June 2004 Archives

Introducing Lip Venom (NY Times article). Now you can sting your lips into a fuller, more luxurious state of distention, with this painful, irritant-laden lip gloss. This is just the thing for my date tonight.

This stuff literally makes your lips inflate by irritating them with some secret combination of chemicals. People who have used it say that it hurts, but it’s worth it to have full, plump lips.

WTF! Who are you people?!

[via Kottke.org]

Yesterday someone asked me what it was like being a “lapsed Mormon.” It’s not the first time someone I hardly know has quizzed me about my religion (and it’s certainly not the first time I’ve been called a variation on “lapsed”), but no matter how many times I am asked it always makes me smile and laugh a little. First of all, it’s so broad, so wide in scope that I literally am unable to answer. It happens every time — I just snicker, smile and say something like, “What do you mean? You have to ask me a specific question.” How can I be expected to describe how it feels to be Mormon or explain “that Mormon thing”? I especially love, “What do Mormons believe?”

People know I don’t go to church any more, or at least they assume that I don’t, and that’s fine. I don’t go to church anymore, and I struggle with my faith as much as anyone does. So, yesterday when this person asked me why I was LDS, I told him the truth — because I was born that way. But he wanted to know if I had a strong relationship with the Church — again the truth: no, not really. Then why do I identify as Mormon? It got me thinking (as this conversation I have had innumerable times always does) why do I claim to be Mormon when I don’t have the strong faith of many in my family, or any particular intensely religious sentiments?

One day I decided that my answer would be, “Because I am culturally Mormon.”

My family is Mormon, they are from Utah, and members of the Church are a peculiar people, as the saying goes. We have habits, and sayings, and some quirky beliefs. I find the Church and its members fascinating on a purely intellectual level, and loving and kind on a personal one. LDS say things like ‘whole fam-damnly’ and ‘from Hell to breakfast,’ we have big families and believe we are doomed to live with them for all eternity. We like to eat at all church functions, our congregations are called ‘wards’, we don’t baptize until 8 years old, and the leader of the Church communicates directly with God. Like it or not all of this is bound up in who I am — and I do like it, actually.

I don’t appreciate being described as a ‘lapsed’ Mormon or an ex-Mormon, and it’s irritating when others do it for me. The LDS Church is an organization of good people collectively trying to do what in their hearts they know to be the work of God and, despite my lack of faith, I respect that immensely and don’t mind at all being lumped together in the same category. It can only make me look better. And so I seem defensive when it comes to people bad-mouthing the Church. Anytime anyone spouts some crap about ‘sacred underwear’ or polygamy, I am there to smack them down with a fact or two (at least I hope).

Call me Mormon, LDS, a Saint (I like that one), or whatever, but don’t say I can’t really be Mormon because I drink coffee and don’t go to church every Sunday.

An Iranian news agency is reporting that a local woman gave birth to a frog. According to the paper, she picked up a larvae when she was swimming in a pond, which was apparently not chlorinated. Doctors claim that the frog has “human characteristics,” but no tests have been done yet to confirm the part humanness of the beast.

Read the full story on the Beeb’s website.

I’m sure the hierarchy and many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints celebrated the day Mitt Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts. It’s always a pleasure to see LDS people elected to high office because of the stigma that many people have about the Church. However, Romney’s administration probably won’t be one that many other people will rejoice in living under. Particularly because Gov. Romney leads the first state in the Union to legalize same-sex marriage on the same level as opposite-sex marriage. A huge win for equal rights and fair government, but a blow to conservative moralism and to Mitt, its champion in Mass.

A few days ago Gov. Romney testified before the Senate that same-sex marriage would “spread like wildfire” if the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) was not passed. Like wildfire? That sounds like language the CDC would use to describe the dangers of a SARS outbreak. When did gay marriage become a disease? Do people honestly think of in that way? It’s funny that Romney would use this kind of language. It sounds oddly familiar to me; like something that might have been said about Mormonism in the 19th century: “We have to be vigilant, for the mormon infection is spreading, consuming out land and driving us out of our communities.” It is foul and pejorative, and does not deserve the dignity of public utterance. Yet, this kind of language — and much worse — is what people of faith and position are using to describe an act of love and commitment. How incongruous, how unfair, how unfaithful to the spirit of the Scriptures and to common decency. Mitt and I would decry any attempt to say that his position as Governor and his religion are an inherent danger to the state or to its citizens, and we would do it with the full knowledge that we were right.

Romney also claimed, in the same session, that gay marriage would “affect the development of children,” without saying what those effects might be. Exactly what effects would come from having two dads? Let’s make a list:

• reduced brain capacity due to overexposure to hair products, Judy Garland
• weak wrist muscles cause by lack of baseball/football tossing
• inability to learn at school, no showtune soundtrack
• unnatural happiness at having two parents for whole life
• irreligiosity, revolted by gross lack of charity in policies re. homos
• danger of private school attendance because avg. income of gay couples is higher than national avg.
• democrat due to socially liberal leaning of parents
• stunted growth, see item 1

I have no doubt the list could go on, but you get the idea: You have no idea what kinds of dangerous repercussions two loving parents could have on a small, vulnerable, impressionable child.

Here’s a the second part of Mitt’s erudite comment: “Until we understand the implications for human development of a different definition of marriage, I believe we should preserve that which has endured over thousands of years.” What crap! It is crap to assume anything two homosexual people could do is more harmful to a child than anything two straight people could do. If we are making a potential for danger to a putative children a prerequisite for getting married then we need to have some kind of screening process for straight people. I mean my parents are divorced, just think about what kind of damage could have befallen me. And I had well-intentioned parents with big hearts and lots of love, imagine what some kids have to live with everyday. But no one said their parents couldn’t get married because they might damage them.

Let’s be honest for a minute. The real reason that social conservatives and religious movements dislike same-sex marriage is that they are unsettled by it on some visceral level. Either they don’t like the idea of the sex, or they have religious beliefs that preclude accepting gay marriage or relationships as valid, or they just dislike a change in the happy order of the universe. But none of these things has one iota of consequence when we consider the law and rational fairness. There is no danger to civil society or children or opposite-sex marriage or democracy or the market economy or national security or anything else. The only danger is to the status quo, and that has changed many times before for the better. It will change again because regular people have an innate notion of how they expect government to run and how they expect people to be treated.

The United States has been pursuing a UN resolution that would give US peacekeepers immunity from the International Court of Justice, which the country has immunity from until 1 July. But today the Administration announced that it would not seek to extend the shield any longer.

Good. Why should we expect to have our soldier exempted from a court that was set-up by the United Nations? I have no doubt that US soldiers are honorable men and women who do their jobs with the utmost respect for human rights and life. But there is no way we can be sure that this will be the case in every instance — especially given the recent activities at Abu Ghrab prison in Iraq.

For some reason artists are attracted to New York City. Maybe it’s some supposed bohemian atmosphere. Or maybe there are just more people interested in art here than elsewhere. Or more likely they come here because they are bad artists, but people in New York are too unwilling to say so for fear of being thought uninsightful or uptight or elitist. Well, maybe I am uninsightful or elitest or both, but a lot of this crap is just that — crap.

Take, for example, the 300 lbs. of sliced ham on a bed at the left. Is that art? No, it’s just 300 lbs. of perfectly good ham gone to waste because some dithering idiot thinks it is shocking or interesting or moving or deep or makes a statement or some such drivel. But really it’s just crap, and the City is full of it — a lot of it from ‘artists’.

Some great shots from the New York Botanical Garden.

Check out this album of excellent pictures from the New York Commute.

Until 1999 there was only one country on Earth that hadn’t experienced the glory and the wonder that is television: Bhutan, a remote kingdom in the Himalayas. Five years ago the kingdom decided to allow people to purchase televisions and allowed the creation of local broadcasters.

Now there is a move in the country to restrict television programming because it is adversely affecting young people. In particular, apparently, wrestling matches from the United States have been driving up violence rates among schoolboys.

Read more from the BBC

“I don’t eat things that swim.” That has been an axiom with me for years because I don’t like fish, lobsters, shrimp, snake, squid, or any other kind of seafood, but it’s more fun to say I don’t eat things that swim and it covers a wide swath of things I don’t like. After my trip to China recently though I have had to modulate my rule somewhat—now I can eat select fish if I have met him/her first. This ensures freshness, which is key when one wants to avoid a “fishy” smell and taste. I still refuse to eat shrimps, crabs and other crustaceans though, and I have just come across another reason why.

Yesterday I was reading and I realized that sea creatures like lobsters, crabs, etc. are simply giant bugs. They are a suborder of the phylum ‘arthropoda,’ which puts them in the same category as lice, ants, scorpions (popular in China, actually), spider, insects, grasshoppers. Who wants to eat that kind of thing? Maybe it’s a cultural thing — in fact I know it is a cultural thing — but I don’t care, that is gross. No crust bugs for me, thank you very much.

Just thought it was interesting. Happy eating!

Here is an intriguing piece on road congestion claiming that the best way to alleviate traffic jams and decrease automobile related fatalities is to eliminate road signs, on-road markings, traffic controls (i.e. lights, stop signs), and speed limits. The idea is that when we drive we become mindless drones that expect a certain level of privilege on roadways, we rely on signage, and controls to direct us, and we ignore what is going on around us, i.e. other cars, children at play, etc.

Rejecting the idea of separating people from vehicular traffic, it’s a concept that privileges multiplicity over homogeneity, disorder over order, and intrigue over certainty. In practice, it’s about dismantling barriers: between the road and the sidewalk, between cars, pedestrians and cyclists and, most controversially, between moving vehicles and children at play.

But by eliminating the things that reinforce drivers’ complacency they are forced to may more attention to what is happening on and around the road. This leads to increased accident rates.

One of the things I found most interesting was the reference to traffic patterns in China:

It’s rush hour, and I am standing at the corner of Zhuhui and Renmin Road, a four-lane intersection in Suzhou, China. Ignoring the red light, a couple of taxis and a dozen bicycles are headed straight for a huge mass of cyclists, cars, pedicabs and mopeds that are turning left in front of me. Cringing, I anticipate a collision. Like a flock of migrating birds, however, the mass changes formation. A space opens up, the taxis and bicycles move in, and hundreds of commuters continue down the street, unperturbed and fatality free.

In Suzhou, the traffic rules are simple. “There are no rules,” as one local told me. A city of 2.2 million people, Suzhou has 500,000 cars and 900,000 bicycles, not to mention hundreds of pedicabs, mopeds and assorted, quainter forms of transportation. Drivers of all modes pay little attention to the few traffic signals and weave wildly from one side of the street to another. Defying survival instincts, pedestrians have to barge between oncoming cars to cross the roads.

But here’s the catch: During the 10 days I spent in Suzhou last fall, I didn’t see a single accident. Really, not a single one. Nor was there any of the road rage one might expect given the anarchy that passes for traffic policy. And despite the obvious advantages that accrue to cars because of their size, no single transportation mode dominates the streets.

From what I observed this is an accurate description of the way traffic seems to operate in China. There are hordes of cyclists and pedestrians and cars, and they have no problems commingling in the streets, especially at intersections.

Read the article, it’s a much better and more in-depth discussion than mine.

Kottke.org - Second Generation traffic calming

John Kerry has been looking for a running mate for a while now, here are the pros and cons for some of Kerry’s top 20 picks:

4. Bill Clinton, former President

Pro: Oh man, that would be awesome幼ould you imagine? He’d be all like Yeah, I’m back, so suck on this, y’all and everyone would be all No way and he’d be all Way
Con: None

5. Bob Graham, Senator; Florida

Pro: Decades-long career as America’s most popular evangelist could deliver Christians and conservatives
Con: Invented the graham cracker, which, frankly, isn’t that great

8: H. Ross Perot, businessman; Texas

Pro: Hilarity
Con: None

19. Fourteen dogs from Ohio; Ohio

Pros: Everyone loves dogs, each dog could be different, like one’s a mean dog and one’s a cute dog and one wears glasses and looks like a computer-whiz dog; could deliver swing state
Cons: So many dogs could mean diluted message; can’t talk

[from the endless hilarity that is McSweeny’s]

Earlier this week the president held a media event with Hamid Karzai, Afghan President, in the Rose Garden at the White House. Here is an excerpt:

QUESTION:He said politicians should not wear religious faith on their sleeve.A lot of Republicans interpreted those remarks as being critical of you and your position of stem cell.I’d like to ask you about that.

BUSH:I — whether or not a politician should wear their — I think — I’ve always said I think it’s very important for someone not to try to take the speck out of somebody’s else’s eye when they may have a log in their own.In other words, I’m very mindful about saying, you know, “Oh, vote for me, I’m more religious than my neighbor.”

And I think it’s — I think it’s perfectly — I think it’s important for people of religion to serve.I think it is very important for people who are serving to make sure there’s a separation of church and state.(emphasis added)

(Washington Post)

Now see his performance yesterday at the Southern Baptist Convention.

INDIANAPOLIS, June 17 - President Bush’s re-election campaign took its effort to enlist churches in turning out conservative voters to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention this week, to do everything short of risking their churches’ tax-exempt status to support the president’s re-election” (NY Times).

Last night I was walking from my apartment to a friend’s to hang out for a bit, have a drink, and chat. On the way there I had to pass the 24/7 flower stand that I have only ever seen closed once since I moved downtown—and that was because they were tearing up the sidewalk in front. A guy was looking at flowers and he reached for a bouquet while taking a long drag off his cigarette, and just when he stuck his nose into the arrangement to get a whiff he exhaled the cig smoke. WTF! How can you expect to smell anything with your head in a cone of smoke?

It may not make you smile, but it made me crack a grin.

From today’s McSweeny’s, “How to tell people you are a Billionaire without sounding obnoxious.”

1. Excuse me, but did you know that I am a billionaire? Well, I am. Nice wheelchair, asshole.

2. Pardon me, but did you drop this wallet? Oh, no, wait. I dropped it. I guess because it was so full of money. (Sigh.) Billions of dollars, in fact. Come back here or I’ll hire someone to kill you.

3. My, what a cute baby. I have a baby at home made entirely out of one-hundred-dollar bills. Why do you think Jesus loves me so much? Is it because I am a billionaire?

4. What nice weather we’re having. I enjoy the rain. I also enjoy inviting a bunch of orphans over to my house and telling them that I am going to adopt them. Then, at the end of the day, I gather them around me and, after pausing to puff on my pipe, I say, “Just kidding, jerks.” I am a billionaire.

And my personal favorite:

5. Do you know what a billion dollars looks like? I guess not, because you are blind. I’m sleeping with your wife.

One Wal-Mart opens every 1.65 days.

Check out this great collection of beautiful pictures taken from kites in mid air.

After several aborted attempts, I finally got to see the third installment of the Harry Potter series on Saturday. The third book is my favorite of the five so far, so this has been a long-anticipated event for me and my feelings are mixed. On one hand I am irritated that so much was changed in the adaptation of the book for the screen. Having read the books so many times I noticed all the additions, subtractions, and shifts a lot more than others probably did. But visually the film has improved by a magnitude over the first two. It was stunning and a significant break with the clearly fake look of the past, and yet it still kept up a common thread so as not to jar too much.

My favorite change, and one that I think makes a huge difference for realism, is the writing done for the teenagers. In the books Rowling wrote the students as perfect little people, with uncommon wit and manners. The script for Azkaban the film gives them a more realistic attitude and speech patterns more appropriate to their ages—they are 13 in this installment.

There has been an ongoing effort by the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project and members of Congress to have Former President Ronald Reagan’s portrait replace that of the first secretary of the United States, Alexander Hamilton, on the $10 bill. What a silly idea. Reagan was a fine president in general, but I hardly see how we can justify demoting one of the Founding Fathers without some extraordinary motivation. There will be plenty of ways to cement the legacy of President Reagan in the future, maybe we can put his face on the penny—Lincoln won’t mind I’m sure. he’s already got the nickel and the $5 bill.

Caveat: I just finished reading a biography of Alexander Hamilton so I am feeling particularly fond of him at the moment.

Apparently Taco Bell Chalupas are hazardous to your health in more than one way. Check out this report.

For those of you not among the 50 people I called while I was waiting in the insane JFK cab stand on Sunday afternoon, I am back in New York. You can rest easier knowing that I am safe in a non-Communist country with free speech, freedom of religion and legitimate elections. Not that I didn’t have an amazing time while I was in China because I did and I hope I will get to go back again some time. I will miss the great food and the inexpensive living, which really can’t be beat.

Some have complained that my posts have not covered all of my trip’s activities, and that is true. We kept pretty busy and my connection to the Internet wasn’t as reliable or as free in Beijing as it was in Hong Kong, so my posts were less frequent. We also did so much that I simply didn’t have enough time to write about everything in detail or I figured that lots of it just wasn’t interesting to other people (much as this post isn’t interesting).

I will try and add some details in the next few days and I will also be working on a real, working photo album for my huge collection of pictures. But it could be some time since I have a job and an internship and other life-stuff to take care of too.

Keep checking back from time to time and hopefully I’ll have some new stuff to say.

McSweeny’s has got some great “talking points” for use by professional references, check ‘em out.

Here is an excerpt, my favorite:

3. What is your overall evaluation of this applicant?

He is the apotheosis of mankind, period! Ha-ha, just kidding. Or am I? [Huge contemplative pause.] In the history of time, I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed someone so young and yet so mature. Various things that come to mind when thinking about him, which I do often, even outside of work: self-possessed, tall, strong handed, upright, weight-bearing, dynamic, full bodied, melodic, sweet smelling, and aplomb-filled. I could go on and on, but let me just say this:

[Closing Argument]

As promised, more pictures for your viewing pleasure.

The Temple of Heaven—30 May 2004

The Great Wall—31 May 2004

The Summer Palace—1 June 2004

While I was in Hong Kong I picked up some Cantonese (the Chinese dialect spoken there). Here’s a little sample:

• “tsa siu fan” — roast pork with rice
• “dong lai cha” — iced milk tea
• “bolo bao” — sweet roll (topped with shredded pineapple)
• “mmm goy sai” — thank you
• “tsa sui bao” — roast pork roll

Last week I learned an interesting fact at one of our Hong Kong lectures. According to my prof ad spending per person in Hong Kong is over $100 higher per year than in the US—$631 (HK) versus $507 (US). Ad spending in mainland China on the other had is only $10.