I love good food.  If I spend money superfluously, it’s on eating out.  Not hundreds of dollars or anything, at least per meal.  A few weeks ago, some friends and I ventured to Patowmack Farms, an organic fine-dining restaurant ranked in the Washingtonian’s 2010 100 Best Restaurants, for brunch.  The food was sensational.  I had “cappucchino of sunchoke” and “hay smoked potato gnocchi.”    The gnocchi–with celery root puree, abalone mushrooms, carrots, and potato consommé–was the best I’ve ever had.  Next time I go I intend to order from the five course menu.  If you venture by the area try this place out (by reservation only!).

Often I joke that my good sense of smell and taste makes up for my cruddy vision;  I’m incredibly nearsighted.  20/400.  Yeah, it’s that bad.  My palette has certainly expanded as I’ve aged.  I enjoy a wider variety of foods (vegetarian only) and try foods I dismissed when younger another shot.

So, here I am with my GRE study guide just wishing I was eating at a restaurant, envisioning hay smoked gnocchi and epitomizing a gastronome.

16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.

17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.

31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.

44. People cause suffering when they are suffering themselves.  Alleviating their suffering will probably remove their inclination to create it for others.

64. Words are immensely powerful.  One cruel remark can wound someone for life.

67. The secret ingredient is usually butter, in obscene amounts.

If you could, would you kill Idi Amin?  What about Hitler?  The latest episode of House, “The Tyrant,” raises complicated moral questions, applicable to more situations than whether or not to treat a patient with a history of committing violence and mass murder.  Should President Dibala be treated as just another patient?

"The Tyrant" Check it out on Hulu.

Chase and Cameron highlight diametrically opposed theories of ethics.  Cameron, repulsed by Dibala’s persecution of the Sitibi, reluctantly treats this war criminal.  If treated, she argues, Dibala will return to his country and continue killing civilians.  She represents the consequentialist ethical perspective, where a morally good action is one that produces a good outcome.  Even though the mean is letting Dibala die, Dibala’s death would save hundreds or thousands of lives back in his fictional African country.

Chase puts his duty as a doctor before any reservations about treating the tyrant.  Doctors heal the sick.  The act of treatment is the right thing even if it produces a bad consequence, people dying.  Later in the episode, Chase encounters Ruwe, a man whose wife was killed by Dibala’s Youth Labor League.  Ruwe pleads that Dibala cannot recover and Chase says there is nothing he can do.

Ironically, it’s Chase, not Cameron, who helps kill Dibala in the end.  Cameron gets a chance but cannot kill the patient.  I think this is because Cameron realizes the dictator will do anything to maintain power.  At one point, Dibala admits to Chase the violent Youth Labor League’s is his biggest regrets and assures him the crimes won’t happen again.  After Cameron’s opportunity to kill Dibala passes, he tells Chase he will do anything to protect his country.

The episode ties in perfectly with my current reading, Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity by Daniel Goldhagen.    President Truman states on his radio address, that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, “a military base.”

“That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come.”

In 1995, 72% of Americans ages 50 to 64 believed Truman was justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Would those Americans feel the same way if all 125,00 people (the rough estimate of those immediately killed in the blast) were shot?  Wouldn’t we call this mass murder?  Many historians argue, as many of Truman’s advisers did then, that Japan was already on the verge of surrender.  One of the most compelling quotes from the book highlighting this is from Dwight Eisenhower:

“During his recitation of the relevant facts [about the plan for using the atomic bomb], I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him [Secretary of War Henry Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’” (4, Goldhagen).

We need to ask hard questions like this, even about our past deeds.

Lastly, there are limitations to each ethical perspective when taken to extremes.  There are absolutist deonologists and consequentialists, but I think these stances are problematic.  Immanuel Kant argued it was always wrong to lie.  Well, what if you were a German trying to save a Jew’s life by hiding them in your house.  Is it wrong to lie to the Nazi and save the Jew’s life?  An example of absolutist consequentialism is situation ethics.

What would you do if tasked with Dibala’s treatment?

To dance is to be out of yourself.  Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.  -Agnes De Mille

Virtually every time I see a dance performance I cry.  I think it has to do with the nature of dance as an art form, as a fusion of different mediums.  Into an emotive, textured experience.  Maybe I was a dancer in a past life or maybe dance just resonates with me.

This isn’t to imply that I’m good at dancing.  One of my first experiences with dance was Cirque de Soleil with my family during a trip to Las Vegas.  I vividly remember (I must have been 13 or 14) an acrobat descend from the ceiling, floating on a wire sculpture above the audience.  The whole performance didn’t make me emotional, but I was captivated.  Who wouldn’t be?  Horses, flashing lights, dancers diving into water as sleek as dolphins.

While in Charlottesville, I took one salsa dance class, and an African Drum and Dance class at the University of Virginia.  We were one of the first opening acts for the new John Paul Jones arena, during a benefit concert for donors.  The class, taught by Michelle Kisliuk, focused on dance from west Africa and the Central African Republic.  I loved it. All of the drums have “voices” that help rhythms stick.

The reason I started thinking about all this was because of a videoed performance of “Three Solos and a Duet” with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ana Laguna.  Just captivating:

For some reason I cannot get this to embed.

A painter paints pictures on canvas.  But musicians paint their pictures on silence.  -Leopold Stokowski

One of the items that topped my bucket list was learning to play cello.  I’ve played piano for the last 14 years and absolutely love it, but always feel subject to my circumstances and my surroundings.  I cannot picture myself having enough money to buy a piano anytime soon.  Sure, a cello is a large stringed instrument, but there is something magnetic about its sound.

I decided back in February–with my sister’s encouragement and participation–to take lessons.  I found a perfect, used cello on Craigslist. It’s a Stringworks Artist cello, roughly 4 years old, and the old owner threw in a stand, bow, and a case.  We found an incredible teacher on Craigslist, too–a Juilliard graduate who’s been playing for over 20 years.  He lives in Winchester but the drive is pretty and nothing compared to the commute to my internship in Baltimore.

I love playing.  I have been practicing more effectively by using a log, an idea I’ve applied to my piano practice as well (especially since I don’t have a teacher).  For whatever reason it helps me to focus.  Now that my sister bought a cello, we’ve started playing duets, albeit very simple ones.

As an older student and experienced musician, the most difficult thing I grappled with when first starting out was my own experience.  When children learn an instrument they aren’t as aware or critical of the sound produced–what constitutes good tone, more subtle emotional qualities.  I, on the other hand, winced at the terrible grating noises and whines that I inevitably produced.  To go from playing Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, and Chopin to songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “Lightly Row” was frustrating, at times.  We, and our egos, are often our own worst enemies.

Even if I technically can’t play the pieces I want, learning to play cello has revitalized my love for classical and instrumental music.   Yo-Yo Ma’s CD “Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone” is incredible.  Just discovered Adam Hurst and am loving his album “Ritual,” especially “Return” and “Vessel.”

Now that summer is here I dug out my jersey, which reminded me of Project Rwanda, a wonderful non-profit organization founded by Tom Ritchey.  Project Rwanda advocates socioeconomic developement using bikes!   Team Rwanda and the coffee bikes are my favorites.  The jersey was $70 and with 90% of donations going to support projects I feel good about it.  Besides, the jersey is so colorful and anytime someone asks about it I can tell them about the organization.  Make sure to check them out!

Between figuring out what I want to do next and entertaining miscellaneous hobbies I should have a lot to write about.  I play piano but decided to pick up the cello, an instrument I have adored for a long time.  Most of my ‘Music’ section will be devoted to processing my lessons and looking at specific pieces.  I like supporting local and international non-profit organizations and fundraisers, which is what I’ll be focusing the ‘Causes’ section on (might need to rename that advocacy).  I try to read a lot and watch movies so I think the other sections are obvious.

Anyway, I hope you like what you see as time goes on.  Enjoy!

Lauren