Psoriasis & Painful Pragmatism of Portland
Psoriasis is well-known in Portland to my surprise and drugs are promoted widely there. Psoriasis is a condition that is poorly understood though and blame is put on genes. I can not escape comparison with homosexuality here. The drugs that are on market have a lot of side-effects as they state clearly in the ads! Of course they do - as any drugs against homosexuality drugs against psoriasis will be a form of a systematic torture therapy.
How can Western Medicine treat something misunderstood? Western Medicine prescribes expensive drugs that kills symptoms not causes. In my nearly 20 years long struggle with psoriasis I can say that psoriasis relates greatly to the stress level. Every time I take holidays I recover a little bit. In other words do not put psoriatic nor gay people in stressful situations. Just be nice, please.
Coming from my first ecological conference in USA I can say that local work culture seems to be a self-perpetuating sea of stress. The Ecological Society of America conference in Portland (ESA2017) struck me as an example of how easily something enjoyable can turn into a sea of stress. It seems that human interactions are designed by algorithms nowadays. Economising human interactions via algorithms sucks. Shortcuts and savings computed by these algorithms turn the events into exhausting spectacles. Few real-life examples:
1. Starting meetings as early as 7 am, through to 22 pm needs some rethinking too. Wait a minute - what the fuck!? There is of course no clear lunch break in between so you also should learn to enjoy ESA presentations together with a smell of your neighbours munching on their lunch. Then you realise you need to go and find a relatively reliable food place yourself too.
2. It feels like that the main speaker who opened the #ESA2017 conference was so engaged with multiple parallel tasks (economy rules) that her 40 min presentation got somehow lost just before stepping on stage. In result, around 4000 participants must have felt somewhat offended by watching a dull title slide for the first 40 minutes of the international conference. I did.
3. Probably due to saving policies the free week-long passes for public transport in Portland were offered at the registration desk, well....well after we purchased the weekly passes to get to the conference venue in first place.
4. There was no closing plenary. Suddenly we were surrounded by crowd of medical students who hired Portland Convention Centre for their own venue. Exactly at 12 pm as ESA conference came to an end ecologists got drowned in foreign crowd marching in. How about a closing plenary where attendees are being thanked, remarks exchanged and information on upcoming events shared? Instead we started to feel a bit homeless...
And as you walk out onto Portland's' street you realize how street homelessness exacerbates your own feeling of being pushed out of the conference venue ....and yet Portland authorities took a very pragmatic step towards dealing with homeless people:
I must say that despite multiple stressors I did enjoy the ESA conference in Portland. Many new ideas I won, new theories I learnt and new ecologists I met. In our post-conference travels with CB we listened to very interesting talk on nationalism versus globalism TED talk that touches on how we perceive each other. Please do not use algorithms to ponder on meaning of life. The imminent lack of care for a single mind and body in the name of economy makes no sense! Take holidays!
By the way:
VOTE YES IN AUSTRALIA ON LEGALIZING SAME SEX MARRIAGE.
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Art Work in Portland Gay Bar. How come that general public fears people that deviate a "bee-dick" too far from normal?
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Coming from my first ecological conference in USA I can say that local work culture seems to be a self-perpetuating sea of stress. The Ecological Society of America conference in Portland (ESA2017) struck me as an example of how easily something enjoyable can turn into a sea of stress. It seems that human interactions are designed by algorithms nowadays. Economising human interactions via algorithms sucks. Shortcuts and savings computed by these algorithms turn the events into exhausting spectacles. Few real-life examples:
1. Starting meetings as early as 7 am, through to 22 pm needs some rethinking too. Wait a minute - what the fuck!? There is of course no clear lunch break in between so you also should learn to enjoy ESA presentations together with a smell of your neighbours munching on their lunch. Then you realise you need to go and find a relatively reliable food place yourself too.
2. It feels like that the main speaker who opened the #ESA2017 conference was so engaged with multiple parallel tasks (economy rules) that her 40 min presentation got somehow lost just before stepping on stage. In result, around 4000 participants must have felt somewhat offended by watching a dull title slide for the first 40 minutes of the international conference. I did.
3. Probably due to saving policies the free week-long passes for public transport in Portland were offered at the registration desk, well....well after we purchased the weekly passes to get to the conference venue in first place.
4. There was no closing plenary. Suddenly we were surrounded by crowd of medical students who hired Portland Convention Centre for their own venue. Exactly at 12 pm as ESA conference came to an end ecologists got drowned in foreign crowd marching in. How about a closing plenary where attendees are being thanked, remarks exchanged and information on upcoming events shared? Instead we started to feel a bit homeless...
And as you walk out onto Portland's' street you realize how street homelessness exacerbates your own feeling of being pushed out of the conference venue ....and yet Portland authorities took a very pragmatic step towards dealing with homeless people:
For those of you at #ESA2017, this is a piece worth reading about the darker side of Portland.https://t.co/qWGomZ1otB— Marianne Mugabo (@MarianneMugabo) August 9, 2017
I must say that despite multiple stressors I did enjoy the ESA conference in Portland. Many new ideas I won, new theories I learnt and new ecologists I met. In our post-conference travels with CB we listened to very interesting talk on nationalism versus globalism TED talk that touches on how we perceive each other. Please do not use algorithms to ponder on meaning of life. The imminent lack of care for a single mind and body in the name of economy makes no sense! Take holidays!
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Christina leads the way to Silver Falls, Oregon.
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| Multnomah Falls |
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| Multnomah Falls Down |
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| And up to Munt Hood, Oregon. |
By the way:
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