Jia Lin’s Weblog

Learning language

I thought I know how to write in English, but every time I had my writings (mostly academic writings) edited by native speakers, it turns out that I was still the high school students struggling with basic grammars. It seems ten years didn�t change anything, I still don�t know where to add �the� and �a�, when to use �to do� or �of doing� and how to arrange the words in a sentence. I really don�t think there is a standard rule to follow in English; the right sense seems more important than right grammar. Talking about rules, I often think of a scene in �I love Lucy� where Ricky Ricardo tried to makes sense out of the different pronunciations of �ough� in �bough�, �through�, �ought� and �dough�. Well, that might not be the best parallel, but it comforts me that I�m not the only one that get lost in this language. Go back to the thought of writing: the most frustrating part is that I could seldom plug into the writing of the vocabulary and sentence structure I learned from readings, which is hitherto an accumulative of a good size. Repetition of same word and expression even bore myself away from reading my own writing, especially on academic one, which I have to deal in daily base.

Recently, I�ve tried to learn some computer languages, starting with C and Python, so I could handle the huge dataset for my dissertation project. Computer language has much more straightforward and unequivocable rules to follow-compared to English. Learning programming is just like learning a set of traffic rules, both of which are binary featured, 0 or 1, yes or no, right or wrong. Neither it is difficult to follow what those sample codes lead to; and you think, well, it is not a big deal, I understand these codes and I know how they work. But once you try to get your hand dirty and program for real, you feel so helpless and not know how to start. And it makes me thinks back on learning English: like even you manage to understand every word in New York Time, or Harper, or even diary of Sylvia Plath, it doesn�t mean you know how to write out something like these.

So I speculate that, in the process of learning a language, either English or C, there must be a metabolic phase, where what you learn can be transformed into some capability that empowers you to use what you learn. I hope this function is not decided by gene, but rather something can be improved by practice.

Got a Gmail

Was given a Gmail for being an active blogspot user. Finally, I own an email account with my name in it:jialinatGmaildotcom. and it has 1000MB! It is the best freebie I get this year. Now I can rest assured that my dissertation materials will be safe even all our computers at home are smashed in the coming big earthwquake

Scholar blogs, via Alex

Are they indexed because they blog scholarly things, or because they are scholars? Anyway, I add my name to this one. Now question becomes-am I a scholar? or should I blog only scholarly thing in the future?

Return of myth

May issue of Harper has a piece (Buffalo dances, by Lewis Lapham, p. 9) on the receding of American�s scientific thinking and its implication on national politics. The article starts with the recount of Union of Concerned Scientist�s report titled �Scientific Integrity in Policymaking�. The report, signed by 60 of Nation�s most accomplished scientist, condemns the rejection of scientific methods and distortion of scientific findings by current administration, who�s in favor of its conviction that �if the science doesn�t prove what�s been told to prove, then the science has been tampered with by Satan or the Democratic Party.� While admiring the signatories� the collective alarm, Lapham argues that it is na�ve to think �the government�s divorce from reality is a curable disease subject to congressional diagnosis and legislative remedy�. No, the one needs to be cured is not the government, bu the people. It is these scientists, not the Bush administration, who are at odds with the majority of society. In the other word, people are stupid, and they are not capable of scientific thinking anymore, and they are haapy to accept the magic and myth fabricated by the authority. What makes it? Here is the best part of the article:

�The postmodern sensibility is a product of the electronic media, which lend themselves more readily to the traffic in dreams and incantation than to the distributions of coherent argument. As the habits of mind beholden to the rule of images come to replace the systems of though derived from the meaning of words, the constant viewer leans to eliminate the association of cause with effect�.Weightless and without consequence, the images drifting across the mirrors of the self appear and disappear in no context other than their own, demanding nothing of the audience except the duty of ritual observance. Because the camera sees but cannot think, it doesn�t matter who sings the undying songs of love, or whether the twenty-four-hour circus parade goes nowhere except around in circus. Nothing necessarily follows from anything else; what is important is the surge and volume of emotion, not its object or its subject, and the accelerated data streams of the virtual future carry the friends of Rush Limbaugh backward into the firelight flickering in the caves of the pagan and prehistoric past. Narrative dissolves into montage and knowledge becomes a matter of instantly recognizing the iconography (Osama�s beard, the Nike swoosh, Ralph Lauren�s polo player, Howard deans� upraised fist, Howard Dean�s upraised fist); history reverts to myth, and politics collapse into the staging of pageants sometimes accompanied by a fall of brightly colored balloons.�

Lanpham continues to interpret the effect of mediated political campaign on audience. He compares the political campaign to reality show like �Survivor and �the Apprentice�, and noted that the winner is who can �survive the stupidity and pitiless indifference of the television cameras.

�Of our presidents we make celebrities-a safer from of constitutional divinity than the one embodied in the name of Caesar-and with gifts of adulation and applause the media appoint them to the office of totem pole. To say that Mr. Bush is an incompetent president is like saying that Tom Cruise can�t act or that Britney Spears can�t sing. The observation might be true, but it ignores the point that celebrity is a commodity meant to be sold at the supermarket checkout counter with the cosmetics and the canned soup. What was once a subject has become an object, no longer capable of error of human speech, imparting a sense of stability and calm to a world intelligence refuses to prove what it�s been told to prove. The headlines bring word of death in Iraq and terrorism in Spain, famine in Somalia and banditry in Washington, but on the smooth and reassuring surface of a magazine cover or movie screen, the golden masks of divine celebrity-George W. and Nicole, Julia and the Donald-bestow upon the faithful the smiles o infinite bliss.�

The deprivation of thinking from public minds by mass media seems an un-invertible tragedy and it gives rise to the handy manipulation of public minds. Lanpham argues that the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs is far less serious than the depletion of the national reserves of political intelligence, without which �we join secretary of defense Rumsfled in the magical explanation for the non-existence of hideous weapons in Iraq (�The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence� or Attorney General Ashcroft in the belief that in America �there is no King but Jesus�.

Is this our ancestor?

PBS Nova was running a special on coelacanth . It amazed me that we this species was not in our high school textbook back to China, even what we learnt in biology, as well as in politics (yes, we have courses called politics, or �ethic education� when we were younger) started with introduction to evolution theory. In short, coelacanth is the oldest fish (about 400 million years) living in deep sea and strangely acquired some features of amphibian: limbs instead of fins, viviparous instead of oviparous, and as big as human being. Because of these features, it was considered the �missing link� in evolution process before the living one was re-discovered in 1930�s.

Animal and politics were the new interests I acquired since living with a man. I think we are good complements to each other. He opens the window outward for me to see the macroscopic, real world, I push his window inward and he finds his sensitive heart and fluttering spirit. Anyway, the world of animal does mimic the political arena, or the other way around, in both of them survival of the fittest. Maybe that�s why men are more into politics, and why they fridge their butts off in front of �Animal planet� or �National Geography�?�. I could go on discussing the parallel of animal world and international politics, but I get a little tired recently for paying too much attention on politics. More importantly, my man prefers his girl to embrace art and beauty, so I�d better shut up (remember Barbara�s fate in The way we were?)

But still I have something to say, and I�m just saying it as someone pursuing knowledge. I will not consider myself a firm believer of evolution, upon which, though, my whole elementary and higher education were built. I think monkey might be my cousin, but we are not born to the same parents. My intuition tells me life is way too complicated than evolution process, though there is some scientific veracity in it. Then here is a tough question: Do I believe in creation? I might have less reservation on this idea, if God inspired a biologist or astronomer to document the Genesis (that doesn�t mean I don�t respect Moses). Am I a nihilist? I hope not. I believe that God, as the spiritual saver, should only be kept in ones� heart. Religion is personal and should not be forced on public life. Too many radical things in this world are carried on under the name of religion: war, terrorism, femicide, filicide, obstetricide (I made this word), burning of artcrafts and books, and persecution of of science; I don�t know what evil thing could not be done under the inspiration of God or purporting a defence of religious integrety, and everyone thinks their deeds justified. We can love our God, but the God should not be used against what we are not agreed upon, and certainly it should not be the reason we keep ourselves from pursuing knowledge that might be against what�s in Bible.

Well, a too serious topic. To conclude with some lightness, but not only trying to be funny, I will say I was once more convinced by message from X files- we were the creature of, or at least were adapted by, some entity with higher wisdom (it was aliens in X file). Who is this higher wisdom? Is it My God? The truth is out there.