Something I care about is the representation of information.  Graphical representations of data can be very convincing.  And it’s well known that different representations of the same data can convince people of different things.  So this stuff matters.  That’s why I just completely freaked out when Julia showed me the new USDA food guidelines.  You can check them out here.  The little graphic is the most offensive part to me.

So it’s kind of like a pie chart, right?  But of course we notice that there’s no common center for the pie slices.  Also what is dairy doing over there?  When I was talking about this with Julia, we even ended up arguing over what the picture is actually suggesting.  I believe that protein and fruits are the same size, implying that grains and vegetables are the same size as well, Julia disagreed.  We both agreed that grains + protein is half the plate.  The dairy portion isn’t even the same shape.  Trying to compare the dairy portion size with the rest is just hopeless.

Honestly, I would still be complaining even if they had switched to a proper pie chart.  If you were to look at the help file in R (a popular statistics program) for a pie chart, you would see the following note: “Pie charts are a very bad way of displaying information. The eye is good at judging linear measures and bad at judging relative areas.”  This is actually something that has been studied empirically.  And I can’t imagine that making the areas a different shape would make the task of comparing the areas any easier.  In all fairness, the same criticism could be brought up against the old food pyramid.  I don’t want to give the impression that I think the food pyramid was any better.  But this new plate is just an awful way to display the information, whatever that information might be.

What’s another possibility?  I think the default chart should be a bar chart.  Most people understand them and they provide linear measures for comparison.  Then there wouldn’t be any need for stupid arguments over what the USDA is actually recommending.

I wrote a longer review of this Dark Star Safari book by Paul Theroux on Goodreads, but thought I’d share the passage from it that made me put the book down. I really can’t stand this guy.

“Even at their best, African cities seemed to me miserable improvised anthills, attracting the poor and the desperate from the bush and turning them into thieves and devisers of cruel scams. Scamming is the survival mode in a city where tribal niceties do not apply and there are no sanctions except those of the police, a class of people who in Africa generally are little more than licensed thieves.”

Since living in Africa, I have met some men of Theroux’s generation. Old, wrinkly white men who believe years lived in Africa equals a free pass to criticize all its ills. Or that their worldview, that nothing will ever change or get better in Africa, is an accepted one. Luckily, there are some new people here, people who don’t come with the idea that “things are just fucked up and always will be,” that don’t exoticize its people and vistas as black voodoo magic, and who just love living here. Power cuts and all.

I will never read this joker’s books again.

My summer is shaping up to be crazy, exhausting and expensive. These are all unfortunate attributes because I will have no income starting July 1, but I remain hopeful that something awesome will come along by August, and by “something awesome” I mean a job.

June 24 thru June 27 – Lisbon, Portugal for a reunion with my good friends with sexy European accents
June 28 thru July 12 – Madison, Wisconsin to make up for missing Lee’s birthday and strongman competitions
July 13 thru July 20 – Hendersonville, North Carolina so that my family knows I am still alive and did not die of tropical mango poisoning
July 20 – Washington, D.C. for one-night-only!
July 21 thru July 24 – Road trip with some friends to Pennsylvania for a barn raising, or something like that
July 24 thru ??? – Meet Lee in Pa. and drive back to Madison

If you feel you are in dire need of a Julia visit and will be around for any of those dates/places, please let me know.

I’m going to miss the hell out of Senegal, mostly just the wonderful people I’ve met and befriended. There are no regrets when it comes to moving here, which is why it’s all the more likely I may come back in August. I’m not the neurotic and depressed, smartphone-obsessed aspiring careerist I was when I left D.C. and I’m really, really glad for that.

As a side note, I am going to shutter gavelwrench.com when the domain expires in July. It was a nice way to chronicle my first six months here, but now I find myself questioning the frugality of two domains and my commitment to updating them both. I’ll be archiving these posts and blogging less frequently over at juliaritchey.com/blog this summer. E-mail remains my favorite way of corresponding when I’m not where you are, so send me a note anytime at ritchey.julia@gmail.com.

Happy Summer!

Gettin' silly at a Gambian eco lodge with Kim.