SoyNica

It was an amazing time. I traveled to Nicaragua with 4 other Cornellians on a quest to learn more about solar ovens. We hooked up with a group called Grupo Fenix, run by Susan Kinne, who are affiliated with the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria. Grupo Fenix works on sustainable solar energy initiatives around the country. The town we spent most of the time in was Saban Grande (SG), a sleepy town on a dirt road off the PanAmerican Highway. SG has about 400 families all of whom live in adobe houses with either clay shingle or sheet metal roofs. I stayed with a family of three, all women; my mom Marta and my two younger sisters, Fanny and Ilsa.

During the day, our group would build with community members solar cookers they currently use. We'd also visit womens houses in the community who use solar cookers and listen about their experiences with the cookers. Solar cookers can be a viable alternative to odobe ovens, helping reduce firewood consumption. Cooking with wood can lead to respiratory problems. Also, wood is oftentimes unavailable. Nicaragua has been heavily deforested due to ranching and farming. People are not allowed to cut trees for cooking but must find fallen wood...this as you can imagine is not easy. The hardest hurdle to overcome regarding solar cookers is the social transition that must be made. The cookers are quite able to prepare a variety of foods: chiken, beans, soy, rice, soups, eggs, cakes but using cookers changes how people eat and how they prepare food. Two things that are integral to a culture and socail behavior. Many of the families we stayed with do use the cookers to cook rice and beans but mostly the cookers are used to dry coffee. Much work will be needed to fully integrate the cookers. If nothing else the cookers will somewhat reduce the amount of wood needed. A staple of the Nicaraguan diet is tortilla, something the box cooker cannot make.

The first day we spent in Nicaragua we went to the Parque Nacional Volcan Masaya (Masays Volcano National Park). It was spectacular...a volcano you can actually stand at the rim and look down into. I had never seen this before...apparently there are only a few active volcanos in the world where this is the case. After a full day hiking around the volcano we went to the town of Masaya for a trip to the market and a true Nicaraguan meal, Indio Viaja (Old Indian), along with some beans rice and fried plantains...tasty. That night we bunked up with our families in Managua...there were four in my family, Mom Dad and two little siblings. Alonso, my dad, is a geologist who works for the Managua water department (i think...my spanish is rusty). The kids were happy to play with us and did some great choreographed dances to Nicaraguan pop music...at one point an 8 year old boy was grinding on a nine year old girl....i think they get Latin MTV.

The next day we visited Grupo Fenix on the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria campus and met with a couple researches...namely Leondro and professor whos work is in chemistry and drying foods. He came with us to Saban Grande as well to learn more about how they use the cookers and solar driers.

My nights in Saban Grande mostly consisted of a meal (usually rice, beans, vegetables, and possibly and egg and fruit juice)...a shower under the stars, and either talking on the porch with my sister Ilsa or watching La Tormenta with my mom and sister Fanny. I tried to speak as much spanish as I could with them...

Reason Number 12, Why I Believe in Intelligent Design

Below, reproduced verbatim from the NY Times Magazine (Sunday, March 12), is an interview with Harvey Mansfield (HM). Quite possibly one of the most ridiculous human beings ever to take air off this earth.

OF MANLINESS AND MEN
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON (DS)
Interludes by AVI GUTER (AG)

DS: As a staunch neoconservative and the author of a new feminism-bashing book called "Manliness," how are you treated by your fellow government professors at Harvard?

HM: Look, if I only consorted with conservatives, I would be by myself all the time.
AG: That may not be a bad thing. Harvey, think about it. With all that alone time you wouldn't have to associate with all those incapable, inferior women.

DS: So your generally left-leaning colleagues are willing to talk to you?

HM: People listen to me, but they don't pay attention to what I say. I should punch them out, but I don't.
AG: "I'm Harvey Mansfeild, I do what I want." Let's be honest. Have you seen yourself lately? Just because your arthritic hands don't open up doesn't mean you've made a fist.

DS: In your latest book, you bemoan the disappearance of manliness in our "gender neutral" society. How, exactly, would you define manliness?

HM: My quick definition is confidence in a situation of risk. A manly man has to know what he is doing.

DS: Hasn't technology lessened the need for risk taking, at least of the physical sort?
AG: Deborah, here's where you and I disagree. I was playing Wolfenstien, the Nazi killer video game the other day. I don't know about you but that's risk. I was litterally in hand to hand combat with a real leather booted Nazi...my health was down to 2...I barely managed to escape...that is risk Deborah.

HM: It has. But it hasn't removed it. Technology gives you the instruments, and social sciences give you the rules. But manliness is more a quality of the soul.
AG: I thought that was morality, not manliness? You got your "m's" confused Harvey.

DS: How does someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger stack up?

HM: I would include him as a manly man.
AG: You sure he's not a girly man?

DS: But doesn't he exemplify the sort of man whose overdeveloped muscles are intended to mask feelings of insecurity?
AG: Deborah, do you want Arnold to kick the shit out of us here...I'm not going to be on your side if you keep insulting the Terminator.

HM: Yes, but then he stepped up to become governor of California. He took a risk with his reputation.

DS: What about President Bush? He's a risk taker, but wouldn't his penchant for long vacations be a strike against him?

HM: I wouldn't say industriousness is a sign of manliness. That's sort of wonkish. Experts do that.

DS: What about Dick Cheney?

HM: He hunts. And he curses openly. Lynne Cheney is kind of manly, too. I once worked with her on the advisory council of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AG: You just called Lynne Cheney a man. Dick has a dude for a husband and a daughter that wishes she were a dude...there's a lotta dick in that family.

DS: In your book, you say Margaret Thatcher is an ideal woman, but isn't she the manliest of all?

HM: I was told by someone who visited her that she is very feminine with her husband.

DS: Why is that so important to you in light of her other achievements?

HM: We need roles. Roles give us mutual expectations of what is either correct or good behavior. Women are neater than men, they make nests, and all these other stereotypes are mostly true. Wives and mothers correct you; they hold you to a standard; they want to make you better.
AG: I'm pretty sure your mom wishes she hadn't even made you...let alone try to make you better.

DS: I am beginning to wonder if you have ever spoken to a woman. Your ideas are so Victorian.
AG: Good call Deborah. The Victorians did make some nice houses though...so let's try to lay off the Vics.

HM: I have a young wife who grew up in the feminist revolution, and even though she is not a feminist, she wants to benefit from it. I wash the dishes, and I make the bed.

DS: How young is she, exactly?

HM: She's 60. I'm 73.
AG: You dog you.

DS: Were you sorry to see Harvard's outgoing president, Lawrence Summers, attacked for saying that men and women may have different mental capacities?
AG: What do you think Deborah? I'm pretty confident Harvey thinks women have no mental capacity.

HM: He was taking seriously the notion that women, innately, have less capacity than men at the highest level of science. I think it's probably true. It's common sense if you just look at who the top scientists are.
AG: I'm puttin you up there Harvey...I like you. I wonder who would win in a fight though. You or Darwin?

DS: But couldn't that simply reflect the institutional bias against women over the centuries?

HM: It could, but I don't think it does. We have been going a couple of generations now. There are certain things that haven't changed. For example, in New York City, the doormen are still 98 percent men.
AG: I think that's because doors are still 98 percent closed. They don't open themselves you know? What was your point here anyway?

DS: Yes, but fewer jobs depend on that sort of physical brawn as society becomes more technologically adept. Physical advantages are practically meaningless now that men are no longer hunter-gatherers.

HM: I disagree with that.
AG: You would.

DS: When was the last time you did something that required physical strength?
AG: Deborah, he had sex with a woman that is 13 years his junior last night...give him some credit.

HM: It's true that nothing in my career requires physical strength, but in my relations with women, yes.
AG: See, I told you Deborah.

DS: Such as?

HM: Lifting things, opening things. My wife is quite small.
AG: You're tellin' me Harvey.

DS: What do you lift?

HM: Furniture. Not every night, but routinely
AG: That reminds me, Harvey I've been meaning to ask you, I think my couch would look better on the far side of the living room, you know by the bay window...are you going to be around this weekend?

I Protest, I Dj, I Hockey, I Like Mustard

It's been a while since i've last blogged...I live in slow motion, so it takes me longer than most to cull enough stuff to make a post worthwhile. In the meantime, things have happened. I protested Hillary Clinton for being a pro-war democrat, drank mustard like it was nector from the Sun God Ra, and DJ'ed like (insert simile here).

First, the protest. Apparently, Hillary is being a douche bag and the socialists are fed up with her pro-war, pro-death penalty stances. I'm not a political person. I had no agenda other than to protest. This was my first protest but it sure as hell won't be my last. Have you every protested? It's amazing. You really feel like you changing the world, one rap/chant at a time. I hear Wegmans beats their chikens?! Nevermind that they slaughter them, it's the beating we've got to stop. Back to DB Hillary...the protest included some good ole protest standards including "Hey Hillary get off it, this wasr is for profit. War, and occupation will never bring liberation!!" and "Hillary, Hillary where you at, we're sick of pro-war democrats!" Me being so poor at remembering lyrics, I had to ask one of the Socialists to write them down for me. Thanks.

Where did Harry meet Sally? Who cares. Below is a picture of me at Katz's delicatessen downing a bottle of spicy grade A deli mustard. The kind meant for corned beat sandwhices. And that's exactly what I had. It was glorious.

Also below, some pics of my DJ booth at WVBR. We have a few broken mic's, outdated computers, and not enough CD's but we managed to carve up enough money to recarpet the place...good thing we have that short pile industrial carpet now.





"What should I get? The pickled garlic sausage...or..."



My stroll through Central Park

Carnegie Tower, a building one of my professors designed.