Word of the Day: 'phytoremediation'

(sdpb.org)

Again with class stuff. On our field trip with my Environmental Biology class to the land fill, our guide pointed out some trees bordering the property and said they were Cottonwood trees, which absorb toxins from the ground. Once the trees have reached capacity for the toxins, the land fill cuts them down and uses them like they would any other wood. Awesome.

Other plants known to take specific toxins out of the ground through phytoremediation:
clover - motor oil
mustard plants - lead
ferns - arsenic
alpine herbs - zinc

Something I've had to look up from class: The Body Farm

In my Biological Anthropology class, my professor briefly discussed something called The Body Farm, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Basically, it is a three-acre lot where researchers from UT-Knoxville put human bodies out to decompose in various conditions (buried in shallow grave, submerged in water, trunk of car, etc.) and track their progress. Gory.

My Dad is really into the show Bones, for unknown reasons. The show is about a forensic anthropologist, which I thought was a made-up profession until I heard about the Body Farm. Basically, all of the researchers at the Body Farm are forensic anthropologists: people who study how bodies decompose, and a lot are criminologists.

One time he said he enjoyed the interaction of the two main characters: Bones (ISTJ) and the dude who used to be Angel in Buffy (ENFP). That will only be funny to people who know my Dad. Speaking of my Dad, we were having a discussion once and he proclaimed that he would never donate his body to science. My mom and I were astonished. Why!? Well, most of the bodies at the Body Farm are donated to science. Now I see why.

"Bodies are obtained from various sources. Some have lain unclaimed at the medical examiner's office, while over 300 people have voluntarily donated their bodies to the Body Farm. Between 30 and 50 bodies are donated to the facility every year." (wikipedia, "Body Farm")

Field Trip: Town Dump

For my Environmental Biology class, our lab went to the Columbia landfill. It was awesome. Here are some things I learned:

• the cellulose cases that are used for hotdogs (the part that makes the meat stay together, not the packaging) can be made out of recycled material. I am ambivalent about this. Reason #453 to not eat hot dogs.
  
• The stuff we put in the clear blue recycle bags in Columbia is hand sorted, mostly by temp workers who get no benefits.
  
• There's something called an Eddy Current Separator that acts as a reverse magnet and repels aluminum. cool!
• the recycling center sells ground up glass as sand for $5/ton. prank idea?
• 20-25% of Columbia recycles. sad.
• Columbia has the only Bioreactor landfill in Missouri. Here's how it works: you add water to the waste and methane gas comes off. You funnel the methane into energy, and it supplies electricity to 1,300 homes. Awesome.
  

I love field trips.

decisions, decisions

unrelated photo of my niece in the Florida Keys, shot through my Blu-Blockers

"Over the past generation, economists have paid increasing attention to the importance of norms and rules in economic life.  Ronald Heiner pointed out that as rational human beings we simply cannot make rational decisions at every point in day-to-day life.  Were we to do so, our behavior would be both unpredictable and subject to paralysis as we perpetually calculated whether we should tip the waiter, stiff the cab driver of his fare, or put away a different amount of your paycheck every month in your retirement account.  In fact, it is rational for people to impose simplifying rules on their own behavior, even if these rules do not always yield correct decisions in every circumstance because decisionmaking is in itself costly and often requires information that is unavailable or faulty." ("Social Capital" by Francis Fukuyama in Culture Matters)

My Global Perspectives professor gives his definition of culture as the thing that filters out 99% of the random data we encounter on a daily basis, so that we can make active decisions on the last 1%.

Brazilian News...Raposa Serra do Sol reservation

Ok, so for my Global Perspectives and Realities class, I am trying to figure out what's going on with the rainforest in Brazil. I read in an awesome New Yorker article yesterday (Um, can't find it online, will add it later) that said something like that Indonesia and Brazil both contribute to 10% of the Carbon Dioxide added to the atmosphere because of their destruction of their rainforests.

Ok, I've known since 4th grade that destruction of rainforests is the worst thing ever (atmosphere, ecosystems, endangered species, the list goes on). But, it seems like it actually might be the worst thing ever. So, I think I'm going to slowly build my project up here (via my blog), looking at why it's happening. Maybe we'll be surprised, maybe not.

When SustainMizzou (our recycling club/organization on campus) showed An Inconvenient Truth last year, I was talking with some enviro-evangelists afterwards about what I could do and it seemed like the most proactive thing was to not eat meat from Brazil that was raised on rainforest land. Uhh...done.

So, I've been obsessed with Brazil for no clear reason for years now, and I want to figure more out about this. Come along!

The picture above is a map of where the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation is. There have been protests and bridge-burnings lately (nytimes article) because the government is removing non-Indians from the area. I don't understand this whole thing, but maybe I will soon.

links for next time:
nytimes: "Brazil, Alarmed, Reconsiders Policy on Climate Change"
nytimes: "In the Amazon: Conservation or Colonialism?"
mongabay.com: "Rainforests of Brazil: An Environmental Status Report"

Cutest Biological Anthropology Class Ever!

(smh.com.au) newborn albino pygmy marmosets


(viewimages.com)

Galago (Bush Baby)
- sub-Saharan Africa
- mostly solitary (except when forced into teacups)
- nocturnal
-fast, agile insect hunters

Things I've had to look up for class: Link between Plastics and Estrogen

(vestaldesign.com)

Wired: "Reproductive Disorders Probably Caused by Common Plastic Ingredient, Scientists Say"

Wired: "Male Births Drop Mysteriously in US and Japan"

"The synthetic chemical called bisphenol-A is used to make dental sealants, sturdy microwavable plastics, linings for metal food-and-beverage containers, baby bottles, and numerous other products. When consumed, the chemical can mimic the effects of estrogen. Previous tests had found that bisphenol-A can leach into food and water and that it's widely prevalent in human blood." (Sciencenews.org: "Diabetes from a Plastic? Estrogen mimic provokes insulin resistance")

Frederick vom Saal (Mizzou researcher in this area) - "Researcher Provides Evidence Against Common Household Plastics"

PBS Frontline "Fooling Around with Nature" interview with Frederick vom Saal.

Wikipedia "Plastics": "Research in Environmental Health Perspectives finds that BPA - bisphenol-A (leached from the lining of tin cans, dental sealants and polycarbonate bottles) can increase body weight of lab animals' offspring, as well as impact hormone levels. A more recent animal study suggests that even low-level exposure to BPA results in insulin resistance, which can lead to inflammation and heart disease."

Um - so all major recent health issues are caused by plastic containers? Wonderful.

WebMD "Danger in Plastic Baby Bottles?: Common Plastics Chemical Linked to Genetic Damage" "Other animal studies have linked BPA to low sperm count, hyperactivity, early puberty, obesity, small testes size, and enlarged prostates. But Hunt's is the first study to suggest that BPA can affect future generations."

thegreenguide.com, "The Bisphenol-A Debate: A Suspect Chemical in Plastic Bottles and Cans": "Ninety-five percent of Americans were found to have the chemical in their urine in a 2004 biomonitoring study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."

Which means that it's going into our water systems and into streams and rivers. Oh no.

The Pill

(link)

To continue the estrogen-fueled rampage...today in my Human Evolution (Anthropological Biology) class, we talked about male contraceptives a bit, and it made me wonder how technology is shaping up on that front. It can't be that much harder to make a male version of "the pill," it's been 48 years, after all.

"It is now believed that an MHC (male hormone contraceptive, i believe) in the form of a daily pill could be available on the market within 5 to 7 years and implants could arrive even sooner."

“It is time for men to have some control. I think it would empower men and deter some women out there from their nefarious plans,” says Brown. “Some women are out there to use men to get pregnant. This could deter women from doing this. An athlete or a singer is someone who could be a target and they could put a stop to that.” (MSNBC.com article) Hahaha...

Wikipedia article on Male Oral Contraceptives (here)

Graphic description of how male contraceptives work (here)

Androgynous Street Fashion

My friend Lauren, from L'Abri, wrote something interesting in her blog: "I'm aware that modern street fashion is hideous and unflattering to everyone who isn't androgynous." Are these guys or girls?


(sartorialist)


(facehunter)

Speaking of androgyny, in my adolescent human development class today we debated whether to teach androgyny (that is, taking all beneficial traits from both sexes) in classrooms. Some people said that we shouldn't teach any kind of gender traits as superior, some people said that we need really feminine people and really masculine people to fill roles in society, some said that androgyny is the way to go, since you can have the best of both worlds. To me, the concept of androgyny seems like you're giving up more than you're gaining. Instead of being a feminine female or a masculine male, you're kind of neither and both at the same time. It's interesting, sure, but i'm not sure it's the best option.

Boredom and Adolescence, or, trying to figure out adulthood - part 1

(tv.com)

As I am going through my Human Development class on Adolescence, I am constantly reminded of how much it seems like I am still an adolescent. Here are some characteristics of adolescence:
- Identity vs. role confusion
- emotional highs and lows
- imaginary audience (feeling on stage, like everyone is looking at you)
- personal fable (sense of uniqueness)
- beginning use of hypothetical, abstract thinking

I am also (thanks to Mary McCampbell for reminding me that Henri Nouwen books rock) reading Intimacy by Henri Nouwen, because, well, 'tis the season for figuring it out. According to Erikson's stages of psychosocial development (here) I am in Young Adulthood (19-34) where I am dealing with Intimacy vs. Isolation.

(Small detour before I get to my point) In the first section of Nouwen's book, he has stages as well, by which he tracks human progress from "magic to faith" in relation to God. In the beginning we look at God as magic, as adults we have faith.

In Nouwen's 'Young Adult' stage, he talks about college and developing the ability to question.

"Only he who feels safe in this world can take risks, only he who has a basic trust in the value of life is free to ask many questions without feeling threatened. Trust creates the possibility of a religion of search, which makes a commitment possible without certainty. By the basic trust in the meaning of life we are able to live with a hypothesis, without the need of absolute certainty...In college we can often discover, with pain and frustration that a mature religious man is very close to the agnostic."

If I took anything from my semester at L'Abri, it was something like that. The idea that I owe it to myself as a human being to be a 'searching believer,' as Nouwen puts it. I need to be searching for the truth, and be able to let go of ideas that are proven wrong.

(back to the main point, now) Boredom. In the 'Young Adult' stage, Nouwen talks about choice and questioning, but in 'The adult man' stage he primarily talks about boredom. What? Is boredom really the characterizing quality of adult life? Nouwen's answer to this boredom is transcendence through a "mature, religious sentiment [that] fulfills a creative function. Because it has a unifying power, it brings together the many isolated realities of life and casts them into one meaningful whole." Aha.

Now I can't remember why I was comparing adolescence and boredom, maybe I'll come back later and remember and revise this thing. In the mean time, I think they're pretty interesting ideas to think about.

Evolutionary Culture + Creationism

brasilmagic.wordpress.com

The definition of culture from my Biological Anthropology (human evolution) class: Behavioral aspects of human adaptation, including technology, traditions, language, religion, marriage patterns, and social roles. Culture is a set of learned behaviors transmitted from one generation to the next by nonbiological (i.e., nongenetic) means.

Ew, how unromantic.

"Proponents of creation science are called 'creationists' because they explain the existence of the universe as the result of a sudden creation event, directed by an omnipotent, supernatural being, occurring over the source of six 24-hour days as described in the book of Genesis. The premise of creation science is that the biblical account of the earth's origins and the Noah flood can be supported by scientific evidence.
Creationists have insisted that what they used to call 'creation science' and now call 'intelligent design' (ID) is as much a scientific endeavor as is evolution, and that there's scientific evidence to support creationist views. They've argued that in the interest of fairness, a balanced view should be offered: If evolution is taught as science., then creationism should also be taught as science. Sounds fair, doesn't it? But 'creation science' or ID isn't science at all, for the simple reason that creationists insist that their view is absolute and infallible. Therefore, creationism isn't a hypothesis that can be tested, nor is it amenable to falsification. And, because hypothesis testing is the basis of all science, creationism, by its very nature, cannot be considered science." Introduction to Physical Anthropology

In my Biology class at my Christian high school, I had learned that Evolution was theory and not science for the same reason - it could not be tested because evolution and transmutation (the change of one species to another) happened over such long periods of time. It seems kind of silly to dismiss either point of view on such simple grounds.

Turducken

An ode to my sociology class last semester, where this dish was brought (is that correct grammar?) up at least once a class: (drumroll) The Turducken! It's a turkey, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken. And here's how you make it: "a turkey, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, with oyster dressing inside the chicken, andouille dressing between the chicken and the duck, and cornbread dressing between the duck and the turkey. Wow."

Recipe (here)

Things I've Learned in Class

From my Adolescent development class: The latin root word for 'puberty' is 'pubescere' which means 'to grow hairy'...hahaha. I have a hard time not giggling in that class. Which is why I work with high schoolers.

From my Environmental Biology class, I learned that the Columbia power plant is using the methane from human waste to give us power. Awesome. Here's the article.

From the same class, a quote from Aldo Leopold "One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise."

- That quote could have easily been by C.S. Lewis about Christianity. It is so interesting that human beings react the same way to knowledge - be it environmental or theological. Do you act on what you know? Do you confront others about it?

more to come...

Culture Matters

I'm reading this book called Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress
which was a recommendation from David Brooks in this article. It's awesome.

In my two classes with Prof. Gilles, Social Change and Trends and now Global Perspectives and Realities, we have talked about why certain countries "succeed" and why some "fail" through multiple examples. We read the book Collapse by Jared Diamond for the Social Change class, which was fascinating.

However, there's an issue here. I'm feeling very postmodern by saying this, but, who defines success? Where one ethnic group or country might be very industrious and have a strong economy, another ethnic group or country might have a strong value for the family and community. Which is better or more desirable (because, often, they tend to be mutually exclusive)?

Here's a paragraph from Culture Matters:

"...it is first necessary to define our terms. By the term "human progress" in the subtitle of this book we mean movement toward economic development and material well-being, social-economic equity, and political democracy. The term "culture," of course, has had multiple meanings in different disciplines and different contexts. It is often used to refer to the intellectual, musical, artistic, and literary products of a society, its "high culture." Anthropologists, perhaps most notably Clifford Geertz, have emphasized culture as "thick description" and used it to refer to the entire way of life of a society: its values, practices, symbols, institutions, and human relationships. In this book, however, we are interested in how culture affects societal development; if culture includes everything, it explains nothing. Hence we define culture in purely subjective terms as the values, attitudes, beliefs, orientation, and underlying assumptions prevalent among people in a society." (xv)

So, a culture, as used here, is the worldview, the zeitgeist, the what-makes-us-different-from-them.

Of course, some cultures can have more healthy traits than others and can love honesty, integrity, and charity more than other countries or groups. But most cultures tend to be a mixed bag. Is globalization (by the definition I learned from Thomas L. Friedman - free economies, free business trade - free, not necessarily fair) really the best thing for everyone? The guys in Culture Matters say yes, if it provides better health care and overall well-being for everyone. Of course, it is kind of undeniable that a group or country with the least deaths from preventable diseases wins. I don't know...

Lars and the Real Girl

Claire, Awesome, Zanzibar (who got punched in the face by an angry Mexican at a bar and has a swollen cheek! haha), Kathleen from Sociology, and I went to go see 'Lars and the Real Girl' at the Rag Tag last night. It was very different than what I thought it was going to be, and Zanzibar had the same reaction. He just thought that with there being a sex doll as the female lead the movie, it would go more in the 'Old School' direction. I thought it was going to be more lighthearted and funny. But it was wonderful.

I've been interested in the way masculinity is portrayed in the arts and media ever since we started focusing on it in Krew as well as my Critical Theory class. Because all of my classes assign similar paper topics, I've come up with a couple broad theories and bits of social commentary that I use and fit into whatever paper topic it is. One of the ones I've been thinking about is that people are dissatisfied with the social structure and rules that the consumerist materialist world has given them (which is that there are no rules - just buy more crap) and are searching for something more stable: a framework (however imperfect) that they can follow to avoid feeling fragmented and disillusioned. This applies especially in gender roles.

In Krew when we talk about what it means to be a man, it is because there is a general lack of knowledge on how to be a good one. Here's a scene from 'Lars and the Real Girl' that speaks to this (Gus is Lars' brother who is married and about to have a kid - Lars is 27 and single and socially awkward, Bianca's the sex doll that Lars ordered online):

Lars Lindstrom: I was talking to Bianca, and she was saying that in her culture they have these rites of passages and rituals and cermonies, and, just all kinds of things that, when you do them, go through them, let you know that you're an adult? Doesn't that sound great?
Gus: It does.
Lars Lindstrom: How'd you know?
Gus: How'd I know what?
Lars Lindstrom: That you were a man
Gus: Ahhh. I couldn't tell ya.
Lars Lindstrom: Was it... okay, was it sex?
Gus: Um. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's uh, yeah, yeah it's kind of - it's uh - no. Well, it's kind of sex but it's not uh, you know? I don't know. I don't know. It's - uh - good question, good question.
Lars Lindstrom: Yeah, but I have to know
Gus: [dryer buzzes] Hold that thought.
Gus: [in basement] You know, you should ask Dagmar
Lars Lindstrom: I did ask Dagmar. And she said that I should ask you.
Gus: Okay, you know I can only give you my opinion.
Lars Lindstrom: That's what we want
Gus: Well, it's not like you're one thing or the other, okay? There's still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what's right for you, what's right for everybody, even when it hurts.
Lars Lindstrom: Okay, like what?
Gus: Like, you know, like, you don't jerk people around, you know, and you don't cheat on your woman, and you take care of your family, you know, and you admit when you're wrong, or you try to, anyways. That's all I can think of, you know - it sound like it's easy and for some reason it's not.
(from imdb)

And in the rest of the movie Lars slowly tries to put these things into practice, telling a girl who likes him that he can't kiss her because that would be cheating on his woman (Bianca - the sex doll) and so forth. It's wonderful. I think it's really interesting that movies are discussing something like this. I asked my friend from sociology what she thought about the gender roles in the movie but we just talked about how Gus' wife fulfilled the typical gender role of cooking breakfast. We didn't get to talk more. I think it's all very interesting.

Life, it is.

As I am working towards to goal of defining what my life passions are, different words, phrases, and ideas seem to fit together to create the larger vision. One of them comes from an email that wasn't written to me by a professor at Covenant Seminary. It is a broad question that shapes a lot of who Covenant Seminary is and their mission. This question makes me want to go to seminary there. "What do you see in terms of spiritual yearnings within contemporary (popular) culture (in the U.S.A. and globally)?"

I was sitting in my 'Cultural and Intellectual History of the US' class this morning and another image came to me. In contemporary church culture, so much is made of Acts 17, when Paul is preaching on Mars Hill. I think Christians enjoy the image of Paul citing the contemporary secular poets and thinkers to make his own case for the existence of one God and for salvation in Christ. It makes the case that the church shouldn't be a fortress on a hill, separated from society by huge walls of distrust and misunderstanding. It should be a city, with streets leading out, inviting trade and dialogue.

It just occurred to me that that is what inspires me too. My favorite part of being at Mizzou as a Christian is being in a sociology class and being able to see the image of God in the writers and other students as we all discuss culture and the nature of man in society. It's fantastic seeing that what the Bible says isn't all crap and that what it says about human nature and the way God created us in His image can be seen in everything we do. Even the ways we set up power elites and have class warfare speaks to our desire to have the God-like power that got us in this whole mess in the first place (Garden of Eden).

In my history class, my professor acts kind of like an Old Testament prophet, highlighting trends of thought that shifted the American culture. I want to learn how to do that. I want to look at a culture and say, "Here is the foundational issue. Here is where we do not believe God." That would be so cool.

Last Semester at Mizzou. sigh.

(me in my dorm freshman year)

I finalized my schedule for my last semester at Mizzou today. I have to admit, it's a little more serious that I wished or thought it would be, but I (true to form) left my two science lab credits that i need for my major until the last semester, thinking they would just go away if I waited long enough. Here it is:

(Anthropology) Intro to Biological Anthropology - the class description says that the class goes over the evidence for evolution. I always wanted to sort out what I believe about evolution. Here's my chance. Prayers for wisdom, please.

(Biological Sciences) Basic Environmental Studies - this is my required lab. I always wanted to know more about the environment. woo!

(Human Development and Family Studies) Adolescence and Young Adulthood - I've been wanting to take this class since I got to Mizzou. Eric Larsen and David Morris got me interested in looking at youth ministry from a developmental perspective, I think it can add a lot of insight on what kids can grasp.

(Rural Sociology) Global Perspectives and Realities - this is the class by the teacher I have for Social Change and Trends. He rules. This is a class about how to live abroad. At least I'm hoping.

So, I graduate Saturday May 17 2008 at 1pm. Huh.

The Church and Masculinity

It was so good being back at my church this week and kind of being in the place where I'm most me.

With the influence of Anthony Bradley and David Morris, the youth group has been focusing on masculinity and discussing what it means to be a man of God. It's been wonderful.

In my sociology classes at Mizzou, I am used to thinking about gender in one of two ways:
1) males, being in power and receiving the most privilege in our society, have taken all good things and have greedily withheld social capital from others, especially women and minorities.
2) the gender binary (male vs. female) is a social construction, and so doesn't really exist and can be changed. And aside from biological differences (which can be altered with surgery, of course) there's not really any thing that defines a male as acting like a "dude" and a female acting like a "girl." and that "girlness" or "dudeness" is socialized into people - there's no real hard and fast definition for either.

In my Critical Theory class, my professor has kind of had the view (that he's brought up in different discussions) about the myth of masculine privilege. He cited the author Herb Goldberg who wrote all these books (here) but most notably The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege

As I understand our culture's position (by way of looking at advertising, tv, mass media) a man is his athletic ability, sexual conquests, and economic success.

The Ivory Tower (if you can even feel comfortable calling Mizzou that) says that a man is whatever he wants to be and feels most genuine doing (there is no real definition for "manliness"). However, what he feels most genuine and satisfied doing is what God created him to be. And it is ultimately sin that confuses us and tells us to be things that we shouldn't.

For example, it being the holiday season, and me being a woman, I feel the inexplicable urge to go to the mall. Like everyday. I don't need to go to the mall.

Covenant College and Worldviews

My Postmodern Poetry class had a day at the Heidelberg (a pretty popular college bar here in town) where we shared our Postmodern collage projects (the reason I haven't been posting 4 times a day like normal lately). The beer was flowing and the projects were really cool looking. I think mine was the least creative and took the least amount of effort/planning out of everyone, but Ronci said I got an A, so I'm okay with that.

But anyway, to get to the point (and the title of the post), I was sitting in line to get graded behind a girl named Ann in my class and she was making small talk with the guy in front of her and I heard her say that she spent her first two years of college at a little place called Covenant College in Chattanooga, TN. It's not every day (or any day at Mizzou, actually) that you hear those words, so I asked her about it and we started talking. It turns out her father in law went to Covenant Seminary when he had a mid-life crisis and decided to be a pastor. Weird. Small world. She also knew of Aaron Belz, who will be giving a poetry reading (that I'm going to) tomorrow night at the Artisan.

So Ann and I were talking and I was telling her about my major and that I wanted to go to grad school for it and everything and she mentioned that, growing up in the PCA she had always studied about worldviews and saw the world through the lens that everyone had their own personal worldview based on what culture they grew up in and their beliefs about reality. But, she made the point, that secular education is just catching up. Most of our postmodern poetry class was about worldviews. Our collage project was about the postmodern worldview and the shift from the modernist one that was predominate before that. No wonder I'm interested in this stuff, I was practically raised to think this way.

At my Christian high school we were taught apologetics by way of worldview (The Universe Next Door by James W. Sire was one of my Worldviews class textbooks) and had to write papers about how our worldview was affected by this and that. That is why I think this way about culture. It was a great conversation.

virtual vs. reality

I'm doing a group presentation on Monday and my part is on blogs and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. I'm reading a book for it called Interpersonal Divide: The Search For Community in a Technological Age by Michael Bugeja that I'm really excited about. Here's a short description of his idea from the preface (which is how far I've gotten):

"The phrase interpersonal divide concerns the social gap that develops when individuals misperceive reality because of media overconsumption and misinterpret others because of technology overuse. This book analyzes "the interpersonal divide" from different vantage points...detailing the overselling of media and technology and the impact on our behavior when we spend too much time in virtual rather than real habitats."

For my Critical Theory class I'm reading Kalle Lasn's (of Adbusters fame) Culture Jam: How to reverse america's suicidal consumer binge - and why we must. Here's something interesting that he says that is similar to Bugeja's point:

"But I wondered how they'd score on a 'reality index' - which I define as the ratio of time spend in a virtual versus a 'real' environment. The measurement is easy enough to calculate. Jot down in a notebook the number of times a day you laugh at real jokes with real people in real situations against the number of times you laugh at media-generated joke, the amount of sex you have against the amount of sex you watch, and so on."

Very interesting.