The Difficult Transition of #BlackLivesMatter from Spontaneous Protests to Racial Justice Movement

I've lately thought about and discussed the issue of racial justice with a number of different people. One thought keeps cropping up: what happens if the current collective outrage never translates to meaningful action? What if, like Occupy Wall Street around the world, the passion of millions of protesters fizzles for lack of cohesion, and their voices become no more than a paragraph or a footnote in the annals of history?

Here's a pithy, rather spare think-piece to get us started:

http://mic.com/articles/107382/black-lives-matter-must-move-beyond-protests-or-risk-losing-the-fight-for-racial-justice

People like to compare the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. They bear depressingly apt similarities, despite taking place fifty years apart; both protest the unequal treatment of African-Americans in this country, especially by the government or law enforcement. However, the most crucial difference between the two is: the Civil Rights Movement was carefully coordinated and led by a group of activist organizations, including the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. A huge factor in their success was their ability to stage massive protests and rallies across the country over the course of many years, put forth specific and actionable demands, and apply sustained pressure on relevant politicians to meet these demands. This is virtually impossible for a movement without some form of centralized leadership.

The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were far more than human embodiments of their cause. These men and women were organizers, negotiators, motivators -- and tragically, often martyrs, too. When Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington, it was understood that he spoke with the collective voice of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. Because he and his fellow leaders so clearly expressed what they were hoping to accomplish with the March, the government had no choice but to respond; indeed, King's speech and the March are historically credited with securing the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Black Lives Matter thus far lacks this level of specificity in terms of goals or action plans, in large part because it, like Occupy Wall Street, has no spokesperson with whom the government can negotiate. They are doing a good job of advocating for body cameras on police officers, but otherwise, have been unable to articulate or agree on a set of actionable demands, and would find it difficult to hold the government accountable for hypothetical promises to address said demands. These movements start by channelling the frustrations and desires of the people at large, but can only grow into effective organizations if they are willing to move on from 100% spontaneous, grassroots advocacy to a more centralized system. Not all members of the movement can be equal; there must be somebody vested with the authority to make decisions and speak for the group. Every democracy elects a leader -- a social movement can be no different if it is to be sustainable.

It's much like the crucial difference between rebellion and governance: rebellion is the tearing down of an unjust system, while governance is about building a just (and importantly, stable) system. Rebellion is the easy part; destruction requires much less long-term planning. Building something new -- whether a new piece of legislation or a new world order -- calls for a much more comprehensive vision, and the capability to slog through the unglamorous legislative and administrative processes of achieving it. Idealism isn't enough: it requires tenacity, compromise, and specific skills that the body of protestors are unlikely capable of collectively wield.

This is why Occupy Wall Street petered out. That particular movement had issues, from the outset, with accepting a central authority that could harness the energy of the protesters and direct it towards specific policy goals. Many protesters were too suspicious of any sort of authority, any hint of inequality of position or platform. They couldn't recognize, to the detriment of the cause, that there are many shades of nuance between spokesperson and dictator, that one would not inevitably morph into the other by some Delphic slippery slope fallacy. Elevating a few key protesters to a position of power might have seemed inegalitarian at the time, but would have helped transform a movement based on outrage and sheer emotion into an organization, which would ultimately have achieved a greater and more lasting impact.

This is a lesson I dearly hope that the Black Lives Matter movement learns. Idealism can topple world orders, but pragmatism and dirty hands can build one anew.

The New Yorker: Why Abraham Lincoln Loved Infographics

A (too) short, intriguing piece on the early history of infographics and data mapping:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/why-abraham-lincoln-loved-infographics.html

As a consequence of the way our brains perceive our surroundings, we humans are visual creatures with a knack for finding patterns (sometimes even where they don't exist, hence conspiracy theories!). It's easy to see why infographics would appeal to those of us trying to make sense of large amounts of information, like leaders considering their constituencies and commanders looking over battlefields. I'd wager that infographics first came about in the late 1700s not because of any lack of interest in the format, but rather because it was significantly more difficult to gather the data necessary to populate them! Once there were more reliable and timely reports of populations, troop movements, &c., it seems inevitable that somebody would have had the notion to display the information in a visually succinct fashion.

The Civil War, by virtue of its chronological place in history, was the first major American engagement after the advent of proper infographics; it stands to reason that Lincoln would have been delighted with this useful new instrument at his disposal. It's also worthwhile to note that the Union Army would have been leaps and bounds ahead of the Confederates in its ability to gather the type of data best suited to infographics. Not only did the North have access to decades of records, it also had by far more extensive postal and transportation systems. Lincoln's maps and charts would have been significantly more comprehensive than what Jefferson Davis had.

Lincoln's extremely detailed slave population map

These days, we have precisely the opposite problem. Information is much easier to come by -- so much so that we're constantly inundated by facts and figures in the news. Infographics have become, rather than a tool for aggregation, a tool for selection and analysis. (This is, of course, aided by technologies unfathomable in Lincoln's time.) We like charts and graphs because they speak to that ancient part of our brains that latches onto patterns, turning the night sky into constellations and the landscape into mythology. They shape a flood of information into a cohesive narrative -- and narrative is essential to how humans define who we are and how we fit into this universe.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

The Renaissance Faire!

Last weekend, some friends and I went to the Renaissance Faire!

I've been to a few Faires over the years, both in California and here in New York. They're great fun -- cheesy as all hell, and you'll certainly be disappointed if you're a hard-core re-enactor or history buff who expects most everything to be historically accurate (that got me the first time, but I've learned to ignore it). There're all sorts of things to see -- human chess, birds of prey, dancing, acrobats, and even jousting.

Here I am at the archery range. The target is rather low to the ground. Full disclosure: the bow I'm using has a draw weight of only twenty pounds or so, and the fletching on the arrow is rather bent out of shape (not to mention that the entire kit is made of plastic!). I did ask for the heaviest bow they had on loan. (photo by Irina)

Here I am being kidnapped (and my bag being ransacked) by pirates! We are all too amused to look properly frightened/menacing. (photo by Irina)

And here is the castle and tourney field (click to enlarge). You can see the lions of England hanging from the castle walls, and the unicorn of Scotland above the stable doors. There was also a knight from France, and one from the Holy Roman Empire, though you can't see their heraldry in this shot. (photo by Deb and Terence)

I'm already looking forward to next year's Faire! Can't wait to break out the corset and skirts again. :-P

Reality, Relativity, and Light

I read José Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon last week -- in translation, of course, since I don't read Portuguese. It's excellent, and somewhat stylistically and structurally unusual. But I was struck, in particular, by this line, spoken to the protagonist by his lover (the relationship is rather more complicated than that, of course):

Switch on the light, she said, I want to know if this is real. (p264)

The relationship between any two people -- even within family, even between people who might have known each other their whole lives -- is a fragile thing. Within that relationship, there are layers of reality, of perception. It's a sort of relativity, even -- one that isn't governed by any laws of physics. His reality and hers could be completely different, and each moment's reality different from the next. It's odd to think that we can never know what another person's reality looks like; the closest we can come is to achieve an understanding of how our reality compares to what we perceive to be their reality, with full awareness that our vantage point colours our reading.

This is especially relevant to the subject matter because the 1147 Siege of Lisbon, about which the protagonist writes, was a manifestation of a centuries-old clash of cultures and religions, a battle between two peoples who understood the same God through different scriptures and different prophets. Elizabeth I once said, in another century about another religious conflict, "I would not open windows into men's souls." Such windows can only be approximated, even in the best of circumstances.

I'm also taken by the Saramago's use of light in this scene -- something one normally associates with visual art rather than with prose. It's ripe with symbolism; the notion of shedding light on something intangible, that our eyes can tell us about reality between two people, &c. I'm reminded of two things:

Perhaps we may frighten away the ghost of so many years ago with a little illumination...
~ "The Phantom of the Opera," Act I, Scene 1

So many years after the events of "The Phantom of the Opera," the very chandelier that was associated with the disaster perpetrated by the Phantom is now a source of illumination -- both as a refurbished light fixture, and as a window into the murky past, the audience's introduction to the story. Because it is an inanimate object with a lofty vantage point, it is, in a fashion, the impartial observer of the story. And yet, it is also a crucial "participant" in the story. Its impartiality is not so much due to its placement, a lamp hanging high above the human characters, but rather because it has no free will, no desires or motivations of its own.

The second thing is Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Our understanding of what goes on inside another person's mind is rather like to the prisoners' understanding of the shadows on the wall. Another person's reality undergoes several layers of translation before it becomes comprehensible to us; the "truth" is distorted by their perception, interpreted by their mind, conveyed by their words, filtered by our ears, and only then is it analyzed by our minds. Plato's prisoners are eventually unchained, but there is no way for any of us to overcome this process of interpretation. The amount that must get lost in translation is mind-boggling. It makes me wonder what a society of perfect communication (of telepathy, essentially) would look like.

Edit: Soon after writing this post, I chanced upon an io9 article about philosophical thought experiments: http://io9.com/9-philosophical-thought-experiments-that-will-keep-you-1340952809@AnnaleeNewitz. The third entry therein, "The Beetle in the Box" (aka the Private Language Argument), is very much like what I discuss above. The second entry, "Mary the Colorblind Neuroscientist" (aka the Inverted Spectrum Problem), is also quite similar to the Allegory of the Cave. It's well worth reading.

The Economist: On Pollution, China is Better and Worse Than We Think

I'm reading Jared Diamond's excellent book Collapse (you know it's important when it has its own Wikipedia page!), which devotes a whole section to the real sociopolitical dangers modern China faces as a result of environmental fragility and degradation. I rather serendipitously happened upon this article in The Economist, which discusses developments therein (both good and bad) since Collapse was published in 2005:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21583245-china-worlds-worst-polluter-largest-investor-green-energy-its-rise-will-have

I subsequently ended up thinking a lot about the subject, so I thought I'd muse about it in prose. (Sometimes -- very occasionally -- I miss writing essays for college history classes...) This post is rather long, so I've put it below the cut:

The Problem with Time Travel

I recently saw, and was amused by, this Abstruse Goose comic:

http://abstrusegoose.com/526

History buffs are often asked (in the process of making an acquaintance) what time period they'd like to inhabit, or at least to visit for a little while. I find that I tend to give answers as if I were white, male, and Christian (my main area of interest is pre-modern and early modern Europe). After all, the Scientific Revolution, or Republican Rome, or the Italian Renaissance are fascinating times to have been alive if you weren't being downtrodden, persecuted, or discriminated against. (I imagine that, being both female and Asian, I would have twice as much difficulty as either of the above characters. I wonder if the probability of death by persecution would increase logarithmically with each undesirable trait?) If I were to actually consider the logistics of visiting a particular time and place, I'd be largely limited to China and, well... there really isn't a good historical era in which to be female.

U.S. History, Minus the Dead White Men

Happy Independence Day -- which, in the United States, means that we celebrate the Founding Fathers and the revolutionaries of the 1770s -- all of them dead white men. In studying Western history, it's easy to assume that anyone of interest or significance was male and white (and Christian), because those were the voices which were heard. (History is written by the winners, the saying goes.)

I happened upon this blog, which showcases the overlooked, ordinary American women and people of color who made history in ways large and small:
http://ushistoryminuswhiteguys.tumblr.com

It's inspiring, to be sure. It's also fascinating, in that members of such minorities often achieved what they did in unorthodox ways, because the establishment wasn't built to -- or in many cases, refused to -- support their aspirations. And of course, these lives often make the best stories (click through, above).

BBC: A One-Way Trip to Mars

I've been reading Asimov lately, and consequently thinking about space colonization. One of the most often-cited barriers to human colonization of extraterrestrial worlds is the presumed lack of volunteers willing to make a one-way journey to another planet; it seems too conclusive, a course of action only the deeply desperate or truly dissatisfied would be willing to undertake. (Fortunately for human rights, but unfortunately for space colonization, penal colonies -- the interplanetary version of 19th century Australia -- don't seem to be a viable option.)

It seems, however, that not everyone shares said pessimism about human civilization beyond Earth:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120206-space-tourists-one-way-mars-trip

There are a number of examples of migration and settlement in human history that may be considered analogues of space colonization. The Thirteen Colonies, for example, were populated by settlers who never expected to return to their lands of origin, and who were largely unable to communicate with family and friends from their precolonial lives (a product of distance, the unreliability of mail delivery, and illiteracy). And yet, there was no shortage of people willing to make the trip -- there were convicts and bondsmen, to be sure, but also religious minorities, merchants, speculators, explorers, and all manner of people who believed that they could build a better life in the uncharted wilderness than in the known, civilized world. I don't believe that this strain of optimism and curiosity will have disappeared between then and whenever we are capable of sending colonists beyond our orbit.

Would I go? I must admit: probably not. I have too many Earthly attachments -- people, places, moments, experiences (especially people). I would have been reluctant, I think, even in the later eras of immigration by ship; see the song "Kilkelly." It's no coincidence that so many of the early colonists in North America were particularly fervent Protestants who believed that one's mortal existence was ultimately inconsequential (predestination, and the complete rejection of Catholic belief in deed as well as faith), or people with few ties to their original communities, for varying definitions of community. But in an age of faster interplanetary travel, I'd sure love to visit!

Also, I think the idea of sending a few intrepid journalists to document the development of the Martian colony is brilliant. It's not often that we get to study the development of a nascent civilization, and it would prove instructive to have such a chronicle on hand once the colonization of space really begins.

The article mentions a hypothetical poll; I would be very interested to see the results of that particular study. I'm especially curious as to the demographics of an all-volunteer Martian colony, and whether they would reflect a population roughly comparable to the New World colonists.

The Rise of Agriculture: the Worst Mistake in Human History?

I recently found this article by Jared Diamond, a scholar and writer I admire (famously the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel):
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

It's an excellent piece, and not too long, so you should read it for yourself! The gist of it is: structured, populous (agrarian) societies naturally develop lopsided hierarchies, putting a portion of the population at significant disadvantage (compared to the unstructured, sparsely populated communities of hunter-gatherers). The quality of life of the average hunter-gatherer was actually better than that of the average farmer, despite the relative sophistication of the latter's society; the reason for the prevalence of agriculture and husbandry over hunting and gathering is that "quality over quantity" doesn't apply when one population can overwhelm another by sheer numbers. (I bet Leonidas of Sparta would have something to say about that!)

Another interesting point Diamond raises is that gender dynamics tend to be more equal in hunter-gatherer societies -- partially because such conditions are less conducive to hierarchy in general (see above), and also because the practical day-to-day circumstances of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle cannot support any house-bound, "idle" population, be they women or an aristocracy. Women who had to be on their feet all the time simply couldn't bear as many children in quick succession -- especially since the children had to be as mobile/portable as everyone else. The patriarchy couldn't simply turn them into brood mares, because the women contributed valuable labor and the children had to be spaced at large enough intervals that their mothers only ever had to carry (whether in utero or on her back) one child at a time. (Methinks twins wouldn't have fared as well in these societies.)

This is actually quite relevant to our own times. Notice how, as women have become increasingly educated (on par with men, especially if we consider university completion rates) and increasingly productive in the work force (issues of equal pay aside), they tend to have fewer children, and said children are born later in the mother's life. Unchecked childbearing, it appears, has always been a way for the patriarchy to turn women into second-class citizens. (Anti-abortion/birth control Republicans, I'm looking at you!)

io9: Galileo's Ship Was One of the Oldest Relativity Though Experiments

It has always irked me, a little, when people claim that Einstein "invented" relativity. The man was a genius, to be sure, and contributed greatly to our understanding of general and special relativity in modern physics -- but the idea of relativity existed well before him. The term itself is quite broad, encompassing everything from temporal and spatial relativity to more nebulous perspective- and human interaction-based concepts; it hardly seems possible that despite hundreds of years of innovation in math and physics, relativity only arose within the past century. Certainly, there have been a number of similar (if more rudimentary) observations throughout history, such as Zeno's paradox(es). One of the oldest examples dates from the Renaissance:

http://io9.com/galileos-ship-was-one-of-the-oldest-relativity-thought-486468038

It sounds like a very low-tech version of Einstein's lasers-on-a-train thought experiment, doesn't it?

This brings to mind a blog post from about a year ago... Straying away from the sciences for a moment, relativity as an abstract concept -- even models of relative perspective uncannily like the sort of thought experiments Einstein proposed -- seems to have existed in the literary and cultural milieu for quite a while. It's reasonable to conjecture that there was some cross-pollination. (Eliot, for example, even drops an allusion or two to relativity in "The Waste Land.") The idea of relativity is marvelously intuitive (albeit in a slightly mind-bendy way) and quite useful in describing life alongside other sentient beings.

World War II in Real Time, 72 Years Later

If I used Twitter, this is one of the Twitter accounts I would most likely be following:
https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII

It's a "real time" update feed on the events of the Second World War, transposed exactly 72 years into the present day. It includes such gems as:

Athens rumour: Greek soldier Konstantinos Koukidis refused to raise swastika over Acropolis; instead leaped to death wrapped in Greek flag.
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 27, 2013

and

Noel Coward, UK actor & spy, reports from London: "At the Savoy. Pretty bad blitz, but orchestra kept on playing." twitter.com/RealTimeWWII/s…
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 20, 2013

and

Royal Canadian Mounted Police are hunting 28 escaped Luftwaffe airmen, prisoners from UK who've tunneled out of a PoW camp in remote Ontario
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 19, 2013

This is such an amazing project, not least because (I imagine) it takes a lot of research to put together. It appears to be a labor of love, or at least of deep fascination. I especially appreciate that it features events not typically covered in textbooks, true and relevant quotations, and lesser-known arenas of the war.

English Major Armadillo, or, Memes I Wish Would Catch On

I started reading this tumblr recently...

http://fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo.tumblr.com

I am so very amused. Now, should the question arise, I can tell non-bibliophiles that I am an armadillo (not this kind of armadillo, mind you). If not a separate species, certainly we're a tribe unto ourselves, at least on the internet(s). Exhibit A: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.

Someone please make one for history majors. How about History Major Kangaroo? Or History Major Hippopotamus (which has a nice alliterative ring to it)? (If there already is one, please do send it my way! One can never have too many nerdy web-humor sites bookmarked.)

Edit: There is one! It's called History Major Heraldic Beast, which is much cleverer than either kangaroo or hippopotamus.

NYTimes: Richard III, Lost and Found

In recent news -- making both archaeological and regular news headlines around the world -- the bones of Richard III were discovered under a parking lot in Leicester:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/world/europe/richard-the-third-bones.html?hp

I'm inclined to be more sympathetic towards Richard III than literature portrays him (Shakespeare's play was an instrument of the Tudor smear campaign against the Plantagenets). He probably suffered from "younger sibling syndrome," as did many "spare heirs" of monarchs in the Middle Ages -- see Scar vs. Mufasa in The Lion King (and play "spot the Shakespeare references"). This was also probably exacerbated by his uninspiring physical appearance -- see Tyrion Lannister in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. (Especially in those days, physical birth defects were seen as portents of ill fortune.) Richard came by the throne in a slightly roundabout way that involved some unsavory tactics; certainly, he can't have been completely innocent in the Princes in the Tower episode. But he was by and large a competent administrator who contributed significantly to the nascent English legal system and, notably, lifted most public and private censorship of written work -- not a move to be taken lightly, especially given the political turmoil surrounding his ascension and reign. He was ruthless, to be sure, sometimes excessively so, but his were much more violent times. (Nasty, brutish, and short would be about right.) Richard III was not, among his peers, particularly remarkable in his ruthlessness -- which the Tudors, Shakespeare, and partisan historians conveniently forget.

Anyhow. I imagine it must have been a fascinating experience for the modern-day descendants of Richard III, a few of whom contributed some DNA to the project.

BBC: Parisian Women Legally Allowed to Wear the Pants

There are a surprising number of antiquated laws in the books, in France and in any country (including the US) with a long legal history. A lot of these are along the lines of "morality" laws, faith-based laws, sumptuary laws, &c. -- laws that regulated behavior and are no longer compatible with modern notions of freedom of expression. Most of these were buried in reams of text and forgotten about as times changed and attitudes modernized, so nobody ever got around to changing them. Of course, because they seem so silly, few of these laws are actually enforced these days, which allows them to remain in the books until someone stumbles upon them, as in the case with Parisian women's pants (Trouser pants, not... underwear pants. In France, I imagine underwear might have a whole different set of laws, or lack thereof.)

Anyhow, there was apparently a ban on Parisian women wearing pants that was never stricken from the books until now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21329269

It reminds me of this book, which for some reason has been sitting on my sister's shelf for a good many years.

The Economist: Is the EU the Holy Roman Empire 2.0?

A thought-provoking historical perspective on the current economic and political situation in the EU:
http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568659-old-empire-offers-surprising-lessons-european-union-today-european-disunion-done

Several such entities have been attempted in Europe through its long history, from the classical Roman Empire to today's European Union. Though the continent derives some unity from its vaunted Greco-Roman roots, it contains a great deal of diversity in terms of language, ethnicity, culture -- all the necessary components of national identity. There are, in fact, a number of key differences (some articulated in the above article, some not) between the current EU and comparable historical entities (interestingly, they all begin with 'c'). Here's my (history buff's) perspective (it's longer than usual, so I've put it under the cut):

io9: Let's Bring Back the Greek Gods!

Because they were so much more interesting than the all-powerful monotheist deities people worship now!

http://io9.com/5974126/can-we-bring-the-greek-gods-back-please

Granted, religion isn't meant to be entertaining so much as to provide followers with a roadmap to a pleasant afterlife and an explanation for all questions not yet answered by science. But the Greeks had both those (well, perhaps not always the nicest afterlife) as well as extremely colourful and often interactive mythology. I don't fancy getting abducted by a Greek god, but going to an oracle sounds like quite the experience. (Then again, the oracle of Delphi was supposed to be on psychotropic fumes emitted by the volcanic vents in the area.)

In any case, it sure beats Calvinism!

Obituaries as a Measure of Gender Equality

I stumbled upon this article about feminism and obituaries (obits can be fascinating!). It's worth reading; it certainly made me stop and think:

http://jezebel.com/5967871/major-newspapers-dgaf-when-notable-women-die

I have two somewhat opposing assessments of the situation:

1. This not quite the catastrophe for feminism that the article makes it out to be, for historical reasons. The women who have died in the past several years were in their prime decades ago, before women were really in a position to establish themselves in the way men did. Women who died in the current century were likely in their prime in the 1950s and 60s -- in the days when universities, politics, technology, culture, and high-paying jobs in general were still dominated by (white, heterosexual) men, and when feminist ideals were just becoming part of mainstream American society. It makes sense that there were more "great men" than "great women" from that era, because women lacked opportunity. It takes a long time to solve for centuries -- if not millenia -- of gender inequality. If we could see the obituaries written half a century or a century from today (our own obituaries, or those of our younger siblings and possible children), the gender ratio will reflect the progress that has been and will continue to be made.


2. There are certainly women who achieved great things fifty years ago who have not been acknowledged, and who would probably not have been overlooked if they were men with similar accomplishments. They were neglected by a male-centric culture much as ethnic, religious, and other minorities were by a WASP-centric culture. The social changes that these women fought for were labelled "women's issues;" the literature that they produced was marginalized as "women's lit;" and the doctors, scientists, lawyers, writers, and intellectuals of the day were prevailed upon to pursue specialties that could be safely (if not correctly) considered, by their male counterparts, exclusively female territory -- areas such as obstetrics/gynecology, family law, romance novels, feminist criticism, &c. The fact that these specialties affect women more than they do men does not make them intrinsically any less important or valid in their respective fields; rather, they were systematically labeled as less valuable by the predominately male elite, whose opinions shaped the views of countless others -- male and female. Ergo, the writers of obituaries might consider a pioneer in obstetrics, say, less influential than one in cardiology. They might consider a women's rights activist less important than an environmentalist, or an anti-war protestor. Changing this mentality, which still affects women today, is necessary to achieving gender equality in symbolic as well as practical terms.

It is therefore important to acknowledge, in today's obituaries of famous women, the hurdles that they overcame in accomplishing what they did, even if obit columns feature a glaring lack of gender parity. The gender ratio of obituaries published in my lifetime will still be skewed, which makes each woman's obit more significant. (Here's to hoping that there are female obituary writers helping the process along!) Society seems to be, by and large, moving in the direction of greater equality; undoubtedly the day when obituaries achieve gender parity will come.

NYTimes: Genes on the March

A very interesting, if somewhat inaccurate (well, I'm just being nitpicky here) piece on genetic history, à la Mongolian warlord: 
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/genes-on-the-march/?hp

There's likely Khan blood somewhere in my family, though the probability's lower than that of the average Chinese, seeing as we're from the south. Even if there were, though, I doubt any of my relatives would be too pleased, given the most logical method of transmission, as it were.

Fire and Ice (by Robert Frost)

I presented this very famous poem today in a history class about Einstein and his work. It's a beautiful little piece, and it's interesting to consider in the context of relativity and nuclear technology. 

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost (1920)

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I'm doing my paper on the cultural conversation between 20th century literature and Einsteinian physics. Relevant authors (of which I'll be discussing some subset in the paper) are people like Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, T. S. Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, and of course, Robert Frost.

MSNBC: What Cars Would the Founding Fathers Drive?

Given what we know of the Founding Father's personalities, what kind of car would each of them drive, if they could? This slideshow offers some educated guesses:

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/what-would-our-founding-fathers-drive?icid=autos_2389

I'm not terribly familiar with cars, but the analyses of the various men's personalities are quite good. The entries on Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton, I think, capture them to a T. (The writer's clearly put effort into researching the piece -- see the James Monroe entry.)