Freezing in San Francisco

Sleet, snow, hail? Am I on the East Coast? Nope, just some Northern California winter weather. My friends in SoCal and Texas are reporting cold weather as well.

Probably not the best temperature for bike riding. Went to a meeting in Oakland via bike and got a huge ear ache. Plus, our house is not well heated. But, I do have some fantastic new flannel sheets to keep me warm.

Gross National Happiness (GNH)

They are all featured in this year's Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the DC Mall. Strange but true - all three are being honored. Here, I'll make the connection for you.

NASA is in Texas and the University of Texas at El Paso has a Bhutan Center. Okay, I agree that that was probably not the link the Smithsonian used to bring them all together but I had to make it work somehow.


NASA as folklife is a stretch. Texas is all about folks. But the real interesting one is Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon, which is the world's youngest democracy. It is located between China and India.

Here's some interesting facts from their national promotional literature...


Population: Male: 364,482, Female: 307,943

Capital: Thimphu
Local time: Six hours ahead of GMT
State Religion: Mahayana Buddhism (Vajarayana form)
National Tree: Cypress
National Flower: Blue Poppy
National Bird: Raven
National Sport: Archery
National Animal: Takin (Goat-Antelope)
Official Language Dzongkha
Currency: Ngultrum (at par with the Indian Rupee)
Life expectancy: 66 years
Area: 38,394 sq. km
Forest coverage: 72.5%

Bhutan build this temple on the DC Mall as a gift to the American people and it was dedicated on June 25 by Buddhist Monks.


But here's what's really interesting. Their national values and the Gross National Happiness. According to Wikipedia, "The term was coined by Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1972 in response to criticism that his economy was growing poorly."

GNH value is proposed to be an index function of the total average per capita of the following measures:



Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution

Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic

Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses

Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients

Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits

Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates

Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.

How cool is that? I am totally inspired to research this country and visit.

Art-O-Mat

At the Tenleytown Whole Foods in Washington, DC there is a fantastic old cigarette machine that now dispenses pieces of art instead of cancer sticks.

The machine is called an Art-o-mat and in it are the mini works of 30 or so emerging artists.

Marlene and I pondered all the possible art choices and settled on supporting a pinhole photographer Emily Long. For $5 I now have one of her original pinhole images abandoned shed, southern cook county, il carefully adhered to a block of wood the exact size of a box of cigarettes.

DiverseWorks in Houston, TX has one of these machines but I never made a purchase when I was there. Now when I see these machines I'm going to make a purchase.

Texas tries to ease polygamist kids' culture shock

I found the CNN article Texas tries to ease polygamist kids' culture shock interesting beyond the story of their religious sect. Although living in an unacceptable situation when it came to their mental well-being the article, unintentionally, highlights that their are several inspirational components to how they were raised as good kids.

Apparently these kids didn't watch TV, grew their own veg, raised livestock, only ate fresh healthy foods, were very polite and possibly further along in their education than most kids of their age because they were home schooled. The kids are being fostered throughout Texas and the foster carers have been briefed on how to ensure the youth don't face a culture shock as they are exposed to society beyond their compound.

Child Protective Services agency spokeswoman Shari Pulliam said, according to the CNN article, "We recognize it's critical that these children not be exposed to mainstream culture too quickly or other things that would hinder their success. We just want to protect them from abuse and neglect. We're not trying to change them."

Children raised on the FLDS compound wear pioneer-style dress and keep their hair pinned up in braids, reflecting their standards of modesty. For the same reason, they have little knowledge of pop culture. They pray twice a day. They tend vegetable gardens and raise dairy cows, and eat fresh food. And they are exceedingly polite, always saying "please" and "thank you."

Pulliam said the temporary foster care facilities have been briefed on the children's needs. "We're not going to have them in tank tops and shorts," she said.

In addition, CPS has sent instructions to the foster homes to feed the youngsters fresh fruits and vegetables, chicken, rice and other foods that may have been grown on the 1,700-acre ranch. "They don't eat a lot of processed food and we're not going to encourage that," Pulliam said, but noted that if the children want to eat processed or junk food, no one is going to stop them.

Hays and Pulliam said the children will continue to be home-schooled by the temporary foster-care providers instead of being thrown into big schools, where they could be bullied because of their differences.

If this is a throw-back to the 19th century way of living, as stated in the CNN article, I am interested in the fact that these are good, polite, modest, educated kids. The horror of their oppression is unfortunately the frame for their "goodness" but why not encourage feeding and educating kids in this way? For goodness sake, stop them from trying junk food.

The Yoga Zone

Today I hosted a private yoga class at our flat. Each Saturday my neighbour Laia and I attend a fantastic yoga class at the Portchester Centre (Portchester in London as opposed to Portchester, NY). We've been on a quest to find a class for Sundays that was just as good. One of the substitute teachers at the Portchester offers in-home classes, so we took her up on the offer.

Practicing at your flat and hosting guests it becomes clear that all the good habits you learn in a class are harder to maintain at home. My breathing was constricted and I kept worrying about space. But Tanja, our teacher, reminded us to dance with our breath and half way through the class I was able to get into the yoga zone.

An added benefit is that the class brought us closer together as neighbours. Three of us from this building and another American woman from down the street. We all have some kind of connection - Madalyn lived in Oakland, Laia worked in Texas and Victoria is from New York now working in not for profit arts. She shares a wedding anniversary with Tanja. Welcome to the Yoga Zone.

Photo not of us...yet.