As I noted briefly last week, I've been avidly following my friend Krista's new blog (My Transportation Diary). I've learned a lot from Krista about the "problem of car-dependency in our culture", the central theme of her blog, and admire how she has been living out life in the East Bay without owning a car, while making the best use of her bicycle and public transit options. I myself am fortunate to live less than 2 miles from the Berkeley campus where I work, enabling me to bike most days. Still, I own a car but have been wondering whether to sell it (to free myself first and foremost from the financial burden of car-ownership.) Krista is someone I look to to help me figure out whether I really need my car; I hope that she continues to report on her experiences because a lot of us do need help.

So when I saw "The Thrill Of The SUV", a segment on 60 Minutes last Sunday, I thought of Krista and a specific question I have for her. The most intriguing part of the show was an interview with Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, the most famous of the "car shrinks" who help car manufacturers to sell cars to us by tapping into the deepest recesses of our subconscious minds. Whether you believe Rapaille, you have to admit that he's a good salesman for his ideas. Here are some quotes from the transcript:

“Why do you buy a car that doesn't even make 10 miles per gallon, doesn't fit into your garage? Do you really need that? And you don't need that intellectually,” he says. “But at the reptilian level, what I call the reptilian level, the reptilian brain, the deepest part of you, the gut level if you want, you feel like you need that.”

“We are at war. You don't go to war in a Pinto or in a little Volkswagen. You want a tank, you want, you know, and I told the people there in Detroit, you know, SUVs - you put a machine gun on the top, you're going to sell them better, you know”

“Why? Taller. Stronger. I mean, the elephant, the bigger you are, the more chance you have to survive. Now, we know that the higher you are, more chance you have to roll over. And we know that SUVs have a higher rate of accident for rollover than other cars. I mean a Porsche is a lot less chance to roll over than an SUV. That's at the cortex, which means people know it but they don't refer to it because there's something stronger which is the reptilian- the bigger, the tallest, and more chance to survive.”

If Rapaille is right, then what can be done to reduce our dependency on cars, let alone big gas-guzzling vehicles? Is stopping Americans from driving SUVs like trying to stop them from eating, drinking, and having sex? (Not quite, of course) What part of the reptilian brain does public transit tap into? Is the appeal to public transit always a "higher brain" appeal or one to the more visceral side?

From a blurb for an upcoming public lecture on Bach's cantatas at UC Riverside:

Bach's creative life stretched from the early 1700s till his death in 1750, a time known as the Baroque period in European classical music. Contrary to his somewhat undeserved ultra-religious image, Bach only devoted relatively short periods of this half century to the composition of church music, according to Bach scholar Jan Koster. [emphasis mine] Bach lived in Leipzig, Germany from 1723 until his death in 1750. Bach was a prolific cantata composer, writing more-than 300 cantatas, many in only the first five of years of his time in Leipzig, according to Koster. Many of Bach's cantatas were subsequently lost.

I'm about to board Air Canada 827 from Boston to Toronto. Yeah! This last week in Cambridge has been a wonderfully rich one. The goal was to blog during the course of the week-- but I never managed to fit it in the busy schedule. Moreover, I tried to work and keep (some) tabs on what was happening in Berkeley while I was in Cambridge. During the meetings, I paid attention to the speaker and to the non-verbal dynamics of the participants. I noticed that many folks were physically at MIT but mentally back home.

More when I get to Toronto. My last day in Cambridge was a rainy one -- a marked contrast to the heat and humidity of the early part of this week. I wanted to see Boston; I walked most of the Freedom Trail but gave up near the end because of time constraints and because I had developed a blister that made walking a bit painful. So I treated to the Harvard Coop, read excerpts from a few books, trank some earl gray tea at a nearby cafe and then rushed back to catch a shuttle that brought me to where I am now.

(Wish me a safe flight -- I hope my luggage doesn't get lost!)

Even when I'm tired, I am usually able to write something coherent on my blog. But I'm really struggling to get something down tonight. Maybe I'm distracted by the latest "reality tv show" that I stumbled upon while channel surfing: Cupid . After thinking about educational technology interoperability all day, my mind has been reduced to the mush that can contemplate interoperability only of a more primal nature.

This is one of those days in which I just check in, dear blog, to say that I'm ok. Dear blog, I had a wonderful dinner last night -- wish you could have been there at Casa Portugal. Nothing like hanging out with cool, smart people who get what you are doing from around the world (places like Australia, Sarajevo, Berkeley, the UK, and Canada). The duck was good too, though the lack of vegetables made me long for those big salads you get in Berkeley.

Today was full. I didn't have my notebook computer on during many of the sessions -- so dear blog, I was not in touch with you. Sorry. I felt that I needed to pay attention to my fellow human beings. Dinner with Ken and Lisa was the highlight for me, however. First Harvard Square; then Davis Square -- I love this city already. Cambridge is one cool place.

Goodnight dear blog. Sleep tight.

As I noted on The Architecture Lodge, I'm here at MIT now. It's already 12:15pm my time -- and though I'd love to tell you about how I learned to find the local mall so that I can buy clothes to hold me over because of lost luggage; the rediscoverd pleasures of hot weather; the splendor of the mix of people at the conference; the joy of recoverd luggage (Jesus talked about searching high and low for a lost coin); how thrilled I am that my friend Krista has started a new blog focused on transportation; how I finally did something I've putting off for a long time -- too long.

But I must hit the sack and blog tomorrow!

Bright and early tomorrow morning, I'm flying to Montreal to attend my sister Shirley's wedding. I don't anticipate having any network connectivity until I arrive at The University Park Hotel @ MIT on Sunday evening to attend the alt-i-lab meeting all next week.

I need to get packing rather than blogging....

Happy Canada Day! I'm going to be in Montreal in a couple of days for my sister's wedding. Truly exciting. Until then, there's so much to do that it's easy to lose sight of the most important things in life. (I'm very grateful to have been born in Canada. I'm also very pleased to be living in the U.S. Any contradiction in that?)

Lynn, I'm sorry about Dan's car being stolen. You recounted being attacked in daylight in Berkeley some years ago. My former housemate Christo and I were also mugged in Berkeley. In our case, it was around 9pm and we were walking along Benvenue. Frankly, we weren't terribly alert during our walk; we were distracted by the topic of our conversation: women. The price of inattention was being accosted by a man who jumped out from the bushes. Luckily, he seemed to know what he was doing, displaying little nervousness at all (beats a jumpy robber any day). He just discreetly held his gun (or what appeared to be a gun) to his side -- but it was obvious enough to the two of us. We handed over our wallets. He then ordered us to turn around and run. The thought did cross my mind that he was then going to shoot us. Instead, we heard the engine of his accomplice's car roar away.

That incident shook us up, naturally. It's sad that the language of self-blame creeps back into how I described the situation. Yes, we could have been more alert. But I shouldn't be blaming the victim (namely, ourselves)! And it can happen again, no doubt, with worse consequences. But is there a truly safe place? Maybe. I certainly behave as though there are safer and less safe places.

I'm really quite gratified by the responses I've gotten to my new personal
blog. I still think of the encouragement I received in the early moments by
Lloyd and Laura.
I'm thrilled that I have a group of loyal readers -- and their responses energize
me. For example:

• Tonight, I took to heart Catherine's
  encouragement to see Ursula K. Le Guin. Not surprisingly, tons of people
  filled the 2nd floor of Cody's Books. It was better than the usual book reading,
  not only because the stories read were so fine but because Le Guin is a really
  charming respondent. She seemed quite unpretentious, mixng humor with rather
  sharp insight in her answers to questions. More than that, she had an audience
  full of fans intimately knowledgeable about her work who wondered about that
  essay or this story written over decades.
• My friend Ginny Hearn responded to a whole slew of my previous posts. I
  responded to one
  of her comments and plan to answer some others when I'm less sleepy
• I wonder what Lynn
  will have to say about my new blog when she has a moment.
• I didn't realize that there would many others in our
  blogging community writing about faith, Christianity, and religion.

Off to bed -- I'm still hoping to turn my daily blogging ritual into a morning
rather than a late-night activity.