Life Recipes: Spice Rack

The other day, I was doing errands with my wife and we had to return some item to a store. We got some store credit for the merchandise and we were trying to figure out what we could buy with that money. After thinking about what we need, we concluded that we wanted to purchase a spice rack.

Before getting a spice rack, all of our spices took up about 3/5 of a shelf in the pantry. However, the shelves were about a foot tall, and as you know, the spices are about 4-5 inches each. Therefore, there was a lot of wasted space. If we were to stack the spices, then when you needed a spice from the bottom of the stack, they would all fall over and it would be a mess. Therefore, a spice rack was in order.

Then we saw that spice racks were selling for around $20. While this is not too expensive, we realized we could make a spice rack for a lot cheaper. Instead of using the in-store credit to buy the spice rack, we went out and spent $2.50 on hair-ties and then came home and attached the hair-ties to individual paperclips. Then we hung the paperclips over the endge of a hanger and nailed the hanger to the wall. Then we placed the necks of the spice bottles through the hair-ties. For the heavier glass spice bottles, we doubled/tripled up on hair-ties per paperclip. In the end, we made a cheap spice rack and saved about $17.5 in the process. (We used the in-store credit to buy a clock)

The purpose of this story is to challenge my readers to think about everyday situations and try to come up with solutions. Since the theme of this blog is: "what to think about", I am hoping to include sections entitled "Life Recipes" that contain "recipes"for everyday situations. Feel free to comment my solution to the current problem or offer an alternative solution to this "life" problem. How would you have made a spice rack that costs less than $20?

Objectifying Women

I am in a stigma and discrimination class this semester at Columbia University. In our class, one of the students discussed how women are objectified in America by men and subsequently stigmatized in society. Since the majority of my class is female,  there was a lot of thoughts on the topic.

Most of the focus of the class was on how men are the source of objectification. Since we live in the remnants of a patriarchal society, it is natural to associate these attitudes towards women on the unequal power structure of which men continue to dominate. Personally, I agree that men are a major source of objectification for women. However, I also believe that women are a source of objectification as well.

Consider the magazine sections of a bookstore (I have always though that these sections are great measurements of society as a whole). What are the magazines under "Women's Interests"? Wedding magazines, diet magazines, fashion magazines, and celerity news (Perhaps this last magazine would be placed in periodicals). True, we find porn magazines under "Men's Interests", but this does not conflict with what I am trying to prove. Not only do men objectify women, but women objectify themselves and each other.

Think about fashion. Most girls choose their dress and shoes not only based on their expectations that men will objectify them on the streets, but based more on the fact that they expect to be judged by other women at the party.

When discussing this with some friends, someone remarked that this is not a girl's choice to have to wear heels, makeup and straighten hair, etc., but rather that society imposes this on them. Their argument was that women feel forced to comply to the mechanisms that objectify them, and it is hard to break out of it. On its face, I think this argument is correct. There are social pressures that force women to behave in certain ways, just as there are social pressures that make people do all sorts of things. However, her argument fails to address the source of such pressure. My argument isn't that since women objectify themselves they can easily break the chain of objectification, but rather that this very real, strong force originates and is propelled from men, as well as from women in society.

The questions that remain are: Which source of objectification of women is stronger? And how do we go about changing this social pressure in society?

Communities

Sociologists argue that we are living in a post-modern society, in which people value individualism to an extreme. For example, Robert Putnam observed this is his book "Bowling Alone" in which he noticed trends among the general population to go bowling alone, instead of in groups, or as part of leagues. The argument is that in the post-modern age, communities are no longer as wide-spread and far-reaching as they once were, and the degree of their importance has diminished.

One way this phenomenon manifests is in Synagogue (and Church) attendance and participation. Since people no longer feel compelled to belong to a larger community, they are less likely to become members at Synagogues, or get involved with programming at these synagogues.

However, I think that Putnam, and like minded sociologists failed to recognize the role that technology plays in society. After all, our facebook friends (at leas the core of them that we share links and comments with) are a great example of how community exists in this "post-modern" age. The numerous events from which we get invites, testifies to the fact that community is alive and well and that friends do stay in touch and do activities together.

This is not only evidenced through facebook, but through online video game communities, or any website that contains a forum. Wherever there is an element of personal opinion that is linked to real individuals (this excludes anonymous posts on youtube which are meaningless), there exists a community. By real individuals, I mean individuals with an identity that can be identified and understood by others in that community, be it a pseudonym or actual name.

Therefore, I would argue that if synagogues or churches are struggling with membership and participation, then they are simply not tapping into the mediums that instill community in our "post-modern" society. Subsequently, I would argue that Synagogues should create forums and list serves, as well as revamp rituals, in order to close the distance between individuals in society.'

However, are these two types of community really the same?

Representative Art

One of the key ways I procrastinate is via Online Games. One site that I often visit is OMGPOP. On this site, they have a game called "Draw My Thing" which basically is a type of pictionary where you get a word, and you have to draw the word for other online players.

What I noticed is that when we communicate with pictures, we communicate through a symbolic sort of shorthand. Instead of drawing a real life human, it is easier to draw a stick figure. Instead of literally drawing lotion, we draw a man with a sunburn and a bottle - with the hopes that someone will guess "sun tan lotion" and therefore finding the word lotion.

This is not only true of "Draw My Thing" but also of games like Taboo. In such games, we tap into a cultural reference bank and think of other ways to arrive at words without actually describing the word directly (since such directness is either complicated - i.e. too hard to draw, or taboo - i.e. against the game rules)

On the converse side, I also draw what some people would consider "artistic picture". In one of my classes, I don't have a notebook and rely on some friends to lend me a piece or two per class. Then, I tax myself and draw them a picture to make up for my "burden". Usually my drawings might be of cars, or buildings. But what is interesting is that the picture of the cars that I draw in this class are more realistic and full of detail and size proportions, then my simple two dimensional, profile of a car with wheels that sort of resembles a punch buggy.

My point is: in different situations, we have different ideas to communicate. Often when we have time constraints or other limitations (rules or ability) we get the point across as best we can. Moreover, the our culture helps create and maintain symbols that we can utilize in order to more effectively get our idea conveyed to another person.

Overall, I think it is an interesting angle to think about communication.

Hair Length

Why does the hair on your head keep growing to an indefinite length, but some other hair stops at a certain length?
Take your eyebrows for example. If you pluck your eyebrows, they grow back quickly. But it never gets so long that it is hanging in your eyes...
Why indeed...

Walking a Thin Line

Up until this point, I have blogged purely about secular topics. However, since Judaism is in integral part of my life, it is something I spend a lot of time thinking about.

There were two reasons I previously chose not to deal with Jewish topics. The first reason stemmed from my belief of universal accessibility. I believed that by delving into Jewish topics, non-Jewish readers of my blog would feel alienated. However, upon reflection, I feel that there are many Jewish topics which have much in common with topics from other religions and therefore accessible for any religious person to reflect upon.

This brings me to my second reason for why my blog previously did not discuss Jewish religious topics; that there is a taboo against talking about religion in our post-modern society. In an era where individualism often conflicts with religious identity, the social discourse on religion becomes taboo. However, I feel that once one can look past the religious component of a concept, there is still much to learn about life and how humans experience it. 

With this preface in mind, I hope to talk about the first religious concept in my blog while proving the points I have made above. This topic is that there should be a thin line between what you think and how you act. 

As I was praying one day, I realized that it is not enough to just say the words and believe the words, but one must do those words. For example,  if we are praying about a world of peace, that means that we must seek peace (between ourselves and others, and peace within ourselves), and we must seek this peace now; not tomorrow, not later, but now. This does not only apply to Jewish religious practice, but to all religious practice. 

While this concept came to me through religious practice, it has implications for non religious practice as well. Most noticeably in my life, this concept was applied to my choice to become a vegetarian. As I realized that my reasons for eating meat diminished and that the reasons not to eat meat grew, I successfully minimized the line between thought and action and began to change my eating practices. Therefore, while this concept came through a religious medium, a secular practical implication of this concept can also be discerned if one can successfully look past this outer religious shell.

The questions to think about are as follows: (1) In what ways is religion a taboo topic? And more importantly: (2) How can one diminish the density/width of the line between thought and action?

Taking Offense to Ads

Every now an then I will be watching TV and some ridiculous commercial will vie for my attention. Usually, commercials are just uninteresting since I am not in the market for a car, and every so often you get a commercial which you think is just so interesting, you will mention it in your next conversation with a friend.

However, there are some commercials that are just so stupid, you are insulted that the company thinks so low of you. Such commercials tell you how to think, how to react. They presuppose that you lack intellectual integrity. In such instances  you might roll your eyes while lightly shaking your head side to side, or struggle to find the remote to change the channel.

Therefore, the question is: How effective are such stupid commercials? Do they do their job and successfully advertise an object you may or may not want? Or do they subtract from the product making you not want to buy it and suppress the advertisement from you consciousness?