So I was watching " Dirty Jobs " with Mike Rowe on Discovery channel. As much as I appreciate the existence of people willing to do those crazy jobs, I haven't the slightest idea why they do them. There was one guy whose job was to go shoulder-deep into cows' anuses to check if they're pregnant by feeling the uterine wall. Jesus. I hope that guy makes a lot of money. But by the looks of his ranch on the show, he doesn't. And Jesus again. Isn't it enough that they're only alive to feed our over-appeased appetites? Must we arm-sodomize them too? Honestly, I'd be a lot more OK with the meat industry if only it'd give the animals a reasonable quality of life. And this, people, COULD be done at our expense, namely, with slightly higher meat prices. Interestingly, a high percentage of the most disgusting jobs highlighted on the Discovery show are right out of various meat industry sectors, insluding cattle and pig farms, slaughterhouses, pro...
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SEX!
The pope came out again today in defence of the Vatican's position against condom use in Africa to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. From Al Jazeera (great world news site): "The only solution is two-fold," he said. "The first is a humanisation of sexuality, a human, spiritual renewal which brings with it a friendship, especially for those who are suffering, a willingness to make personal sacrifices." And Jon Stewart's reply: "The pope went on to say that smoking can cure cancer, and that if you need a morning pick-me-up, try heroin!" True that. But seriously, we have ourselves a very good example of religious dogma running up against sound empirical research and statistical fact. The Vatican has a long history of denying or ignoring contrary scientific claims to the bitter end, before finally giving in only after no sane person could possibly deny said claims. I think what the Pope means to say (let's phrase his argument as generously as possb...
I can't stand it when other people waste my time. Lately at work it's been one useless meeting after the other for a solid week, and there's more to come. I can't control my contempt at times. But then, I have no problem with wasting my own time. While I have quite a number of things happening these days, surfing aroung youtube is still one of them. "Wow, that's such an amazing/inspiring/sad/moving/etc. video! I'll remember this for a long time!" Have you ever thought that while on youtube, and then completely forgotten everything you saw by the next morning? That happens to me regularly. So then, it's no so much an issue of time as it is an issue of power. I just cannot take other people telling me what to do, unless they're telling me to do things I either (a) agreed to do already, or (b) would do anyway. Even then it's irritating. So if my girlfriend wants me to... but if she wants me to... well you get the point. This is probably a...
I woke up to the sound of screaming this morning. My first thought was of all the situations I've heard about in psychology class about people not doing anything when others are being harmed in plain eyeshot or earshot. I walked out onto my balcony to see where it was coming from, and a jar suddenly crashed through the window in the suite below mine and flew across the alley, shattering on the opposite house and raining shards onto the street. Then another item came flying out, and another. I ran to Jordan's (right across he alley) and knocked, hoping he could accompany me to the door to try to do something (a one-person confrontation is more easily seen as provocation), but he wasn't home. Neighbours were standing in the alley gawking, and one had called the police already. As I ran to the staircase to the suite, a neighbour stopped me, saying we needed to wait for the police. I didn't know what to do, and in those few moments when I was deciding whether to ignore the ...
Seoraksan
The bus dropped me off, alone, in a middle-of-nowhere street corner in a place called Yongdae-ri. There was nothing aside from a couple of stores and a fish drying company. Little did I know at the moment, I'd been dropped off about 6 kilometers away from the park entrance by mistake. It was thursday afternoon, and my plan was to make the peak of the park's highest mountain, Daecheongbong, by Saturday morning, to watch the sunrise over the East Sea. I was starting on the east side of the park, and planned to exit on the west side, about 30km away, at the popular tourist destination Seorak-Dong. I found my way to the park entrance, and it was very quiet. This being the off-season, there were many closed motels, closed restaurants, and a large empty parking lot. I saw but one other hiker. I got myself a map at the ranger station and set off on the path to my stop for the first of two nights in the park: Baekdam buddhist temple. A family of korean travellers who were already at ...
Tomorrow morning I'll be boarding a bus to the town of Inje, where I'll set out on my hike across Seoraksan National Park, then to the ocean at the town of Sokcho. If I have the time and motivation, I may even go somewhere from there. Wish me luck! I'll put up photos here when I get back. As well, I'd like to say hi to all my adult students at BCM, some of whom I know read this blog now! Hi!
At some point in life I want to be the absolute best I can be at something. Anything, really... just to know what it feels like to hit that limit. Everything I do, I know I could be doing it better, with more commitment and time and determination. But before I'm dead, I'll reverse this trend with respect to one thing. I'm not sure which one just yet!
It took me a long time, and a number of relationships, to realize the fundamental truth that women tell each other everything. Absolutely everything. Everything they promise they won't tell, and everything else so personal that their boyfriends just assume on common sense that they won't tell... they tell. I guarantee, if you run on this assumption, things in your life will make so much more sense, all the time. I was reminded of this because yesterday I for the first time in my life I watched an episode of Sex and the City from start to finish. I was alone, and it was on, so I watched it. What an awful show. But more to the point, it makes sense to me why so many women are big fans, and why so few men have any interest in it at all. Men tell each other things relating to sex, but not a whole lot else. Even then, they only talk about the sex things that make them look cool, or that they can high-five about. The arguments, the tensions, the issues... men really don't t...
To paraphrase a paraphrase I heard today: Modern ethics in the western world, thanks mainly to the proliferation of easy modes of communication and mass organization, has become more focused on people as activists, or members of moral 'groups' taking various stands and exhibiting various symbols of solidarity with each other. I cite as an archetypal example the facebook event where everybody is supposed to wear a pink shirt on the 25th to oppose bullying. It's incredibly popular, with tens of thousands of participants already signed up. Now, I've always 'opposed' bullying, in the sense that I don't attempt to bully people, and in the other sense that if I see someone being pushed around and I can intervene usefully on the spot, I probably will (and on occasion I have done just that). This kind of moral thinking and action comes right out of greek philosophy (and thousands of years of its subsidiaries), and it is much more classical, independant from technolo...
Bananas
Buying bananas is a commitment, especially when you can't buy less than, say, 8 at once. The store I shop at only sells them by the whole bunch, i.e. about 15-20. So four days ago I bought 18 bananas (for less than 3 bucks!) and my life has been about them since. They sit there on the table in a bowl taunting me to finish them all before the brown spots spread too far. I had nothing but bananas for dinner yesterday, and I'm eating banana pancakes for breakfast every morning. There are 4 left. Ugh.
Michael Phelps apologized today for taking a bong hit. Of course, like all celebrities and politicians, the apology only ever follows the incident of getting caught red-handed. Just once, I'd so dearly like to see a public figure simply admit an offence that would otherwise have never been found out, and then apologize for it. That I can accept. "I'm 23 years old, and despite the successes I have had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner that people have come to expect from me..." - Phelps Who does Phelps owe an apology to? Who expects him not to take a few drugs and have a good time scoring babes by the dozen with his bucket full of gold medals (I sure as heck would)? Who wants him to be sorry? Who cares? And for God's sake the guy is younger than I am! If a 23-year-old can't be youthful and inappropriate, then what's the world come to? The apology is to Nike, and all his other contractors. He's terribly sorry t...
So I'm researching both law schools and music schools. It's infuriating that I still, after a whole degree, have no idea what to do. On the one hand I love playing piano, and I'm easily good enough now to get into a music school of my choice. Hell, I was only about 5 wait list spots from music school 5 years ago when my piano level was considerably lower than it is now. On the other hand, I love arguing, debating, philosophy, ethics, and all things of that sort. The LSAT, I believe, will be a breeze. But then there are drawbacks to all choices. If I aim for law school, it can only be one of a few schools, Victoria not included (in all likelihood), because my B+ GPA just isn't very high. I'd probably end up in Edmonton or Manitoba or maybe Dalhausie on the east coast. Boy did I ever work hard every semester, for a few weeks during all the exam and essay due dates. But the rest of the time I just didn't hold much of an interest in regular studying and reading. ...
Flying
Just last week on the plane to Jeju Island, I was explaining to my girlfriend that the 'water landing procedure' safety pamphlets are useless, other than to give people a creative kickstart for when they start pondering what to do if the plane goes down. See, when we're flying that high looking down on the vast ocean we want to know that there's a plan, should the plane come across an above-water emergency. Above-land situations are intuitive, because the jet is supposed to land on hard ground; in an emergency, maybe it could land on a highway, or a big field, or wherever. This is what we tell ourselves. But water landings are not intuitive this way, and we need some kind of line-of-thought for how we'd handle them. We all think this stuff, no? (Personally, I fantasize about being the hero, pulling gorgeous young women to safety out of the wreckage, then modestly saying "don't call me a hero" to Larry King a few days later.) So, to help out, they give ...
Photos as promised! This weekend the girlfriend and I made our way to Korea's most popular tourist spot Jeju Island, dubbed by the govt. as "Asia's Hawaii," rather dishonestly, though cleverly. It is somewhat of a topical place, but not much at all like Hawaii. All in all, it was a wonderful, albeit short, vacation! We stayed at a small lodge, one of those wood floor, wood wall, wood ceiling kind of places, near the water. Here's the balcony view: Surrounding the coast are a dozen or so relic 'smoke signal statues', right out of Lord of the Rings. They served as a defensive communication measure several hundred years ago: The island has a number of rather... cheap... tourist traps. I saw a number of those dinosour parks you tend to see out on the highway, and a lot of go-cart tracks. Here's a horse ranch/go-cart track/theme park place. The giant boat is a restoed relic of some sort. On the property is a nice point, around which we walked. On Friday, o...