Memorial Service for Eric Tiedemann

Eric's memorial service will be held on Sunday, June 15th, at Cellspace in San Francisco, from 7 to 11 pm. There will be chill space to talk and reflect, as well as space for dancing, for those who are so moved. Please RSVP by emailing me so that we can get an idea of how many people are coming.

Sunday, June 15th
7-11pm
Cellspace
2050 Bryant St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
Cellspace phone number: 415 648-7562

Update: Please bring your children if you wish.

My Thought For Today

Regarding the disruption of Hindu priest Mr. Rajan Zed's prayer opening the Senate's July 12th session: I am a practicing Hindu and at first I felt that this disruption was deeply disturbing. But I have gone through a process which was deeply personal and deeply religious.

To those who were protesting I say this:

I forgive you.

To those who were hurt by the protest I say this:

Let us not let the actions of a few keep us from marking this historic moment. Let us celebrate our great nation:

E pluribus unum.

John Edwards Tells Us: Your Country Needs You

When Saheli told me our little brother Ben Brandzel had chosen to work for John Edwards's campaign, I knew I wanted to learn more about Edwards. I was impressed by reading and viewing his speeches, and by his efforts to urge Congress to stand firm in ending the war on Iraq. On Thursday I attended Edwards's Small Change For Big Change event at San José State University.

We generally expect politicians to tell us what they will do for us. What moved me most was not what John Edwards promised us, but what he asked of us. John F. Kennedy famously said: "Ask not what your country can do for you---ask what you can do for your country." It's been a long time since I've heard a public call to sacrifice, yet this is precisely what constitutes leadership. John Edwards OneCorps is not just a campaign organization, but also puts these ideals into action: "John Edwards One Corps members aren't waiting until the election to help build the one America we all believe in - we also engage in local service projects and issue advocacy to start transforming America today." For instance, the Orlando One Corps is holding a Canned Food Drive today.

When Edwards called us to action against poverty and disease, in America and around the world, he said we could not just stand by: "We're better than this." The beauty of this statement is that if, looking through the jaundiced eyes of cynicism, we evaluate it as a vote-getting strategy, we can only conclude that he wouldn't think it is a vote-getting strategy unless he actually believed that we are better, or aspire to be.

I was particularly heartened when Edwards said, "Instead of spending 500 billion dollars in Iraq, ...suppose America led an international effort to make sanitation and clean drinking water available in the Third World." This is a cause that is dear to my heart, as Saheli noted when she mentioned my frequent touting of WaterPartners International. Improving sanitation and access to clean drinking water has enormous leverage in the effort to eradicate global poverty and disease. It doesn't require new ideas or technology, simply our will to make it happen. As Peter Singer wrote in the New York Times Magazine last December, we can achieve not only this but all the Millennium Development Goals, with little hardship to any of us. I hope that Edwards's vision will catalyze this movement.

Afterward I met Edwards briefly and asked him about maintaining America's scientific and technical leadership, specifically through the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He said that funding for these agencies should be "significantly enhanced", and apologized that he wasn't able to give me more specifics right at that moment. I look forward to learning more about what he proposes from his campaign.

ToastyKen saw Edwards speak on Wednesday, and blogged about it.

Crossposted from More Fantasticness.

Garish vs. Vibrant: Socioeconomic and Cultural Factors?

I noticed the following notion rattling around in my head: Emotional intensity is considered socially acceptable only up to a certain threshold level. To go beyond that is considered vulgar or ostentatious. This translates into specific sensory modalities. In particular, describing color in terms of hue, saturation, and brightness, only colors up to a certain maximum saturation are considered to be in good taste in interior decoration or fashion design. This maximum level of saturation may be somewhat higher for lower brightness levels (i.e., for darker colors). Colors beyond the maximum level, especially in schemes involving two or more such colors, are considered garish. This same aesthetic threshold may also apply to written style: the hyperbole of "purple" prose versus the understatement of mainstream literary fiction, which is more like a pale watercolor wash. But what appears garish to one person may appear rich and vibrant to another. In particular, my impression is that the "old money" upper classes in the United States would tend to have a lower threshold of tolerance for saturation or emotional intensity.

I can think of a number of reasons why this might be so. People with "old money" may be more likely to be descended from puritanical religious traditions which frown on emotional show. Or, they may be more likely to come from more northerly latitudes (e.g., northern Europe vs. the Mediterranean), where the colors of nature are less vibrant for most of the year, and thus their vision may be adapted to a lower intensity level. Or, they may associate good taste with the Old Masters, whom they have seen only in their faded contemporary versions. (The restoration of the Sistine Chapel demonstrates that the original pigments used by Renaissance artists were much more vibrant than what we see today.) Or, with ample leisure in their upbringing, their visual system may have become more attuned to fine discrimination of subtle differences in colors, and such a sensitive system may find fully saturated colors overstimulating. Or, they may be more guarded in their emotional dealings because expression of emotion can lead to vulnerability, and those with more power have more to lose.

The funny thing is, I don't know how this notion entered my head in the first place, or whether it is widely shared. Considering its economic importance for advertising/marketing, I would think it should be easy to find research on this subject. Experiments could display swatches of various colors and measure neural or physical correlates of valence and arousal; my hypothesis is that the valence would switch from positive to negative for very saturated, bright colors, and the threshold level would be correlated with socioeconomic and cultural background. In "Why We Think Blue Is Calming: Color-Mood Associations As Learned or Innate", Diana Vining of the University of Pennsylvania surveys the literature. From this paper it seems that not enough evidence exists as yet to support or refute my hypothesis.

(Crossposted from More Fantasticness.)

Architecture for Humanity

Every year the TED conference brings together thought leaders in Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and honors at most three of them with the TED prize, granting each of them a wish.

Nearly a year ago, I pondered the long-term housing needs of Katrina's survivors and wondered whether they could be provided with housing kits they could easily build themselves. When I recently viewed the 2006 TED Prize Webcast with a group of friends, I was greatly heartened to learn of TED Prize winner Cameron Sinclair's Architecture for Humanity. These architects are working to help Katrina's survivors as well as other needy people around the world.

Jehane Noujaim, director of Control Room, who also won the TED prize, spoke passionately about the power of film to bring people together. Dr. Larry Brilliant, leader of the successful effort to eradicate smallpox, co-founder of pioneering online community the WELL, founder of the Seva Foundation to combat blindness and executive director of Google.org, was the final winner of the TED prize. He spoke about the importance of early detection and early response in combating disease.

Who Killed The Electric Car?

I just attended a preview screening of Who Killed The Electric Car? The film was remarkably well-paced, strong in several aspects of the filmmaker's art that one doesn't always expect from a documentary: suspense and dramatic tension, colorful characters, and understated irony. All in 91 minutes. I really enjoyed this film. Go see it!

Update on Katrina Housing

My post a month ago on the long-term needs of Katrina survivors took up the question of affordable housing. Today Salon has an article on affordable housing, especially for Katrina survivors, as part of its second annual Big Idea series.