Someone sent me this short video, and consequently I’ve been flushed out as a nerd! Yes, I am one of the few people who (a) HAS NOT seen The Matrix, and (b) who HAS read Nozick (I highly recommend The Examined Life). Anyway, the video is very short.

The only thing I’d add to it is that I think it is not only important not to give up reality for the illusion of happiness, but also not to refuse to embrace real happiness for the illusion of a miserable reality. As a person who believes I am living the only life I will ever have, I find that idea of passing up my real happiness in the here and now much too frivolous and cosmically ungrateful.

With that in mind, I’ll add one more video- a TED Talk I got to watch just yesterday. It has got me thinking about what would go into my own personal Happiness Index, along with that of the sort of community I’d like to belong to. Overlooking the sort of pro-government hogwash, there’s a lot of food for thought here.

There’s a lot wrong in the world these days. I prefer to look at these as opportunities to excel in putting them right- starting with the individual.

Just thought I’d post a picture of my through-the-wall solar oven taken back in 1997 or 1998, or maybe 1996, I think. Picture a box behind the people- that’s the oven part. You can see the collector and reflector. Those would be on the outside of the house while the oven cavity would be inside. It could also be used to heat the home by leaving the oven door off.

It is a completely passive solar setup. The reflector directs additional sunlight onto the collector below. the collector is housed in a compartment with two glazings (we used patio door glass) and is painted with a selective surface paint of high absorptivity (good at absorbing energy) and low emissivity (poor at radiating energy back out) thereby directing heat to the back of the collector. This sets up a natural convection in which air rises behind the collector as it heats up causing cooler air to descend in front of the collector until the air reaches a constant stagnation temperature in the oven. We were able to get temperatures greater than 400F in our oven. My notebook is packed away somewhere so I don’t recall the exact temperature we got to, but it was definitely reasonable for cooking.

There’s a little roadside burger joint in Fife, WA that is just plain brilliant. It’s called Pick Quick. One would not go amiss in thinking the name is a good hint about what you should be doing while you’re standing in line waiting for your turn to order. That’s right. You should be figuring out what you want so you’re ready to order when you get to the front. Unfortunately, when my friend E. and I went there this past summer, we got stuck behind a couple of women with a half dozen little rugrats or so who stood in line yammering until they got to the front upon which time they started thinking about what they might want to order for their group.

This brings us to the subject of today’s rant-tourism economics. Tourists, you need to understand that your dollar is not always the same as the next guy’s dollar in spite of what it says in green ink on the paper. Standing in line at the Pick Quick, it was easy for even the most casual observer to detect that most of the customers were hard-working locals, many blue collar, trying to grab a quick bite on their half hour or hour long lunch break. Many of them obviously were regulars, and nearly everyone I saw (other than these two women) were quick to order and ready to pay when they got to the front. Not so with the rugrat crew leaders. They wanted detailed descriptions of quaint ethnic items on the menu, such as the “corn dog”. They kept adding and subtracting items from the order seemingly randomly. And one of them wanted to argue about lettuce. Yes, lettuce.

Since we’re not standing in line holding up the lunch crowd here, I think some discussion of this is acceptable. Pick Quick does not have lettuce. This makes me, as a lettuce snob, very happy. I find pre-prepped lettuce, particularly the shredded variety, to be anywhere from pathetic to disgusting. But for an assembly line-style fast food setup, there’s really no alternative if you’re going to have lettuce at all. I am somewhat hit or miss in remembering to specify no lettuce when I order a burger, but at Pick Quick I’m covered because there is NO LETTUCE. FOR ANYONE!!! YAY! I LOVE YOU, PICK QUICK!

So this lady orders her burger with lettuce, upon which time she is politely informed that they do not have lettuce. And she wants to discuss it. No lettuce? What do you mean no lettuce? No lettuce at all? How can you not have lettuce? Listen, woman. They have NO LETTUCE. They are not hiding some secret VIP only lettuce in the back that you can get them to break out specially for you if you harass them enough. Just give it up and stop wasting everyone’s time. You’re not getting any damned lettuce here. If a limp, warm leaf of iceberg lettuce with no nutritional value is that important, go elsewhere and let everyone else get their lunch.

You are not special because you’re a tourist. In fact, at this particular place, you may be just the opposite because you’ll be here once and then never be seen or heard from again. The people in line behind you who will be back tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and next week may be paying the same price for today’s burger as you are, but their dollars are more valuable than yours because they are loyal customers. So get your shit together or don’t go to local joints like this. Don’t expect to be catered to because you have the same dollars as the guy who shows up two or three times a week or daily because your dollars aren’t equal to his.

And I say that as one of you- a non-local tourist type. But one who knows what she wants to order, can reel it off in 30 seconds or less, and has small bills to pay for it so she won’t clean out the register getting her change back.

Just a little note to say that although I did forget my password to this blog, I’m not dead yet. In fact, I’m having a pretty damned good life. Summer in Montana and the Pacific Northwest? I mean how can you beat that???

I think I will probably start blogging again soon, though. I have a few topics brewing in my head that don’t parse well into 140 character sound bites. Also, there will probably be a bunch of pictures coming down the pipeline at some point.

I am rarely sick, but when I am I find myself craving miso soup like nobody’s business. Unfortunately, I have never actually lived near miso soup, and as best I can tell I currently live almost an hour and a half away from my closest miso soup vendor. I have tried packets of instant miso soup with no satisfaction. I recently issued a desperate plea for help which was answered by M.R. Jarrell who pointed me to Alton Brown’s miso soup recipe and the dashi recipe required to keep it 100% from scratch. I made a couple of modifications to turn it into the miso soup I’ve always wanted but never had. All the variations I’ve had were good, but either lacked mushrooms or contained tofu or both.

Here is what I turned out with step-by-step instructions. I was able to find all the ingredients at the Good Food Store in Missoula, MT.

Dashi
Ingredients:
2 (4-inch) square pieces kombu
2 1/2 quarts water
1/2-ounce bonito flakes

Directions:
Put the kombu in a saucepan (at least 4-quart) or stock pot, cover with the water and soak for 30 minutes.

Heat on medium until the water reaches 150 to 160 degrees F and small bubbles appear around the sides of the pan, 9 to 10 minutes.

Remove the kombu from the pan. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil, 5 to 6 minutes.

Reduce the heat to low and add the bonito flakes. Simmer gently, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes.

Strain through a fine mesh strainer lined with muslin or several layers of cheesecloth.

Miso Soup
Ingredients:
2 quarts dashi
6 tablespoons dark or red miso
2 tablespoons light or white miso
4 scallions, thinly sliced
5-6 mushrooms thinly sliced
toasted nori strips

Directions:
If cool, heat the dashi over medium-high heat. If still hot, let the dashi cool. When the dashi reaches 100 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, ladle 1 cup into a small bowl.

Add the miso, and whisk until smooth. Do a good job here so your final product doesn’t come out lumpy.

Bring the remaining dashi to a bare simmer, approximately 10 minutes. Add the miso mixture and whisk to combine.

Return to a slight simmer, being careful not to boil the mixture. Add the mushrooms and scallions and cook for another minute or until heated through.

Add a few toasted nori strips to the bottom of each soup bowl.

Remove from the heat, ladle into bowls and serve immediately.

I found this miso soup to be much more delicious than any of the instant packets I’ve tried and comparable to any restaurant version. The main differences I found were that this one was slightly less salty than restaurant versions I’ve had, not necessarily a bad thing, and when I had a second bowl I noticed a fair number of lumps. I’m not sure if those would have been solved by more whisking before adding the miso mixture to the soup, or if those happened because the soup had cooled a bit. Overall, I am very happy with the final product, and I will definitely be making it again.

There has been a dearth of posts, lo, these last few months, such that I deserve to be on my Blogs in Hibernation list. I have been traveling a lot, working a lot, and generally trying to spend less time “living in my head” and just “living.” It has been very enjoyable. I have been taking a lot of pictures and a little bit of video, though, and I’ve been trying to edit it all together into something presentable. Two of those efforts are ready to go, and this is the first.

This is a slideshow from a winter bonfire I attended in January near Helena. Photos were taken by me and E. who was nice enough to take a turn handling the camera. If you’re able to view it full screen, I think it’s really worth it. Click the button in the lower right corner with the four arrows to go to full screen. This was meant to be viewed to a particular tune I picked out for it, but I’m not willing to risk thousands of dollars in fines for the privilege of sharing music I’ve already paid for once. If I see you in person, though, and you would like to see it as it was meant to be seen, just let me know.

A friend of ours has been having all manner of trees on her property, which have died due to bark beetle infestation, cut down and stacked as firewood. This bonfire was one of many she has had to burn the limbs and pine needles left behind. Quite a beautiful sight in photos; even more amazing in person.

How NOT to Win the Nobel Peace Prize

Calling Off the Wolf at the Door- A look at Defenders of Wildlife’s strategies with respect to grey wolf reintroduction and management.

American Violet- The story of a woman who was falsely arrested in a race- and class-based drug sweep, refused to take a plea bargain and fought back at great risk.

Immigration, Property Rights, and Freedom- The first in a series of posts on immigration and freedom. This one addresses the excuse of tax-funded social services as a reason for keeping the borders relatively closed.

You can comment here if you want, but I’ll keep my discussion limited to the comments sections for those posts at Fr33 Agents so I recommend posting over there instead. No registration is required.

Does anyone who cares have a particular preference? Registration is not required to read or comment at fr33agents.com.

I have had many discussions with people who harbor anti-Muslim prejudice over the last few years, and I have long felt inadequate in holding up my argument. I am disturbed that many of the folks I’ve talked to are unable to see past a billion person mass collective of Muslims and view them all in one bad light. I felt it simply wasn’t possible that a billion people- or even a significant majority of a billion people- hate their daughters enough to sell them into marriage or kill them for some fucked up notion of honor or that sort of thing. Yes, I was sure that went on, but is that horrifying portrayal representative of Islam? I doubted it.

I went to an all-female Catholic high school in the 1980s. A girl named Susan was in my class and was one of my acquaintances. We didn’t do things socially outside of school, but we chatted at lunch and in homeroom and that sort of thing. Early in my freshman year I learned that she was not Catholic when she got stuck with extra work in religion class memorizing the Holy Mary and the Our Father and things like that. It wasn’t until later in the year that I learned she was Muslim when I asked why she hadn’t been eating lunch the last few days (fasting during Ramadan).

This girl’s Muslim family was paying thousands of dollars a year to put her through a Catholic school because it was the only college preparatory school available to their daughter at the time. Obviously they valued education for their daughter and were not terribly hostile toward her learning in depth about a conflicting faith. She took four years of Catholic theology classes right along with the rest of us. She wore the same uniform as the rest of us with plenty of arms, legs, face, neck and her hair showing. Like the rest of us, some of her classes included guys from the all-male Catholic school next door. If she or her family harbored some deep hatred of us, our religion, or our culture, it was sufficiently well-hidden as to be completely undetectable to my 13-17 year old self. To this day, I cannot resolve this family with a picture of Islam as a religion of hatred, intolerance and violence.

Admittedly, this was just a data point. But those I talk to likewise tend to fall back on anecdotes that fail to provide a big picture. This kind of discussion is not terribly useful, and I have been meaning to educate myself on the issue in more depth for some time.

This fairly brief yet deeply informative talk by Ms. Mogahed provided an inspiring yet evidence-based introductory picture of the Muslim world. I have never been so deeply moved by simple data. I am more optimistic about the future of the world than I have been in a long time- certainly the most I’ve been since 11 September 2001. I would like to share a few highlights of why I was so encouraged.

1. When asked, “What do you admire most about the West?” Muslims surveyed ranked technology first and liberty/democracy second. Americans surveyed shared these same top two answers but in the reverse order. Further, when asked that if they were drafting a constitution for a new country, would they guarantee freedom of speech, defined as “allowing all citizens to express their opinions on political, social, and economic issues of the day,” a vast majority of Muslims said they would include that.

Why I am encouraged by this: This flies in the face of the hard-peddled notion that “they hate us for our liberty” and instead demonstrates evidence of common ground.

2. When asked whether the 9/11 attacks were justified (scale of 1-5), Muslims who responded that the attacks were completely justified represented just 7% of respondents. 55% said that the attacks were completely unjustified. Moreover, of the group who believed the attacks to be completely justified, not a single respondent, when asked about the reasoning for their response, gave a religious reason. The reasons of all these respondents were secular, for example, political grievances. On the other hand, moral/religious objections were common among respondents who said that the attacks were in any degree unjustified, with many of them citing specific passages in the Koran to support their objections.

Why I am encouraged: The data indicates that sympathy for terrorism does not correlate with religiosity. We are not going to change the religion of a billion people any time soon. On the other hand, political grievances can be addressed and alleviated much more quickly. The thing that is more resistant to change is actually a benefit to the world in this case, conflicting with extremism, whereas the problem is much more susceptible to change.

3. Mainstream media portrayals of Muslims have failed to represent the Muslim world with any reasonable degree of accuracy. In a survey of the U.S. media, 53% of the time Muslims were represented by militants whereas 62% of the time Christians were represented by religious leaders. Yet militants are only a tiny, tiny fraction of the more than 1 billion people in the Islamic faith community. Further, in answer to a question from an audience member regarding why he heard no widespread condemnation of the attacks of 9/11 in the Muslim community, Ms. Mogahed pointed out that the leaders of virtually all major Muslim organizations around the world were quick to condemn the attacks, but clearly that did not get through to the public via the media.

Why I am encouraged: The mainstream media is losing its undeserved role as a gatekeeper of the flow of information. We have more opportunities than ever today to fact check the mainstream media and bypass it altogether in favor of primary sources. Pretty much anyone can disseminate information via the internet, and government is much less able to control and spin it. As an insomniac kid seriously worried about nuclear war, I would secretly stay awake late and eavesdrop from my bedroom while my parents watched Nightline because that was the only time it was on, and it was one of a very few sources of information available to me. That is no longer the case, and that has much improved prospects for the possibility of accurate information coming to light. More and more of us have an opportunity to make ourselves heard and to seek out others speaking on their own behalf. I think the gate has been opened, will continue to open even wider, and will be damned hard to shut at this point.

4. I want to briefly touch on a few points Ms. Mogahed made regarding the topic of the rights and status of women in the Muslim world. The gender gap in higher education varies dramatically in predominanty Muslim countries from one to another. It is virtually non-existant in Iran, for example, yet dramatically large in Pakistan. The overwhelming majority of Muslim women throughout predominantly Muslim countries believe they should be able to work at any job they are qualified for, vote without influence and enjoy the same legal rights as men. A smaller majority of Muslim men also share these beliefs. What is interesting here is that broken down by country, the gender gap again varies widely. Very small to no gender gaps were found in Turkey and Lebanon whereas relatively large gender gaps were found in Morocco.

Why I am encouraged: The wide variation in the size of the gender gaps from country to country illustrates that second class citizenship for women is not a fundamental element of Islam. Rather it is driven by some other force such as politics, culture, economics, etc. or some combination, and that can change quickly. Ms. Mogahed pointed out that some perversion of Islam may be the tool used to oppress women, but as women are gaining in literacy in some of the more oppressed areas and actually reading the Koran for themselves, they are able to use their interpretation of their scripture to fight for their own rights. For example, Ms. Mogahed stated that selling young daughters into involuntary marriages is specifically prohibited in the Koran. And as Ms. Mogahed further pointed out, interracial marriage between blacks and whites was approved by only 4% of Americans in 1958 compared with 80% in 2007. In just a generation this completely turned around. Change for the better can happen relatively quickly.

There was so much, much more I got out of this talk though it lasted only a little more than an hour including questions from the audience. These are only a few of the more memorable highlights for me, and I hope they pique someone else’s interest as they have done mine. I really hope all of us will educate ourselves where we believe we are lacking in knowledge about the Muslim world, and further, will re-examine what we think we know from our limited experiences and really try to get a better handle on the big picture. I believe better understanding of the Muslim world is an important tool for pro-freedom individuals to use to push back against government’s pursuit of anti-liberty ends via exploition of ignorance.