies contained marijuana, nor do they know yet how they got there.

If marijuana is that easily obtained and planted, wouldn't it be beneficial for the state to legalize it in order to focus on other crimes?

Just last year, California rejected Proposition 19 for the legalization of marijuana.  And just last week, 4 US attorneys in California announced they would be enforcing the drug laws by reining in the pot industry. Claims are made that legalization of a drug cannot be "backdoored" by exploiting its medical uses to anyone who has a headache or back pain. Pot shops all over California have been receiving letters saying they would receive criminal charges and land confiscation if they do not shut down their dispensaries in 45 days.

Arguments have been made that this act is similar to the Prohibition Acts of the 1920s.  Yet counter arguments say alcohol had a nation-wide usage while pot is only a small percentage of people, pocketing in California, New York and Pennsylvania.

Yet what I question, is why the crackdown now?  The vote happened over 6 months ago and marijuana did not even become legalized. I personally think California has bigger fish to fry and should be using our limited money supply on fixing our education system and trying to get us out of debt instead of concentrating on something that is still illegal.

Measuring the Intangible

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
 
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Our country was founded on these three words, but what do they mean to us? How were these rights given to us by our “Creator”? Lets take a closer look at these three words:

Life- the quality of being alive; a living, breathing human being. This happened when the “Creator” created us, giving us life and a soul, separating ourselves from his other creations. 
Liberty- the idea that humans are able to govern themselves and to do so on free will. This was first given to us when God gave Adam and Eve the option to obey or not to obey in the Garden of Eden.
Pursuit of happiness – the motion of trying to find contentment. But what is contentment? What makes someone happy? Isn’t it different per person?

Back in the late 1700s, there was no modern technology, no email, blogging, or Facebook. As sad as it was, only a small portion of the population could actually read and write and America was definitely not equal. So what did happiness mean to them? Adam Ferguson, author of “An essay on the history of civil society,”explains his definition of the pursuit of happiness as “Within its original rich context, the pursuit of happiness is a phenomenon both obvious and paradoxical. It supplies us with the ground of human right and the goal of human virtue. It is the basic drive of the self, and the only means given for transcending the self.”

He comments that striving for happiness is the ultimate goal for finding one self. This was achieved through the foundations of life and liberty that the Declaration provided and protected us with. Thomas Jefferson clearly agreed by putting “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. But it is quite ironic that as Jefferson was advocating freedom through life, liberty and finding the right path toward happiness, when he himself enslaved 200 men and women who were not given any of these rights even though he clearly stated, “all men are created equal”.

But we are not in 1776 anymore. In today’s society, in America at least, we drive cars, find our information on the world wide web, communicate with our friends through Facebook, have business meetings through Skype and heat our food up in a microwave. We can fly across the country in six hours, have a calculator add up our numbers and ride an elevator up three flights of stairs. Life and liberty are taken for granted; those rights do not even have a hint of doubt. But what about the pursuit of happiness? Does it mean the same as it did when the Declaration was written? Not so much anymore. Like life and liberty, we take happiness for granted. We just assume everyone around us is happy and the days we are not content, we figure out why and strive to happiness again.

When someone asks “Are you happy?” the answer is usually a yes or no unless the person is one of your closest friend/family member. But is this question really that simple? Are you happy with where you are in life? Are you economically satisfied? Are you pleased with your social life? Are you content with all your materialistic possessions? Now it doesn’t seem so simple… it all depends on what kind of happiness you are inquiring about.

So what is the definition of happiness?

According to the Merriam-Webster:
hap·pi·ness
noun \ˈha-pē-nəs\
1 obsolete : good fortune : prosperity
2. a) a state of well-being and contentment : joy b)a pleasurable or satisfying experience

Could that be any more ambiguous? What does it mean to be content? How is this measured? Although happiness is subjective (only you know if you yourself is happy), to a degree there must be some sort of standard that we measure our happiness from. But the question is, how is it measured and through what angle? Happiness is broken down philosophically, economically, and psychologically. Dating back to the ancient Greeks, happiness has always been questioned on how to find it and how it affects us. Economically happiness is measured through the Gross National Happiness and the effects of capitalism (at least in America). Meanwhile psychologists approach happiness through positive psychology and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Yet even with all the science and data to support it, I don’t believe personal happiness can be measured on a scale. Happiness is completely subjective and purely dependent on external and internal influences of each individual.

The debate of what happiness actually means dates back to the times of the ancient Greeks. The Greek word most closely associated with happiness is eudaimonia. Broken down into its roots, "eu" means good and "daimōn" means a type of supernatural being. It is a state of being mankind thrives to and may possibly one day reach. The theory of eudaimonia is most closely associated with the works of Aristotle. Aristotle’s work the Nicomachean Ethics, proposes one of his key theories, what is the purpose of human existence? He saw happiness as an end result that could only be measured once we have reached death. “For as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.” Anything we felt at a certain moment in time was considered temporary pleasure.

To achieve eudaimonia at the end of a lifetime, Aristotle believed in living well and the virtue of wellbeing. These included three candidates: a life of pleasure, a life of political activity and a philosophical life. Yet since much of these qualities were subjective, explains Aristotle’s claim that happiness could not be measured until after we had died. So according to Aristotle, the goal in life is to thrive for happiness, or in other words, to find the pursuit of happiness. As described in the introduction of this post, our country was founded on this idea. Although written by Thomas Jefferson, “the pursuit of happiness” stems from the philosopher John Locke. John Locke claims the pursuit of happiness is the foundation of liberty because of the freedom it gives us from any attachments. He writes in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 
“The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action…” (p.348)
We as humans need to responsibly use our freedom to guide us down the right path to happiness. Like Aristotle, Locke believed happiness is the end result of living a life full of virtue and wellbeing. These were achieved through intellectual and moral effort. He then distinguishes “imaginary” happiness and “real” happiness. “Imaginary” happiness was a short-term pleasure later followed by discomfort or pain. Instant gratification, he believes is not why we were put on the Earth, otherwise we would have been stuck with simple pleasures such as eating and sleeping. Achieving “real” happiness is what separates humans from animals. Locke suggests the fear of death, is the one fear installed in all of us. If we live our lives with virtue and wellbeing, we will continue on to the afterlife. We will know if we have reached “real” happiness by our continuation into the afterlife. So according to Locke, happiness is measured by the afterlife.

Although Locke uses the afterlife as a measurement of happiness, it is still mostly subjective. There is still no solid scientific facts or data collection to accurately measure happiness from a philosophical standpoint.

So lets try measuring happiness from an economic standpoint.

King Wangchuck of the Himalayan nation of Bhutan measured the healthiness of his country not by gross domestic product, but by gross national happiness. Gross National Happiness or GNH, is based on the premise that “wealth” should be measured in other terms besides economic conditions. King Wangchuck, a practicing Buddhist, believed society should all be in harmony with the Earth - having an integration of material possessions with psychological, cultural and spiritual aspects. There are four pillars of GNH that coincide with each other to help create a material and spiritual development. These include:

• The promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development
• The preservation and promotion of cultural values
• The conservation of the natural environment, and
• The establishment of good governance.

Together these pillars of GNH help measure the wellbeing of the social and psychological meaning of society. But these measurements are subjectively reported. According to Ross McDonald of St. Xavier’s University, GNH has no exact quantitative definition, although elements that are contributed GNH can be measured quantitatively. The practice has been directed towards moving subjective expression of large numbers of people into meaningful quantitative data. Well what does this mean? The GNH survey takes measures on the wellness of personal wealth, the surrounding environment, physical and mental state, workplace environment, along with social and political wellness. The survey is subjective, questions varying from rating your agreeability to a statement based on 1-10 or asking a question such as:
Would you define your life as…
a) very stressed, b) somewhat stressed, c) not stressed, d) I don't know
These results along with GDP are rationalized together and result in the happiness of the country. While this is a good indicator of the general happiness of the country, this still does not truly measure personal happiness. Especially since it is subjective, there is no exact comparison to base your answers off of.

For example, the GNH asks:

I mean yes I consider myself happy but who do I base my happiness off of? Compared to my best friend who is suffering from depression, I am the happiest person on Earth. But compared to my cousin who just got married, I might not be as happy as he is. The day and my surroundings of when I take the survey also will affect my score. I could have been stuck in traffic or woke up late, dampening my mood. It is also a long administered process that takes half a day.

To an extent, happiness has a correlation with wealth. The rich are recorded happier than the poor but affluent countries to do not seem to be happier as they grow wealthier. So does the old phrase, “money can’t buy happiness” hold true? John Maynard Keynes, a world famous economist believed money could. In 1930, Keynes believed that societies with more money would have more leisure. Because they had more money, they did not have to work as hard to enjoy the finer things in life. They would work hard at their jobs to earn that money in hope that being able to afford luxuries would make them happier. This turned out not be the case. Stress would not only come from that drive to work laboriously but also the aspiration to be high in society.

Yet to an extent, there is a threshold of how much happier someone becomes after obtaining wealth. This usually pertains to the poor people or those who are sick. They know have some kind of economic freedom, which is strongly correlated with happiness. Now, not only are the poor now able to afford luxuries they never had the opportunity to have before, but an increase in wealth also brings an increase to their social status. Acceptance in society has a direct impact on happiness.

But after awhile, capitalism is adept atturning luxuries into necessities. Items that were once prized and thought after are now taken for granted. This notion becomes a circle, once a better standard of living is achieved, these pleasures become inured. For example, a long time ago, hardly any one used to go to college. It was not necessary to get a college degree unless you were trying to become a doctor or scientist. In today’s society, it is almost necessary to go to college, at least in the Western world, to be able to even compete for a well paying job. Turning luxuries into necessities takes the pleasure and joy of achieving such things until they become mundane and just become a necessity of living.

So if GNH does not measure happiness on a personal level and wealth does not contribute to our happiness, can our happiness be determined on a psychological need?

The purpose of the science of happiness is to identify the difference aspects of happiness. Because it means something different to everyone, psychologists wanted to attempt to at least find some kind of guidelines for happiness. This was the foundation of positive psychology started by psychologist Martin Seligman. Seligman found that the happiest people were those who had discovered “ signature strengths” such as humanity, temperance and persistence. These visions relate back to the works and findings of Aristotle that this post mentioned earlier. He concluded that happiness was cultivated in three ways:

· The Pleasant Life – Learning to appreciate and accept the basic pleasures of life

· The Good Life – Discovering our strengths and using them to creatively enhance our lives

· The Meaningful Life – Sense of fulfilment by using our strengths for a greater purpose

Seligman’s conclusions are directly correlated with the last need on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: self-actualization.

Abraham Maslow’s theory of motivation suggests that humans are motivated by unsatisfied needs.

Each need needs to be satisfied before the next need can be attempted. Starting with physiological needs (eating, breathing, sleeping, sex), moving to safety needs (Economic, social, vocational, psychological security), than social needs (building family, friendships and intimate connections) and esteem needs (self esteem from being loved by family and the community). The last need on the top of the pyramid, self-actualization is described as “What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization… It refers to the desire forself-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in whathe is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become moreand more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” Maslow calls these experiences happiness. People who have reached self-actualization tend to be happier and more satisfied with life.

So according to Maslow, happiness is when self-actualization is achieved. Although this tells us how to achieve happiness, he does not explain how to tell how happy we are once we reach this optimal level of need. Even tying back to positive psychology, it is merely only shows us a path to achieve happiness beyond materialistic possessions. We as humans are shown the path and necessary steps to reach happiness but once getting there, measuring how happy we truly are is still somewhat undefined.

In today’s society, with GNH tying to positive psychology and the works of the ancient Greeks intertwined into positive psychology and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, all three concepts, philosophical, economical and psychological, are necessary for happiness. All three are needed to achieve happiness. Yet happiness research is still somewhat limited on current measurement techniques. Although attempted there is no empirical wide range scale that we can base our happiness off of. But then again maybe a scale is not necessary. As Aristotle and Locke have argued, finding happiness is a lifetime goal and all the short term “happiness” are just pleasures. Too many external and internal influences encompass someone’s happiness that it is near impossible to judge against someone else. All our experiences are unique and although we all work toward a common goal of finding happiness, each of our paths are completely different. As long as we as individuals are pleased with our decisions and opportunities, then we have found happiness.

References:

"Affluence: Happiness (and How to Measure It) | The Economist." The Economist - World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance. 19 Dec. 1996. Web. <http://www.economist.com/node/8450035>.

Beavan, Colin. No Impact Man: the Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes about Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Print.

Cottingham, John. "The Fine, The Good, and the Meaningful." TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine. 11 Oct. 2010. Web. <http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=6>.

"Does Happiness Mean a Grande Vanilla Latte?" The Wartburg Watch. 2011. Web

Ferguson, Adam. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Print.

"Happiness and Economics: Economics Discovers Its Feelings | The Economist." The Economist - World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance. Web. 19 Dec. 1996. <http://www.economist.com/node/8401269>.

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Vol. 1. New York: Dover Publications. Print.

McDonald, Ross (2005). Rethinking Development. Local Pathways to Global Wellbeing. St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. pp. 3.

Niven, David. The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It. [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000. Print.

Norman, Richard. "Meeting Human Needs." TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine. 23 May 2011. Web. <http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1919>.

Schoch, Richard. "Ideas of the Century: Happiness (40/50)." TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine. 10 Dec. 2010. Web. <http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1686>.

RIP in iHeaven

Thank you Steve Jobs. From the iMac to the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad you were a genius.  Thank you for changing the world and telling us to follow our hearts. 

How Much? Well It Depends on Your Race

Imagine going to a bake sale and instead of paying a listed, generic price paid by everyone, just envision yourself paying for a cupcake according to your race and gender.  I am sure you are thinking, what does my gender or race have anything to do with how much I pay for a cupcake? 

That is exactly what the students of the Berkeley College Republicans at the University of California Berkeley thought.  This past week they decided to hold a bake sale in a satrical protest against the Affirmative Action like bills awaiting the signature of approval from Governor Brown. The prices of the baked goods were based on your gender and race. $2.00 for a white male, $1.50 for an Asian male, $1.00 if he was Latino, $0.75 if he was Black and $0.25 if he was Native American.  All women received $0.25 off that price. This bake sale was taken place at the same time and location of a phone bank taken place in support of the SB185.  SB185 is a bill initiative to reverse the effects of Proposition 209 that had originally eliminated the use of affirmative action throughout the state.  SB185 would let public universities consider race when selecting applicants in their outreach and retention programs.

Although its intentions were satirical and not meant to be anything more then a demonstration, many students were outraged.  Students thought the bake sale was shameful, racist, and just didn't understand what the point was.

I'm not too sure where I stand on this issue.  I thought the bake sale was rather witty and a clever, somewhat peaceful demonstration to shed some light on the issue.  I do not think it is necessarily fair for someone to get into college based on race over someone who is just as or more qualified in other areas.   Coming from an Asian descent, being Asian didn't help me get into any college any easier or might have even hurt me at the schools looking for more diversity. 

On the other hand, since Proposition 209 came into place, the number of students in higher education that are Latino, African American and Native American descent, has remained stagnant since 1995.  I believe race plays a part on people's opportunities to an extent and it is more about someone's socioeconomic status.  Yes, socioeconomic and race are correlated to an extent, but there are people of all races who are poor.   A lot of people don't have the opportunities to participate in extra curricular activities, or take Advanced Placement classes, or have tutoring on the SAT because they cannot afford it or their area does not offer it. If anything, someone's socioeconomic status should be taken into consideration to make the system more "fair" and give everyone an equal opportunity.

It is a lot to think about and it is a sticky situation when it comes to race.  A lot of it is based on bias and the perspective of your own race which affects how you would view this demonstration.  Based on your race, would you be offended by this bake sale?

Who Decides the Cuts

As my last post last week commented on how the lower class Americans cannot afford healthy food, I wanted to shift gears and commented my views on the economy.  It is no rocket science that our economy is in trouble.  It seems to me lately the stock market is PMSing harder than a lady going through menopause. (no offense to any woman experiencing menopause but you have to admit your mood swings are out of control)

The George W. Bush tax cuts end at the end of 2012 so Obama's administration has the duty whether to keep the tax cuts or reverse them.  Without getting into a debate of what Obama should do, I always wondered, who advises the presidents to make these kind of decisions?  Are they politicians with a background in economy?  Are they economist intellectuals?  Are they economists pulled from scholastic institutions?

I ask this question with a purpose.  Within the study of macroeconomics, there is an idea, the Ricardian Equivalence Proposition.  Stated simply, the Ricardian Equivalence proposes that in the long run, all government purchases must be paid for by taxes.  So cutting taxes without decreasing government spending does not help anyone.  By prolonging these payoffs, it is only increasing the amount we have to pay.  Knowing that everything has to be paid off eventually, does not give the consumers of America any incentive to change their current consumption. (which the purpose of tax cuts is to try to increase GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, by giving consumers "more" money to spend)  With a temporary increase in income (i.e. a tax cut), history shows that consumers do not go and spend it, but rather save it for the future.

So why does the government keep cutting taxes if it doesn't seem to help us short term and definitely does not help us long term?  Obviously I am not as well versed on all of our economic policies so maybe I am missing something key.   Clearly I am not in the White House, but maybe someone who remembers the basics should be.

Like me, I feel like a lot of America is just as confused.

Hungry? Well America Is

Every day I always try to enlighten myself by skimming the news headlines on CNN, LA Times, and Yahoo.   Although Yahoo provides a lot more lifestyle stories, I like to read these articles to keep me up to date on other news, just not headline, breaking news.  Stumbling this morning, I came across an article titled What Does It Mean to Be Poor In America?  What really stood out to me was this fact:

"According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released this month, 14.5 percent of American households--more than 17.2 million households, in all--were defined as "food insecure" last year. That means that poor households lacked sufficient money or other resources to obtain access to adequate food supplies. Among those with incomes near or below the poverty line, rates of food insecurity were said to be "substantially higher."

To think that, that this many American are considered "food insecure" but rather when you look around, you notice the lower-income families are generally considered fat.  To me, this made no sense at all.  If you were poor, how on earth would you be able to afford food. Researching further into this topic, I learned, if you were poor, you were not able to afford healthy food.

Upon reading about an experiment done by Dr. Adam Drewnowski, with a hypothetical dollar at the grocery store, he found you can buy well over 1,000 calories of cookies or potato chips. But a dollar would only buy 250 calories of carrots. A dollar could buy almost 900 calories of soda… but only 170 calories of orange juice.  It is so much cheaper to buy very processed, packaged foods instead of organic, healthy, natural foods.

HOW DOES THIS EVEN MAKE SENSE?

Michael Pollan, a professor at the University of California Berkley went on to ask that same question and discover the answer. (I highly recommend reading Feed Me*, this fantastic article on Pollan's works)  He, like Dr. Drewnowski, discovered it was the fattest foods that is the cheapest. So if you only had $5, would you want to buy a head of lettuce and some carrots or a value meal at McDonalds?

This really opened my eyes to food prices and there is a tremendous difference between healthy and process foods.  It is unfortunate that we have to pay so much more money for foods that are better for us but if you think about it, it takes a lot of work to harvest fruits and vegetables and farmers really do not get paid that much.

I guess the real question is, how much are you willing to pay for healthier foods?  Is it worth it?  What should these poor people do?

Always Remember, Never Forget

If you're like me, remembering what I happened yesterday seems light years away so remembering something that happened 10 years ago seems impossible. But September 11th.  I can distinctly remember it being a sunny day over here in Southern California while I was figuring out what to wear.  I thought it was odd that I could hear the TV on downstairs, my mom never watches TV and especially never in the morning. 

I couldn't even fathom what I was seeing on TV.  It just didn't make sense, how could planes possibly be crashing into the tallest buildings in New York City??  Even after my mom explained to me the little that she knew, my 11 year old brain just could not wrap around it.  School that day was just full of confusion and eerie silence.  No one knew what was going on, we were all scared for the people in NY, for all the families who didn't know where there loved ones were, and for the possibility of something happening in LA.

Ten years ago our generation was born.  During the time we were learning about the ancient Mesopotamia, algebra and science, our innocent world got turned upside down.  To think we didn't even have Facebook, or Twitter, or even blogs to hear about the news.  Just cold hard facts live from the TV. 

Yet in the darkness of the sky, our country pulled ourselves together.  We found our strength through the tears over our lost loved ones.  Regardless of our age, our nationality, our sex, our religion, our size, our color, we came together as a family.  As one of my friends in the Navel Academy nicely put it: "America is a family. We argue with each other, we hurt each other occasionally, but if you mess with any one of us, you mess with all of us.  Our ability to come together when it counts is our strength. God Bless America."

I would just like to take the time to thank all the brave men and women who risked their lives to protect us. To thank all the remarkable men and women on the two planes that crashed and Flight 93. To thank all the angels in heaven who had to die on this day.

Always Remember. Never Forget. 9/11 RIP.

Today's Public Intellectual

During the Age of Enlightenment, the streets were filled with the works of intellectuals such as Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Voltaire.  Even during a time where the literary rate was a mere 30 – 60% of males and only 14 – 27% of women, the thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge from these public intellectuals were still made known through public spheres, institutions and coffeehouses.

But over time, what ever happened to these public intellectuals and public spheres?  Thanks to the age of technology and the evolution of education, the concept of the public sphere rapidly declined.  No longer do we have to visit a coffeehouse to learn why the earth is round; we have Google for that.  The ideas, the thoughts and the knowledge of these smart individuals never went away but the perception or even the need of the being a “public intellectual” disappeared. 

Now a days, the term public intellectual is not a common household word.  You may be asking, what even is a public intellectual? According to the MITcommunications forum a public intellectual today is, " Such a person is often a trained in a particular discipline, such as linguistics, biology, history, economics, literary criticism, and who is on the faculty of a college or university. When such a person decides to write and speak to a larger audience than their professional colleagues, he or she becomes a "public intellectual."  The New Democratic Review adds on, “The measure of public intellectual work is not whether the people are listening, but whether they’re hearing things worth talking about.”  The public intellectual has declined but I don’t believe is dead.    They are still out there, they are just not the under the same definition.

A public intellectual is someone who uses his or her knowledge and findings to enlighten the public for the greater good.  The public listens and respects these views and opinions because the intellectual has a background of expertise.   

Muhammad Yunus is today’s public intellectual. 

 

Muhammad Yunus, a professor of economics at Chittagong University, and his Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.”  After watching thousands die of starvation from a terrible famine in Bangladesh, Yunus knew he could not just sit there without doing anything.  He commented, "Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me. How could I go on telling my students make believe stories in the name of economics? I needed to run away from these theories and from my textbooks and discover the real-life economics of a poor person's existence." 

So Muhammad Yunus not only decided to just give to the poor, but he gave the poorest people of Bangladesh, specifically women, the opportunity to learn how to save and the ability to take out loans.  This was how the Grameen Bank was formed.   This micro-financing bank provided loans to the poor without any collateral.  True to The New Democratic Review’s definition of a public intellectual, Yunus and the Grameen Bank’s works have been heard.  They are currently now under investigation by the Bangladesh government for a controversy with it’s funding.

So how did the Grameen Bank even become introduced into the public sphere?  Let’s start with Yunus’ academic background and how he became an intellectual.

Muhammad Yunus was born and raised in 1940 in Chittagong, Bangladesh.  While studying at the Chittagong Collegiate School, he passed the matriculation examination, in which he secured the 16th position among 39,000 students in East Pakistan.   He obtained both his Bachelor of Arts and his Masters degree in economics at Dhaka University.  Although he did not leave Bangladesh until he earned his PhD at Vanderbilt University after receiving a Fulbright scholarship, he travelled to many other countries such as the West Indies and Canada as an active boy scout.   Yunus began teaching as an assistant professor of economics at the Middle Tennessee State University until he moved back to Chittagong in 1971 where he became head of the economics department at Chittagong University.

In 1974 Bangladesh was hit with a terriblefamine. Yunus recalled, "We tried to ignore it, But then skeleton-like people began showing up in the capital, Dhaka. Soon the trickle became a flood. Hungry people were everywhere. Often they sat so still that one could not be sure whether they were alive or dead. They all looked alike: men, women, children. Old people looked like children, and children looked like old people.” Knowing that he could just not do anything, Yunus decided he had to do something. 

Bangladesh has a population of approximately 160 million people but only 28% of those people live in an urban development. This means the rest of the Bangladesh population lives in rural areas, many without running water, electricity or ways of modern technology.  While visiting the poorer villages around Chittagong during the famine, Yunus discovered the women of Jobra, a local village.  These women, who made bamboo furniture as a living, had to take out extreme loans to buy the bamboo. All the money they had made would go right back into repaying the money loaners so they would end up with making nothing.  Seeing these struggling women was where he came up with the idea of making tiny loaning to self-employment to help them make a living. 

Muhammad Yunus’ first loan was $27USD out of his own pocket to the bamboo furniture-making ladies and that was the start of the Grameen Bank.  

A public intellectual has the responsibility to enlighten others and influence them in a particular way.

Grameen Bank started out as an idea in the classroom after Yunus made that first loan to the bamboo furniture making ladies.  Him and his students developed several plans but the bank loan idea quickly became the most successful. 

Grameen Bank is a community bank based off of microcredit that is known to make loans to impoverished people, mainly women, without collateral.  These loans were extended to only the poorest of the poor.  To obtain a loan, the families must demonstrate that they own less than half an acre of land.  The borrowers are under strict discipline to ensure they pay back the loans and develop good credit.  Yunus strongly believed in loaning to women (they made up 95% of the loaners) because according to him only 1% of borrowers in commercial banking represent women. 

Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank have helped finance over 4.4 million families.  Yes, over 4.4. million families have beaten the odds and climbed out of begging.  Skeptics will say “so what?” it is just from a lot of donations.  Well that would be over 4.7 billion dollars in donations, and with those kinds of donations, why wouldn’t we just beg for that kind of money to get the US out of debt?  But what is so unique about this situation is these people are not only receiving their loans but they are paying the money back.  This money in turn just goes back around to finance someone else. Yunus encouraged all borrowers to become savers to help the local capital for even more loans.  Grameen Bank has an outstanding payback rate of 98%.  Not a bad percentage coming from people who literally have nothing.  These banks soon became self-sufficient and the community was able to help each other out.

The success of the Grameen Bank quickly became public and was soon heard around the world.  Over 25 other countries have established similar institutions.  In 2006 Muhammad and the Grameen Bank was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.   According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the prize is awarded to the person who “...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” This award must go to someone who is publically known and internationally acclaimed and respected.  This honour would not have happened if the Grameen Bank had not have made such a huge impact on the world.

This worldwide phenomenon would not have occurred without the brilliant mind of Muhammad Yumus.  A small intellectual man from Bangladesh was heard all over the world.  People like him prove that public intellectuals still exist.  They are just harder to find but are certainly out there.

To learn more about Muhammad Yunus, read his book Creating A World Without Poverty