an unusual swim suit

So, there’s this article about a Muslim woman from the US who encountered difficulties while wearing a full covering swim suit. What fascinates me is the reaction of people to the whole thing. My older sister is pale as a ghost, and sun burns more readily than anyone I know. She has repeatedly expressed interest in these swim suits. Not that it makes a difference, but my sister isn’t Muslim. Would people have reacted any differently to her wearing such a swim suit?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2061608,00.html

(ps, thanks, for linking to the article)

Recent happenings

Life’s been a little crazy over the past couple weeks.

The conference was really interesting. It covered topics ranging from removing arsenic from the water supply in Nepal using local tools and labor to building a certified green fab plant in Texas. I found much of it fascinating and another large portion of it boring, but it certainly drove home the need for focus if I want to pursue any sort of a career in environmental topics. People who are broad but shallow on environmental issues are a dime a dozen. (people who are broad but ignorant or incompetent are even more common). I have several topics which interest me: green building, ecosystem restoration, behavioral change, renewable energy, sustainable neighborhoods and transportation probably top off the list. See what I mean? Narrow and focused I ain’t.

Carnival was great. Good to see familiar faces after a long time. Too much happened to recap here, but thank you all for a great time.

The day after I got back from Pittsburgh, I flew out to DC for work. The testimony I worked on got a team “above and beyond” award, which I didn’t really feel like I deserved. Sure, I worked weekends and evenings, but I got time off for that already. (Though the extra two days time off that came with the award certainly doesn’t hurt. =) Had sushi for dinner with supervisor and her husband just east of dupont circle which was quite an experience.

Back in Chicago, multiple going away lunches for my local supervisor. Last saturday was the continuation of the Chicago Conservation Corps training. (I like the people, but I’m not really feeling that engaged in the training. Probably because it’s pure lecture, with interspersed demonstrations. No hands on work. No collaboration or team-building. I’m definitely learning facts about chicago, and little bits about environmental concerns in the area, but I don’t think that was my primary problem. Learning to talk to people who don’t care much about it may be my biggest concern. *shrug* Skated from there to gymnastics, then went home for some WoW-time. I followed that up with a mini-bar crawl with a gaygamer guy. Board games on Sunday.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a great deal about what I want to do with my future, but that’s for another post.

current events

A story about a website with user-created content, where the users took over:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/the-day-the-digg-users-revolted/

This is an interesting story about the coal industry, however it exercises a certain flawed logic:

Coal is so cheap and so widely available that its increased use is inevitable, but clearing the hurdle to burning it on a wide scale — separating the carbon dioxide and sequestering it — could turn out to be one of the great engineering challenges of the century, energy experts say.

Wind and sunlight are both cheaper, and more widely available than coal, not to mention renewable, which coal is not (at the current rate of consumption). I wonder whether the author would claim their increased use is inevitable. Also, I wonder if the author has failed to notice that coal is being burned on a wide scale.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/science/01coal.html

Yeah, there’s more, but those were just two things that caught my interest.

still more nytimes commentary

Ah, David Brooks, how I love thee or was that “love to stab thee”

“Being a good conservative now means sticking together with other conservatives, not thinking new and adventurous thoughts.”

Definitions of conservative on the Web:

  • resistant to change
  • opposed to liberal reforms
  • cautious: avoiding excess; “a conservative estimate”
  • button-down: unimaginatively conventional; “a colorful character in the buttoned-down, dull-grey world of business”- Newsweek

Yup, that’s exactly what it means now. Same as it always meant.

In DC now

Well, I’m in DC now. I suppose I should grab some dinner. Anyone up for drinks? I so need to figure out what is up with the wireless here. Grrr….

Okay, wireless fixed. But what would be really awesome is someone to watch Heroes with while chowing down on delivery.