…it could have been worse.  Much worse.

Am I saying that because it’s worse elsewhere, we should be grateful for what we have and not moan about its shortcomings?

No!

Because almost everyone in the world can always find someone, somewhere, who is worse off than they are.  We should always strive for better, but at the same time I think it’s never a bad thing to realise what a privileged life we lead in developed countries.

I remind myself every day what a privilege it is for me to be here.

Somebody asked me to write in my blog an alleged anecdote that the President of India (or whoever that guy is visiting the Whitehouse) has asked Obama to come to India. Apparently the Indians plan to make Obama the President of India also. The President of India (or the guy in the photos) has explained to Obama that people nowadays have two citizenships and there is nothing wrong with Obama being both citizens of India and United States. Furthermore, Obama is the only world leader that looks alike Indians and will be received well there. Indians are very advanced and think if double citizenship is possible why not doublt Presidency? Obama was assured as President of India he absolutely has nothing to do nor to worry about. All he has to do is go around and act like he is the President. That is what is expected of leadership in India and the Indians think Obama is world reknown for doing just that in the United States. They are also excited that United States will be as mess of a country as India in a few years thanks to Obama’s ‘leadership’ thus qualifying Obama for the job even more. Obama has thanked the Indians to discuss the offer with his advisers. I told this person I cannot write this stuff about our beloved President and I was asked if I am really the guy who writes the ’shit blog?’ I told him I really don’t write ’shit’ about anybody unless that person is already it so technically no I am not. I promised I will think about his story.

*This post belongs to this week’s edition of Writing by Cush blog and published early in World of Cush also.

How about this photo. A row of empty beer bottles. The focus, the lighting and the arrangement is average but will pass. The bottles have identical shapes so easy to jump from bottle neck or top to other bottles. The blurry background works but the countertop is a big distraction. The bottles barely pass the test as far as being in order. The arrangement is not that great and could have been done much better. The labels have little in common to help make sense of their arrangement but as is the job is done very poorly. The blue and orange/red labels could be grouped but they would clash at some point. Mixing the labels would be another way and probably would work somewhat. This photo is not my choice for anything but is a good example of shooting basic subjects. It can be done properly and get great results. The resolution could be higher. The details are not good and one cannot look at them for more than a second. The arrangement is not the best and needs work and the camera position needs to change. If the background changes to a more practical setting, the photo can improve dramatically. The background colors blend with the bottles slightly and not an excellent choice. The photo is typical and will pass in many cases but hardly more than a snapshot unless a few changes are made.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/10/serious-beer-tasting-oktoberfest-brews-german-american-beers-taste-test.html is the source for this photograph

*This post belongs to this week’s edition of Photo Reviews by Cush blog and published early in World of Cush also.

First there was this cringe-worthy article here by the vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, Greg Craven, which concluded with this keen half-truth: I am not quite clear why our modern crop of atheists hates Christians, as opposed to ignoring or even politely dismissing them, but they very clearly do. There is nothing clever, witty or funny about hate. .

It is true that there is certainly nothing clever, witty, or funny about hate. But criticizing religion is not hate; it is a necessary counter-balance to the unwanted and illegitimate intrusion of religious belief into the public domain. When religions attempt to influence policy policy, then it’s time to play religious whack-a-mole. It is a criticism that needs to be heard.

So let’s look at the ‘hate-filled’ response to Craven’s wretched piece:

Facing a new attack with an international audience playing close attention, religions have as little rational argument in their favour as ever. There was a time when they could deal with dissent through more draconian measures: the kind that can still be practiced in, say, Saudi Arabia. Having lost the power of the gun in the West, apologists of religion have a new weapon: being offended.

Rather than confronting (say) Dawkins’ arguments with counter-arguments, people like Craven, and many others like him, instead cry out: why are you picking on us? All we want is for you to respect our beliefs. And so, the crybaby theists hide behind the demand for respect, which sounds reasonable enough. The more shameless – and their ranks are represented in many religions, such as Muslims, Christians and Jews – complain that when someone criticises their religious faith, the people who belong to that religion are being subjected to abuse.

From the article here.

The bottom line is that such special pleading is a way for theists to avoid answering their critics. The cry that religious beliefs are not being treated respectfully often demonstrates incredible arrogance and hypocrisy. The solution is not for atheists to shut their gobs; the solution is for theists to get their favoured superstitions out of the public domain keep their religious beliefs private.

Consider this the official announcement of my new review site, 300 Reviews.  The goal is fairly simple: collect 300, 300-word reviews on the sorts of subjects that might not fit in mainstream venues.  I want the reviews to be entertaining, thoughtful, creative.  If you want to know more, you can read my spiel.

As of today, you can check out some great pieces by:

Alissa Nutting

Sara Joy Culver

Carl Peterson

Brian Oliu

& Tom Farrington.

Hope you enjoy the site, since I’m enjoying my role as editor.  The work we have coming up is nothing short of wonderful: “Single Ladies” Pronouns, Baking, Cats, & Mass Transit, to name a few.  Check it out, subscribe to the feed if you like it, and forward it to your friends.  We’d like some company over there.

Quotes from Godard illustrated by his wife and early muse, my own style inspiration and personal patron saint, the lovely and talented* Anna Karina.

*Not sure if you’d noticed, but I only bill as “lovely and talented” those who take it off. Write that down.

All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun. (Journal entry, 5/16/91)

“Light me up!” Still of Anna Karina as Natacha van Braun from Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution / Alphaville (1965)

I don’t think you should feel about a movie. You should feel about a woman. You can’t kiss a movie.

Still with Jean-Paul Belmondo from Une femme est une femme / A Woman is a Woman (1961), previously highlighted with “Look, Ma, no gag reflex!” still here back in September.

“In films, we are trained by the American way of moviemaking to think we must understand and ‘get’ everything right away. But this is not possible. When you eat a potato, you don’t understand each atom of the potato!” (Interview with David Sherritt, The Christian Science Monitor, 8/3/94)

Une femme est une femme / A Woman is a Woman (1961)

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. (Critique called “What Is Cinema?” for Les Amis du Cinéma , 10/1/52, a work which advanced the auteur theory but also kind of ripped off Bazin, which is weird cause Bazin would’ve read it and was a big influence on Godard but this was done contemporaneously of Bazin himself working on something titled this, about this, so maybe the quote is misattributed? … or maybe there is more to it than I know with my tiny ken of French movie guys, maybe it was a done thing to borrow titles from one another, or perhaps it was a continuation of a dialogue they were already having both in person and via publications, or, finally, it could even have been an “understood” question which anyone might use as the title of a book or article … I am probably over-reading it.)

Hands down my favorite picture of Anna Karina

Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion. (“Defense and Illustration of Classical Construction,” Cahiers du Cinéma, 9/15/52)

Cover or liner art for her album, a collaboration with the dread Serge G

The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea. (“Strangers on a Train,” Cahiers du Cinéma 3/10/52 — Godard wrote extensively and insightfully in his early career about the movies of Hitchcock, one of my favorite and I think misunderstood directors; I’ll try to share some good nuggets from time to time)

Anna cahorts about topless as Anne in 1968’s The Magus, also starring Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek), Michael Caine, and Candace Bergen (Murphy Brown) — no one seems to like this movie but me. That’s okay, because I like it a lot.

Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second. (Le petit soldad / The Little Soldier, 1963.)

With Jean-Paul Belmondo again, this time as Ferdinand and Marianne in the sort of romantic-tragi-comedy-crime-caper Pierrot le fou / Crazy Pete / Pierre Goes Wild (1965).

To be or not to be? That’s not really a question. (unsourced)

Screencap with subtitles from Une femme est une femme / A Woman is a Woman (1961).

The 2nd edition of “The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare”, co-edited by Stanley Wells, who contributed an example of his prose to Issue 5 of “The International Literary Quarterly”, and Margreta De Grazia, and including a chapter by Stephen Greenblatt, who is a Consulting Editor of Interlitq, will be published in March 2010.

It’s been a long time…I shouldn’t have left you…without some dope thoughts to sift through…sift through…sift through…sift through…sift through…

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written anything, let alone the movie reviews and all of the other things that I’ve promised to write, but I’ve been really in my head lately. I just haven’t felt like sharing any of the thoughts racing through my mind.

I went to my aunt’s for Thanksgiving day. That was fun. I actually got to take Mr. Perfect to see more of my cousins (more of the embarrassing ones), which went…well. One of my cousins was leaving after we ate and said “See you later 2blu and …you.” It didn’t bother me as much that she’d forgotten his name, but the fact that she referred to him as “you”…disrespectful. I couldn’t believe it. Other than that, and my aunt forcing him to play her favorite card game, he seemed to enjoy himself a bit. There were a few hiccups, family aside, but I’m still thinking through how I feel about those.

Netflix gave me the wrong movies. For whatever reason my queue wouldn’t update correctly. That summarizes how things have been going for me lately. I feel like my life hasn’t been updating correctly. Everyone seems to want something from me. Some people are very clear about what that is; some people, to me, couldn’t be more vague. I don’t operate well with open-ended questions, let alone directions. I end up talking too much, or I get handsy, or I shut down completely and don’t say or do anything at all.

How do you respond to criticism? I have only three responses. I listen very respectfully to watch you say and flush it down the toilet with all the rest of the crap that is a by-product of life; I take it and use it to improve things I think need improving, or; I feel attacked and hurt and don’t do anything but feel bad. I have no idea how I want to feel about the latest bits of criticism that I’ve received. I tend to deal with criticism of my writing better than in any other area of my life, because I know my writing is good. Honest, constructive criticism can only better it. No matter how hard I try, however, I can’t transfer that level of confidence and acceptance of criticism into other areas of my life.

I feel as if I need a bit of space from my life, but I don’t see where I can create that space so I could deal with all of the different things that are going on both inside of me and in the outside world in which I move. I just need to breathe and find some inner stillness. But where is it?

Anyone who now wants to gleefully throw all the warnings over Global Warming out the window, rush out and buy six SUVs which use fuel like a watermill uses water, just wait a minute here.  Read this first.

I’ve read a few of the leaked emails, and while there is definitely a problem here, I’m also glad that I’ve been reading about science and scientists, specifically their battle against those who call solid, undeniable science into question.  Complete morons can pounce on even the tiniest, most mundane and irrelevant crumbs and magically turn them into huge misconceptions which then take unbelievable effort from scientists to dispel.

Take this example: it will take me two seconds to type: “It’s a well-documented fact that Darwinism led directly to Nazism.”  Easy-peasy.  If I have some impressive-sounding title like Doctor Nadia Williams PhZ, Ft, MdSC, there are an awful lot of people who would assume without a moment’s hesitation that the letters I simply put together off the top of my head mean I know what I’m talking about.

Now, if you want to undo the damage I might have done there in under one minute, it would take you writing an article perhaps twenty times the length of the paragraph up there.  You’d have to make sure the audience understands what Darwinism is, address the fallacy of the Darwinism-Nazism link, perhaps delve into the origin of this misconception.  You’d then have to explain the abbreviations for degrees, show that no university in the world (I bloody well hope) has qualifications such as the ones I claim to have, perhaps research the institution I might claim to have studied through to earn the right to call myself ‘doctor’.

In your refutation, you can’t just suck facts from your thumb, you will have to go and research and verify your claims.  That means my five minutes’ effort to do damage can cost as many hours to undo, and even then, three quarters of my audience will probably never get to read your thoughtful, well researched reply.  They all will continue to believe Darwinism caused Nazism, and not only that, they’ll believe this is a well documented fact. I mean, that Doctor with all the degrees said so, didn’t she?

And in the time you’ve written your excellent rebuff of my claims, I will have written six more articles spreading lies.

To my mind the leaked emails have exposed a worrying tragedy: scientists can be so easily frustrated, tied up in trying to prove to those who can’t smell that crap stinks, that to me it looks as if they have become paranoid with making sure there are no tiny, irrelevant details in their research papers which can become weapons in the hands of the kooks. I remember once reading a heartbreaking piece from a young scientist who wrote a well researched paper, got it published, and had it so cut and hacked by the publisher that it said something completely different from the original.

Could it be that scientists have closed ranks, gone into a mode of being under siege?  If they did go so far as to act unethically to protect their hypotheses, I would ask: was this caused by a gradual move away from sound scientific method by the frustration of having to guard against fringe dissenters who could bog them down so easily and so thoroughly that they’d spend their lives clearing mud instead of doing the research that is vital to humanity’s wellbeing?

I’m also quite puzzled by why these emails should now scupper Obama’s proposals re cap and trade, and other measures against the effects of climate change, as that seems to be what quite a few opinion pieces online think will be the effect.  Hopefully that’s just the extreme opinions, but perhaps that just proves exactly what I’ve tried to say.  From the article I linked to above:

But do these revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory? Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence.

Science has to work a hell of a lot harder to be believed than to be disbelieved.  If you had to constantly fight against that, perhaps you, too, would start cutting corners.

If there’s one thing that gets me a bit miffed in the scientific community, it’s a lot of people’s scathing and derogatory comments about natural medicines, those who are natural medicine practitioners, and those who turn to natural medicine.  While on one hand I understand and fully agree with the view that practices such as acupuncture and homeopathy sometimes don’t make scientific sense, I feel there’s a rigidness in the thinking of a lot of negative opinions about natural medicines I see online which doesn’t sit well with me.

I was raised with homeopathy, and took my first antibiotic ever in my life when I was eighteen.  As a mother of young children, I preferred natural medicines as that was what I knew, and knew to be safe.  Please don’t misunderstand me here, I mean if the child was overtired and couldn’t sleep, not if it was deathly ill.  My daughter went to hospital when she got pneumonia, I’m not at the level where I’ll watch my child die while I faithfully give it some drops.

I had the good fortune to meet a pair of brothers who practiced homeopathy in Pretoria, South Africa: Ryan and Sean Penny.  I have to add here that practice of homeopathy is more regulated there.  I was quite shocked to come to Ireland to get the impression any old quack can just hang out a sign and declare himself a homeopathic doctor.  In SA, you have to first get a university degree, as far as I know. It’s a five-year course.  Before any skeptic reading this says: “Hmph.  Five years studying fairy tales doesn’t make any difference,” let me just point out that I’m sure doctors don’t spend their time in training learning only about medicines.  It’s about identifying disease, isn’t it?  From a quick look, it seems the degree in homeopathy includes anatomy, physiology etc. The difference lies in what you prescribe once you’ve identified what’s wrong with the patient.

Anyway, Sean Penny became our family doctor, so to speak, and this man really, to me, represented the attitude a doctor should have who specialises in natural medicines.  He never hesitated to recommend antibiotics (the law in South Africa allowed a homeopath to recommend, but not prescribe, antibiotics).  This happened when I got tickbite fever, and when one of my children had an ear infection.

Sean used a variety of natural medicines, importing herbal preparations from China in some instances, if I remember correctly.  I therefore don’t know if it is strictly correct to call him a homeopath – he used a variety of homeopathic and herbal medicines, but also prescribed dietary changes.

The difference I’ve found between him and the medical doctors I’ve dealt with, is that Sean tended to be much more holistic in his approach.  He didn’t just look at you, trying to match a medicine to your ailment, he tried to match a cure to your ailment.  And there is a difference there.

So the first point I want to make is: not all practitioners of natural medicine are anti-mainstream.

The second thing that comes to my mind is this: yes, clinical trials have had mixed results, often showing that homeopathy specifically has worked no better than placebos.  That’s fine.  What do I do now, then, with my own experience of trying natural medicine at times when I really just didn’t think it would work, and finding it did? That its efficacy exceeded my expectations?

Do I dismiss the experience of a friend who was very anti-natural medicines, but in desperation went to a Chinese herbal doctor when repeated courses of antibiotics just wouldn’t stop her son getting ear infections again and again and again.  She didn’t hold out much hope, it was a last-ditch effort as she was out of options.  Next time I visited, she was a believer: the ear infection the child had suffered from had cleared up, and not returned.

Another friend, a gifted and highly trained, qualified physiotherapist (no, not a chiropractor, a physiotherapist) told me once that she used a set of magnets applied in accordance to acupuncture principles.  The term she used was ‘acu-pressure’.  She shrugged (very down-to-earth, I love her to bits) and said: “I know there’s a lot of debate over the whole acupuncture thing, but all I know is, it works.  How, I’m not sure, but it does.”  Bear in mind, it wasn’t as if she announced loudly to the patient that she would now apply acupuncture-based treatment.  She applied good physiotherapeutic practice, experimented with this added treatment and found through applying it quietly that when she did, she got better results.

I know this is not by a long shot scientific evidence on which we should now rely unquestioningly.  However, I feel personally affronted when those turning to natural medicines of whatever description are ridiculed as gullible idiots.  There are instances where mainstream medicine simply does not work for some people, or for some illnesses.  Individuals try natural alternatives and find, often to their enormous surprise, that it works FOR THEM.  Why now attack them as morons like a pack of dogs?

Focus on those places where these things go wrong, such as when people are allowed to practice natural medicine without being properly regulated or qualified.  Focus on fanatics who encourage people to go off life-saving drugs in favour of natural medicines.  I am with you in condemning this.  To my mind, natural medicines should be seen as a support of mainstream medicine, and an alternative treatment for smaller ailments.  My regular doctor has remarked before that my body responds well to antibiotics, and I believe this is partly because I use it only when natural medicine is not appropriate or effective.

If you don’t feel the same, that’s your prerogative.  But don’t make me out to be an idiot just because I disagree with your views.

Bismilah al rahmán y rahim

Ginebra ha sido asesinada por los suizos y las suizas, hijos e hijas de Guillermo Tell, que han votado con amplia mayoría a favor de una ley islamófoba y en contra de una iniciativa justa, promovida por el colectivo pacifista más representativo del legado idealista de la paz, en un tiempo asociado a la ciudad del borde del Lago Léman. “Catastrófico“, califica el resultado Tariq Ramadan. Yo pienso en mis amigos que siguen viviendo en aquella ciudad, musulmanes y ateos, quizás hasta cristianos y judíos, que deben estar abatidos, sentirse desolados ante unos resultados terribles y sorprendentes. Ha muerto su ciudad, asesinada en un sucio domingo fascista del siglo XXI, en nombre de la democracia. ¡Qué asco!

I will explain Lee Kuan Yew’s 65% born-Singaporean target and show it is not a magic number. The Online Citizen does put up interesting articles a lot (A LOT) of times it also puts up nonsense. By 2015, born and bred S’poreans may be the minority in S’pore

What the writer has done, is to take the growth of unnaturalised citizens (this means citizens who were not “naturalised”, i.e. citizens who were born in Singapore) in 2007-2008 and linearly extrapolate it to 2015. From this, the writer concludes that born-Singaporeans will become the minority by 2015. This is a lot of bad maths, and a lot of scaremongering.

His entire method is so suspect that whether you count naturalised citizens or not, but to be consistent I will consider the total population, the born-Singaporeans, and everyone else.

The black line shows the total population, non-born-Singaporeans, and born-Singaporeans, reported in the census numbers. What he does is the extrapolation from one two data points, shown in the blue line.

A slight digression on population growth. Unchecked natural population growth (this means birth and death), in particular, is exponential. I did not plot the early years of the census, but the growth of the born-Singapore population was exponential, until we implemented the (misguided) “Stop At Two” policy.

Non-born-Singaporean population had been growing steady throughout the early years, but took off recently. This is population growth by immigration, so it does not need to be exponential in nature (important point!). It is controlled by governmental policy. At first glance, immigrant population seems to be grow exponentially.

But this mimics natural, unchecked population growth, which was what the “Stop at Two” policy was trying to control in the first place! Why would the government do that? (Answer is they aren’t…read on.)

Anyway, just for fun because I can’t resist it: let’s fit an exponential curve onto all the points. Extrapolate the total population, and also the non-born-Singaporean population (shown in red). When you subtract the two, you get the born-Singaporean population, right? Woohoo! Born-Singaporean population is headed for collapse!

Of course not.

My point is, when you have a bunch of points, you can play with them in any way you like, and tell whatever kind of story you like. The only limit is how realistic your scenario is.

Let’s put a boundary condition on this then. Singaporean leaders want to reach 6.5 million population in the next few decades, maybe 20 years. If we blindly linearly extrapolate the population, then we reach 6.5 in 6 years’ time. What happens next? Do they suddenly shut off immigration? It’s not a very wise plan, to suddenly shut off immigration. Think of international relationships.

Again: Of course not.

In order to end at a stable population at 6.5 million, the slope of the curve must level off, as the government throttles the immigration rate gradually. You’ll have something like a sigmoid curve. This is a very frequently seen type of curve.

Because I am lazy, I will just estimate what the final non-born-Singaporean population will end up to be, using a sigmoid curve as a basis. You will notice that 2007, 2008, 2009 have about the same gradient, we can estimate 2008 as the inflexion point of the curve. Rotate the bottom half of the curve, and you should get about a stable 2,500 thousand in ten years’ time.

Not surprisingly, this is about 35% of the target 6.5 million (6,500 thousand) population, leaving about 65% born-Singaporeans, which is Lee Kuan Yew’s magic 65% number.

This needs careful management or else you might end up with 3,000 thousand instead, which would leave only about 55% born-Singaporeans, below Lee Kuan Yew’s magic number. Presumably, this is what the government leaders meant by having to monitor the immigrant numbers carefully. Our leaders may often be misguided and tactless. But they’re not stupid. It would be stupid, to assume they are stupid.

Now…whether we should target to have 6.5 million in the first place, or target to have 65% born-Singaporeans…is another question for debate.

My kiddo snapped this picture at his school's Cowboy Round-Up.

“I saw the bobcat by the shed. I think it’s here because of the rabbits,” my dad said the other day. “There aren’t as many rabbits around now.”

“Do you remember when I tried to hide rabbits in my closet, Dad?” We have never talked about those rabbits.

“Sure,” he said. “That bobcat is big. I didn’t know bobcat’s got that big. And it’s skinny and tall.”

“Gee, I didn’t know they were very big either, Dad.” We didn’t talk about the rabbits in the closet.

I don’t know what I wanted my dad to say about those rabbits.

I don’t know what I want people to say about my writing either. Being a writer is a hell of a way to live–you might get compliments you can’t believe, you get criticism you don’t want to hear, or you get nothing at all. Did you read my story? Sure. What do you think about bobcats?

In graduate school I met a guy whose job in the Gulf War was to pick corpses up from the roads. He fidgeted in class. The writing life is not that life. It is a luxury. And still I can whine about how much I put into it and I don’t hear what I want to hear.

But when I was a kid, I didn’t hide those rabbits so that my dad and me could have a magical conversation decades later. I’m not writing so that I can hear that magical compliment. I’m writing because I’ve avoided thousands of other jobs.

Are you able to say exactly what you want from others when you write? Money? How much? A compliment? What would that compliment be? Approval? From whom? Revolution? From what?

And when your writing insecurities get out of hand (if you’re the sort of person that happens to), what helps you put things back in perspective?

Despite being raised in a fairly Christian environment to some degree or another, and a brief foray into that evangelical Christian youth group… thing… I am not a religious person. I don’t identify with any particular mainstream religion or any of the “fringe” religions that some of my peers (20-something, middle-class white people) find appealing (why are all the 20-something white kids in Uptown Buddhist? I’m skeptical). I have tried, because I thought that it was important for me to do so, and I have come out of those experiences with more understanding, but not with any particular god or belief system winning me over.

Because of my lack of religious or spiritual belief or dedication, I often find jokes made at the expense of various religions and those who practice them quite funny. A couple feminist blogs recently linked to a video of a group of rapping Christians promoting the “Christian Side Hug,” as opposed to a normal hug which may accidentally arouse someone if they realize they’re touching someone’s breasts or crotch through several layers of clothing.

Ok, that’s really hilarious. And the video is certainly making its rounds, as I received my very own Christian Side Hug on Thanksgiving when at imnotme’s mom’s house.

You know what else is hilarious?

-Muslim men think that when they die, they’ll be greeted by a large number of their very own virgins to deflower in heaven;
-Jews believe that women are impure when menstruating;
-Catholics believe that if they tell a robed man behind a cage all the bad things they did, they are free from consequence;
-Muslim women believe they need to cover their hair, and sometimes their whole head, because they should be more modest than men;
-Muslims, Jews, and Christians believe that a person’s natural inclination toward same-sex romantic relations are evil;
-Many polytheistic religions like Hinduism believe that there are several deities controlling their environment and lives.

(I’m obviously making vast generalizations.)

See, all religious people, regardless of which religion they practice, believe in some weird stuff. The fact that Christians are currently quite influential in Western society doesn’t make that untrue. Can we please stop pretending that we can only make fun of powerful things, people, religions, ethnicities, companies, or belief systems?

Also, sometimes women do dumb stuff, and sometimes Muslims do dumb stuff, and sometimes Asians do dumb stuff. If we feel the need to call people out on their dumb decisions or make fun of their weird behaviors, can we please stop pretending that only certain groups get to be held accountable for their idiocy? Geez.

The lament above came from the comment thread over at the Feministe post, the one making fun of the Christian Side-Huggers. Of course that’s hilarious; what isn’t hilarious about a bunch of kids rapping about how you should leave room for the Holy Spirit in your hug? Der. But when I brought up the fact that the post was written solely for the purpose of making fun of Christians, especially young Christians, and that this would never fly if the object was Islam or Judaism or any other religion, people jumped all over me about how it’s okay to do that when the object of the ridicule is an oppressive group, and that if another group is oppressed, they are basically untouchable when it comes to parodying or laughing at their beliefs or behaviors.

I don’t believe that just because a group can reasonably claim to be oppressed in one particular society, that they are somehow freed of any critique of their choices and behaviors. I do not believe that criticizing oppressive practices or negative behaviors prevalent in an oppressed group further oppresses said group. Ignoring negative qualities because of a perceived disadvantages fosters acceptance of negative and damaging behaviors. Allowing some people or groups to be absolved of responsibility encourages negativity in all senses to further prevail.

Sorry, but I am of the belief that if one makes a choice, it’s subject to criticism and judgment. While it’s always a good idea to practice sensitivity and not be a jerk, if the behavior or attribute in question is not an inherent one, then it’s open to be mocked. For example, I would not make fun of someone for being blind, but I would make fun of someone for wearing hipster glasses.

Critical-thinking caps, people! Don’t take them off just because you’re in the company of other progressive-minded folks!

I read a very short blog post with an excellent point about writing. Why is it that some people can write on while others have trouble writing anything? I have a relative who cannot write even a sentence and he almost went to graduate school. Some people write for a living and others are forced to write and they do it. I can write easily on some topics and really have nothing to say on others. I think the bulk of the people who write professionally are forced writers. I have been told by so many people that most professional journalists (at least in San Francisco) are really professional employees. They specialize in remaining hired and the whole profession revolves around this essential need. Their writing does not fall into any of the categories that a person would assume most writing falls into. They simply write not because their training and experience qualifies them as the better people for that function but because they are employed and it is a requirement of employment.

I used to get much praise for my blog for being a discovery blog. Discovery blog posts can be great source of content start for professional journalists by their originality of ideas. The topic of a discovery blog post can be anything and as long it engaged the writer’s mind, something possibly valuable could appear in the writing about the idea. That is the true criteria for what makes a discovery blog post. I was told last week by one of the great San Francisco journalists (who used to encourage this blog a lot) that my blog ought to be called the ’shit blog’ because all I do is talk shit about everyone. I see nothing wrong with that since the purpose of a discovery blog post is to write what the writer has to say about what has engaged the mind. If all there is to say is ’shit’ about someone or something so be it. I still hear from others that discovery blog posts are valuable in principle and more such blogs should exist.

What is the saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? So if Newsom is the enemy and I am no friend of his that makes me their friend? I guess that is subjective. They decide if that cliche is the truth and for how long it is valid. If they are not getting laid off anymore, then the f…. with everyone including the enemies of the enemies because the enemy failed to get them closed down or am I wrong?

And what of the professionally employed journalists of San Francisco? I heard in the grapevine (which is only accessible by a few) that their parent corporation has finally figured out what is the future for a daily paper written page after page by professionally employed people. The future is worse than past. I hear the axes that were not to fall by end of the year are swinging again and the bean counters now want to close down the whole paper and say maybe someday begin with a whole new staff who are not professionally employed people but real journalists. I personally would have to say the difference between a publication of forced writing and genuine writing is the latter will be received by its audience and can survive financially.

What a weird week I had hearing strange things happening next month!

*This post belongs to this week’s edition of Writing by Cush blog and published early in World of Cush also.

I’ve wanted to write about this for a long time, but did not get the time to do it. Finally, with some time on my hands after escaping from work early, since it’s my wedding anniversary today and my wife is out of town, I thought I’d at least do something that I’ve wanted to in a long time. And that my readers, is share my thoughts with you.

Today’s topic that I have decided to write about is one that frustrates me to no extent to see the kind of spoilt ingrates being churned out by society. A child’s life today is over-protected. As we steer more to the western school of thought and the fact that hurting a child can lead to terrible consequences, the percentage of unsuccessful, low on esteem, frightful, and often queer folks has increased multifold.

There used to be a time when parents would wield a stick, teach a child discipline, and let the child fend for himself in difficult situations. This would be the norm and the done thing. However now, the times – they are a changin’.

Today’s parents are into ‘child worship’. This excessive devotion to children is just mind-numbing. Today’s professional parents are constantly overscheduling and overmanaging their children, and are robbing them of their childhood. Even the simple act of playing has been taken away from them. Something that is supposed to be spontaneous and free has become rigid and overtly planned. Nowadays, a 4-year old should not be playing outside in the sun. He should be inside studying and cramming hard for his Kindergarten entrance exams. All this is for noone else, but for his parents pride and egos.

Children today aren’t allowed to play the ever so famous ‘chor police’, because it includes “victimization”. They aren’t allowed to play ‘tag’ because it includes ‘exclusion’. Instead, they are encouraged to play indoor games involving strategy, games involving intelligence. Where has all the fun gone? These are not droids that we want to churn out. Humans are what we are and humans are what we are expected to produce.

Having said that, when the child finally gets to play – whatever game he/she is allowed to play, the child will never lose, because in today’s world, no child ever loses…everybody wins and noone is a loser. Everyone gets a trophy. No child today ever gets to hear those all-important character building words “You lost”. Instead, these kids are told “You’re the last winner”. Often, these kids don’t hear the right words right up until their twenties, when their bosses tell them to their faces, “You’re a loser!”. And then, this 20-year old child crumbles, goes into depression, and then the psychiatrics take over.

Turn off the internet, the idiot box, the CD ROMS, computer games and let your kids stare at a tree for a couple of hours. Every now and then they will actually come up with one of their own ideas. You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them alone.

Children these days are overrated and overvalued. They’ve become little cult objects. Today’s parents have a child fetish and that’s not a great thing. Often, you’ll get to hear “I love my children”. Well – everyone loves their children…it doesn’t make the person who’s saying it any more special or what they’re saying more believable. Stop praising your kids in front of others (or even in front of the kids themselves). Noone whom you’re telling these things to wants to know, because noone cares. What is this mindless rambling, the neurotic fixation that suggests that somehow everything has to revolve around the life of your child?

What is it with mobile phones and kids these days? How can parents give a 7-year old a cellphone and encourage him/her to talk using that phone? Calling them up in the middle of the day and asking them “Did you eat? Did you go to the loo? When are you coming home? Where are you now? Who are you with? Don’t play with boy ‘X’ because he is a mean boy “. No wonder kids these days run far away from their parents as soon as they are able to. I don’t blame the parents for asking these questions too much, but what I am objecting to is this obsession of not being able to leave their kids alone to fend for themselves and make decisions on their own. So what if it’s the wrong one? They’ll make the mistake and learn. It’s not the end of the world. At least you end up teaching your child one of the most important things in life – being bold enough to take a decision.

Kids love showing off shiny, new things. I remember I used to take pride in a pencil-box my parents once bought me. I would go around showing it off to everyone I knew in school. Often, if I would get good grades, I would tell my friends that it’s because of the lucky pencil/eraser I bought the other day. That is innocence personified. Not like today’s kids, who go around showing off their mobile phones letting other kids know that they have GPRS and can watch videos on their phones. This then forces the jealous kids to make demands of their weak parents, who, for the sake of showing their kids how much they love them, go and buy these kids a better phone than the one they initially demanded….and the cycle goes on.

Do parents really need to “show” their love to their kids? I mean – isn’t it obvious? They bring you into this world, they live together, they feed the kids, they take care of them, they get mad at them as well. Is that not good enough? Why do parents have to buy their kids things, tolerate misbehaviour and indiscipline to show their kids how much they love them? It just makes the kid weaker and more insecure than ever before, not to mention spoilt.

Finally, when the kids turn out all wrong and the parents catch the kid smoking one day at the shop around the corner, they’re going to be ignorant of the fact that they didn’t teach their kids the right things (and expected their schools to do it for them – after all, they spent all their money on that fancy air-conditioned school without uniforms and books, that allowed their children to move around in AC buses, fed them during the day with 5-star category food, allowed them to take a nap, and didn’t give them homework since it was considered as too much pressure for the child). Instead, they blame the tobacco companies, advertisements, the Western world, movies, filmstars, and even believe that the camel in sunglasses asked them to smoke. Today’s parents are responsible for today’s generation and they have failed to make their kids understand right from wrong, good from evil, and even truth from dare.

Children are the most beautiful and innocent things that were ever created. Parents end up spoiling them by imposing their beliefs and views, being overprotective, scheduling their time for them, succumbing to their kids’ whims and fancies, letting the child take control of them instead of the other way round. At the end of it, these same parents end up demanding respect from their children. They forget that respect cannot be demanded – it must be earned….and we all end up blaming none other than “the kids these days….”

Edition 22 had over a dozen posts of reflections and short pieces and worked out well so I expect for follow this format.

Time has arrived for the public libraries and other large size book carriers to separate the outdated texts from the uptodate and valid texts to save us some time and ebooks are now a must. UC raised the price on its brand last week resulting in riots. How much will a college logo on the back of a person’s head will finally cost in the future and do we have a chance of living in the society with only an education but not the actual brand label? And twitter got blamed again for something it did not do. The first decade of 21st century is aptly named George W. Bush Decade (of evil worldwide and domestic) but I made too many people angry for calling a spade a spade. Michael Jackson has some company since last week. And did you know not all celebrities are human according to very credible psychics? Twitter scam is ending and celebrities are ordered not to use it before s..t hits the fan. There is nothing I would want more to see everywhere starting 2010 than inexpensive vertical computer monitors (or at least ones that swivel with a motion) for reading texts (fast) by enlarging the ebook pages. And people used to worship Saints at one time until celebrities took their places. Could a celebrity be no more than a common criminal with much protection from the law? I found another explanation why Yelp shilling does not work. And TV is to be banned sooner or later for the sake of our lives.

*This post belongs to this week’s edition of Writing by Cush blog and published early in World of Cush also.

Edition 22 had over a dozen posts of reflections and short pieces and worked out well so I expect for follow this format.

Time has arrived for the public libraries and other large size book carriers to separate the outdated texts from the uptodate and valid texts to save us some time and ebooks are now a must. UC raised the price on its brand last week resulting in riots. How much will a college logo on the back of a person’s head will finally cost in the future and do we have a chance of living in the society with only an education but not the actual brand label? And twitter got blamed again for something it did not do. The first decade of 21st century is aptly named George W. Bush Decade (of evil worldwide and domestic) but I made too many people angry for calling a spade a spade. Michael Jackson has some company since last week. And did you know not all celebrities are human according to very credible psychics? Twitter scam is ending and celebrities are ordered not to use it before s..t hits the fan. There is nothing I would want more to see everywhere starting 2010 than inexpensive vertical computer monitors (or at least ones that swivel with a motion) for reading texts (fast) by enlarging the ebook pages. And people used to worship Saints at one time until celebrities took their places. Could a celebrity be no more than a common criminal with much protection from the law? I found another explanation why Yelp shilling does not work. And TV is to be banned sooner or later for the sake of our lives.

*This post belongs to this week’s edition of Writing by Cush blog and published early in World of Cush also.

The 22 Edition is almost exactly what I had planned for that edition. I was able to follow my posting schedule for Monday to Friday and each day had two photographs. That is the maximum I can do considering my other obligations. It is also enough to analyze some photos while I figure out how to add my own photos regularly without analyzing them which takes a very long time. Edition 22 has the basic postings of the blog as I had planned and hopefully remains such for the next editions.

*This post belongs to this week’s edition of Photo Reviews by Cush blog and published early in World of Cush also.

The 22 Edition is almost exactly what I had planned for that edition. I was able to follow my posting schedule for Monday to Friday and each day had two photographs. That is the maximum I can do considering my other obligations. It is also enough to analyze some photos while I figure out how to add my own photos regularly without analyzing them which takes a very long time. Edition 22 has the basic postings of the blog as I had planned and hopefully remains such for the next editions.

*This post belongs to this week’s edition of Photo Reviews by Cush blog and published early in World of Cush also.

John Clute’s Excessive Candour review column recently transfered from SF Weekly to Sci-Fi Wire when the former merged with the latter. This caused some degree of confusion for the punters of Sci-Fi Wire and eventually lead to Clute being dumped before immediately being snapped up by Strange Horizons.

Back in September, Jeff Vandermeer helpfully gave Sci-Fi Wire’s readers a translation of his review of The Wind-Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Vandermeer concluded:

In an age when we have not too much sophisticated analysis of books but too little, it is hard to fault a reviewer for expanding our vocabulary even as he explicates a text. The fact is, the ways in which his words seem to stand out like a flashing siren or fit in as if part of an intricate mosaic will always depend on the brains of each individual reader.

There is some further discussion of this over at Torque Control. This has got me thinking: how do I feel about Clute? I have always counted him a good thing but only in an unreflexive and passive way. I may read his reviews but I don’t seek them out and I prefer many other reviewers. I despise the willful ignorance of the people on Sci-Fi Wire who dismiss him out of hand but at times his stylistic excesses irritate me and appear more like obfuscation than illumination. I have failed to truly engage with anything he has written. So I have resolved to think more closely about him, his use of language and his critical framework. I’m not sure what form this will take (or why you would be interested) but it may well involve a more serious take on Vandermeer’s translation idea once Clute is ensconced at Strange Horizons.

It's cold in the desert.

All those movies, have in some way come true.

Needles, California. Population 5246. It is here where you see the real America.

A quiet, small town on the bank of the Colorado river, where it’s cool in the winter but blistering hot in the summer. A town on the edge of time, as driving over the river makes you lose an hour, jumping into another time zone. People living on different sides of the river constantly have to be sure whether they are talking about their time, or your time.

A man asks a woman out on a date. Sure, she says. I’ll pick you up at 7, he says and she smiles. The next Friday he comes to pick her up but doesn’t realize that they don’t live in the same timezone, picking her up an hour late.

The old Route 66 goes right through Needles, a homage to older times where the west was the promised land. Highways and interstates later, fewer people drive through Route 66. Nobody wants to drive over mountains and through small quaint towns like Needles on their way to the ocean. They want their land of opportunities now! With fries and an ocean view.

Needles is  a one bar town, and the bar happens to be the dive bar of dive bars. It’s the type of bar where you wait while the waitress finishes singing her karaoke song of choice before she stumbles back to serve you, her crooked gap-toothed smile equally terrifying as the crazy lady next to you trying to make conversation.

There’s a small town mentality to people here, I’ve been told. People don’t leave Needles, and therefore think, that everything they do, however minuscule it is, is the cat’s pajamas. People think they are the coolest, although they couldn’t recognize coolness and beauty if it stared them in the face. Kids in their early adulthood who don’t go to college get stuck here, making a name for themselves. A name that would probably get flushed down the toilet in a big city world.

Which reminds me a little bit of Iceland. We have a tendency to think that everything we do is the shit. We are trendsetters and suave in every way. In our little country. Here in Needles, and in other small towns it’s called getting out of the town, or escaping for the big city. In Iceland, it’s called getting off the island. People in Iceland like to think that they’re inventive, creative and cool. And maybe, in some way, they are. But just like the cool Needles kid that think he’s the shit, our trendy coolness gets lost down the drain of the big bad world.

I used to think I was fairly intelligent and knew enough to get me far. And maybe, in some way, I still do. But now I have been exposed to things, people and mentalities that beg to differ. There’s a lot of things you can get away with in a small town bubble, but when you expand that bubble, you have to expand yourself. Push the envelope, educate yourself.

There’s a Small Town U.S.A. mentality in all of us. A calm comfort zone that says it’s OK to slow down and get stale. It’s the ones that beat the comfort zone and don’t get swept into the arms of mediocrity that succeed.

There’s a Small Town U.S.A. mentality in all of us. You just have to rise above and beat it, don’t keep on waiting on the world to change.

The photo is very interesting and deep. The content serve as a painting and not a photograph. The several geographical areas are distinct but the colors within are not. The colors match, clash and go well together. The big vertical and big horizontal lines help chart the photo but cannot give it identity. The colors are everything in the photo. Each of the four squares can be and is a separate painting on one’s own. The message is contained within a rectangular area and does not necessarily link to the other three spaces. Each space sets a different mood and does or does not communicate a message. The blue feels peaceful. The tan is a void and eye feels avoided. The red feels like a normal state of mind was crashed with something not pleasant but does not imply violence necessarily. The box implies arrangement and function between the geometric shapes. The effect of the overall photograph is nothing clear. One feels an urge to stay and watch the photo until satisfied. The mind may have some understanding of the details but consciously the subjects have little meaning. The framing of the photograph makes this more of an artwork than a photograph. A better approach maybe to include as much of the borders of the (door?) subject so one can see this as both a photograph and a surface of artistic potential.

The source for this photograph is: http://www.adliterate.com/archives/2009/09/who_is_to_blame.html

*This post belongs to this week’s edition of Photo Reviews by Cush blog and published early in World of Cush also.