Crying in H Mart

By Michelle Zauner

    Michelle Zauner was born to a Korean woman and an American man, and for much of her early life she tried to hide her Korean side because in Eugene, Oregon, where she lived, there weren't many Korean people. She also writes about her changing dynamic with her mother, from childhood, adolescence, and during her mother's years with cancer.

    Her father had a difficult childhood, involving bad parents and drugs. He had managed to break away from the cycle and considered it an achievement that he even had a child, so most of her care was done by her mother.

    Her mother was interesting, not a protective or harsh one, somewhere in between. She was all about keeping things orderly. As a child, Zauner always strived to impress her mother, always doing things she asked for or would want in search of praise. But as she grew up, the classic teenage rift appeared. Her mother focused on her grades and college, while Michelle wanted to become an artist. Eventually, it got so bad, that Michelle left the house for a few weeks and refused to go to school, which ultimately ended up in her coming back when she became a literal "starving artist".

    After college, she spends a few years in a part-time band and other part-time jobs, visiting her mother every so often. Even though they parted in a rough manner, they are inextricably tied together and their visits are always emotional.

    Then comes the calamity that the majority of the book explores. Her mother, who was in great shape, gets cancer. Michelle immediately leaves Philadephia to return to Eugene, where the routine of the past few years is broken. Her mother rapidly declines, and a whole cohort of women try to help her get through. The prospect of her mother dying causes a sort of floodgate to open for Michelle, a new desire to reconnect with her homeland. She tries Korean recipes, visits Korea with her mother for a last time.

    In the end, it is a story of family and culture, how the author was tied to it all, no matter how much she tries to escape it.

The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good

By Michael J. Sandel

The meritocratic model is something that is all around us, even in my own pursuit to vindicate myself in the mad race for college, but something that I never could put a name to. This book helped me understand how this came about and its effects on society.

“The Tyranny of Merit” is like a brilliant response to that misguided but well-meaning math teacher from the viewpoint, as it were, of a kid in some back-row seat of any classroom in a Rust Belt, prairie town or inner-city school in America.

As Hochschild puts so well, Sandel points out the problem with a philosophy ingrained into American society. Every teacher talks about grades and degrees, but people striving toward this only widens the societal divide.

    Today's social model is based on the philosophy of meritocracy - where the successful deserve their success and the poor deserve their poverty. It is based on the idea that you deserve what you get, and it is what Sandel claims were at the heart of Donald Trump's election in 2016 and the populist uprisings around the world.

    The American Dream, the one of rising, has become increasingly less an "American" dream. Today, rich parents can afford to help so much, and poor parents so little, that it's become virtually impossible to move between social classes. But parents still tell their children that if they try their best they will succeed - and when rich children succeed, they look down upon the unsuccessful, and even the poor believe that they deserve their place in life. It inspires hubris in place of humility from a position they were given by luck.

    And this is exactly what Trump took advantage of. The oppressed working class, who lack degrees and struggle to put food on the table, was tired of the Democrat's talk of rising and meritocracy, which politicians had relied on for decades. He utilized this discontent and used it in his favor. Sandel's solution lies in acknowledging the oppressed and empathizing with their pain.

    The true tyranny of globalization and the meritocracy that it brought with it is that it left too many behind in a place where everyone, even they themselves, looked down on them.

One reason, perhaps, is that many of us need what he does so well: help us grapple with the unexpected and uncomfortable questions that history delivers us.

 All of these create controversies that are so important to face in our society but are hard to think about alone. Books like these create good starting points for talking about them.

So you who are highly educated, Sandel concludes, should understand that you’re contributing to a resentment fueling the toxic politics you deplore. Respect the vast diversity of talents and contributions others make to this nation. Empathize with the undeserved shame of the less educated. Eat a little humble pie.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/books/review/the-tyranny-of-merit-michael-j-sandel.html

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25

By Richard Paul Evans

Book 1 in the Michael Vey series

    Michael seems to be just another kid in the small town of Meridian, Idaho. He gets bullied, he gets by in school, and he has one friend, Ostin, a genius at everything but social life. There's also a secret he's hiding, that only his mom and Ostin know about. He's electric. Literally. He can "surge" or "pulse" and shock people. He and his mom have moved around for years to prevent people from knowing.

    But one day, as he is being pantsed by Jack, Wade, and Mitchell, he can't take it anymore and electrocutes all of them. The hottest girl in the school, Taylor Ridley, sees it. His mom is upset, but tries not to show it. The next day at school, Taylor keeps passing him notes, insisting on him telling her about the power. Finally, she gets him to her house and reveals that she, too, has an electric power. She can "reboot" people and read their minds if they are touching. Michael tells her about his ability.

    Michael also tells Ostin, and the three form a club, the Electroclan, for people with electric powers. They discover that they were both born at Pasadena General Hospital in the same week (Taylor was later adopted), and that all but 17 of the babies born there in that time died. They discover that Dr. C.J. Hatch of the Elgen corporation was testing a machine called the MEI there, and that it had adverse side effects. Soon after, Ostin discovers that the 17 children are all electric and that they are the only 2 the Elgen haven't found. However, their computer searches reveal them, and Taylor is kidnapped (with a note to her parents saying she ran away). Meanwhile, Michael and Ostin are celebrating his birthday when a man tries to rob his mother. Michael shocks him, prompting a mysterious man later revealed to be Hatch and two electric children to come forward. Ostin shows up at that moment, forcing the Elgen to take Michael's mother as bait.

    At the Elgen Academy in Pasadena, Taylor is pampered into believing Hatch is good. She quickly realizes that he is using the "glows", as he calls them, to his own plans of world domination. When she refuses to kill people at his command, she is locked up in a cell with others who defied Hatch. Ian can see through walls (even though he is physically blind), Abigail can make pain go away, and McKenna can generate heat.

    Michael comes to rescue her and his mother with Jack and Wade, who are terrified of him now and agreed to drive him to California. They try unsuccessfully to free Taylor before they are caught by Hatch. Hatch offers Michael a place at the Academy, and Michael, not knowing how bad the place is, agrees. That is, until Hatch tells him to electrocute Wade as proof of loyalty. Michael refuses, and is locked up in Cell 25, where he is tortured by Tara, Taylor's lost twin sister, who can induce emotions.

    After 25 days, he is brought back out into a room with Taylor and Austin, along with Zeus, who had similar powers to his. He taunts Zeus into throwing lightning at him, but it turns out Michael can absorb electricity and use it, allowing him to free himself and his friends. Taylor probes Zeus's mind and eliminates falsehoods that Hatch has planted, successfully turning Zeus to their side.

    They break out of the cell and free both the other glows and the regular prisoners, storming the building and forcing Hatch to flee with the glows still loyal to him.

TedEd: Which sunscreen should you choose?

By Mary Poffenroth

Many people know that sunscreen is important to prevent things like sunburn and cancer from UV radiation. But there are many different types of sunscreens, so how do they work, and how effective are they? The Sun emits three types of UV rays: UV A, UV B, and UV C. Ultraviolet light has shorter wavelengths than visible lights, which is what causes all of the bad effects like cancer, DNA damage, and sunburn. UV C has wavelengths so short that it is reflected by the atmosphere, but UV B can impact the skin, and UV A can go even deeper to blood and organs. Sunscreen prevents these effects by either physically blocking the UV rays or utilizing carbon-based chemicals to absorb the radiation. There are three factors to consider when choosing a sunscreen: application method, SPF, and active ingredients. Spray bottles go on easily when wet, but most people do not apply enough and the aerosol can be bad for health. SPF stands for sun protection factor, which is a nonlinear scale of the amount of UV B radiation needed to cause sunburn. 15 is the minimum recommended, but 30 and above is better. For chemicals, zinc and titanium oxide-based is usually less irritating to the skin. This is also better for the environment because carbon-based chemicals have been proven to be harmful to ocean life.