June 26, 2013 is recorded in the U.S. history forever, as the day that an individual named Edie Windsor won a case against the United States in the Supreme Court because she believed her constitutional rights were violated. Her action and victory does not only affect the many gay or lesbian partners or their children, but sends a strong message to generations to come: when you believe you have a case, you have a case. Go get your right, and know that the foundations of a healthy democracy and justice system is all you need. If you are lucky enough to have such structures in place in your society, you better honor such a system by using it for the purposes it was designed for to its fullest extent and capability. If you do not have such a system in place, you need to help build one!
It has not been even a week since the Supreme Court has passed this ruling, five days and three working days to be exact. Today, my colleagues and I received an email from our Human Resources office indicating those who are in same-sex marriages, can now add their spouses and children to their health insurance policy, that they can benefit from other benefits for child care, retirement, etc just as any other spouse or child of a family would. I was proud of seeing the power of law and democracy in action and how quickly a new law gets implemented. For me, seeing that email was historic for the reasons I mentioned and more; among them for the respect the people have for the law. I am sure there are many religious people not happy with this ruling. But once the case has gone through all the steps of a justice system, once the game is over, they accept the verdict. If they do not, they revisit the case in the court of law not in streets with destructions, bullets, and chaos. Today, I was proud of America and Americans.
By now you should have learned that Baltimore Ravens have won the Super Bowl :-) I have learned a pleasantly surprising piece of information, rather late. Do you know who is the inventor of the LASIK eye surgery? Dr. Gholam Peyman! Learn more about him here:
Did you know that initially, a lot of U.S. airports had a two letter code, representing their city or state, and only after the number of world's airports increased and they had to move to a 3-letter code to support them all, they added letter X to so many previously existing airport codes? And that letter X in their names is meaningless? Like LAX. In a way, maybe the X identifies older airports?
Apparently Nikola Tesla did the ground work for the electricity we use everyday (Alternative Current or AC), wireless communication and radio, radar, x rays and more. Then, how is it that others are credited for each of these inventions? Was he a smart scientist and engineer with great vision and initiative but just could not finish, package, and sell his ideas? Or was the author of this site just a big fan of him and not so much of Thomas Edison?
I went to a Peruvian restaurant with some friends on Saturday. Among us was a lady from Peru who was helping us with the dishes. I enjoyed a sweet juice of red corn, and saw how Peruvian corns are bigger than those in the U.S. and taste like lima beans. But more importantly I learned about part of the history of Peruvian women, that I had no idea about; that was surprising; and I did not expect it there from all places in the world.
I learned that Peruvian women used to cover themselves, from head to toe, with something called "manto y saya". It was black, and they would hold it with their hands and only reveal one of their eyes! Sound familiar? Is that where/how Iranians got the idea for black chadors/veils? Is there any relationship between the name of their attire and what Iranians refer to as Manto (long over coats women wear)?
For more information read the views of Flora, Tristan, in Lima, Peru in 1838:
A couple of days ago I listened to a program on NPR on life of Margaret Sanger, who lived during 1874-1966. Do you know her? It is amazing that considering her contributions, I had never heard of her before. She coined the term birth control, organized a campaign to legalize birth control 100 years ago, and established Planned Parenthood. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, which led to her arrest and being jailed. She continued educating women about contraception and birth control in jail. Her work was motivated and influenced by her mother's life, who became pregnant 18 times in 22 years and died at 48 from cervical cancer! Some accuse her of wanting to remove the black race by opening her clinics in poor black areas. The guest of the program argued that she would have been considered a racist had she not opened any clinics for those communities. Pro life groups argued that Sanger promoted abortion. Sanger died in 1966, years before abortion was legalized in the U.S. in 1971. Sanger believed women will be better mothers, raising children better if they could decide when to have children. She believed "no woman was free if she could not control her body". Regardless, she remains an iconic figure in Reproductive Rights movement. You can see the program's highlight here, and read its full script here.
We often pride in the Eastern culture, history, past achievements, but why is it that the West has prospered more than the rest of the world? When writing, medicine, first civilizations were in places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Egypt, why their current state is not as advance and prosperous as the west? I always wondered about this question. I initially thought the west has learned from experiences and mistakes of the rest, took the lessons learned, and prospered. But could not the owners of those mistakes do the same? Historian Niall Ferguson answers this question by summarizing the ingredients of the west's prosperity as:
1- Competition
2- Scientific revolution
3- Property rights
4- Modern medicine
5- The consumer society
6- The work ethic
According to NPR radio this morning, this summer has been the hottest and driest summer on record in the United States, and the drought has cost the agriculture industry more than 5 billion dollars and counting.
If you did not know by now, we have everything in Maryland! We even have a Berlin, a lovely little city with a historic downtown. My friends and I stopped there one noon and found it appropriate to have a Hamburger in a place called Rayne's Reef*. The place was nice and made me nostalgic of Hamburger places back home.
There was another reason the place seemed familiar! Oh, wow, they had filmed the "Runaway Bride" there. How lovely to eat where Julia Roberts and Richard Gere were making a film and sharing a meal. Well, I am diverging from the real lesson of that day. The restaurant was full of images and reminders of the World War II. There was a sign encouraging people or maybe the workers and the Chef not to throw away extra and unwanted fats. Why? They were used for making gunpowder! Did you know that? Apparently, housewives were encouraged to save fat for freedom!
"Our job is not to make young women grateful. It is to make them ungrateful so they keep going. Gratitude never radicalized anybody"
"There shall never be another season of silence until women have the same rights men have on this green earth."
"I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet."
"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences..."
"Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself. Susan B. Anthony: Learn about her and her life if you get a chance!
These days the economic crisis of the U.S. is the headline of all news and breaking news. Each party blames the other for not compromising, for putting their interests before the interests of the nation and the good of the country, etc. They take their own government's employees hostage to cut deals with each other. Letting millions of families and employees live in limbo, leaving work on a Friday afternoon not knowing if they will be at work on Monday. Both parties, like mad old married couples, bring out irrelevant issues at such times. When there was a threat of a shutdown over finalizing fiscal year 2011 budget half way through fiscal year 2011, they made the disagreement be about government funds given to a clinic for women's health, and oh, God, guess what they do, they perform abortion procedures! It did not help repeating a zillion times that federal law prohibits them to use federal funds for abortion. It was like yelling to deaf ears. It did not matter. They wanted the public to hear and beleive what they wanted them to hear and believe. It did not matter that the money they were talking about was maybe 0.005% of the federal civilian budget and that the federal civilian budget is a small fraction of the military budget! It did not matter! They had to hold any grudge they could at the price of millions of govenrment employees. So much honor and respect was floating around for public service.
FAA employees had been through this shutdown threat twice this year already. The first time with everyone else over FY11 budget and the second time as their agency was singled out and they indeed did experience a shutdown this time. The fights seemed to be over financial issues but it became over unions and having union rights, etc.
The U.S. was fast approaching its debt ceiling and parties did not work out a deal fast enough to increase it or straighten out plans for mitigating long term debt affects. The whole circus was so painful and frustrating to watch, that I did not follow the details. I just know the signed off on something but it was not fast enough, and America lost its good credit score.
FAA employees were at home throughout this whole ordeal, and they prbably thought, the debt ceiling thing was of a higher priority than them, the airline safety, etc. The poor FAA administrator on TV was begging: this is summer time, the construction time, and they have stopped our work and contracts. We are losing construction time, revenue, jobs, taxes. Congress's response: it is time for our 5 week summer recess!
Who in government takes 5 weeks of recess that these guys should in such crisis. No sense of urgency, no sense of guilt, no sense of shame, no sense of empathy, nothing! I do not understand how it is that we stay weekends and nights, postpone our summer vacations till say our summer interns are gone, project deadlines met, ... , but they can let the country lose 1 trillion dollars in airfare taxes, lose construction jobs and employees' taxes, risk safety of the passengers in the air, and go on a five week vacation. Similarly, I do not know what it takes for airlines and FAA workers who continued working without pay to go on strike. For all airlines to show solidarity and empathy and not fly until issues are resolved; or maybe no airline or pilot flies any congress man/woman to their vacation destination. Pilots have the authority of not flying if they do not want someone on the plane! What does it take for anyone to do something?
I tell you. This issue was getting some good media attention and publicity. They were on their case day and night. Before you knew it, Friday they came and signed a budget and Monday FAA employees were back to work. All it takes is to take their vacation hostage: you cannot go till you sign a deal, or we make you pay for it for the rest of your life. Oh, and did we mention elections are on the corner?
Lesson I learned: media has great power and that all it takes for politicians to compromise and forget their disagreements is to stand between them and their vacation. Their patriotism, humanity, sense of duty, conscious, or whatever you like to call it does not work, at least not in a capitalist country. Their vacation does! Now, can you imagine what would happen if we stand between them and their salaries? You won't get paid until you do your job, which is to have a fiscal budget ready before the year starts!
I am taking an astronomy class these days from 8am to 5pm! I have learned enough today that I can write about them for at least a month on a daily basis. However, now I am too tired to write about the more sophisticated lessons and historical stories of astronomy. I just go over some interesting trivia!
The class started on a sad note: that humans 40,000 years ago were much more familiar with the skies than we are. Most people used the sky at least as their clock, map, and calendar. You could ask any random person to show you a particular star or constellation on a dark sky, and that person could quickly do that. It is hard to imagine a random person these days passes this test. I myself cannot locate famous stars and planets naturally. Can you? I should work on that.
So, here are the trivia:
1) "Moon" is from the Greek word Metron meaning to measure! As it was mainly used to measure different things in old times.
2) "Clock" is a German word meaning Bell, since traditional clocks were made of bells. Remember these?
, and finally
3) Brahe was a Danish astronomer who became the first federally funded researcher. He has funny stories. Maybe I tell you sometime.
Did you know that the first Arab astronaut flew on shuttle Discovery in June 1985? and that he was officially representing ARABSAT of Saudi Arabia? This is an important part of history, especially for the Arab countries. Why do not we hear about such history and accomplishments of theirs?
هوا بسى گرم بود و دور هم جمع بوديم و هندوانه ميخورديم جاى شما خالى و بسى شيرين و آبدار بود و چسبيد. به تعريف از هندوانه پرداختيم كه خانم عموى من گفتند كه اوايل كه آمده بودند آمريكا، در اين ديار هنوانه در سوپر ماركت ها اصلا نبوده، و مردمان بر اين باور بودند كه هندوانه متعلق به سياهپوستان است و بس. نكته جالبى بود از تاريخ نه چندان دور آمريكا.
