Author Archives: tedbongiovanni@gmail.com

In Defense of Food

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In his newest book, "In Defense of Food, An Eater’s Manifesto,"  Michael Pollan sets out to resolve the "Omnivore’s Dilemma,"  where if you ate industrially produced food you were killing the environment, if you ate industrial organic, you were doing slightly less harm, but the carbon impact of your consumption remains an environmental killer.  You could hunt yourself, and become a killer or you could eat food produced on places like Polyface Farms— if you live near such a famed place.  Reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma was like eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge, it brought an uncomfortable awareness to every meal.  I wanted back into the Garden of Eatin’.  An Eater’s Manifesto both raises awareness about how we got to a place where food needs to be defended and sets out an alternative path.  His advice:  "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

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Innocents Do Good

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Robert Strauss, a former Peace Corps Country Director recently opined in the New York Times that “For the Peace Corps, the number of volunteers has always trumped the quality of their work, perhaps because the agency fears that an objective assessment of its impact would reveal that while volunteers generate good will for the United States, they do little or nothing to actually aid development in poor countries. The agency has no comprehensive system for self-evaluation, but rather relies heavily on personal anecdote to demonstrate its worth.” He argued that the Peace Corps sends too many recent college grads who lack the skills to do their jobs. I disagree with Strauss and wrote the following response. Other letters both agreed and disagreed with his assessment. Perhaps it’s not fair to generalize from one’s own experience–which goes for Strauss and me.

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One Twisted Path to the NYC Marathon

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The legend goes that in 450 B.C., Pheidippides ran from Marathon to
Athens, a distance of about 26 miles, to bring news of Greece’s victory
over Persia in the eponymous battle of Marathon.  Upon arrival in
Athens, Pheidippides cried "Victory!" collapsed and died.  Last
November, along with 39,265 others, I ran from Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island
to Central Park in the New York City Marathon.    Pheidippides had some important news to
deliver and was under orders.  Why would anyone else run 26.2 miles? 

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Scrabulous is Fabulous

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I am a mediocre Scrabble player at best, but recently I’ve discovered Scrabulous, an online knockoff of Scrabble offered through Facebook and I found my inner bionic Scrabble superhero.  Full disclosure: I don’t play the game online the same way I play sit-down, face-to-face Scrabble games, where, according to the rules that you have to keep all of the words in your head and have the pressure of the person sitting across from you to move.  Online, I approach the game differently.
Scrabulous

I take advantage of every tool at my disposal, which is to say things like the 2 letter word list and dictionary built right into the application.  Someone also went and whipped up a nifty little webpage that even looks for patterns from your letters and suggest words.  I know, it’s cheating you might say, but here’s what I say, it’s learning.  I learned more about how to play the game by 1) playing with players who were much better than me, and seeing what they do, 2) trying to emulate their play – I never realized just how quickly multiple little words add up and 3) by using the resources at my disposal to discover patterns that I didn’t know existed, and I think, making me a better player for the next time I sit down to a real board.  Though I wonder if I would enjoy the game as much if I didn’t have my bionic abilities. 

As Csikszentmihalyi writes in “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,” [learners should have] "a sense that one’s skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand, in a goal-directed, rule-bound action system that provides clear clues as to how well one is performing." 

Scrabulous meets these conditions.  Go on, play a game.  Not on Facebook? Head on over to http://www.scrabulous.com/   With the power of the internet, you too can go from drab to fab!

A Blogging Manifesto

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Why bother keeping a blog? Everyone’s doing it, but I struggle with this humble blog–whether or not to post, what to post, analyzing my analytics, and questioning the worthiness of the endeavor. Why bother with posting your thoughts and reflections in public? Given all of the other things that we could be doing, why blog? I am at war with my old media self, that’s quite content to keep a journal that’s for my eyes only and new media self, who wants to embrace this not-so-new medium with more gusto. Given that context, here’s the argument in favor of blogging I’m working on:

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This Omnivore’s Dilemma

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I pride myself on being an omnivore–at least I did until I read Michael Pollan’s,"The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals."  In it, he explains how the food that’s on our plates–whether it’s a Big Mac from McDonald’s, an organic meal purchased at Whole Foods, a local meal produced by a sustainable farm or one that you might hunt for yourself makes it to the table.  The book lives up to the dictionary definition of dilemma, "a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives."  The story of how food arrives on our plates is complex–but Pollan explains it in heartbreaking detail–the amount of carbon fuel required to produce organic crops, the bushels of corn required to fatten a chicken to the guilty pleasure he gets from hunting–it’s all in there, in wonderful, engrossing detail.

Having read the book, I almost wish that I had not eaten from Pollan’s tree of knowledge–I want back into my ignorant Garden of Eatin’ where I was happy with the stories I purchased from Whole Foods or the convenience of my McDonald’s Egg McMuffin.  Though I must continue eating, it’s impossible to revert to ignorance–instead, I have to live in denial.   It won’t be the first time.  As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I lived close to Pollan’s ideal.  My family had a garden, kept animals, and prided themselves on growing everything without chemicals and preserving foods through natural processes.  When I wanted a turkey for an American style Thanksgiving celebration, they introduced me to my neighbors who introduced me to the turkeys.  I thought, "I didn’t want to meet and greet you, I just wanted to eat you." but there I was holding the squirming bird to see if he was big enough.  (He was.)   I must admit, those were some of the most delectable birds I’ve tasted, but still I longed for the familiar seemingly antiseptic Butterball.  They were so much less messy. 

All of the sudden those folks who are trying to eat local seem a little bit more rational, and I’m longing for the days when my Lithuanian hosts would go out and grab the eggs from the chicken coop in the morning.  I used to fret when I met an animal, and they told me when he was going to expire–"oh, the pig?  Easter."  I was still living in my saran wrapped cocoon of ignorance.  Now my cozy cocoon’s been torn again–and I’m thinking, heh, isn’t New Jersey the Garden State?  Maybe there’s an answer on a local farm…

NYC High School Students Pick Great Reads

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Urban Academy, an “alternative” public high school in Manhattan requires that students must complete projects in six different areas–creative arts, criticism, literature, math, social studies, and science. As part of the literature competency, students are required to read a novel and discuss it with an adult reader. I have been a volunteer reader for a few years now and the students choose great books. With them, I’ve read: Going After Cacciato, A Clockwork Orange, Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep, Waiting, and now, A Lesson Before Dying by Earnest Gaines.

In addition to choosing great books, these students are amazing readers–the books are read, and re-read, highlighted, dog-eared, post-it noted and underlined. They’re able to identify themes, relate them back to their lives and always come up with new insights into the work. Almost every day I read a blog post or news story about how New York City public schools could be doing better by our students. These experiences with the students and the committed teachers from Urban Academy is just one example of the good work that’s going on in New York City Schools. These kids are able to read, critique, discuss and express themselves; they also are passionate about what they’ve read. I always learn a great deal from them which is why I never pass up the opportunity to read with them. Lately, I’ve found myself putting my “Urban” hat on when I’m reading for myself–reading a bit more closely, marking pages, and taking notes in the margin. It just makes reading more fun. And if you happen to be looking for a good book, you might check out my Urban Academy Reading list.

Special bonus, a how-to on “masterly marginalia” from the folks at Levenger.

Training with Paula Radcliffe

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This morning when I finished my run, Paula told me "Congratulations, you’ve just set a new personal record for the mile."   No, I’m not in England training with world class marathon runners, but I did recently get a nike+iPod sport kit.  (No, you don’t have to buy the special Nike shoes–if you were wondering–I did the pouch from Marware)  Anyway, one of the many easter eggs is that when you set a new record for the mile, Paula congratulates you.  I had no idea that this feature existed.  I’m secretly hoping that Dean Karnanzes is going to be talking to me some day. Congratulations.  You’ve logged 100 miles in 7 days, and set a new personal record for covering that many miles.  I salute the Nike+iPod design team.  This has been a very fun $30 purchase.  (And it automatically keeps track of how far I’ve gone, how fast and even where.)

Better: Notes on A Surgeon’s Performance

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I just finished reading Better:  A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. While mistakes are a part of learning, medicine is the profession where a doctor’s mistake could harm or kill a patient.   The decisions I make on a daily basis do not involve life or death–in medicine, doctors make these decisions every day.

Gawande explores how doctors can do "better." and takes readers on location–from forward military hospitals in Iraq to a polio mop up in India.  His conclusion–the technology isn’t nearly as important as process. 
He begins by talking about how hard it is to get something as simple as handwashing right–and why its so insanely difficult and finishes with a tour of a hospital in India where a patient dies because simple supplies were not readily available.  He also talked about the bias that we have here in the US toward new technology–which reminded me of this article where Shapin argues that "uses, not innovations, drive human technology." 
Gawande told of how resourceful, creative and persistent doctors were in developing nations.  In these settings, doctors are almost forced to be better–they turn out to be amazing generalists–administering chemotherapy using pirated drugs or pioneering new procedures for laproscopic stomach ulcer repair.  We would do well to learn from their ingenious approaches.
The ideas he suggests for doctors to get better at their medicine practice and become "positive deviants" are applicable for all of us–they are:

  • Ask an unscripted question–it helps develop rapport and has a way of illuminating what you’re working on.
  • Don’t complain: "it’s boring, it doesn’t solve anything and it will get you down."  Wonder what he would have to say about Kegan and Lahey’s work?
  • Count something:  Apply the scientific method.  Keep track, and use what you learn to make what you do better.
  • Write something:  Share what you know–take the opportunity to reflect.
  • Change:   Be aware of what you’re doing and approach it in a new way

Knowing When To Fold

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What’s the fastest and most fun way to get to work? I’ve been commuting in New York City for over 8 years–from Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn (6 out of 8 in Brooklyn) and can say hands down that cycling is the fastest and definitely the most fun. However, it presents its own challenges–where do you lock your bike? What if you work up a sweat on the way in? How do you avoid injury?

My new commute from Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, to SoHo is anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes on the F Train. However, I noticed that I missed starting my day by riding into the office. Bromptonstypeblack

My previous job was very bike commute friendly–I had a place where I could leave my bike indoors, a gym on the premises for showers and a dedicated bike lane for 7 miles of the route. My new gig at MOUSE presents different challenges–it’s much closer but there’s no bike parking and also no easy place to shower. Moreover, as of May, we’re also going to be in Glen Ridge, NJ–though only 13 miles from Lower Manhattan, the best bike route would take me over the George Washington Bridge, bringing the daily milage to 60–and rendering it very unlikely on all but the longest of summer days. So I needed a bike that I could easily stow on the train–enter the Brompton.

I hadn’t heard of them until Eddie Rubeiz, a former Columbia colleague raved about his folder. After taking one for a test ride and seeing that it does in fact fold and unfold in seconds, I was sold.

As a test, yesterday I rode the bike from Cobble Hill to the Puck Building and back . The trip, one-way, door to door took 15 minutes, plus a minute, thirty seconds for the fold. The ride over the Brooklyn Bridge was swift–the Brompton has a 54 tooth front front chain ring and a mini-2 speed derailleur which makes it easy to get up to speed, cruise as well as crank uphill. I was pleasantly surprised by how stable the Brompton feels and how easy it is to balance at traffic lights. The bike is also easy to handle when one’s not riding it–whether it’s picking it up when it’s folded, or moving it around in while it’s on its real wheel and “parked.” The bike is well-designed and well-built. It’s sound engineering has made an alternative morning commute possible.

Perhaps the most appealing aspects of commuting by bike is how independent I feel. I am not waiting on a subway train, stuck in traffic or thinking that I should have gone to the gym. I’m out and about, riding–which is just a ton of fun.