Redux: Contagious Compassion

By: | September 21, 2017

This post was first published in March of last year; sadly, it’s more relevant than ever.

On February 29, after having lunch in Hood River, Oregon, Kozen Sampson drove to a quiet neighborhood to take his dogs for a walk. He was getting out of his car, he says, when a man with brown hair approached and kicked his car door. The door smacked Sampson in the ear, knocking his head against the door frame.

Then Sampson, stunned and bleeding, heard his assailant say: “F—ing Muslim!”

Sampson has been a Buddhist monk for many years, and he was wearing his customary plain brown robes. He’s the founder of the Mount Adams Zen Buddhist Temple in Trout Lake, Washington—about 30 miles from Hood River, and not far from where I live in Washington state—and after his attacker ran off, he managed to stop the bleeding and drive home to the temple.

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What’s So Great About Walking

By: | September 20, 2017

a worn-out rose

The other afternoon, at work, I suddenly got stuck thinking about a couple of things I’m worried about–and which I’m going to do, even though they make me want to hide under the covers. I expect my medal any day now. By the end of the day, I was jumpy and exhausted from pointless worrying, and I just wanted to go home.

I took off the sandals I’d worn to work and put on the socks and grubby old sneakers that live in a hidden corner of my cubicle. Grubby old sneakers, cute work dress, and all, I walked down the stairs of my office building, went out the door by the loading dock/community urinal, and pointed myself toward home.

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Why I No Longer Do Internet Harassment Talks

By: | September 18, 2017

A few years ago, I was doxxed by angry people on the internet. (I’m not going to rehash what happened. You’re reading this on a machine that has google.) After that, I started getting asked to do talks. How can we fix online harassment? How can individuals protect themselves? How can newsrooms better prepare themselves, protect their employees, and respond in the moment?

Before each talk I would get sweaty and shaky. Having to tell rooms full of strangers about one of the most stressful things that has ever happened to me isn’t fun. And in the back of my mind there was the constant fear that some of my enemies would be in the audience. Was I safe? Was the conference going to live-stream the talk without telling me? (Yes, that happened.) Was I going to be able to keep it together as I showed the audience exemplary messages describing all the ways people would like for me to die? Afterwards I would try to make small talk but I just wanted to run away and take a cold shower and sleep for four days.

(I should say that my experience is tame compared to what other people have experienced. Sure, people made my home address public and told me they were going to come murder me, and even sent me photos of themselves outside my house, but it’s been worse for others. Read Zoe Quinn’s new book Crash Override if you want to know what it can be like for the hardest hit.)

Doing these sessions and talks is exhausting and traumatic. But I did them because I wanted to help. If I had to go through this, I could at least try and channel my energy (and my privilege as a white lady) for good to try and help other people.

I don’t do those talks anymore. Because I now think that they don’t really make a difference. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | September 16, 2017

September 11 – 15, 2017

Guest Rebecca Boyle had been studying up, anticipating the eclipse for months. On the day of, she suddenly thinks, “What if it turns out to be boring?”  She needn’t have worried.
(And this might be the place to add: an older astronomer who’s seen everything the sky has to offer, chased totality, and told me he’s never in is life seen or felt anything like it, it awed him.)

Alan Alda, true geek, suggests that anybody trying to communicate might want to think less about what they have to say and more about what the reader/audience needs to hear. He gives examples.  Count Michelle in. 

Jenny went to the Galapagos, fell in love with the marine iguanas, agreed to overlook their egregious faults.  They didn’t care, they certainly didn’t return the love.

Helen and Ann, who agree about most things including Wuthering Heights (how can anybody stand those people?), disagree fundamentally about the moors. Between them, they have an n of 3 — so consider that in weighing the argument.

Cameron cleans out her closets, which feels wonderful.  She keeps finding silverfish, which are appalling.  She tries finding an upside to them, which doesn’t work.

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody, free from all natural and human disasters.

________

Saturn real-color photo, taken by the now-burnt-up Cassini: no posts related to this, it’s just so very extremely awesomely beautiful – NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

 

 

Silver Lining

By: | September 15, 2017

 

I felt so successful this weekend. I cleaned out multiple closets, filled bags with clothes that I’ve been keeping since college, organized the box of “just-in-case” kid coloring books and trinkets that I save for emergencies. When I open the closet in the morning, there’s a neat row of clothes hanging in a line, there’s all this white space…ahhhh. Another doesn’t even have clothes in it any more! Doesn’t it look lovely? (And that maybe there’s room for a new shirt or two?)

But alas. There is something else that I found in these closets, something that is not as easy to get rid of as the 90s band t-shirts and the single socks. (I didn’t really get rid of the 90s band T-shirts. I put them in a pile that I’m using to make a T-shirt quilt. I’ve been working on this quilt for 10 years, but that’s another story.) I didn’t take a photo of these things, because they move too fast, and because I dislike them so much. Continue reading →

Moors: Love or Hate? Discuss.

By: | September 14, 2017

Helen: Ann, we’re here because you said you hate moors. I am currently having a love affair with moors, so I want to know: Why? Also, we’re here because I suspect this will give us an opportunity to talk about how much we hate Wuthering Heights. Unless you like Wuthering Heights. Do you like Wuthering Heights?

Ann:  Damn.  It’s been so long since I read it.  I remember LOVING it, so much beautifully neurasthenic suffering out there on the moors.  As if you could do anything else on the moors.  I’ll go have a look at the book again. Meanwhile, tell me how you feel about Wuthering Heights, please.  Give me details. Continue reading →

Redux: Marine Iguanas Don’t Want to Cuddle With You

By: | September 13, 2017

So, summer is coming to an end again (damn you, ephemeral summer!) and I’ve been thinking about past summers’ best adventures. For me, a best adventure is always going to include wild animals. In this case, it was the funny-faced marine iguanas I met in the Galapagos. They didn’t give a shit about me, but I fell hard for them. My one-sided love story, from last August, is reprinted below.

I was in the Galapagos Islands in July, which felt a bit like traveling to another planet. At least, that’s what I’d imagine an interplanetary hop to be like. The land features are familiar and yet not quite—lava fields still sharp and freshly black or dotted with hopeful plant life, colossal rocks turned to sculpture by water and wind, animals that are recognizable except acting strangely (birds that swim instead of fly, seals that bask under cacti, giant lizards that glom onto coral and munch algae—under water).

It’s that last one, the marine iguana—endemic to the Galapagos, as many animals there are—that I’ll focus on here. I fell in love with these weird little dudes, warts and all. Visitors encounter plenty of the reptiles on land—where they’re just a bit speedier than tortoises, when moving at all. Mostly, they just lie still, spread out and basking. Where old lava meets the sea they’re all over the place, sometimes packed together for warmth (especially the young ones). There are brown ones, but most are ashy gray or black, some with white markings, even wholly white tails, that help turn them invisible on the bird-poop-streaked rocks. (I don’t know if bird poop actually drove this patchy coloration, but it hides them well.) Apparently, during mating time, their skin may turn rosy, as if blushing. I guess when lizard love is in the air, never mind camouflage.

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Better Science Writing Through Improv

By: | September 12, 2017

Those of us who try to communicate complicated things for a living are usually told, early on by some wiser person, to know our audiences. To know our readers, in my case. I’ve always taken this pretty seriously—which is to say, I take all of you seriously. I don’t know your names (except for Mom—hi, Mom) but I think a lot about what you might find interesting, and what you might already know, and how you might be persuaded to read stories that, after all, you’re under no obligation to finish. I think of us, you and me, as being in this mess together, companions in the struggle to understand the world.

What I practice, and what I imagine most science journalists and other science communicators practice, is a kind of cognitive empathy with our audiences—we think about you. Alan Alda’s new book about science communication—the charmingly titled If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?—argues that thinking isn’t enough.

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