Life as an Extreme Sport

Category: Academics

Classes and coursework.

in which I do academia

2007, Academics, APHI 621 - Metaethics, University at Albany

I’m taking a class on metaethics. I’m required to write a few paragraphs on the readings every week. I figure, might as well put the musings into the wild. Especially since I’m finding this to be much more interesting than I thought I would,..

Week One
Sign Theory, Moore & Frankena

While reading through both Moore and Frankena, I found myself catching on notions that I have recently read in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding — sign theory, determined definitions and his basic theory of ideas. I have to wonder if Moore is working from some sort of Lockean position when he writes? Specifically, I am caught by his idea of simple or complicated ideas — on page 52, he talks about how when “horse” is reduced down to the simplest of terms, “horse” becomes undefineable, something that cannot be spoken of, perceived or known by someone who does not already known the emerged property “horse” from those simpler properties.

I was also struck by the dual combination of sign theory and determined definitions that Frankena and Moore both seem to be using; Moore says he would be foolish to try to use “good” to mean “table”, and he’s not trying to challenge standard definition, but isn’t trying to force one word to mean a single thing trying to challenge the standard definition of a word? Moore seems to want one word to mean one thing, and to deny that two words can mean one and the same thing — but doesn’t language drift, both in use and context? Can we actually pick out a single word, remove it from all references and situations, and isolate the single meaning of the word? It seems too many words, and too many contexts, modify or explain the target word, and give too great a variety of meaning.

the problem with expectations

...and everything else, Academics, blog as therapy, life and living

This was written I don’t know when – been hanging out in the drafts area of the site. Probably some late night, fraught with insomnia and over-analysis. Yes, Michael, much like tonight, shutupthankyou. Anyhow, after a re-read, I still find I agree with what I wrote, so up it goes…

The problem with setting expectations is that eventually, your competence becomes your enemy: the assumption becomes you don’t need what you once did. This was a huge problem for me my last year or so at UW, and made me really question a lot of things, about myself and how I interact with the world, and about the people I work with. It also made me wonder if perhaps this factored in to why I only stayed at software companies for 2-3 years, at most – and normally had risen to the senior spot possible in that (relatively short) time.

Of course, when I was in the software industry, it was almost a bragging point. The less time you saw your manager, at least in any official capacity, the better you were at your job. The people who were constantly in their boss’s office? They were the ones who were incompetent, the ones who were making trouble, who couldn’t pull their weight. During the Microsoft era, my team and I had a competition going (at least prior to our reorg) – just how long could we go without seeing our manager, W~, without a beer in his hand?

But somewhere along the way, I started thinking about gender dynamics. The only time that sort of competition didn’t exist was when I had a female manager. She was still very hands off; I think I once went almost three weeks without actually talking work with her. It wasn’t that we never saw one another – we did, frequently, whether we were pitching expensive prototype powerbooks down the hall at one another, or playing volleyball over lunch, or sharing beer and BBQ. It’s just that there was no need to talk work – I had my project solidly outlined, knew what I was doing and what I was expected to do, and would meet up with her when it was done. Losing her is a large reason why I left Apple in the first place – the manager who replaced her was a micromanager of the worst variety.

Where do gendered dynamics come into it? I’ve often wondered if Carol was consciously aware of how women are raised, and worked hard to avoid using that against her almost completely female crew. A lot of scholarship suggests that there are certain ways of behaviour that women learn at a young age, and we’re almost primed to react to – such as being thanked for being conscientious, and not contributing to a problem. Or for being thoughtful, or kind. And the scholarship seems to suggest that getting feedback like this plays into certain gendered behaviour, of being submissive and quiet and not raising a fuss. Of being a “good” woman. After all, how often does a man get thanked for going out of his way to not be a problem?

nightstand, mid-Sept 2007

...and everything else, Academics, AMBI, life and living

My nightstand post was apparently such a hit, people have been asking again to see what is on my nightstand. Never say I didn’t bow to request…


If you were to guess I’m finishing a project, your guess would not be that far off. Although, in all honestly, the nightstand has, at this point, overflowed to the side of the bed I’m not using… (The stuffed animal is Bones. I’ll talk about him some time down the line,…)

the gifts of teaching

...and everything else, Academics, University of Washington

I am asked one of two questions quite frequently. Those who come over ask about the art on my walls. Those who create the art, ask if I really hang it up. So, here are some examples of the art in my house – these are all student projects, bits and pieces that I fell in love with, and my students were kind enough to give to me at the end of our classes together.

So, the short answers are: the art in my house primarily consists of things my students have done as part of their academic work, and yes, I do actually display the art, with significant pride.


This door and wall show art from several different students and classes. The pieces on the left are from a class called Eye and Mind, centering on Merleau-Ponty, and bringing freshmen humanities students into a lab to see that science doesn’t have to be a scary Other. This particular student fixed and stained osteoblasts multiple colours, figured out how to photograph them via the microscope, then created a series of images from world religions in “stained glass” – transparency paper and the photoshopped images.

The pictures on the right are from a technology/communication course, and deal with how we see and how we read the body.


The petri dish in the upper left corner is also from the Eye and Mind course. My student figured out how to dye and fix his osteoblasts that shade of green, and then, using a dental implement, traced, in multiple petri dishes, the life cycle of several pacific northwest trees. He also wrote a corresponding paper on emergence, and tied the two together. You can see a closeup of the petri dish here; it was my favourite of the etchings.

The flower and the dry erase marker were gifts my mentor gave to me at the conclusion of our first class teaching together. A single white rose, and a dry erase marker in purple. The purple was a very sentimental touch; following the advice of a friend’s mother, I had taken to grading my papers in purple (so that the papers didn’t appear to drip blood). My teaching cohort graded in brown ink, and was given a brown dry erase marker. I was extremely moved by the level of attention and detail my mentor showed in selecting such a thoughtful gift… and I have it, and the rose, on the wall as memorial to everything that class was for me; it, more than anything, is why I now am here, where I am – thanks to that mentor, and those amazing students.

Right to Refuse

Academics, Bioethics, Politics

In light of yesterday’s Vatican letter clarifying the former Pope’s commentary on food and hydration for PVS patients, I offer a snippet of McCann et al’s 1994 JAMA article on comfort care for terminally ill patients:

While much attention has been focused on the rights of patients to refuse medical interventions, little has been written about the benefits that competent terminally ill patients may experience by exercising this right, particularly in regard to artificial feeding. We found that patients with terminal illness can experience comfort care despite minimal if any intake of food or fluids. This is consistent with the experience that others have had in caring for dying patients. Using a patient-centered team approach, we were able to direct our efforts toward each patient’s particular needs. ((McCann et al, Comfort Care for Terminally Ill Patients. JAMA, October 26, 1994. Vol 272, No 16.))

When you cannot communicate directly with the patient, you communicate with the caretakers and family. What then, is the benefit for these actual people you interact with, that these surrogate patients might receive and experience by exercising the right to refuse for the body/person they stand in for?

Part of the Catholic ruling is based on the notion that the PVS patient, unable to communicate with the world at large, is still able to communicate with the world internal, that is, with God, and we humans should not step around the authority of God to circumvent His will.

Looking at the ruling, we can see that the focus is, beyond this focus on fundamental human dignity (which is intimately tied to communion with God), the alleviation of suffering – or more specifically, the avoidance of causing suffering to begin with. But as McGee asked in a lecture given a year ago in front of a variety of students, and I tied into Cassell, what does it mean to suffer? Can a PVS patient suffer, if by definition of PVS we are saying there is nothing left to return? That the body has become a biologic husk, no longer a Being in the world as much as a Memory in the world? Doesn’t there need to be something there beyond chemical and biologic processes in order for there to be suffering? (And to keep Cassell in the picture, there is of course a difference between pain and suffering ((You can read me slightly misreading Cassell here)). Suffering is feeling, experiencing, while pain is ‘just’ the biological response. A sea anemone can ‘feel’ pain without suffering, and it’s an important distinction to make, and keep in mind.)

The letter from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith emphasizes the alleviation of suffering, but makes an error in focusing only on the potential suffering of the patient, while ignoring the entirely probable suffering of those around the patient, the affective whole of family and friends. It’s almost ironic, given the Catholic emphasis on non-individuality, that the letter and ruling itself focus on the individual to the detriment of the whole.