3) Note the ranking of air quality from local [stationary AKA "point"] sources (1 being good, 5 being very poor).
Did you find any similarities between the air quality where you live and the counties afflicted by the Emerald Ash Borer?
If so, we can ask the people who conducted the research questions like "why was air quality from point sources not as strong a correlation for health in comparison to the presence of trees?"
Also, is it possible that many of these places are in close proximity to heavy traffic (highways, etc.)?
Status from A:
Comic book poetry with high schoolers tomorrow! Osborn High School, I can't wait. Also, I love that you are named for a fabulous Detroit suffragist.
There's one more thread of thought I'd like to share about the program and my experience with the LSO and how it can relate to audiences. Even if the article will be printed tomorrow without it, I think it's important to share as it adds some depth to what I was trying to capture in our conversation yesterday.
In essence: we're privileged to discover glimpses of what drives the nexus of art and science, and we have the opportunity to experience profound reminders about the nature of life as part of the symphony.
I vividly remember one of the French Horn players rushed out of rehearsal to attend to one of his patients during rehearsal this season. Last year in the summer, our piccolo/flutist passed away after a long grapple with breast cancer and chemo therapy shortly after performing in the spring concert. Our director, Oriol Sans, sent the following letter to members of the symphony:
"At this moment I want to share a few words with you. Last week I went tosee Lisa at the hospital, and it was an experience that I will neverforget. The open and honest way she talked about her cancer and what wasgoing to happen to her, made a deep impression on me. Among other things,she told me that for the last year music made her forget about all thehealth problems she was going through. Music didn't cure her, she said, butit helped her to get through that. I told her what a great example she was for all of us. She came to ourrehearsals with a crutch, without it, with a wig, without a wig, with longhair, with short hair... But she was always there, and I never heard asingle complaint from her. Until the very end, the illness never stoppedher to do one of the things that she most loved: making music. The sameweek of our last concert she didn't agree to a last round of chemo untilthe doctors promised her that she would be ready to play for our dressrehearsal and the concert. I think that I can speak from all of us when I say that seeing her examplewas truly a gift. I am glad that my last words to her before I left herroom at the hospital were thank you."
Medicine and health care are intimately connected tied to the life and environmental sciences. Given that the causes of cancer are an interconnected mix between genetics, diet, and environmental factors ( http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/materials/cancer_and_the_environment_508.pdf ), the past experiences are a reminder to me about some of the people and things we love and strive to creatively improve about the world we live in.
One last note: Curiosity and experience drive the arts and sciences alike: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." - Albert Eistein
As mentioned in the program notes written by Oriol for our upcoming concert, the Mahler symphony was deeply influenced by themes from nature and our relationship with it--it features bird calls (of a cuckoo) in its opening movements, and the story of a hunter's funeral--attended by animals. Shostakovich's Festival Overture was performed as a fanfare for the 2009 nobel prize. The LSO presents an opportunity for audiences and participants alike to entice a shared sense of wonder.
Thank you again for sharing your time to consider my thoughts, I hope I was able to share this in time with you.
All the best, Ian D. Tran
--- B.S. Environmental Science, Political Science Minor
Class of 2012
The University of Michigan-Dearborn
"Today
there is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence. It is either
nonviolence or nonexistence." -Dr. Martin Luther King
"It
springs rather from my conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we
must break with the habit of deference to great men." - Karl Popper
I
think Dr. Martin Luther King Day (which I learned is not his birthday! That happened January
15th) is an appropriate opportunity to reflect upon and reinvigorate our
commitment to the timeless legacy and vision of justice exemplified by Dr. King instead of giving deference to him as an idol of noble
aspirations. More than that, I think we foremost
benefit from recognizing our ability to empower ourselves and each other (all
people, of course not just men). Another quote, this time from the living Bill Moyers, shares this belief that action is up to you: “What we need
to match the science of human health is what the ancient Israelites called
‘hocma’—the science of the heart. . . the capacity to see. . . to feel. . . and
then to act. . . as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.”
In
that regard, all of us are capable of discovering greatness in ourselves and
one another. Among their
accomplishments, civil rights proponents like King succeeded in empowering
people by promoting awareness and opportunity to engage in justice through
democracy with disciplined planning and steadfast implementation. I recently met the Reverend Dr. James Lawson, who worked closely
with Dr. King, in the autumn of 2012 after he gave a speech about non-violence. By miraculous coincidence, I met him one day after I tasted the gunpowder from a gunshot meant
to kill a person less than 8 feet away.
At first blush, non-violence can seem like a
fairly simple, even vague if not hollow, term. If someone draws a gun with malicious intent,
what other choices do we have? Guns,
much like nuclear weapons, can almost guarantee mutual destruction. Yet if we ask why one would draw a
gun to potentially kill extended family, or even carry one in the first place, the answer had to revolve around personal security and insecurity when you boil the situation down it to its essence.
Security is a sophisticated need. It’s inherently dependent upon complex
systems which are beyond the full control of an individual. Even one’s perception can skew our judgment of
an already shifting reality.
I
suspect an answer to dealing with potentially absolute violence lies in
interventions that meet the following condition: overcome our human tendency to
engage in rules that necessitate the reciprocal escalation of powers. Undermine or reshape the entire premise of
our value system for fighting—the “rules of the game”—by changing the
perceptions and paradigms which shape how and why we think about combative
engagement in the first place.
People
are complex; fortunately, science helps us find ways to effectively work with
complexity, including social codes and personal beliefs. Complex systems scientists recognize tangible
behaviors as necessary for persuading peoples’ values, paradigms and
worldviews (see the list of 12 leverage
points for intervening in a complex system here: http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/Leverage_Points.pdf
). When appropriate, non-violence may
need to employ the use of non-lethal protective use of force
(check out Marshall Rosenberg's well-earned wisdom: http://youtu.be/21g1S7stoQI
), but no matter what, non-violence is exercised without malice in our actions. The way we communicate ideas, or even
notions, in language (can we speak without engaging in abuse or instigating
escalation?) usually becomes the first symptom for a potential intervention. To astute observers, it may be expressed visually in our physical posturing
and gestures (can you assert your presence without resorting to making it
threatening to others?) as well, and of course in how we physically interact with one
another (can you embrace and redirect a person's attack rather than impose force onto them? That's what the martial art Aikido focuses on).
Adding Popper’s contention about the notion of
“great men”, I gleaned another note for non-violence from Dr. Lawson: Non-violence operates via empowerment as its primary principle. “Non-violence
is premised on the idea that all people have power to act beyond the influence
of their circumstance.” But in this, there's a
challenge: unlike violence, which can quickly and easily interfere with the
integrity of an ideal like peace, trust, or love, non-violence requires
discipline, careful planning, and patient dedication.
We must act from a hope to overcome, we must plan to overcome.
Which leads us to another nuance of non-violence from Reverend Lawson: “Non-violence is the moral
equivalent to war. It requires
organization and discipline.” Consider the planning and commitment
that went into what we now see as watershed events: Coordinated planning took place for the
sit-ins from 1959-1964. The Montgomery
Bus Boycott officially began on December 1st of 1955, some of us heard that in
the history books or on television programs, but few of us realize the tenacity
of the cause: the boycott was sustained for over a year—381 days.
An ideal is a lot like other life-processes: education, communication and the arts, design, even ethics.
All of these activities involve intentions, actions, and consequences.
Among seasoned practitioners like Reverend Lawson, the term "non-violence" actually isn't representative of what people really strive for. Non-anything implies reaction and work that runs directly against something. If anything, I suspect people really strive to love--create it and do it. It's a noun, but most importantly a verb.
Love exists as a plausible ideal. We may bear compassionate and loving intentions. Caring actions may manifest loving intentions, and perhaps the desired consequence of compassion and love creates a legacy that reaffirms the intention and fosters more love.
Yet as an ideal, it becomes so expansive to act upon that many find--and take--temptation in believing ideals cannot happen in reality. Furthermore, it's possible, potentially even reasonable [using the word in a very strict sense, link goes to various definitions] though never justifiable, that a person can love the person whom they abuse. Their intentions may be true, but the actions they know or choose to express care through compromise the dignity and autonomy of another being.
This remains the challenge of Dr. King and many other notable living visionaries of our time: to truly validate worthy ideals such as peace, justice, and love all three aspects of the ideal must be good and present. That takes visionary planning to manifest dreams from ideal to real. When society-shaping, you need to do so with people, not just on behalf of them, and certainly not independent of them.
Keep it up, we shall overcome someday, but let’s discover the someday together, every day in our actions with one another.
. . .
Notes about music in the video above:
Minor variations and improvisations on the Civil Rights song "We Shall Overcome" recorded in the University of Michigan-Dearborn Wellness Center on January 21st 2013.
A few weeks ago I played it spur of the moment and it was a profound rendition if I say so myself, but I don't remember what I did and I didn't have anything to record it with at the time. There's some irony to the notion of playing a social justice song, solo, to no one but yourself on MLK day. I was somewhat disappointed that I missed a few opportunities including a symposium on social justice that day, so as I practiced other tunes, I decided to give the song another try in observation of the day as well.
I suspect playing a song used for civil rights alone doesn't quite contribute to making the dream manifest, but hopefully sharing it here might be worth your while. I'm drawing memory from a rendition I heard on a cd by Peter Paul and Mary when I was in second grade-fifth grade, and hadn't really prepared my playing as much as I now think I should have. Ongoing process...
By this maxim, we may better examine the second amendment's assertion that we have the right to bear arms under purview of a "well-regulated militia". But what constitutes a militia? What happens when much of the civilian population is armed?
Perhaps we could pursue detailed legal answers to those questions, but the point I'm raising has everything to do with recognizing responsibility, discipline, and regulation as analogous requisites for our freedoms.
A jam-packed day, but I'll start with the evening's events:
Into the evening, I received a text message from a friend who had reached out for help. He was fighting long-standing suicidal desires and a on Sunday evening/Monday morning I reached him as I suspected and realized it was severe. We hadn't spoken or seen each other possibly since elementary school-he was the older brother of a classmate of mine, but he reached out to me sometime during college and I accepted his invitation for the opportunity to touch base, and then between late in December and mid January I finally communicated with him.
On Monday morning (as in 03:00-06:00), he mentioned his frustration with life and his ongoing turmoil between severe anger, angst and depression. He was, sometimes maybe is still, feeling despondent--so much that he wondered if he should "take a mouthful of sleeping pills" to end his life. Yet he also expressed to me that he knew it wasn't good, knew there were people who love him, and he actually wanted to live. With a few exceptions to my circumstances, I had recently gotten over that sense of despondence. This winter, I was surprised and rather glad to realize that one who endures--and possibly the privileged few who overcome--prolonged suffering earns more than a sense of pride that comes from enduring hardship. Eventually, some find themselves endowed with a new caliber of empathy and humanity that allows them to work with others who have suffered similarly.
Today I briefly sent him a message after realizing he tended to stay up very late: I recommended ways for him to sleep earlier (research points to less severe/reduced frequency of depression for those who sleep well and earlier at night). I lost contact with my friend for approximately 6 hours, and realized he had written a confusing statement on his social network profile.
After attempting to reach him and his brother by every means I could find between phones and the internet, I finally called 911. When I called 911 to request for the police to check on him, I was asked by the dispatcher if my friend had mentioned anything about how he might have planned to commit suicide. The police do this for several reasons, part of it involves safety--for the officers to prepare appropriately--and part of it is probably to screen the severity of a case. I knew and gave a likely means: a potential overdose on sleeping pills. My friend later (around 11:30 pm) sent me a message to inform me that he was well and that he appreciated my concern and initiative. Ironically, he told me he was sleeping--early during all of the commotion until the police came to his house!
Had anyone asked me in December through March of 2012 where or what I would do a year from then, meaningfully empathizing with people who'd trust me enough to express their concerns and anguish was far from my imagination.
I also wouldn't have thought I'd be fit to participate in swing and blues dancing either.
. . .
As another poetic loop, I realized that the elements of the earliest ballroom dances I had ever learned trace their steps to Lindy Hop (dancing with my mum at Eastern University when I was in second grade) and the Tango (dancing with a South American friend at a time that I had never been so close to a female before, not to mention in a situation where I was attempting to learn dance steps from a very competent dancer).
From performing with Amanda Palmer as part of the Grand Theft Orchestra, I learned a valuable nuance about professional rock stars: they know and live all-out at the times that it matters most. In other words, they recognize their "greatness", and can tap into it in relatively short order so that they operate at their best by burning through any anxieties almost right away. The music they (professional celebrity musicians in general) play might not be the most intricate or thoughtfully crafted, but they know how to "maintain the energy" throughout the performance (as articulated by the ladies of the phenomenal Norwegian band Katzenjammer in some interview seen online).
With blues/early swing dance, it's very similar. Even though I was brand new and was content to hang out at the edge of the dance floor to watch and learn the history of the dances, I was pleasantly--warmly--greeted and asked to dance by many people, several of whom were outstanding dancers in their own right. In many cases I had long since lost track of the steps and made up my own motions. Because I've long appreciated the goofy and exaggerated swinging motions and bounce of dances like Lindy Hop and Charleston (there exists a more subtle form of Charleston), I had some exciting moments doing things that seemed like they would make sense. That said, I suspect it's similar to the principle gleaned from the Amanda Palmer gig I played at St. Andrews hall this past November. Within reason, I remained rather energetic throughout and probably spent over 4 hours doing dance related things.
At the same time, I realized that I occasionally had no conception of what I could/should/wanted to do next with many of my motions. This can be scary--I recall realizing that the biggest differences between those on the politically conservative/liberal identity spectrum was their degree of exposure and emphasis of value to possibilities--when we refer to a conservative disposition, it sometimes happens because we really have no way of imagining/conceiving the possibility of an alternative opportunity and/or reality.
With both events said and examined, I think it's really important to know the people in your community--especially those whom might consider you a friend--well enough that you can help
I started this day at 06:28, had a brief but powerful nap, and it's now 02:15. Easy day, onward to the next!
