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I'm feeling much, much better. Although it seemed incredibly indulgent to take two days off for a cold, I think it was the right thing to do. For some reason, my body always has a really hard time getting over colds and I end up coughing for weeks (sometimes months) afterwards. This time I decided to get lots of rest at the beginning of the cold, took lots of Cold Fx (ginseng), and slept more than I even thought was possible, and all of that seems to have had a positive effect.

I was reading this article in Salon about the way that blacks and whites are depicted in various photos coming out of Hurricane Katrina. In one photo, a young black person is shown wading through water with goods obtained from a store. The caption says that he was looting. In another photo, two white people are similarily shown wading through water with goods, but in this case the caption reads that they "found" the items. This has started lots of discussion about whether this is an example of racism still being prevelant in the media. I'm not sure what to think. The two photgraphs were taken by different photographers and the captions were written independently, so I don't think it would be correct to conclude that this is an example of systemic racism. However, it does seem to highlight the fact that we all use heuristics when we interpret what is happening in a picture, and sometimes those heuristics are based on race. It's subtle, but something that we all should be a little more conscious of. What do you think?