"Micro-Blogging"

I have tried Twitter for a few weeks now, and while I like what it does for business & people getting news & ideas across, I reject labeling Twitter "micro-blogging".

It is impossible to come up with any coherent argument together with what you're actually trying to argue in less than 140 characters. (unless we're talking about cryptic ones like "I think therefore I am"). I've tried many times, starting with what I wanna say, then try to trim it to under 140. Hasn't worked once -- for an actual argument, I repeat. Not just "ate dinner today, was nice seeing friends" type "blogs".

I see Twitter as more of a headlines news source and friends chat space. If you look lots of posts include links which takes you to another page for details. Not that there's any problem with it, it's just not a blog. But then again, maybe I'm just ignorant and too narrow about its definition. But I sure hope no one's been writing blogs based primarily on posts like "ate dinner today, was nice seeing friends"??

Another thing, Twitter takes WAY too much of my time. It's no one's fault but mine, but anyway... :)

Debate on the Rationality of Voting

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/is-voting-rational.html



It annoys me when ppl start trying to attach bogus numbers to an even more bogus concept of "how much is my vote going to be worth?"



Remember that we're looking BACK now and calibrating these numbers. There is no way any voter, however informed he might be, will be able to come up with numbers for possible legislation differences and the resulting costs for each candidate, compounded by the complexity of the legislative process that depends on the composition of re-elected members. Even the politician and his / her team can't give you realistic numbers beyond their own hopes / guesses, which are often way off from what actually gets passed. You can assume that voters use the numbers that politicians announce via platform promises, but then each voter tweaks it based on his/her subjective beliefs. It's just all a stinking mess, not tractable in reasonable models that one can dream up, much less so in the head of the average voter.



My personal view of why people vote is a combination of subjective beliefs about one's likelihood to matter (I think most people won't get this number right, and to be honest I think many voters are slightly deluded, esp after Florida 2000), and the belief that voting is a right that many before us have fought so hard for, and should therefore be cherished. Well, maybe just in my simple mind...

The Sadness, Doubled

I saw the news of Eunice Kennedy Shriver's passing today (may she RIP), and stumbled upon the tragic story of Shriver's sister Rosemary Kennedy. I hardly ever paid any attention to the history and family tree of this big American Political family, and had not known that Rosemary Kennedy existed until today.

Well, perhaps it wasn't a random coincidence that I didn't know she existed... When I put Rosemary Kennedy in Google search, here are the top 3 returns:

Wikipedia
Newsmax.com - Rosemary Kennedy's Inconvenient Illness
Fatboy.cc - Rosemary Kennedy

Long story short, Rosemary Kennedy had a mental illness that was not well understood or accepted / tolerated, especially in a respectable family like the Kennedy's. She was given a lobotomy at 23, and had since been reduced to the mental and physical capacity of a 2-year-old, and had remained in an institution until her death at 86.

It's an incredibly sad story, and though slightly upset by how Rosemary Kennedy was essentially put away and isolated from the rest of her family, I can understand that it was from a time much different from today. While there is still a ton to be done, I'm proud to say that we as people have slightly progressed since then (at least in terms of how people with mental illness or developmental disabilities are viewed and treated).

An interesting note came out of the Washington Post's obituary for Eunice Shriver today, which makes me think that facts / details about what happened to Rosemary Kennedy are still very much a point of contention. The earlier version of the obit, which can be found (I'm pretty sure in its full and original form) in Kansas City's The Star, writes:

Because medical opinion held that visits from family members would be too upsetting for someone in Rosemary’s condition, no one visited her for years. She died in 2005.

The obit was revised by afternoon in Washington Post's website:

Family members were initially told not to visit because medical opinion held that such interruptions would be too upsetting for someone in Rosemary's condition. According to a spokesman for the Special Olympics, Shriver and her siblings later became frequent visitors to St. Coletta and included Rosemary in family gatherings and other activities. Rosemary Kennedy died in 2005.

Maybe I'm never under public scrutiny and can never understand... why care so much about what the public thinks? Wasn't that what at least in part led to Rosemary Kennedy's unfortunate story?

I want to go on the record as foretelling that the Red Sox will be under .500 the rest of the way and finish third (or maybe even fourth) in the East. I love 'em, but that's just the way it is going to go down.

Disease Diagnosis & Social Norms

Last week I saw a TV segment (was it ESPN?) on surfer Clay Marzo and his battle with Asperger's Disease. The two pieces of information that struck me the most (and still sticks in my mind) about the story are:

1. When asked looking back now whether she would want to change any part of her son's behavior or who he is (with respect to Asperger's I would assume), Marzo's mom said "no"
2. Marzo still goes to therapy sessions to help him learn how to interact with others

While I can understand that a mother takes and loves her son as he is, going to therapy to cope with Asperger's necessarily implies an attempt to change a person, be it on the superficial behavioral level, or a deeper, more subconcious level. It leads me to thinking about disease diagnoses and how that has changed over time.

People who know me know my view about "recent disease discoveries" (ahem inventions) like ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia, and other learning disabilities. I'm much more fond of the old school diagnosis "I'm just not that smart with books" -- which, really, is OK. Everyone's good at different things. I don't care if there's a physiological (neurological) explanation to this. I am born shorter than average, and there's clear physiological evidence to prove it. If we really choose to go down this road, it would be discriminatory not to give me extra boosts and assistance in sports and gym class because I just naturally can't be as good as and compete with others.

With mental / behavioral diseases, I am much much more sympathetic to people suffering from the diseases, but to a certain extent I still object to the direction we're heading medically. The determination that some behaviors are "abnormal and anti-social" is, well, arbitrary and unfair (for me, anti-social does not mean vandalism or killing people (as it is used sometimes); that's just plain criminal). Whatever happened to the celebration of diversity? Does it only apply to the issue of race?

I know people will throw me studies and evidence suggesting that certain group behaviors, or groups with like-behavior individuals, yield better "group outcomes", and so from a macro perspective, we should set behavioral norms and promote adherence to them. But let's move past this macro let's-treat-everyone-like-numbers approach for a second and really think about what it means for each of us individuals.

Tyson Brody, manning Spencer Ackerman's blog, has a really, really important piece for anyone who wants to seriously discuss the Iranian nuclear issue.

In my mind, the three best moves the US could make to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue would be to 1) dump the ambiguity on Israel's nukes, 2) make another big speech on non proliferation and a wmd-free world that specifically mentions the atrocities committed against Iranians during the Iraq-Iran war, and, 3) invite the Iranian President for a one-on-one around the UN session in September. But none of those things will never happen because the simple fact is that US foreign policy has drifted into the very dangerous place where most everyone who is considered "very serious" is either a myopic, lazy realist or a naive, hypocritical idealist.