“I don’t know how you did it”

I wouldn’t lie and say that I have fully processed this 9-month journey, because truthfully, I still feel numb. It feels surreal. Am I really leaving in three days? There is no way that I wont be in Ghana 4 days from now. It just doesn’t make sense. This has become my life, my home. The phrase I hear most from semester students is “I don’t know how you did it. I couldn’t imagine staying for an entire year.” In all honesty, it was one of the best decisions of my life; though it was challenging.

After first semester examinations in December of 2016, I was ready to leave Ghana. I felt obligated to endure more of the “conditions” that I wasn’t accustomed to. Truth is, I just didn’t want to experience it all over again for another semester. Though I had learned so much, I felt like enough was enough. I began brainstorming ways that I could cancel my year-abroad program to pack up and head home. Following the encouragement from friends and family, I decided to fulfill my commitment and stay one final semester. I am thankful that I did. This second semester gave me an opportunity to see and experience a raw and uncut perspective of Ghana.

It is safe to say that most foreign students are eager to return home upon the approach of their first examinations as a University of Ghana student. This is partly due to the fact that they miss their families, but also because they are exhausted due to cultural differences. The lack of wifi, and the inability to adjust to the overall slower system or way of doing things deepens their disdain for Ghana. However, whether they understand it or not, they do leave with something valuable—they’ve lived in a third world country that is underdeveloped and exploited due to the politics of Western countries. Many, myself included, have complained about the lack of resources in Ghana; yet the reality of Ghana’s predicament is much more painful than a semester of experiencing the “quarter-way” Ghanaian lifestyle (I say “quarter-way” because even in Ghana we are privileged…we have running water in the International Student Hostel, fans, a restaurant, programs that take care of us, etc. when this is not the case for the average Ghanaian). What I hope to depict is the fact that the luxuries we experience in America are at the expense of the Ghanaian people and African populations as a whole.

I cannot explain where my mind was upon the end of first semester, but I do know that I desperately wanted to go home and enjoy A/C, wing-stop, family and friends, and of course, Sacramento State and the abundance of resources provided for students. I wasn’t able to run home to all of the luxuries I was accustomed to, after just one semester without them. I wanted to forget about all of the things that bothered me and caused me to reflect on my own American privilege, because I felt like no matter what struggle I faced being poor and a minority in the U.S., I would always be able to say that 1 of my U.S. dollar bills equaled 4 Ghanaian cedis. In fact,according to United Nations World Food Programme, “at least 45 percent of the population lives on less than US $1.25 a day.” Being fully immersed in the culture, I was able to feel and see glimpses of what many Ghanaians experience their entire lives. Instead of running, I was forced to brace myself and tackle yet another semester without the perceived necessities I had enjoyed my entire life. Ghana has become one of my biggest blessings in disguise.

Throughout my first semester in Ghana, I was able to hold onto some of my home ideals, norms, and overall way of life. Although I felt at home in Ghana last semester, I would use the word “tired” to describe my experience. I was tired of the schooling system, the mailing system, the language barriers, the racial identifications (if you are not darker skin, you are considered white. You can be Mexican-American, African-American, etc. and still be considered white), the inability to load more than two pictures on Instagram, the lack of resources within classrooms, and ultimately the degradation I experienced from many males. Being here for 9 months, allowed me to see beyond those experiences and dive into the sociological imagination behind them. What has caused this experience, and why?

Ghana has changed me, entirely. My thoughts have shifted, and in being here for an entire academic year, I was granted a unique experience. My professors know me by name, and ultimately the golden excuse, “I am an international student” is no longer valid. My professors know that I understand what is expected of me (this is unfortunate..ha!). There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t indulge in a Ghanaian meal. My favorites are groundnut soup with rice balls, as well as yam chips with extra shito and vegetable stew with plain rice. I may not speak TWI everyday, but I can usually decipher various phrases and words from passing conversations. If someone asks me “ete sen?” I know to respond “eye, na wo nso e?” If someone asks me “Wote Twi?” “Mete twi kakra kakra” is my immediate response. I feel a tug at my heart when I accidentally use my left hand (culturally, it is rude to utilize your left hand to pass or accept something from someone else) and I even feel awkward wearing shorts (You do not see many Ghanaians wearing shorts. I’ve caught myself thinking, ‘why do we even wear shorts? They show too much leg’). Being in Ghana for a second semester allowed me to become a more culturally competent individual. For example, during first semester, I was extremely passionate about preaching American ideals and norms. “Wow. Thats stupid. Why is it done that way? All they had to do was…” or “My professor literally just told an entire class that abortion is wrong and God will punish you. How is that even a thing? That is so wrong to say in a classroom setting.” Now, at the finish of second semester, I understand why these ideals are embodied and understand that cultural competence requires one to “sit back” and push aside their own views to understand another. I don’t think I could have achieved that in one semester.  Though many foreign students will never accept professors at UG vouching  that homosexuality is indeed a sexual deviance, rather than challenging the status quo, and that abortion, among others, is completely unacceptable on the basis of religion, some will find that the differences are actually what make Ghana unique. We all hold our own personal biases.

I have accepted nonexistent hot water, inconsistent wifi,  habitual hand-washing, lack of campus resources (you learn to make it work) and an overall slower pace of life—i.e. if a meeting starts at 10am, students will not show until 10:45 or later. This is respectively referred to as G.M.T=”Ghana Man Time”. I have caught myself late for appointments, sleeping a lot more, and overall, enjoying much more down time. If I wanted to walk at an extremely slow pace, I’d fit right in. 🙂 My idea of necessity has changed greatly. Once upon a time, I was wishing that I could return to my “luxurious” lifestyle. Now, I feel awkward using hot water, being pampered, allowing the water to run while I brush my teeth, (THIS WASTES 8 GALLONS!) and having so much, when others have so little. The Social Worker in me wants to help.

I am not sure that I will truly understand the impact that Ghana has had on me until I return home as the new Shatesha. But, I am excited to see how this experience affects and prepares me for the future. More than anything, I am nervous about returning home and having everything at my disposal. I have learned to stop and smell the roses; will I be able to do this in a fast-paced American society?

Thank you Ghana. Thank you Ghanaian people, for showing me true happiness and allowing me to get closer to my roots. Believe me when I say, ” YEBEHYIA BIO!” (We will meet again).


Blog | December 13, 2016 - 2:09 pm
By Maggie Molina, Senior Director of Policy

Energy efficiency faces a critical test this month in Ohio. Its tremendous progress in the state could be slowed unless Governor John Kasich vetoes a recently passed bill by the 28th of December.

Extending the savings freeze isn’t the only negative impact of HB 554. The bill would allow “mercantile energy users” to opt out of the state’s energy efficiency requirements. It would expand the state’s existing opt-out policy by lowering the size threshold for eligibility to one of the lowest in the country and even allow national accounts to opt-out regardless of size (e.g. potentially gas stations and restaurants). Letting more businesses opt out would essentially make all the smaller ratepayers subsidize the efficiency resource for the largest customers. And if more customers opt out, rates go up for all customers as the lost savings from cost-effective energy efficiency programs need to be replaced with more expensive power purchases.

The bill would also allow utilities to count “savings” that have nothing to do with customer energy efficiency. For example, it would allow utilities to count energy intensity reductions resulting from heat rate improvements at electric generating plants, either owned by the utility or their affiliates. These types of allowances could mean that utilities drastically cut customer energy efficiency programs while meeting the targets.

If no bill is enacted by the end of the calendar year, the very effective original efficiency standards, along with the renewable energy standards, would go back into effect in 2017. That would be a wise course of action. Based on many years of evidence that prove energy efficiency is a good deal for Ohioans and their economy, we think good policy should get back to work.


How to Help Keep Seniors Healthy

As we glide into a new year, health is sure to be on a lot of our minds. Some make New Year’s resolutions for a healthier lifestyle. Some feel a new sense of motivation to change bad habits. For those of us with elderly loved ones, we tend to think of their health as well. But how can we help keep seniors healthy?

That is the question we are going to explore in this article, looking specifically at diet, exercise, socialization, activities, hygiene, and in home care.

A Senior’s Diet

While a healthy diet for a senior should look similar to a healthy diet for anyone, there are some specific points seniors need to consider as they put together a meal plan.

  1. The diet should help keep cholesterol levels low. High cholesterol can contribute to a higher likelihood of dementia, heart disease, and many other diseases. An excess of cholesterol builds walls, so to speak, around the arteries, causing them to harden and narrow. This can slow down or even block blood flow.

  2. The diet should keep blood pressure down. Limiting salt, alcohol, and caffeine can go a long way here. High blood pressure, which is very common among the elderly, damages blood vessels and increases the probability of heart attack, heart disease, kidney failure, and stroke.

  3. The diet should include a lot of vegetables and vitamins. If you eat vegetables, you’ll most likely take care of the vitamins at the same time. Vitamin E, C, and B are especially important, as they keep cells healthy and help in preventing cancer and heart disease. Overall, vegetables and vitamins go a long way in keeping the immune system up and helping the body fight off unwanted intruders.

Exercise for Seniors

Regular exercise of some kind is important for seniors. Whether it’s getting out of the chair a couple times a day for a short walk or a more full exercise routine, staying physically active will help keep a senior healthy. Swimming or water exercise classes, in particular, are great options if a senior is still mobile enough to participate. Exercise helps keep cholesterol and blood pressure down and strengthens the heart.

Beyond the physical benefits of exercise, a senior who is physically active will also experience mental benefits as well. Exercise tends to increase happiness and altertness, providing  more energy and motivation overall.

Socialization and Activities

If you can’t help in any other area,  try to at least help seniors in your life stay engaged with the world. Without socialization and a healthy level of activities, seniors are much more likely to become depressed or slip into a downward spiral in terms of health.

Seniors should continue to enjoy the company of family and friends, also staying active in groups that they enjoy. In alone time, seniors can engage their minds and keep them active with crossword puzzles or reading. Many activities help improve reaction time, memory, and overall mental ability.

Hygiene Issues

In general, poor health can negatively affect hygiene, and poor hygiene can negatively affect health. Seniors need to be especially careful in the areas of toileting and oral care. Improper toileting can lead to urinary tract infections, which can cause further complications and have in some cases even led to dementia in the elderly.

In terms of oral care, a senior needs to continue brushing, flossing, and visiting the dentist on a regular basis. This helps prevent gum disease, which has been linked to more serious problems like Alzheimer’s and heart disease.

At Home Care

As a final point, I want to note that keeping a senior in the home can make a drastic difference in his or her health. Most seniors prefer remaining where things are familiar. Statistically, seniors who are able to remain at home are much less likely to deal with stress or more serious illnesses like Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Having a caregiver in the home can also support your efforts in keeping the senior healthy in diet, exercise, socialization, and activities. Not only will the caregiver be able to be a friend to the senior, but he or she will be able to monitor the senior in activities of daily living.

I hope this articles has provided a good starting point on the topic of how to keep seniors healthy. If you are interested in finding an at home caregiver for your elderly loved one, start the process by searching for caregivers in your area or registering on our site.


On this breezy October morn, I walk
in the swift shadows of cloud-cursing rooks,
watching the world wake on the horizon.
Leo Yankevich
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

Speaking Practice

LEN English sessions:-

Listening Practice 24/7

English radio playlists:-

Photo Fun

You can write a caption, write about how the photo makes you feel, or simply write a description of what you can see in the picture. If you want to really push yourself, try to make up a little story.


Our Planet’s Lungs

Our Planet’s Lungs

We have all heard about how trees help the environment, but do we know how exactly? Metaphorically, trees are like the lungs of the planet. They breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. What does this mean?

Carbon Dioxide or CO2 is one of the major contributing elements to the greenhouse effect. Trees trap CO2 from the atmosphere. Studies have shown that urban forests of the U.S store 800 million tons of. Mature trees can absorb roughly 48 pounds of CO2 a year. The tree in turn releases enough oxygen to sustain two human beings.

In urban areas, trees can help reduce urban runoff and erosion by storing water and breaking the force of rain as it falls. The United States Department of Agriculture says that 100 mature trees can reduce runoff caused by rainfall by up to 100,000 gallons.

Other related article:

Trees have other benefits in urban areas as well. For one, they absorb sound and reduce thus noise pollution. If you live by a major freeway, you can appreciate sounds absorbed. Studies have shown that in some cases, a well planted group of trees can reduce noise pollution by up to 10 decibels.

For urban areas that are quite hot, such as Phoenix or Las Vegas, the addition of trees help shade asphalt and reduce what is called the “heat island” effect. Reducing heat is so important in regards to helping people save energy that the Environmental Protection Agency encourages cities to grow trees. To determine exactly how much energy is saved by a trees cooling effect, studies have shown that one tree is equivalent to 10 room-size air conditioners running 20 hours a day.

Trees aren’t only beneficial for warm climates and summer heat. In the winter, they can act as windbreaks for your home and help you save on heating costs. The Journal of Horticulture claims that saving on heating costs can reach as much as 25 percent!

What are some other quick facts regarding trees and how they save energy and help the environment? Here are a few:

· As few as three trees properly positioned can save the average household between $100 and $250 annually in energy costs.

· Shade from two large trees on the west side of a house and one on the east side can save up to 30% of a typical residence’s annual air conditioning costs.

· Annual benefits provided by parking lot trees in Sacramento, California,(8.1% tree shade) were valued at approximately $700,000 for improved air quality. By increasing shade to 50% in all parking lots in Sacramento, the annual benefits will increase to $4 million.

· Rows of trees reduce wind speed by up to about 85%, with maximum reductions increasing in proportion to visual density. Because even a single row of dense conifers can cause large reductions in wind speed, effective windbreaks can be planted on relatively small house lots. Compared with an open area, a good windbreak that does not shade the house will save about 15% of the heat energy used in a typical home.

· Modest increases of 10% canopy cover in the New York City Area were shown to reduce peak ozone levels by up to 4 parts per billion or by nearly 3% of the maximum and 37% of the amount by which the area exceeded its air quality standard. Similar results were found in Los Angeles and along the East Coast from Baltimore to Boston.

· Trees in Davis, California, parking lots reduced asphalt temperatures by as much as 36 degrees Fahrenheit, and car interior temperatures by over 47 degrees Fahrenheit.

· Philadelphia’s 2.1 million trees currently store approximately 481,000 metric tons of carbon with an estimated value of $9.8 million.

· A typical community forest of 10,000 trees will retain approximately 10 million gallons of rainwater per year.

Original from:


samedi 14 août 2010

Pharyngealization and pharyngeals in Tashlhiyt Berber

Pharyngealization and pharyngeals in Tashlhiyt Berber:
A descriptive and comparative study
Rachid Ridouane
Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie (UMR 7018) CNRS/Sorbonne Nouvelle

Berber is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in large parts of North Africa, mainly in
Morocco and Algeria. Tashlhiyt, the variety investigated here, is spoken in the Southern
part of Morocco. The phonemic inventory of this language is argued to include the
following set of dorsopharyngealized phonemic consonants, all of which are coronals:
/t, d, s, z, n, l, r, , /. Each of these consonants has a geminate counterpart,
yielding thus a system of eighteen pharyngealized consonants. These phonemes spread
emphasis to all the other segments present in a word or even a sequence of words
(Elmedlaoui 1985, Boukous 1987). In addition, Tashlhiyt also has the so-called
pharyngeal fricatives, which may be either singletons /, / or geminates /, /.
In this presentation, I will first provide a brief survey of the distribution of these
consonants, and show that while some pharyngealized consonants are very common (i.e.
/t, d, s, z/), others are quite rare and found mainly in some Arabic loanwords (e.g. /n,
l, r/). The productivity of their geminate counterparts will also be discussed. The core
of this presentation is concerned with the phonetic characteristics of these segments. The
phonetic study is divided in two parts.
The first part is concerned with the phonetic description of the following pharyngealized
consonants: /t, d, s, z/ and their geminate counterparts /tt, dd, ss, zz/. The aim is
to determine how these segments are phonetically implemented and how they differ
from their non pharyngealized counterparts /t, d, s, z/ as well as from the uvular
consonants /q, , /. I will present some acoustic, fiberscopic and ultrasound data to
tackle this issue. The acoustic data, based on the productions of five subjects, concern
both the temporal characteristics of these consonants and their qualitative effects on the
surrounding vowels /i, u, a/. Fiberscopic data, based on the production of two speakers,
show how voiceless pharyngealized consonants /t, s/ are produced at the laryngeal
level. The aim is to show how the timing and the amplitude of glottal opening may
account for the differences observed at the acoustic level between these segments and
their non-pharyngealized counterparts /t, s/ and the uvulars /q, / (namely with respect
to the feature [spread glottis] and the shorter VOT displayed by /t/ and /q/, compared
to /t/). The ultrasound data, based on the productions of three speakers, provide lingual
measures of dorsopharyngealized consonants compared to their plain counterparts as
well as to uvulars /q, , /. The results will be presented concerning tongue root activity,
timing of articulatory events, overall tongue shape, and interactions between vowels and
lingual consonants.
The second part of the phonetic study provides fibroscopic data during the production
of /, / and their geminate counterparts. Based on the laryngeal model developed by
Esling and colleagues (e.g. Esling 1996, Edmondson & Esling 2005), the aim is to determine
whether these fricatives are real pharyngeals or whether they are best described as epiglottals
or ayepiglottals. To conclude, a brief comparative study will be provided where data from
Tashlhiyt are compared to data from Moroccan Arabic, a national language with which
Berber has been in contact for centuries and which resembles it in many respects. Data
from Moroccan Arabic are based mainly on findings by C. Zeroual (2002) on the variety
of Moroccan Arabic spoken in Oujda area.

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Can you show the benefits of your sustainability initiatives? If you can’t, you need to answer two questions: 1) Why are my results failing?; and 2) If my initiatives succeed, why can’t I effectively measure and communicate the results?

Always important, but especially when we talk about sustainability–ethics and transparency are key to long-term success. The significance of these qualities goes beyond the traditional provisions in a code of ethics–are you someone that others can rally behind? Do people trust you? Sustainability touches on a number of sensitive subjects and personal beliefs. Do people feel comfortable sharing their deepest held values with you?

Are you chasing goals for others rather than just focusing on your own glory? For sustainability practitioners, this falls into the purview of keeping your eyes on the long-term prize. Of course, hitting those short-term targets are important, but is it obvious to stakeholders that your real motivation is to create long-term, lasting change?

Sure, you may want to be Chief Sustainability Officer for Unilever one day, but that doesn’t mean that every decision you make is with that goal in mind. Similar to #3 above, stakeholders need to see an example of servant leadership in what you say and do.

We can all point to a “leader” in our past who has been long on talk and short on actions. Don’t be that person. Don’t commit to anything that you can’t follow through on. (Even if that means saying no more often!) Especially in sustainability, trust is key and people must know and believe that you are true to your word.

Sustainability should never sit in a silo. It touches everything and everyone, in every context. True sustainability leaders will find ways for stakeholders (no matter their demographic category) to buy in to some aspect of the organization’s sustainability program. Don’t make this mistake of thinking “if you aren’t for us, you’re against us”.

The sustainability landscape it changing fast, and real sustainability leaders need to be able to deal with today’s challenges, while understanding and positioning their organizations for tomorrow. The old saying “what got you here won’t get you there” is key– develop those change management skills and apply them often!

This one is a gut check–how many people continue to support you year after year? Are people happy–even eager–to help you when you request assistance? And are those same people continuing to provide support and advice into the future? If you find that you’re churning through people in your network, it’s time to stop and think about your leadership skills.

How do you talk about your sustainability journey? What role do you play in the hero’s journey? (We’re trying really hard to find a pun along the lines of “there is no ‘I’ in sustainability” — but it’s just not working.) Suffice it to say that hoarding the glory isn’t going to make you look good, or help you empower others in the journey.

Sustainability systems should institutionalize and embed sustainability throughout an organization. But those systems are only as good as the people who run them, and are only as successful as the people that they touch. Make sure that your focus is on the people in your organization, and build the systems that empower, delight, and motivate them to do better.
Jennifer Woofter is the founder and president of Strategic Sustainability Consulting, a boutique firm specializing in helping rapidly growing mid-size businesses integrate sustainability into their business model, and providing coaching and training to sustainability professionals. She tweets at@jenniferwoofter.


american factory AP

Economists had predicted that the PMI was unchanged at 51.5, according to Bloomberg. A reading above 50 indicates that the sector is still in expansion.

"Both output and new orders are rising at the fastest rates for a year amid increasingly widespread optimism that demand will pick up again after the presidential election, which has been commonly cited as a key factor that has subdued spending and investment in recent months," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, in the data release.

Manufacturing production increased for a fifth straight month, and new export orders improved from September. The rise in unfinished work due to backlogs was the most in a year. Also, companies said there was more capacity pressures at their plants, partly because they had slowed the pace of hiring.

The manufacturing sector has not yet fully recovered since the dollar's rise and weak global economic conditions crushed demand for US goods last year.

In September, the PMI rebounded from a contractionary reading of 49.4 — the first slip into that territory since February. Some respondents to Markit's survey reported a rise in domestic and international sales, with some customers buying ahead of anticipated price increases.

Manufacturing has been a hot button topic in the presidential campaign. Republican nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly said the US does not make things anymore, and has vowed to bring back manufacturing jobs from Mexico and China.

It's worth noting that manufacturing now makes a much smaller contribution to the US economy compared to the services sector, where two-thirds of all activity takes place.


The legacy of Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti

Lily Le Brun considers the influences that shaped the work of Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, as a retrospective of his work at Tate Modern opens

Alberto Giacometti with his works, including his bronze Man Pointing sculpture in the background.

In 2015, Alberto Giacometti's Man Pointing (1947) made history by fetching $141 million at Christie's, the highest price ever achieved by a sculpture at auction. Standing almost two metres tall, the whippet-thin bronze figure exemplifies the haunting Modernist sculptures that have come to define the Swiss artist's name.

Tate Modern's extensive retrospective fleshes out the sculptor's most famous creations. Featuring more than 250 works from five decades of his career, it displays paintings and drawings alongside recognisable masterpieces such as Man Pointing, giving a sense of how they developed. The Tate has also secured a loan of rarely exhibited, highly fragile plaster sculptures, which are a revelation - even for the show's curators. 'Like many, I associated Giacometti with bronze sculptures,' says assistant curator Dr Lena Fritsch. 'Although I knew he worked with clay and plaster, I did not know how central these materials were to his practice.' They show how he continuously reworked his sculptures, scratching and carving at their surfaces with a penknife to achieve their distinctively textured surface.

Born in a Swiss mountain village in 1901, Giacometti moved to Paris in 1922, where he embraced Cubism and then Surrealism. It was also a period when so-called 'primitive' art was gaining the attention of the Parisian avant-garde. Giacometti became particularly fascinated by ancient Egypt, at a time when many of its treasures were being unearthed by archaeologists. He saw in this work an ability to represent inner life, something that would remain a preoccupation for his whole career.

Over the years, Giacometti's work evolved to have a deeply human aspect, nurtured by his intimate observations of those closest to him. His wife Annette, his brother Diego and his mistress Caroline were all favoured models, helping to weave his personal life inextricably into his work. 'The sculptures incorporate human feelings such as loneliness, angst or sexual desire in a strong and beautiful way,' says Lena. 'He really lived for his art.'

Suspended Ball, plaster and metal.
Untitled (Mask), plaster and paint.
Head of Woman (Flora Mayo), painted plaster.
Very Small Figurine, plaster.

'Alberto Giacometti' is at Tate Modern until September 10;

more from Interiors

More from House

Go back up


Getting Away From Fast Food

So Why Aren’t People Cooking More?

Educating Yourself

Friends’ Impact On Weight Loss

Friends may have our backs, but their health and fitness habits can literally shape our backsides. How do friends help—or hurt—your healthy habits? Learn more from Martina M. Cartwright, PhD, RD, adjunct faculty member at the University of Arizona, independent biomedical consultant, author and nutrition counselor in Scottsdale, Arizona.

When Dietary Awareness Is Out to Lunch

The desire to copy people close to us is thought to enhance bonding and act as a social superglue (Lakin 2003). When we mimic each other’s eating behaviors, we form positive, subconscious bonds with our dining companions. What people do, rather than what they think, may be why obesity flourishes among friends.

The average person makes over 200 food decisions every day (Wansink 2006). Deciding what and where to eat are just two pieces of the dining puzzle—the other is with whom. Commiserating with pals or engaging in animated conversation over a tasty meal is often good therapy, but it can lead to distracted dining. Focusing on the conversation rather than the food often results in overeating (Hetherington 2006; Wansink 2006). Also, those who eat together subconsciously model each other’s eating styles. Normally light eaters consume more when munching with a group, while heavier eaters eat less when dining with companions (Bell & Pliner 2003). If you want to lose weight, you may find it easier if you hang out with friends who eat healthfully and exercise.

Hitting the Gym With a Friend

Motivating yourself to exercise can be challenging. Did you know that nonexercisers are more likely to get moving and stick with activity programs if supportive friends are involved? As a whole, social influence is positively associated with exercise behaviors, intentions and attitudes. Gabriele et al. (2005) explored social encouragement, which focused on positive reinforcement and statements such as “people important to me encourage me to exercise.” Positive social encouragement like this improved exercise motivation, but social constraint or negative reinforcement reflected in statements like “people will be disappointed in me if I quit exercising” were not helpful. Surrounding yourself with positive pals may keep you moving in the right direction.

SIDEBAR: Workplace Weight Gain

The workplace can be a minefield for people trying to shed pounds. Desktop candy jars and office celebrations provide a steady stream of sugary indulgence that can sabotage the most strident dieter’s efforts.

While coffee breaks and corporate parties can foster camaraderie, they entice mindless eating. Here are a few tips for taming workplace temptation:

Put a lid on goodies. Covering them with foil or a lid will curb mindless munching (Wansink 2006).

View the veggies: Leave these uncovered to promote healthier grazing.

When dining with a co-worker, split large portions.

Socialize and celebrate without food.

Limit happy-hour drinks/alcohol.

Avoid desktop dining.

Limit the “office feeder” influence.

Set an example: Bring in healthier snacks like fresh fruit, and replace the candy with dried fruit or nuts.

Support co-workers who are trying to lose weight.

Bell, R., & Pliner, P.L. 2003. Time to eat: The relationship between the number of people eating and meal duration in three lunch settings. Appetite, 41 (2), 215–18.

Gabriele, J.M., et al. 2005. Differentiated roles of social encouragement and social constraint on physical activity behavior. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 29 (3), 210–15.

Hetherington, M.M., et al. 2006. Situational effects on meal intake: A comparison of eating alone and eating with others. Physiology & Behavior, 88 (4-5), 498–505.

Lakin, J.L., et al. 2003. The chameleon effect as social glue: Evidence for the evolutionary significance of nonconscious mimicry. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 27 (3), 145–62.

Wansink, B. 2006. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. New York: Bantam.

Happy Leg Day!

15 min dynamic warmup

Pre lift isolated muscle activation
3 sets of 15 x 20 reps

Abductor machine
Adductor machine
Glute machine
Quad extensions
Lying leg curls
Calf raises
Box jumps

Strength workout
4 sets x 8 reps
Barbell front squats
Barbell Bulgarian split squats from clean position
Heavy Leg Press
TRX single leg Pistol Squats

3 x 12 reps
Weighted Hanging leg raises
Decline abdominal transverse sit up
Cable crunch

Cardio Finish
1:1 high / low intervals on bike 20 min

Food log:
1/2 sweet potato
1 cup diced grilled veggies
8 oz chicken
1 multi vitamin, 1 fish oil, 1 probiotic

4 oz chicken
1/4 cup almonds
Animal Flex (joint support supplement)

12 pm
1/2 sweet potato
1 cup diced veggies
8 oz chicken

2-4pm Workout
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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Repugnant Conclusion

First published Thu Feb 16, 2006

1. Arriving at the Repugnant Conclusion

Parfit is not the first philosopher to have noticed that influential moral views may have implications of the sort outlined in the Repugnant Conclusion. Henry Sidgwick was close to acknowledging the implication when he pointed out that “… the point up to which, on utilitarian principles, population ought to be encouraged to increase, is not that at which the average happiness is the greatest possible – as appears to be often assumed by political economists of the school of Malthus – but that at which the happiness reaches its maximum” (Sidgwick 1907 p. 418; see also Broad 1930 pp. 249-250; McTaggart 1927 pp. 452-53; Narveson 1967) However, it is Parfit who has brought the conclusion to recent philosophical attention both by stressing the importance of the conclusion and by showing how difficult it is to avoid it (Parfit 1984).

  2. A woman suffers from an illness which means that, if she gets pregnant now, her child will suffer from a permanent handicap. If she postpones her pregnancy a few months until she has recovered, the child she will have will be perfectly normal.

What ought the women to do in the two cases? In case (1) the obvious answer is that the mother ought to undergo the treatment. The reason is simple: the child will thereby get a better life. However, this reason cannot be given if we turn to case (2). If the woman postpones her pregnancy the child that is brought into existence will not be identical to the child she would have had had she decided to become pregnant while she was ill (it will not be the same ovum and sperm that meet). Thus, apparently one cannot hold that it is better for the child that she postpones the pregnancy: the alternative for the child brought into existence would have been non-existence. However, if there is a change in identity of the involved parties between two possible outcomes, how should this affect the moral evaluation? Parfit refers to this as “the Non-identity Problem”. Following what would probably strike most people as the most plausible answer Parfit favors what he calls the “No-Difference View” (1984 p. 367), which implies that the change in identity should not change the answer: the woman in case 2) ought to postpone her pregnancy, just as the woman in case 1) ought to undergo the treatment. A straightforward way of capturing the No-Difference View is the Impersonal Total Principle: If other things are equal, the best outcome is the one in which there would be the greatest quantity of whatever makes life worth living (Parfit 1984 p. 387). However, this view implies that any loss in the quality of lives in a population can be compensated for by a sufficient gain in the quantity of a population; that is, it leads to the Repugnant Conclusion. Consider the following diagram:

Figure 1
Figure 1

The blocks above represent two populations, A and Z. The width of each block shows the number of people in the corresponding population, the height shows their quality of life or welfare. All the lives in the above diagram have lives worth living. People's quality of life is much lower in Z than in A but, since there are many more people in Z, there is a greater quantity of welfare in Z as compared to A. Consequently, although the people in A lead very good lives and the people in Z have lives only barely worth living, Z is nevertheless better than A. Thus, the attempt to provide a plausible solution to the Non-identity problem has led to a seemingly unacceptable conclusion.

Leaving the mentioned Non-identity case aside, there are other arguments establishing that the Repugnant Conclusion is not easily avoided. Parfit has developed an argument to this effect. Consider the three population scenarios indicated in Fig. 2.

Figure 2
Figure 2

Scenario A contains a population in which everybody leads lives well worth living. In A+ there is one group of people as large as the group in A and with the same high quality of life. But A+ also contains a like number of people with a somewhat lower quality of life. In Parfit's terminology A+ is generated from A by “mere addition”. Comparing A and A+ it is reasonable to hold that A+ is better than A or, at least, not worse. Addition of extra worthwhile lives cannot make an outcome worse. Consider the next scenario B with the same number of people as A+, all leading lives worth living and at an average well-being level slightly above the average in A+, but lower than the average in A. It is hard to deny that B is better than A+ since it is better in regard to both average welfare and equality. However, if A+ is at least not worse than A, and if B is better than A+, then B is also better than A given full comparability among populations (i.e., setting aside possible incomparability among populations). By parity of reasoning (scenario B+ and C, C+ etc.), we end up with a scenario Z where the population has a very low positive quality of life. Thus, the final conclusion is that Z is better than A, which is the Repugnant Conclusion. By what apparently constitute sound steps of reasoning we have arrived at an absurd conclusion. This is paradoxical. Thus, is ‘mere’ addition innocuous, as is here assumed? Well, if it is thought to be suspicious, there is a way of avoiding it by starting with a population like the one in A and adding new people living at a slightly lower level than the people in A in a manner that increases the well-being of existing people. You then proceed down the moral alphabet by leveling out the well-being between the best and worst off in a manner that gives more to those who are worst off than you take from those who are best off; in each step new people are added, in order to make this change of the situation possible (Parfit 1984; Tännsjö 2002). Moreover, there are other abstract arguments leading in the same direction, some of them presented by Parfit himself. It seems then that the Repugnant Conclusion is very hard to get around.

The main challenge which Parfit presented in his celebrated work Reasons and Persons is to develop a theory of beneficence – theory X he calls it – which is able to solve the Non-identity problem, which does not lead to the Repugnant Conclusion and which thus manages to block the Mere Addition Paradox, without facing other morally unacceptable conclusions. However, Parfit's own conclusion was that he had not succeeded in developing such a theory.

It might be tempting for people who have little sympathy with utilitarian thought to try to set the problems raised by the Repugnant Conclusion to one side, thinking that it constitutes a problem only for utilitarians. However, most people tend to believe that we have some obligation to make the world a better place, at least if we can do so without violating any deontological constraints, and at a not too high cost to ourselves. Clearly all who think along these lines, even without being utilitarians, are faced with the problem of the Repugnant Conclusion. We can assume that other values and considerations are not decisive for the choice between populations A and Z in Fig. 1 (e.g., promises, rights). The Repugnant Conclusion is a problem for all moral theories which holds that welfare at least matters when all other things are equal.

2. Eight Ways of Dealing with the Repugnant Conclusion

2.1 Introducing new ways of aggregating welfare into a measure of value

2.1.1 The average principle

One proposal that easily comes to mind when faced with the Repugnant Conclusion is to reject total utilitarianism in favor of a principle prescribing that the average well-being per life in a population is maximized. Average utilitarianism and total utilitarianism are extensionally equivalent in the sense that they give the same moral ranking in cases where the compared populations are of the same size. They may differ significantly in different-number cases, however. This is easily seen when the average approach is adopted in the comparison of the population outcomes in Figure 1 and Figure 2. That the average well-being is all that matters implies that no loss in average well-being can be compensated for by a gain in total well-being. Thus in Figure 1, A is preferable to Z, i.e. the Repugnant Conclusion is avoided. In Figure 2, A is preferable to A+, i.e. the Mere Addition Paradox is blocked at the very first step.

2.1.2 Variable value principles

An attempt to produce a compromise between a total principle and an average principle is provided by a variable value principle. The idea behind this sort of view is that the value of adding worthwhile lives to a population varies with the number of already existing lives in such a way that it has more value when the number of these lives is small than when it is large. Taking this view, Noah's obligation to procreate after the Deluge was much stronger than our obligation today. Variable value principles are sometimes called “compromise theories” since they can be said to be a compromise between total and average utilitarianism. With small populations enjoying high welfare, a variable value principle behaves like total utilitarianism and assigns most of the value to the total sum of welfare. For large populations with low welfare, the principle mimics average utilitarianism and assigns most of the value to average welfare. This property is what makes it possible to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. If the value of extra lives decreases asymptotically, then there exists an upper limit to the total value of a population (exactly as the sum of the infinite series 1+1/2+1/4+ … has the upper limit 2). As long as population A in Fig. 1 has a total value above this limit this population will be preferable no matter how populous the low quality population Z is (Hurka 1983, Ng 1989; Sider 1991).

Depending on how precisely various different value principles are worked out they have different implications, which critics have regarded as devastating. For instance, on Ng's explication of this view (Ng 1989) according to which the value of a population is determined by the product of the average welfare and a concave transformation of the number of lives, it follows that it can be better to add people with negative welfare rather than positive welfare to a population. More exactly, Ng's theory implies the “Sadistic Conclusion” (Arrhenius 2000a,b): For any number of lives with any negative welfare (e.g. tormented lives), there are situations in which it would be better to add these lives rather than some number of lives with positive welfare. Moreover, even if it might be reasonable to hold that the value of extra lives with positive welfare decreases asymptotically towards a limit, the analogous assumption about lives with negative welfare isn't very attractive. Hence, given the reasonable assumption that the negative value of adding extra lives with negative welfare does not decrease relatively to population size, a proportional expansion in the population size can turn a good population into a bad one - a version of the so-called “Absurd Conclusion” (Parfit 1984). A population of one million people enjoying very high positive welfare and one person with negative welfare seems intuitively to be a good population. However, since there is a limit to the positive value of positive welfare but no limit to the negative value of negative welfare, proportional expansions (two million lives with positive welfare and two lives with negative welfare, three million lives with positive welfare and three lives with negative welfare, and so forth) will in the end yield a bad population.

2.1.3 Critical Level Principles

Another way of modifying total utilitarianism is to introduce a critical level (Kavka 1982, Parfit 1984; Locke 1984; Blackorby et al. 1997, 2004; Broome 2004). As is the case with the variable value view, a critical level view is based on a split between prudential and moral value. However, in this case the split is even more radical. The idea is that a person's life only contributes positively to an outcome if the quality of the person's life is above a positive critical level. Below this level the moral value of a life is neutral (Kavka 1982) or negative (Blackorby et al. 1997, 2004) even though the person leads a life worth living. In its simplest form, the critical level view is a modified version of total utilitarianism. The contributive value of a person's life is her welfare minus a positive critical level. The value of a population is calculated by summing these differences for all individuals in the population. The critical level view thereby succeeds in avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion. Assuming the critical level is higher than the low quality of the lives led in population Z, the Repugnant Conclusion is blocked: Z now constitutes an outcome (much) worse than A.

An obvious challenge to critical level thinking is to make clear what constitutes the appropriate critical level. On the one hand, the level has to be high enough to avoid versions of the Repugnant Conclusion; on the other, the level has to be low enough not to rule out additions of clearly good lives (for an answer to this challenge see Blackorby et al. 1997). Moreover, critics have been sceptical to the idea that the addition of worthwhile lives (below the critical level) should contribute negatively to an outcome. Moreover, it has been shown that the view leads to the Sadistic Conclusion (see above).

2.2 Questioning the way we can compare and measure welfare

The Repugnant Conclusion may seem to rely on a certain view about welfare. It treats welfare on a single additive scale, where low numbers, if added to themselves often enough, must become larger than any initial larger number. This is like the Archimedean property of the real numbers: For any positive numbers x and y, there is a natural number n such that nx is greater than y. Any finite number of lives in population A can therefore be outweighed by a sufficiently large number of lives in Z because the gain in the quantity of lower values outweighs the loss of certain higher values. However, some theorists – including Parfit – have suggested that this axiological assumption is mistaken. (Parfit 1986; Griffin 1986; Rachels 2001; Crisp 1988, 1992; Glover 1977; Edwards 1979; Lemos 1993; Skorupski 1999; Klint Jensen 1996; Portmore 1999; Riley 1993, 1999). The idea is that one type of good A can be superior to another type of good B, in the sense that any amount of A is better than any amount of B or that some amount of A is better than any amount of B. Suppose that what happens as we move down the alphabet from the high-quality population A to the low-quality population Z is that the best things in life are gradually lost. For instance, as Parfit has suggested, the first step from A to B involves the loss of Mozart's music; in the move from B to C Haydn's music is lost; in the move to D Venice is destroyed; and so on down the alphabet. All that is left in the final move to Z is “muzak and potatoes”. The claim is that the lives in the beginning of the sequence involve goods that are superior to the goods involved in the lives at the end of the sequence. The loss of the most worthwhile things in life cannot be compensated for by any gain in the quantity of muzak and potatoes. Consequently, whatever the number of people in population Z, there will be less well-being in this world as compared to population A and thus the Repugnant Conclusion is blocked.

This suggested way of blocking the Repugnant Conclusion obviously presupposes that the superiority view is justified in the first place. However, even if this is the case, critics have suggested that this view may still be consistent with some versions of the Repugnant Conclusion (e.g. Ryberg 1996b). Moreover, the superiority view has other implications that might be hard to accept. Assume that there are days of different qualities and that these can be arranged in a descending sequence of goodness or how much they would contribute to the well-being of a life. It seems plausible that there can be such a sequence where the difference in quality of any two adjacent days in the sequence is marginal. For example, consider two days of a life that only differ in respect to one pin-prick in the left thumb. Assume now, as Parfit suggests, that there are days of such quality that some number of these are better than any number of days eating potatoes and listening to muzak. One can then show (Arrhenius 2005) that there must be two types of days, call them A-days and B-days, such that some number of A-days is better than any number of B-days although the difference in quality between these days is marginal.

2.3 Counting welfare differently depending on temporal or modal features

Another approach to the problems in population ethics has been the suggestion that the crux of the problem resides in an all too “impersonal” morality and that the problems of population ethics can be solved by a shift to a so-called “person-affecting” morality (Narveson 1967, 1976, 1978; Roberts 1998, 2002, 2004). This move has been especially popular in the context of medical ethics where many of the problems of population axiology are actualised. Examples are embryo or egg selection, pre-implantation genetic testing, assisted reproduction programs, abortion, to mention just a few. The idea behind this approach is the contention – sometimes referred to as “the person-affecting restriction” or simply “the slogan” – that an outcome can only be better (or worse) than another if it is better (or worse) for someone (Narveson 1967: Glover 1977; Temkin 1993a). If this restriction is combined with the assumption that non-existence and existence are incomparable in value for a person, we get a view called comparativism: We should disregard the welfare of uniquely realisable people, that is, people who only exist in one of the compared outcomes (Heyd 1988; Bykvist 1998). A person-affecting morality such understood deviates from impersonal morality in important respects. If there is an overlap between the populations in A and Z, then A is ranked as better than Z since the people existing in both populations are worse off in Z as compared to A and since we should disregard the welfare of uniquely realisable people. However, if there are different people in the involved populations, such as two future populations, then the two populations are ranked as equally good or as incomparable in value, which is not a very satisfactory solution to the Repugnant Conclusion. Moreover, it implies that very huge losses in welfare for uniquely realisable people are compensated for by very small gains for non-uniquely realisable people. Less strict interpretations of the person-affecting restriction can to a certain extent avoid these problems, but at the price of implying the Repugnant Conclusion again (Arrhenius 2000b, 2003a; Holtug 2004).

The comparativist interpretation of the distinction between “impersonal” and “person-affecting” is not the only proposed interpretation in the literature. What the different theories that have been proposed under the banner of a person-affecting morality have in common, however, are that they are welfarist theories that count people's welfare differently depending on the temporal location or the modal features of their lives. Apart from comparativists, we have presentists who draw a distinction between presently existing people and non-existing people (Narveson 1973; Heyd 1988); necessitarians who distinguish between people who exist or will exist irrespective of how we act and people whose existence is contingent on our choices (Singer 1993); and actualists who differentiate between people that have existed, exist or who are going to exist in the actual world, on the one hand, and people who haven't, don't, and won't exist, on the other (Bigelow and Pargetter 1988; Warren 1978; Parson 2002). These theories, apart from problems of their own, run in problems analogous to the problems of comparativism discussed above (Arrhenius 2000b).

2.4 Revising the notion of a life worth living

The above discussion of the Repugnant Conclusion has presumed that there are possible lives with a very high quality of life. If there are no such lives, then the Repugnant Conclusion would be neutralised by making it an empty truth. If there are no possible lives with a very high quality of life, then the Repugnant Conclusion is vacuously true, since the antecedent – “[f]or any possible population … with a very high quality of life” – is false of every possible population. Consequently, if there are no possible lives with very high welfare, then total utilitarianism would only imply the Repugnant Conclusion in a trivial and uninteresting sense. Christoph Fehige (1998) has suggested, in the tradition of Schopenhauer, that there are no lives with a positive well-being. In his account, only frustrated preferences count, and they count negatively, whereas satisfaction of preferences has no positive value. Since it is possible that a population with very high welfare only involves lives with complete preference satisfaction, the Repugnant Conclusion is avoided since any population with complete preference satisfaction is better than any population involving at least one frustrated preference. More troubling, however, is that this view implies a strong version of the Reversed Repugnant Conclusion: A population with very high positive welfare can be worse than an empty population. Since most lives with very high welfare can be assumed to have at least one frustrated preference, such lives are worse than non-existence according to Fehige's theory. Moreover, a theory about welfare that denies the possibility of lives worth living is quite counter-intuitive (Ryberg 1996a). It implies, for example, that a life of one year with complete preference satisfaction has the same welfare as a completely fulfilled life of a hundred years, and has higher welfare than a life of a hundred years with all preferences but one satisfied (Arrhenius 2000b).

2.5 Rejecting transitivity

What makes the Repugnant Conclusion so perplexing is that strong arguments can be given which apparently force one into accepting the conclusion. In fact, several arguments to this effect – with affinity to the mere addition reasoning outlined above - have been presented (see e.g. Parfit 1996; Arrhenius 2000b, Tännsjö 2002; Rachels 2004). Roughly, the arguments share the following structure: in comparison between three population scenarios the second scenario is considered better than the first and the third better than the second, leading to the conclusion that the third scenario is better than the first. By iterated application of this line of reasoning one ends up with the Repugnant Conclusion (that Z is better than A). One of the more radical approaches to such arguments has been to reject the transitivity of the relation “better than” (or “equally as good as”). According to the principle of transitivity, if p is better than q, and q is better than r, then p is better than r. However, if transitivity of better than is denied then the reasoning leading the Repugnant Conclusion is blocked (see Temkin 1987; Persson 2004; Rachels 2004).

One of the questions raised by this radical proposal is whether arguments like the mere addition paradox themselves justify the rejection of transitivity or whether further arguments are needed since transitivity seems to be part of the meaning and logic of the relation “better than” (Broome 2004). Another question concerns the more general implications the proposal has for morality and practical reasoning and some worry that giving up the transitivity of “better than” would demand a major revision of our notion of practical reasoning (Temkin 1987). A transitive preference ordering has usually been assumed as part of the definition of a rational agent in economic and rational choice theory. For example, it seems that an agent with a non-transitive preference ordering can be exploited by a so-called money-pump (see Philosophy of Economics, section 5.1). The main problem with non-transitive value orderings in moral theory, however, is that such an ordering cannot form the basis of a satisfactory answer to the question of what one ought to choose. Coupled with the standard formulation of consequentialism (an action is right iff its outcome is at least as good as the outcomes of all the alternative actions), for example, we get the counterintuitive result that no action is right in the mere addition paradox. Moreover, it has been shown that the mere addition argument and the like can be reconstructed on the normative level, in terms of what one ought to choose, without an appeal to transitivity (Arrhenius 2004). Instead of an non-transitive ordering of populations, one gets a situation in which all of the available actions are forbidden, i.e., a moral dilemma. Hence, it doesn't look like we can exorcise the paradoxes of population ethics by giving up some formal condition like the transitivity of “better than”.

2.6 Appeal to other values

Fred Feldman has proposed a desert-adjusted version of utilitarianism, ‘justicism’ which he claims avoids the Repugnant Conclusion (Feldman 1997). In justicism, the value of an episode of pleasure is determined not only by the hedonic level but also by the recipient's desert level. Feldman's proposal is that there is some level of happiness that people deserve merely in virtue of being people. He assumes that this level corresponds to 100 units of pleasure and that people with very low welfare enjoy only one unit of pleasure. He suggests that the life of a person who deserves 100 units of pleasure and receives exactly that amount of pleasure has an intrinsic value of 200, whereas the life of a person deserving 100 units but who only receives one unit of pleasure has an intrinsic value of −49. It follows that any population consisting of people with very low welfare and desert level 100 has negative value, whereas any population with very high welfare has positive value. Consequently, it seems as if justicism avoids the Repugnant Conclusion. Moreover, the intuition behind Feldman's explanation of the unacceptability of the Repugnant Conclusion – that there is some level of welfare that people deserve merely in virtue of being people – is compelling and probably widely shared and could give support to ideas such as the critical level view discussed above.

It has been pointed out, however, that Feldman's reasoning involves a questionable interpretation of the ceteris paribus clause in the repugnant conclusion (Arrhenius 2003b). He implicitly assumes that the ceteris paribus clause is satisfied whenever the people in the compared populations have the same desert level. A more plausible reading of the ceteris paribus clause is that it is satisfied if and only if the compared populations are (roughly) equally good in regard to other axiologically relevant aspects apart from welfare. Consequently, what we are looking for are cases where the compared populations are, in some sense, equally good in regard to desert. Given this interpretation of the ceteris paribus clause, justicism does imply the repugnant conclusion. If A and Z are equally good in regard to desert, then justicism ranks Z as better than A since Z has greater total well-being.

2.7 Accepting the impossibility of a satisfactory population ethics

2.8 Accepting the Repugnant Conclusion

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consequentialism | desert | economics, philosophy of | economics and economic justice | ethics: environmental | justice: intergenerational | practical reason | Sidgwick, Henry | value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic | well-being


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Discover everything you wanted to know about Peru, your next travel destination and how to get prepared for the trip. This travel guide will provide you with an overview and quick facts on this amazing country.

As the only seat of the ancient Incan empire, Peru is unique. Eleven Peruvian attractions are classified by UNESCO as a cultural and natural heritage of mankind. Peru is one of the most diverse countries, a place where you can journey along a path leading through solid desert, over dizzying mountain peaks and then down to lush jungles in what seems like just one breath.

Peru is a land wrapped in 10,000 years of history. Heart of the mighty Incan Empire and many other ancient civilizations that took root in this territory and left telling traces of their glorious past…vestiges like Caral - the oldest in the Americas (over 5 thousand years), the royal tombs of Sipán (the most grandiose tomb in the Americas), the enigmatic Nasca Lines, the amazing fortress of Kuélap and one of the seven wonders of the world, magical city of Machu Picchu.

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As with any art, Peruvian cuisine exists because it pleases the senses. It is the most distinctive trait in Peruvian culture since it clearly represents the mixture that characterizes its originality. Influences from the Andes, Spain, Africa, China, Italy and Japan converge in the hundreds of dishes that is Peruvian national menu and transformed by creative hands into savory concoctions in towns and cities nationwide. Good food is also enjoyed with good drink and nothing better than a toast with pisco brandy, Peru’s banner drink or cerveza.

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Peru has been acclaimed as the most authentic travel destination in Latin America. Eleven Peruvian attractions are UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritages.

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North Circuit

South Circuit

What to wear?

Regardless of the time of year and the place you wish to visit, we recommend that during your stay in Peru you bring warm clothing, comfortably fitting pants, cotton shirts, hiking boots, tennis shoes, quality sun block, and a hat.

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Cooperating modernities in Tunisia?

In April, Columbia political scientist Alfred Stepan came out with an article in the Journal of Democracy on “Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations.” If the article is right, Tunisia’s secularists and Islamists are participating in an encouraging pattern of political cooperation that bodes well for the country’s democratic development. There is good reason to be hopeful about the relevance of an emerging “Tunisian model” of secular-Islamist negotiation, not only for Tunisia’s future but for all those countries affected by the Arab Spring. Yet there is also reason for caution… read full entry here

Ode to Rick

True that Rick.

That is the kind of America in which I believe.

New Italian Perspectives on American Political Catholicism

Geert Wilders, Charles Taylor and European Halal

Its been a big month for multiculturalism in the Netherlands. The far-right, anti-Islam politician, Geert Wilders, was acquitted of charges of inciting hatred against Muslims (see here) and a law which will have the effect of criminalizing the ritual slaughter of animals as required by Islamic Halal and Jewish Kosher traditions was passed with wide margins in the Netherlands lower house of parliament (see here).

I couldn’t help but think about Charles Taylor’s oft-quoted article from 2007 in which he wrote that “almost every reason for toleration’s apparent fall into disrepute concerns Islam.” The growth of “block thinking” about Islam, he argued, had led Europeans to categorize all acts of religious piety by Muslims as suspect and dangerous to democratic society. Fearing the consequences of such religious intolerance, Taylor used the article to make an urgent appeal for crossover individuals from “Islam” and “Europe” to step forward and give voice to the possible nodes where Islam and democracy can flourish together.

At a glance, it would seem that Taylor got things backward in the Netherlands- proponents of both Wilder’s acquittal and the ritual slaughter law argued that they were defending a tolerant and multicultural vision of Dutch society by protecting free speech and making the country safer for animals. Taken together, however, and in light of the high levels of popular support that the measures received, both episodes confirm Taylor’s claim that European definitions of tolerance and multiculturalism do not seem to extend to Islamic religious identities and ethics. Both decisions make it more difficult for most Muslims to live as religious persons unless they do so in an altered way which is defined by the secular state. In doing so, as Taylor would argue, the vast mosaic of religious persons who eat Halal or are sympathetic to blasphemy laws are lumped into the same boat together. Such undifferentiated lumping hides an immense variation in the patterns of political consensus or discord that those voters share with the rest of Dutch voters, and it feeds west-versus-the-rest mentalities.

Equally interesting, (and block forming), is that both episodes offer further examples of new sets of political cleavages forming in Europe along religious lines. As we have discussed on this blog before, in certain issue areas religious identities appear to overpower traditional opposition between the political left and right, turning both sides of the spectrum into secular allies against a religious other. Tellingly, the Halal initiative was proposed by an animal rights party which pieced together a powerful voting block in the Dutch parliament by enlisting the support of both the Dutch right and labor parties. Fighting the amendment was an alliance of Muslims, Jews, Christian Democrats and a small Calvinist political party. It has not been a month of cross-over voices finding new ground in multicultural Holland.

Islam, Islamic Anxiety and Muslim Women in America

Ground Zero Mosque Reactions in the Middle East

For this month’s post, I thought it could be interesting to troll through some of the reactions of the Arabic world media to Obama’s iftar speech and the Ground Zero Mosque controversy.

What is most remarkable about such a troll is the lack of much of a reaction to the controversy. National papers in places like Egypt and Algeria have hardly reported on the debate and Arabic news giants like Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and Asharq Alawsat have either largely ignored the controversy or downplayed its significance for the Islamic world, as Abdul Rahman al-Rashid has pointed out here.

So why hasn’t the Ground Zero Mosque caught the attention of the Islamic world?

The lack of reaction might just be circumstantial, so far. As Jytte Klausen points out in her excellent study of the Danish Cartoons crisis, reactions in the Islamic world to the cartoons took months to develop and required the presence of both activists who promoted such reactions and leaders who missed opportunities to diffuse them.

That said, the lack of reaction also exposes a certain ambivalence in the Arab media about the controversy and towards America itself. On the one hand, the Islamophobia which the reactions to the proposal have revealed confirms rather than challenges many popular characterizations of US society in the Islamic world. On the other hand, that same Islamophobia has not emerged as the dominant actor in this story (yet). Leaders and intellectuals beyond Bloomberg and Obama have defended the proposal on the basis of democratic principles of separation of religion and state and, with their help, the mosque may still be built.

So while the controversy has brought fears about “Muslim” designs towards the US out into the open, it has also revealed a US public struggling to overcome that phobia. Depending on the how that struggle ends, this means that the Ground Zero Mosque might yet prove to help Obama in his attempt to reach out to the Islamic world. Alternatively, it could make such an attempt an even more ephemeral task.

Park 51 and Burkas

It has been revealing to watch the French parliament’s 336 to 1 vote in favor of the ban on burkas this month together with the controversy over the building of a Mosque near ground zero.  Both events expose the unabated social apprehension towards Islam and Muslims on either side of the Atlantic. At the same time, however, the controversies also tell us something about how differently that apprehension gets politically framed in either country and brings to light just how different the United States and France’s institutional separation of church and state really are.

France’s “assertive secularism,” as Kuru terms it, embedded in laicité, has helped create the 336 to 1 collaboration between the right and left in France. For once, the ban on the burka sits well with both the right’s defense of French tradition as Catholic and Western and the left’s contestation of that narrative along with their own, alter-defense of France from any political religious identity or authority. In either case, Muslims using the public sphere to express and thus promote their religious values simultaneously plays to the fears of cultural weakness on the right and religious authority on the left.

Such a fear of the public presence of a religion, in and of itself, is much more difficult to politically channel in the US, thanks to its institutionalization of a “passive secularism,” (Kuru’s terms again) which is much more permissive of religious authority in the civil and public, although not political, spheres. While it is true that many in the American right have publically targeted Islam (New York Post comments here), their accusations were inherently less anti-Muslim than the French right, and they tried to articulate that their opposition was to the “radical” Muslims behind the project, not Muslims in general. Likewise, the American left generally defended the project (see an interesting interview with the project’s developer here) and the rights of Muslims to finance religiously-inspired community projects as a desirable expression of diversity and tolerance and something that was quite American.


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Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Put a Speed Limit on Your Rate of Speech

     Haveyoueverheardsomeonetalksoquicklythatitseemedeverythingtheysaidranalltogetherinonesentence?  Much like that statement, it was hard to listen to what was said.  You could barely follow the path of their conversation because much of what was spoken seemed jumbled and unclear.  For those of us who are fast talkers, having to slow down is as exciting as driving behind someone who's going slow in the fast lane.  We're a a bit annoyed that not everyone can appreciate the speed we do, and we feel that having to put on brakes frequently is like having to drive behind a postal truck.  We're doing a lot of starting and stopping, but we're not necessarily getting anywhere.  Nonetheless, fast talkers must be cognizant that our rate of speech can get in the way of our clarity of speech.  We have to remember that even though the thoughts are coming rapid-fire, we don't have to get them all out in 0-60 seconds.  We have to give the other person an opportunity to process what we just said.  Some people take longer than others so we have to take people's listening habits into consideration.
     Fast talkers falsely believe that we can "listen fast" too.  We need to think about that again.  Just like we tend to fumble over our words when we speak too quickly, we fumble when we listen too quickly.  We think we heard something one way, but it was actually meant another.  That's because the way it was presented was so rushed that we sped up our hearing to catch up with all that was being said.  But even though we were "hearing faster", that didn't mean our brains had caught up with our ears.  We heard words, but their meaning was lost on us.  We jumped to conclusions and judgment believing we knew what the other person was talking about even though they hadn't finished explaining.  Now...if you have a fast talker listening to a fast talker, there's so much speed flowing between the two that there's nobody slowing down enough to process any of this instant exchange.  Fast talkers sound breathless, rushed, frazzled, and a teeny bit out of control.  Almost as if they can't stop themselves.  Well, pump your brakes because here's some help for those of us who feel like we're on the Lowe's Motor Speedway of communication.
     I was a fast talker for a long time until I joined my local Toastmasters club.  If you're unfamiliar with Toastmasters International, it's a wonderful speaking organization that helps anyone who wants to be a better presenter.  I had been speaking publicly for years before I joined Toastmasters, but I hadn't realized all of the bad habits I'd picked up along the way.  Being a member of Toastmasters helped me to get the much needed feedback I desired so I could become a sharper presenter.  I was evaluated on numerous speeches throughout the years when I was a dedicated member, and I received constructive and valuable coaching from my fellow Toastmasters.  One of the most useful pieces of advice was "slow down when you speak".  I hadn't realized that I was a fast talker until it was brought to my attention.  Now that I'm aware, I make adjustments when I'm giving speeches, leading meetings, conducting small group coaching or in any situation where I have to share information that others need to hear.
     If you've been told you talk too fast, keep that information top of mind.  Then put a speed limit on your rapid pace.  Check out a local Toastmasters club to create new speaking habits.  And practice communicating with the same caution to speed that you use on the highway.  The slow listeners will thank you for it.


Oindri Sengupta

Rookie - 22 Points (02.08.1984 / Kolkata)

Silver Sorrow

I have given up dreams,
to make seasons from my blood.
They will rise up from my body
like lost souls on the Ganges,
and walk on the streets with beggars
lighting a fire on their walls.

Shades of neon in all the moments of twilight
capturing lights of the other days

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Avocado scrambled eggs with onion and cheddar [Vegetarian]

Jaymi's Notes:
For my partner and I, an egg scramble with grilled onions, bellpepper, spinach and mushrooms is a staple on weekends. But any recipe with avocado is one worth putting aside "the usual" and trying something new. And this one might just replace our old recipe more often now that we've tasted it.

This scramble cooks up in just a couple minutes so can be made even on a busy weekday morning for a hearty breakfast. The texture of the avocado, the sweetness of the grilled onions, and the sharpness of the cheddar all make for an irresistible combination on your plate. And it will keep you full for hours!

More on The Cooking Project.

Kelly's Recipe:
My daughter goes to university out of town, and is lucky enough to have a year-round farmers' market mere steps from her flat. It's one of the oldest markets in Ontario and many of the farmers who are there farm land that has been in their families for generations. Sometimes you can see the what responsibilites children have on the farm. In one booth we always go to if you want vegetables, then the dad serves you. If you want eggs (and we always want the eggs), the 10 year old daughter serves you.

I imagine that the chickens are this little girl's purview and I bet she is out there every morning to collect the eggs. I always hope that she gets to keep the money we pay her. Of course, it being a rural market, she isn't able to command the high prices that you pay at urban markets. She asks $2.00 for a dozen eggs, which can cost up to $7.00 in Toronto. And what eggs they are, too. I think my daughter bought six dozen from her this weekend to bring home and distribute to family.

Whenever I get a dozen of these eggs, I feel like I should do something different with them rather than the same old stuff. I found this recipe for scrambled eggs with avocado, and it just seemed like a nice recipe to try, just to dress up the eggs for a change. For once I followed the recipe exactly, with no changes or substitutions. I used four eggs as the recipe calls for and I thought it made a huge amount. We aren't huge eaters, but three of use ate breakfast, and I had enough leftover to have a scrambled eggs sandwich for breakfast this morning. I never would have thought of putting avocado into eggs, but the silkiness of it was really nice.

This recipe is from Gourmet, January, 1999.

avocado egg scramble photo© Jaymi Heimbuch

Scrambled Eggs with Avocado, Onion and Cheddar

1 small onion
1/2 firm-ripe California avocado
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
Chopped fresh cilantro sprigs for garnish

avocado egg scramble photo© Jaymi Heimbuch

avocado egg scramble photo© Jaymi Heimbuch

2. In a bowl whisk together eggs and Cheddar and season with salt and pepper.

avocado egg scramble photo© Jaymi Heimbuch

Tags: Cooking | The Cooking Project | Weekday Vegetarian

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2018 Rate Hikes: Massachusetts: ~6.9% rate hikes if CSR payments made, ~24.4% if they aren't

Massachusetts has one of the stablest statewide insurance markets, no doubt in large part due to their having instituted the precursor to the ACA, "RomneyCare", 4 years earlier. Massachusetts also merged their small business and individual market risk pools, which helps stabilize things. As a result, they have a high number of carriers participating in their ACA exchange and are among the few states with single-digit average rate hikes...assuming CSR payments are forthcoming and the individual mandate is properly enforced.

Assuming CSR payments aren't made, I used the Kaiser Family Foundation's 19% average estimate for Silver plan hikes due to the CSR factor. Since a whopping 92% of MA's exchange enrollees chose Silver plans (it looks like MA's unique "ConnectorCare" plans are considered Silver as well), that means an average CSR factor of around 17.5 points across the entire individual market.

Most of the carrier rate filings included their current membership numbers, but three didn't: BCBSMA, HPHC and Tufts Health. For these, I relied on the July MA Health Connector report, which shows Tufts Health Direct eating up a whopping 50% of ConnectoCare enrollees and 37% of other exchange policy enrollment, for a total of over 117,000 enrollees.

With those caveats in mind, as far as I can tell, MA is looking at around a 6.9% average rate increase if CSR payments are made...but assuming Kaiser's estimates are accurate, 24.4% if they aren't.