Photos of interesting road trip spots

I was browsing the Travel section of today's New York Times and came across a few interesting photographs of "road trip sights," and I thought I should include some of them here (you can view the Times article associated with the photographs by clicking on this link). Below are the photographs, followed by a brief caption and the name of the photographers. As for the next couple of days, I will try to find enough time in my busy schedule to follow the US Open. I have a few players in mind on both the men and women sides I think could go all the way but the draw is pretty deep and the competition for the top spot will be fierce.



At Crater Lake National Park, in Oregon, a seemingly bottomless pool in an old volcanic caldera, the quiet reinforces a sense of a remote paradise.

Photo: Leah Nash for The New York Times



A buffalo grazes in Yellowstone National Park.

Photo: Patrick Jude Wilson for The New York Times




The lava is above ground at Craters of the Moon, a vast, hauntingly lovely landscape of lava fields and cinder cones, with hardy evergreens growing up out of the rubble like nursery specimens surrounded by black mulch.

Photo: Patrick Jude Wilson for The New York Times



Yes, quarters were a little tight in the van. But you can see a lot of this country in 14 days. And it's every bit as much fun as you thought it would be.

Photo: Leah Nash for The New York Times

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Epiphany; Verse; and the idea of Justice

Today I learned about "epiphany" in the context of the short story. Interestingly, another word immediately came to mind upon hearing the word "epiphany": "eustress." "Eustress" came to mind because I had used it about a year ago when describing a sudden realization I had when reminiscing about a particular time and place in my past. Used primarily in endocrinological and psychological fields of study, eustress - in contrast to its opposite, distress - denotes "a positive form of stress," similar to the sensation one experiences during flow, a concept Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined and discussed eloquently in his groundbreaking work, Flow, on "optimal experience." The simultaneous sensation of joy and anxiety an athlete experiences when accomplishing a major feat or reaching his or her potential, for example, is symptomatic of eustress.

I have also been thinking of the study of ethics, a subject I have been intrigued by for many years, ever since college when I would browse journals on ethics in my college library as well as the free online collection available through my college's internal database. While reading these journal articles, I was introduced to a number of prominent moral philsophers, including Martha Nussbaum. When I read about her book Upheavals of Thought in a New York Times Book Review article entitled "The Philosophy of Love", I knew I had to go out and purchase it to see what it was all about. It took me almost a month to complete reading it, but Upheavals of Thought turned out to be one of the most thought-provoking, and one of the best, books I have ever read (Google Books has scanned copies of the Table of Contents and several pages of actual text, although some are omitted). Another author whose writing on ethics I have followed is Nobel-prize winning economist Amartya Sen, whose work is discussed in The New York Times Magazine article I provided a link to in a recent blog entry. Amartya Sen has a new book out called The Idea of Justice that I would love to read. In the mean time I am reading reviews that have been published about the book, including reviews in The Financial Times and The Times Literary Supplement, to get some sense of the points and issues he raises in the book. I will return to the study of ethics in future blog entries.

As for other stuff I am reading as well as links I updated recently on this blog: I am currently listening to a podcast of Poetry magazine's July/August issue (I have read poetry only intermittedly, mostly from The New Yorker and The Paris Review, but I have always been fascinated by this literary artform); I have been reading the verse and short story sections of the Bartleby website, which I have provided a link to on this blog; and I posted a link to One Blog, a blog about the effort to alleviate extreme poverty in some of the world's most impoverished areas, on my blog. Bye for now.

The Dream shall never die

The dream shall never die: this line from one of the greatest speeches in American rhetorical history, coming as it did at the end of the Democratic nomination campaign of 1980, symbolizes in many ways Senator Edward Kennedy’s selfless dedication to public service, to the cause of the least among us, and the tragedies that have marked the much-celebrated Kennedy family story. President Obama, in comments made earlier today, said Senator Edward Kennedy was the greatest and most influential Senator of our generation, and he should know: not only has Senator Edward Kennedy’s legislative leadership been crucial and, in many cases, determinative in the passage of many of the most important programs and laws currently in place, most notably those having to do with Health Care, he was even responsible, as then-candidate Obama revealed in a campaign speech, for a bill that allowed President Obama’s father to come to the United States to attend school, which is how, ultimately, his parents met. Senator Edward Kennedy was not without flaws. But, to a large extent, his reputation as a recalcitrant idealist and political partisan did not do justice to his true character. To most who knew him personally, including some on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, Senator Edward Kennedy – partly because he was “a man of his word” – was known for his ability to build consensus across significant divides and forge seemingly improbable coalitions. Sentator Edward Kennedy’s dream, his lifelong passion to pass legislation to provide affordable Health Care for all who want it, will certainly not die with his passing.

Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers, the program to help wean drivers off gas guzzling vehicles and into more fuel efficient automobiles, ended on Monday. According to news reports, the program was a huge and unexpected success: it was a big hit with car dealerships as well as, and in particular, the automobile buying public, who were eager to take advantage of the program despite the terrible shape of the economy. The success of the program notwithstanding, the road ahead, in terms of the ultimate recovery from the recession and the effort to reduce our carbon footprint, still appears arduous. It will take a lot of persistence and faith in our ability to overcome difficult odds before we are completely out of the woods. Why am I talking about the Cash for Clunkers program? Well, beside the fact I am glad that at least we are making some progress, however small, toward the goal of improving the economic and environmental conditions our future generations would, respectively, inherit and inhabit, I couldn’t help but think how much more we could and should be doing while I was on my way home today. Despite driving a relatively fuel efficient car, it seems like I am burning fuel like there is no tomorrow. I wish I could trade it for an even more fuel efficient car, an electric car, perhaps. At any rate, in the coming weeks, I will likely be really busy and, consequently, will not have time to update this blog regularly. I will, therefore, opt possibly for updating the blog once or, at most, twice a week, although with blog entries that are somewhat longer than blog entries I have posted recently. Having said that, I hope everyone has a great night.

Few interesting stuff I found recently on the net

I remember the days while attending NYU when I use to spend enormous amounts of time in Bobst library browsing the journal collection. At the time, although I did check out a wide variety of subjects, including Philosophy, History, Fine Arts, Ethics, and Religion, one of my absolute favorite sections was literature, specifically journals such as Daedalus, The Paris Review, American Literature, October, among a number of others. While my interest since then has been focused in other areas, I have, perhaps out of sentimental reasons, occasionally over the years visited some of these journals online, to at least check out what sort of topics were being covered. Well, it appears that I could do more than just check out titles and the occasional sample issue; findarticles.com has, from what I can tell, a free online collection of the recent issues of most of these journals. I should mention, however, I would not endorse reading these journals online without the intent of possibly subscribing. Having said that: I will post the findarticle link on my blog. In addition to the site above, I came across the following list of articles, which I thought were interesting: The Women's Crusade, by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl Wudunn, based on their forthcoming book called Half the Sky; A Public Option That Works, by William Dow, Arindrajit Dube and Carrie Hoverman Colla; and The Uninsured, from the editors of the Times. Hope you enjoy your Sunday.