Ethan Mitchell

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August 12, 2020

Ethan Mitchell’s Survey on Educational Experiences

Posted by Nathen under Blake Boles, education, Ethan Mitchell, Not Back to School Camp, research
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You should know about Ethan Mitchell. He’s one of my fellow long-time Not Back to School Camp staffers and the kind of guy who speaks more languages than you could list in a minute, who teaches fascinating workshops on types of infinity, reconstructing Otzi’s last meal, and a hundred other topics. He’s the kind of guy who, on his own steam, and largely in place of a more formal education, read for four hours and wrote for four hours every day between the ages of 13 and 31, and still somehow managed to learn how build houses, mine gold, sculpt marble, write code, and who knows what else. And despite all that, he is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. 

Ethan is doing some research on experiences of education via this survey. It takes between 10 and 30 minutes. I did it and found it interesting in a thinking-about-your-life kind of way. If you have a little time, please fill it out. And if you know someone else who might, please pass on the link to them.

Other ways to get to know Ethan are his newsletter, Hebdromedary, which is a nerdy delight that only he could write (sign up here), and this interview by Blake Boles.

His home page is also worth taking a look at. These days its mostly a list of recent classes he’s taught.

 

February 28, 2015

Question and Answer about Dental Fillings and Bacterial Evolution

Posted by Nathen under bacteria, dentists, Ethan Mitchell, evolution, This Week in Microbiology
[4] Comments 

Sometime last year, on his now-defunct tumblr feed, Recursive Muffin, Ethan Mitchell asked a question I thought the folks on This Week In Microbiology (which I’ve written about here and here) might be able to answer. I emailed them and they did so, at the end of episode 73. I thought the question and answer were interesting enough to transcribe here:

Question of the day: A strain of Flavobacterium (KI72) evolved the capacity to digest nylon, obviously in recent history. Fine and well. How long will it be until one of the cariogenic bacteria species evolves the ability to digest dental resin? After all, we are putting a lot of it on their dinner table.

Answered primarily by Michael Schmidt, who teaches microbiology to dental students at MUSC, with help by Michele Swanson and Vincent Racaniello. Keep in mind that this is a transcribed conversation, so informal, and that I don’t know how to spell some of these words:

Michael: This has already happened to some extent. In the United States we currently spend 5 billion dollars a year replacing resin-based composite fillings due to failure. The average lifespan of a resin-based filling that a dentist will put in today is around 6 years. And the recurrent decay usually compromises the restoration earlier in its lifespan, and that’s when the bacteria are effectively going after the “glue.” And they’re going—because it’s a polymerization and the microbes—if the restoration isn’t properly fixed and properly cured there’s enough carbon in there that they can get at before the polymerization is completely done, that they can actually get after it. And then afterwards, matrix metalloproteinases and cathepsins places the longevity ceiling at that 6 years, even at healthy and bacterial free restorations. And so these matrix metalloproteinases and cathepsins which are expressed specifically in dentin, they come in and they cause the restoration to fail.

Michele: But those are bacterial, Michael, or those are…

Michael: No, those are eukaryotic. The bacterial failure… places the longevity cap at around 6 years, so there’s currently a resin-based product in the market that’s from a Japanese company that puts chlorhexidine into some of these resin-based products in order to prevent microbial attack and to take out the… bacterial attack. So we’ve been looking at copper nano-particles to effectively prevent some of this decay, but what he is hypothesizing has already been happening in the US and it happens throughout the developed world, anyplace people are using resin-based fillings. The old silver fillings typically last 25-30 years without incident. Most people were concerned about the mercury issue but the amount of mercury in an amalgam based filling is insignificant in terms of health consequences if you look at the evidence-based literature. It really has no issue associated with the health of the individual.

Michele: And I don’t suppose there’s any data saying the half-life of the resin is decreasing? Which would be consistent with this idea that we’ve selected for bacteria, we’re enriching for bacteria, that can break it down more readily?

Michael: No, because the resins have gotten better. The polymerization agents and the curing times, so we don’t have a clean experiment to do it. The folks haven’t actually looked to see if resin-based dissolving bacteria… but that’s a question that I can ask my friends at the Forsyth Institute to see if they’ve hunted to see if there are any resin-eating bacteria out there. But it’s all about the polymerization because the polymer needs to be perfectly cured and any of you who’ve had a recent composite filling you remember the dentist putting on the dark glasses and giving you a pair of dark glasses and they put the magic light into your mouth to cure the filling. And typically they only put the UV lamp in there for 20-30 seconds and that’s what starts the curing process. And we’ve all made polyacrylamide gels and it’s a variation of polyacrylamide gels except we use… Temid and whats the inorganic… the inorganic salt. I haven’t made a gel in…

Vincent: I can’t remember either.

Michael: Because you just pull MP… not MPS…

Vincent: APS

Michael: APS. Ammonium persulfate and that’s what goes bad. The binary catalyst.

 

October 20, 2013

42nd Year Retrospective

Posted by Nathen under Abandon Ship, aging, Benjamin Lester, Camp Latgawa, Candy Crush, Christina, Couples and Family Therapy, Damian Lester, Darlene Lester, death, desert living, Ely Lester, Ethan Mitchell, family, food, Gabriel, goals/intentions, heart rate training, Joshua Tree, learning curves, marriage, Maya, Morongo Basin Mental Health, NBTSC advisee groups, neurosequential therapeutics, Not Back to School Camp, Oliver Lee, Pacific Clinics, paleo diet, photography, Reanna, San Bernardino County, self-care, Steve Lester, therapy, Tilke Elkins, Transition Joshua Tree, work
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This is a long post, so first the short version. In the last year: I started working full time and am adjusting to that. I’m glad to be working towards my MFT licensure, but uncomfortable about how it pushes my relationships and other projects onto the back burner. My marriage gets better and better, despite this. The company I work for goes out of business so I get part of the summer off, and I get the exact same job (family therapist for US Marines & their families) with a new company.

And for the year ahead: I plan to continue this work, taking good care of myself, dance with Reanna every night, as promised to my friend, Tilke, in her “How to be a Real Artist” workshop, get in best shape in 5 years, and learn how to treat myself and Reanna really really well while working full time.

October: I started my year out at Farm & Wilderness, VT, staffing and teaching a really fun psychology project at Not Back to School Camp. As is traditional, I got really sick, but this time it was from a waitress in Rutland, not someone at NBTSC. I recuperated while visiting Ethan & Susannah, also in Vermont. Back in Joshua Tree, I started working out again (SERIOUS style), planted my first winter garden, fixed some electrical and plumbing problems in my trailer, and started setting up a private practice. In the process of hiring a supervisor, I found out that in California, unlike in Oregon, I cannot do my internship in a private practice. So I started looking for work in a local clinic.

Looking out over Woodward Reservoir from my cabin at Farm & Wilderness

Ethan, cataloging NBTSC lost & found in his library

The famous Quodlibetarian tub

Reanna

Reanna at Playa Del Rey

Ollie, a year ago

Ollie & Pap

Gabe, Damian & Maya on the Hwy 62 Art Tour

Trailer at sunset, looking south

November: I move into a new computer, archive my years of audio journal entries, and learn Sketchup while applying for and getting a job at Morongo Basin Mental Health: providing free, confidential therapy for US Marines, veterans, and their families. In what would become a series of small-town coincidences, a high school friend I hadn’t seen in decades worked there, saw my name on the interview list and sat in on my interview, interjecting stuff like, “Oh, yeah, good answer!” Nice way to interview. The manager of the military program assured me that the our contract was solid for at least two years. That’s about how long I need to get my hours for licensure, so the job sounded good–no chance of having to ditch my clients like I had to in grad school! I spent the rest of the month getting in as much time with Reanna and my family before starting full time work.

Rainbow over the Bartlet Mts

Maya & Ollie in hammock

Ollie helps Nana Honey cook

Me & Reanna

December:  My 93 year old Grandpa Bob gets really sick, and I get really sick taking care of him. I was pretty sure he was going to die. He had pneumonia and had to go on antibiotics for the first time in his life. It took me weeks to fully recover. He eventually recovered, too, but I’m not sure he’ll ever fully recover. He’s been on antibiotics off and on ever since and is progressively less mobile. It’s got me thinking a lot about dying–how I can support the people I love when they start having a hard time taking care of themselves, and how I want to die when my time comes.

I start at MBMH, reading 40 hours a week of protocols. I have Christmas with family in Joshua Tree. My brother Damian starts a weekly evening with family, listening to an integral Christianity lecture and meditation that turns out to be a presentation of integral theory to Christians, rather than Christianity to integral thinkers, but valuable nonetheless.

Reanna & Christina, Xmas

Reanna & Maya, Xmas

Ely, Christina, Pap, Ben, Rebeca, Xmas

Gabe, Ely, Ollie, Christina, Xmas

Reanna, ukulele, heater

Ollie, bundled up

January: I get my first paid vacation ever–one week off, fully paid by MBMH. Weird, pretty nice. I write my first attempt at a comprehensive political statement. Reanna and I start a three-month experiment with a strict “paleo” diet, which mostly means we cut out sugar and grains from our diet. The theory is that human adaptation to grains and refined anything is shallow at best. I also start cooking Mexican food (the paleo-friendly recipes) from Rick Bayless’ Authentic Mexican. I love it. And Reanna loves eating it. I start learning to play Reanna’s ukulele. I play and sing “Amazing Grace” most nights for a month. Fun!

I’m working full time, which I’ve never done. It’s not my favorite schedule. I had to let go of most of my projects. I started building a solar batch water heater in the fall, for example, that is still not finished. The schedule has simplified my life quite a bit. Work all day, spend the evening with Reanna. I gained more respect for my friends who’ve been working full time for decades and still manage to write some music or read books. I’m ramping into a caseload, though, and am seeing seven clients a week by the end of the month.

My endurance training is going great by this point. Mid month I got my heart rate up to 179 bpm without hurting myself. Very exciting.

Smiley and Gallant visit

Reanna in our clean, cold kitchen

Dinner’s almost ready. (Photo by Reanna.)

Grandpa Bob turns 94

Me in therapist costume, with Ollie. (Photo by Reanna.)

February: Full time work continues. I get trained in the Trauma Resiliency Model, which I find very cool and useful. I re-up the trademark on Abandon Ship. I feel sad that I can’t write music with my brothers right now, but have plenty of optimistic plans to do so… Reanna starts designing our future house, another exciting project that I have to watch from the sidelines. I love watching her get super deep into a topic like this, though. She is now the resident expert in passive-solar-optimized-very-small-house design. We start car shopping, too. We need to be independently mobile in Joshua Tree.

Trench. Hose feeding trailer finally to be buried.

Reanna & treehouse near the Mexican border

Ollie, Damian

March: I’m up to 16 clients at MBMH and I’m fighting for mastery of the intense paperwork load. The clinical work is going great. My supervisor is good, I am fully engaged by my clients, and I get to see a good variety of folks–kids, adults, families, couples. The paperwork is fairly unpleasant, though. Mental health providers that get government funding spend a huge amount of time and energy creating and maintaining a paper trail for their work. These clinics get paid based on the work they claim to have done and then various agencies can audit their files and take that money back if a box wasn’t checked or a T wasn’t crossed. I spend my first very late day at work in March, trying to catch up on paperwork. Reanna is not happy.

Highlights: A great lecture by Bruce Perry, planting my first spring/summer garden, endurance training going great (I work out during my lunches at MBMH), meeting the Transition Joshua Tree folks. And Reanna. Reanna is wonderful.

Lowlights: My truck fails smog and I begin what becomes an expensive debacle trying to get it to pass.  I start having sync problems with my Mac that I am still dealing with as I write. I start working on our taxes on weekends. Reanna is Canadian and that makes our taxes super complicated and somehow even though we hired a professional we ended up owing big fines.

Abandon Ship cover art, for the TM folks. Art by Tilke.

Damian & Ollie in old billy goat pen, future garden

Me, just having sunk the garden beds. (Photo by Reanna)

Reanna planting pepper starts

Ollie

Ollie & Reanna take the trash out

Ollie & Reanna rest in the hammock

April: I find out that Morongo Basin Mental Health has decided to go out of business after more than 40 years, at the end of June. That’s quite a shock and less for me than for the many decade-plus employees I work with. At home, our three months of paleo is up and I feel fine, as I have on just about every diet I’ve tried, but it clearly had not solved any of the problems we’d been tracking for the experiment. And I am sick in bed for a week for a third time this year. Reanna’s parents arrive for a month long visit. I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like, but we get in some fun events (like the Morongo Basin Conservation Association’s “Desertwise Landscape Tour” and Transition Joshua Tree’s Water Catchment Workshop), good talks, good swimming.  I get trained in sand-tray therapy by my supervisor, Richard Gray, which I find quite useful.

Reanna preps cholla buds for dinner

Family dinner at Damian & Maya’s (Damian with Bugzooka)

Doug & Kathryn up San Jacinto

May: We get a great little car, a gift from Reanna’s parents. It gets 38 mpg unless we use the AC.  At work, emotions are high and rumors are flying around. I try to avoid it as much as possible. My coworkers are mostly looking for work with great intensity. I decide that I will chill instead, concentrate on my clients, and do what I can to get my job back with whatever company picks up the military contract in the summer.  Meanwhile,  something is eating my garden. My weekends and after work time is often spent critter-proofing.

The highlight of the month by far is meeting my new nephew, Julian.

Julian in sling

Ollie in work gloves

First scorpion of a scorpion-rich year

June: I’m at 21 clients at the beginning of my last month at MBMH. The management has had me continue taking new clients but I’m starting to get nervous about it. It’s starting to look like my clients will have a significant lapse in services, and it pisses me off. I write people in charge at the county and local journalists but no-one can say how long it will take to get the military program back up and running. I know I’m fine. I can look forward to a full season working at NBTSC if things go badly. It sucks, though, that my clients are just getting dumped. It’s screwed up. I just have to set them up as best I can for the lapse and do the tons of paperwork to close their charts. Meanwhile, my co-worker, Jackie, introduces me to Candy Crush, which starts sucking up the cracks in my schedule.

Highlights: Jonathan & Ayako’s wedding in Idaho. Motorcycle safety class with Reanna. And being married to Reanna, of course.

Living room pano: Ely, Christina, Julian, Ben, Rebeca visit

Ben & Julian

North end pano from on top of Reanna’s sewing RV

Ayako & Jonathan, getting married

July: I’m unemployed again, but within two weeks I get interviewed by Pacific Clinics, the company who got the military contract that I’d been working for at MBMH. It looks like I’ll get the job based on the reputation I’d made for myself in that position. That feels good! It means I’ll miss most of NBTSC this year, too, for the first time in 14 years.

Reanna leaves for OR to do prep work for NBTSC and I delete Candy Crush from my phone so I can get some things done: install AC in our trailer, create an outside pantry, build a greywater cistern, make a front step for the trailer, get my motorcycle license, and a few other things. Satisfying. Then I fly up to OR to work the Camp Latgawa session of NBTSC.

Reanna hangs our laundry while I goof off with the camera

Cistern in progress

Julian & me

August: Finish at NBTSC (wonderful, as usual), and spend a few short days in Eugene at an NBTSC leadership summit, then back to Joshua Tree for my last week of unemployment. I completed some last-minute landscaping and plumbing projects, built a dry toilet and installed a weather station, then started training at Pacific Clinics in Arcadia.

At the end of August, Reanna got back from her travels, and we started shutting down all lights and electronics at 8pm and just hanging out until going to bed. This was lovely. We usually laid in the hammock outside, talking and looking at stars. The desert summer evenings are really, really nice. Especially with Reanna.

My advisee group, NBTSC Camp Latgawa

Ely & Julian before dinner

Reanna & Ollie, downtown Joshua Tree

September: I start making contact with clients and by the end of the month I’m back up to 7 clients. This is exciting, and it’s nice to be working with some of my old co-workers from MBMH, and the new crew at Pacific Clinics is an entertaining bunch. Working full time again limits what I can do in terms of projects, but I manage to put a new roof on the old goat pen/the new outside pantry, go visit Quail Springs permaculture farm, and start building a new composter with my 2-year-old nephew, Ollie.

At the end of the month, I have my first birthday at home in many years. Usually I’m at camp. It’s nice. My family threw me a little party and I’m glad to be here, even though I miss my people at Farm & Wilderness.

Yes, Ollie wants to help build the composter!

Rain Event, 29 Palms

With Reanna & ocotillo, on my 42nd birthday.

 

May 5, 2012

A Proposal for a “Most Interesting Questions” List

Posted by Nathen under Couples and Family Therapy, Ethan Mitchell, family therapy, ideas, questions, therapy
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When I find myself in the presence of a new very smart person, my favorite question to ask is,”What is the most interesting question in your field?”* It both makes for great conversation and expands my sense of the envelope of human inquiry.

If you have an idea about the most interesting question in your field, I’d love to hear about it in a comment below. If you are the kind of person who creates and publicizes websites, though, what I’d like even more is for you to create a wiki-style site where folks can go, create a forum for their field or sub-discipline, and propose and vote on most interesting questions. This could generate what I want to look at: a home page that is a self-updating outline of what professionals believe are the most interesting questions in their field. If you want to go whole-hog, you could also let them vote on and link to what they believe are the best pieces of research on their question to date.

And since I posed the question, I should probably tackle it for my own field… I am a couples and family therapist, and I propose that the most interesting question in my field is, “What are the precise mechanisms of therapeutic change in couple and family systems?” In other words, how does therapy work? We know that it is helpful in most cases, and we have endless models and speculations about how it works, but virtually no evidence about the mechanisms of change. The best research I know about on the topic is the qualitative, two-part, “What Clients of Couple Therapy Model Developers and Their Former Students Say About Change,” by Davis & Piercy. Edging into that territory from another angle is the research summarized in Gottman’s The Science of Trust.

*I stole this question from very-smart-person Ethan Mitchell.

 

July 15, 2010

My News Sources

Posted by Nathen under Benjamin Lester, Darlene Lester, decisions, endorsements, Ethan Mitchell, headlines, Jay Smooth, Jeannie Lee, Left Right and Center, listening, lists, Long Now Foundation, Maya, media, National Public Radio, news, Paul Krugman, Planet Money, politics, Radiolab, This American Life, Thomas Friedman, Wall Street Journal
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I like to know what everyone thinks is going on. To this end, about a year ago, I filled up my igoogle home page with feeds from a bunch of different news sources. They are political news sources, for the most part. I don’t care at all about sports or celebrities. I tried to pick stuff from the hard left and hard right and then some mainstream stuff, thinking I could read headlines every day or two and read the articles that grabbed my attention.

It’s not working out that well. I’m too busy to read much. I do glance over the headlines a bit, but there are a lot of them and often my eyes just glaze over. And while I want to know about the rest of the world, I’m even more interested in what my friends and family are doing. If my sister-in-law, Maya, has posted on her blog, or my mom on hers, my brother Benjamin on his, or my friend Jeannie on hers, or my friend Ethan on a couple of his blogs (one about everything and one about his wife Susannah’s struggle with leukemia–both amazing), or several other friends and family with blogs have posted, that’s what I read while I’m brushing my teeth or during whatever scanty extracurricular-reading time appears.

So I need to cull. I’m considering getting paring it down to the few feeds that I actually click on. That would look like this:

Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman columns at NYTimes.com–occasional reads.

Wall Street Journal feed–very occasional reads.

NPR’s political feed–pretty regular use, but usually just audio clips from “All Things Considered,” plus a nearly-daily five-minute news overview, also audio.

A google news feed gathered from a bunch of sources–very occasional reads.

Plus PsychCentral‘s Mental Health News and Children/Parenting News feeds–pretty frequent reads, a few a week–and Nildoctrine‘s feed for his hilarious feminist political vlogs.

And plus my podcasts, which I have absolutely no problem keeping up with: Left, Right and Center, Planet Money, This American Life, Radiolab, and The Long Now Foundation’s Seminars About Long Term Thinking. These I love the most.

I’d call that a US-centric, left-leaning-centrist list. I’d be ditching my right-winger stuff besides the Wall Street Journal–FrumForum which looked pretty good when I checked it out, but I just haven’t been checking it out, and National Review, whose cartoony headlines and terrible writing meant that I almost never looked at it, and regretted it when I did. I’d ditch quite a bit of left-winger stuff–The New Republic & Mother Jones (cartoony headlines again), Truthdig (generally good but not catching me), and Democracy Now! which I think is great but consistently depressing. Also The Onion, which is hilarious but I’ve stopped looking at it, and a CNN feed, which is weak.

That list doesn’t really do what I originally wanted–covering hard left to hard right–but it seems OK for now. What do you think? I’m interested in the media-intake schemes of anyone who made it this far through my post. How do you make these decisions? Do you think I’m missing anything crucial? Make me some recommendations!

Also, anyone interested in my actual media diet can look at my reading list here.

 

March 30, 2009

An Introduction to My Sidebar

Posted by Nathen under blogging, charting my life, Ethan Mitchell, Jeannie Lee, lists
1 Comment 

Jeannie Lee, my blog advisory council, says that people generally don’t explore blog sidebars since it’s not obvious when that stuff gets updated. Here’s what I’ve got going on so far.

“In” is for my input: I’ve got a list of most of the blogs I’m currently reading, with short reviews, and, under ‘learning,’ a list of the classes, lessons, workshops, and lectures taken or listened to. “Listening” is for music. Under ‘reading’ I have a list of what I’ve read this year, and at the bottom a link to what I read last year. “Viewing” is a list of movies and TV I’ve watched. “Websites” is a list of my most heavily used sites, with little descriptions.

The “Nathen Online” section is self explanatory.

“Out” is for output: Under ‘driving’ is my driving log since my birthday and a little essay about my truck and driving. Under ‘landfill’ is a trash project I started in January, documenting my landfill contribution. ‘Photographs’ has links to some Flickr slideshows I’ve put up. I’m almost a year behind on that project, but what’s up is good. ‘Writing’ is where I post my academic writing. I intend to put up everything I’ve written for school in the last two years but so far I just have my fall term up.

“Categories” is just that–how I’ve categorized my posts here. Having that list up is a straight rip off Ethan Mitchell’s blog. I thought it was a cool idea.

 

January 24, 2009

Ethan Mitchell’s Survey about Consent

Posted by Nathen under Ethan Mitchell, science
[2] Comments 

I just completed a survey that my friend, Ethan, is conducting about the nature of consent. He is a radically smart and interesting guy, and a fellow Not Back to School Camp staffer. I never miss one of his workshops, or a chance for a conversation with him, if I can help it. His survey did not disappoint. He encouraged me to pass this on to anyone who I thought would be interested:

Greetings!
You are invited to participate in an online survey about the nature of consent. The survey was created by Ethan Mitchell, an independent scholar working in Vermont. Though consent is a central concept in politics, philosophy, and law, we have surprisingly little research about how people actually envision consent. This survey is an attempt to begin answering that question.

The survey is somewhat more complicated than a traditional multiple-choice poll. It takes about 5-10 minutes to learn the survey interface. Thereafter, the survey is designed so that you can continue taking it for a long time, or stop whenever you please. Most people find that completing the survey takes a good deal of focus and reflection. This is probably not something you want to casually breeze through on your coffee break.

Finally, you are encouraged to forward this invitation to anyone you think might be interested in taking the survey. Thanks very much for your time. I appreciate all the work everyone has put into this, and I hope you find the exercise thought-provoking.
Sincerely, Ethan Mitchell
The survey itself: www.zemita.net/ConsentSurvey.php
Comments: ConsentSurvey@gmail.com
(Ethan will make an effort to respond to all questions sent to this email, either directly or on the website.)