Monday, January 23, 2017

The Panda Bear on Obstacles, Newspapers, and the Ordinary Person

The Panda Bear Blog is a blog about an ordinary office worker who wants to change the world.

In a previous post, the Panda Bear had written about her New Year’s resolution to lose weight.   She even was so bold to state that she had lost a few pounds.    Well pride comes before a fall.    The Panda Bear unexpectedly had to have gum surgery. Because of the surgery she could only eat soft foods that are room temperature and because she had to restrictions on exercise she gained some of her weight back.    However, she now ia feeling better and plans to return to her diet(Here is an exercise tip -instead of exercising for an hour straight break it up into two half hour sessions.   It is just as much exercise and it is not as tiring as exercising all at once).

The Panda Bear mentions this because many events that we cannot predict can slow us down from reaching our goals.   Instead of beating ourselves up for not sticking to our goals we must simply forgive ourselves and start all over again.

Though this was not a New Year's resolution, the Panda Bear has started to subscribe to a newspaper and tries to read it every day.    She decided to start reading the paper not just because of the "fake" news.    The Panda Bear felt she was uniformed of some basic facts.

She like Gary Johnson, the Libertarian presidential candidate had her Aleppo moment.   Like Gary Johnson the Panda Bear believes that the US providing the Syrian rebels with arms has increased the bloodshed in the area and is imperialist.    She also was not aware of what going on in Aleppo (though she did know that the civil war is destroying Syria).

However, it was really on a local ballot question that Panda Bear was truly confronted with hers and others ignorance of what is going on in the news.   In Massachusetts, there was a referendum question on whether to expand Charter schools in areas where the public schools are low performing The Panda Bear strongly supported this measure.   The public schools in city of Boston are a total mess and have been for the past fifty years,   The Panda Bear works with many people who live in the City of Boston and they use the Charter schools.

However, when the Panda Bear stated her support for the resolution to expand Charters schools on Facebook  many of the Panda Bear's friends disagreed.    What bothered the Panda Bear was not the disagreement but how neither she nor her friends were uncertain of the facts surrounding Charter schools.   Were they free?  Were they part of the "public” schools system?   Were they regulated? Well in reading today's newspaper the Panda Bear found out that the Charter schools are regulated by the state. (The Panda Bear believes Charter schools are free). 

The Panda Bear always heard growing up that the gold standard for news was newspapers-not radio or television.   Her local paper done some good investigative journalism and does contain opposing views.

However, it still perplexes the Panda Bear when newspaper editors discuss how they failed to understand public sentiment during this election.    The Panda Bear wishes to tell academia, the media and politicians that one trait of the ordinary person is that there are a lot of us.   We are not some rare species that has not been seen for decades.   Common people are like pigeons, squirrels and sparrows in the city.

If the common person is not seen by the press it is because they are not looking.

Monday, January 9, 2017

The Panda Bear on Weight Loss, Inequality and New Years Resolutions

Like many living creatures, this year the Panda Bear is resolved to lose weight.   She has gained twenty-five points over the past twelve years.   In addition, the Panda Bear has over the past two years has developed knee pain; she has been told that reducing weight would lessen the knee pain (there would be less weight on her knees).

However, the subject of weight loss makes the Panda Bear aware of life's inequalities.   Men can eat more than women without gaining weight.   Tall and large boned people can eat more than short petite people.   Furthermore, as people get older their calorie needs decline.

As a small woman, the Panda Bear has always been a small eater.   Even when she was a child she had to go on diets.    However, the Panda Bear has discovered that dieting is harder as one gets older.  Furthermore, with knee arthritis she has some activity limitations.    Though for most people the cause of weight gain is the same (eating more calories than one needs), the absolute food calorie requirements of people are different.    It seems so unfair.

However, after raging about the nature's great injustice, the Panda Beat has lost five pounds during the holiday season no less.   The Panda Bear knows her downfall is that she eats too much after work/in the evening.   Slowly the Panda Bear is working on changing her eating habits.

Recently, the Panda Bear has heard of some weight loss strategies which she thinks has a downside.    Some people takes bets on who can lose the most amount of weight over a certain period time.    Another is to set a goal to of a certain number of pounds by a certain date.

The problem with both strategies is that they depend on things outside a person's control.  While one does have control about how many calories one eats, one does not have control of how much or how fast one loses the weight.    Some kinds of weight easier are to take off than others.   The Panda Bear has heard that the last ten pounds of weight loss can be slower and harder to take off than the first ten pounds.   Older people tend to lose weight more slowly than young people.

The problem the Panda Bear thinks with a lot of New Years resolutions (and other goal setting) is that their success depends on factors outside of one's control.    Instead it is probably easier and more rewarding to focus on developing certain behaviors that will enhance the changes of one's obtaining a goal.   Our behavior is in our control; often the outcome is not,



Sunday, January 1, 2017

The Panda Bear on the Year 2016, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party

The Panda Bear Blog is a blog about a humble office worker and her opinions,   She is proud to live in a time when as President Obama complained that "anyone can call themselves a blogger".

This morning the Panda Bear was hearing and reading commentators stating that 2016 was a year of surprises and stress.  2016 was a stressful year for the Panda Bear.   She lost a job and had problems walking due to knee osteoarthritis.   

However, the Panda Bear has overcome the obstacles.   Her knees have improved.   More importantly she found a new and better job in a much less stressful line of work.

The Panda Bear succeeded in her job hunt despite her personal disadvantages which are that on personality tests her chief characteristics were honesty, kindness and loyalty.   The Panda Bear was crying when she read those test results and thought no one would hire her.  The Panda Bear feels that often those who succeed are cutthroat and ruthless.

However, when most people refer to 2016 as being stressful, they are referring to the US presidential elections.    The Panda Bear heard on the radio the editor of the New York Times state that he was not aware of the anger of the average person in this election cycle.   Clearly he had not being reading this blog which seeks to expose the lies of the establishment and the anger of an average office worker.

The Panda Bear did not vote for Hillary Clinton(and she supported her 2008 and Bill Clinton 1992).   She voted third party.    However, many political consultants might have thought Hillary Clinton might have appealed to the Panda Bear for these reasons:

  1. They are both women.
  2. They are both Feminists.
  3. They both went to Seven Sister colleges
  4. They both don't drive(Seriously, the Panda Bear would have considered a Clinton victory a triumph for people who don't drive).
  5. They don't have flamboyant personalities.
  6. They both can be a bit wonky.
  7. They are short(authority is often seen as tall even in women),
  8. They are both fair skin white people(Hillary is blond and the Panda Bear is a redhead).
  9. They both use e-mail a lot
However, this last shared trait has made the Panda Bear loose all respect for Hillary Clinton.   The Panda Bear works in environments where they are laws about how e-mail should be used; furthermore, people could be fired or prosecuted if these rules are not followed.   As soon as the Panda Bear heard about Ms. Clinton's private e-mail server, Ms. Clinton lost the Panda Bear's vote.   The Panda Bear thought that Ms. Clinton thought she was above the law.

The Panda Bear believes, maybe naively, that in a constitutional form of government the ruler is under the law.   She also does not believe in two tiered systems in that there is one set of rules for one group of people and another set of rules for the other.

Also her campaign was hacked.   For the good of the country she should have been using the proper protocol in dealing with sensitive materials.

Though Russia was wrong to hack into the Democrats e-mail what they showed about the Democrats was not flattering.   The Democratic leadership seems to be oblivious to the rule that you don't put things in writing that you would not want to be published.   If you do have to write something that needs to be totally private it should not be on an e-mail but on regular paper where it is burned once it is read.