Apparently humans aren't the only animals who love a good time...here's a story about some birds who were - and I'm not even remotely kidding; who could make this stuff up? - flying drunk.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6982867/?GT=6190
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Thursday, February 17, 2005
A Cute Little Picture
So I'm normally not the biggest fan of e-mail forwards, but my aunt sent me these pictures that she received by way of some e-mail chain and I just had to share them. Apparently this couple found the deer on their front step, seemingly motherless, and decided to take it in until it can get its strength back. As the story goes, the dog has completely taken over the task of caring for it; the fawn even sleeps in the dog's bed.
A deer with a dog. Think they're aware of the alliteration?
A deer with a dog. Think they're aware of the alliteration?
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
All Hail Mao Zedong...
I got to see my friend Kaman today, who I've seen almost none of since I got back from Beijing. She's from Hong Kong, and helped me out with a linguistics project by recording herself saying all kinds of ridiculous sentences in Cantonese. ("He gave us two ducks. Is that hen yours? No, it's not mine. It's his." Etc. etc. etc.)
She's always wanted to go back to Hong Kong once she graduated. She just got hired on with one of the big four accounting firms (Arthur Andersen, I think?) and she's graduating this spring. When I asked her if she'd be transferring back home in her newfound capacity as an Internal Auditor she just sighed and shrugged.
"I don't know if I want to," she said. "These days if you work at a big company there three weeks out of the month you're in the mainland. And you know how much I hate it."
I do. When we were there together it was hard to miss her less than favorable opinion of her homeland's Big Brother (pun intended). The food was bad. It was boring. The people were racist. (They were, actually, especially against her ironically enough, but that isn't really the point.) What is the point is that she, like most of her fellow Hong-Kongians, are now subject to a corrupt government that they pretty well detest.
It got me to thinking about two things: one, why? China gives all kinds of political justifications for its reunification of Hong Kong, and I suppose from a political science standpoint a lot of them are probably valid. But why should a people have to be subject to a government just because it had been at some time in the past millennium? Most of them call themselves Chinese, but they don't identify with China. They identify with Hong Kong, which until the past twenty years couldn't possibly have been more different. So why is it so necessary, under some vast and sweeping pretext of unity, to subject a people to anything they don't really want to be a part of?
Okay, so Hong Kong is at least understandable, because there's some economic benefit to China in its reintegration. But how about Tibet? That's just greedy. There's nothing there but a bunch of Buddhists, and as much as we all love the Buddhists, how much national benefit could come of its takeover? It's not as though they're contributing anything to the gross national product. We're talking about a whole race of people whose lives are based on sitting around staring at walls and humming to themselves. If they'd rather chant in Tibetan than in Mandarin, why stop them? Who are they hurting?
Which brings me to question number two: what is it about our own patriotism that makes us want to force it on others? Why is it that Abraham Lincoln was so obsessed with not letting the south break away? Why can't the blue states form their own countries, if they feel so underrepresented? These aren't rhetorical questions, either, but genuine curiosities. After all government is, at least to some extent, just an artificial social structure. A necessary one, but not one set in place by the forces of nature. George Bush is still just a man. Jacques Chirac is still just a man. And the Chinese are starting to figure out that Mao was just a man. We support the governments of the people we think share our morals, we pooh-pooh the people who do things differently, and in the meantime my friend Kaman doesn't feel safe raising her children in the place where she grew up.
Maybe I've been reading too much John Locke, but doesn't this defeat the purpose of government in the first place? Isn't the whole point kind of a safety in numbers kind of deal? And how did it end up that, even in America, in the end it's still just the rule of the many by a few idiots with really white smiles?
She's always wanted to go back to Hong Kong once she graduated. She just got hired on with one of the big four accounting firms (Arthur Andersen, I think?) and she's graduating this spring. When I asked her if she'd be transferring back home in her newfound capacity as an Internal Auditor she just sighed and shrugged.
"I don't know if I want to," she said. "These days if you work at a big company there three weeks out of the month you're in the mainland. And you know how much I hate it."
I do. When we were there together it was hard to miss her less than favorable opinion of her homeland's Big Brother (pun intended). The food was bad. It was boring. The people were racist. (They were, actually, especially against her ironically enough, but that isn't really the point.) What is the point is that she, like most of her fellow Hong-Kongians, are now subject to a corrupt government that they pretty well detest.
It got me to thinking about two things: one, why? China gives all kinds of political justifications for its reunification of Hong Kong, and I suppose from a political science standpoint a lot of them are probably valid. But why should a people have to be subject to a government just because it had been at some time in the past millennium? Most of them call themselves Chinese, but they don't identify with China. They identify with Hong Kong, which until the past twenty years couldn't possibly have been more different. So why is it so necessary, under some vast and sweeping pretext of unity, to subject a people to anything they don't really want to be a part of?
Okay, so Hong Kong is at least understandable, because there's some economic benefit to China in its reintegration. But how about Tibet? That's just greedy. There's nothing there but a bunch of Buddhists, and as much as we all love the Buddhists, how much national benefit could come of its takeover? It's not as though they're contributing anything to the gross national product. We're talking about a whole race of people whose lives are based on sitting around staring at walls and humming to themselves. If they'd rather chant in Tibetan than in Mandarin, why stop them? Who are they hurting?
Which brings me to question number two: what is it about our own patriotism that makes us want to force it on others? Why is it that Abraham Lincoln was so obsessed with not letting the south break away? Why can't the blue states form their own countries, if they feel so underrepresented? These aren't rhetorical questions, either, but genuine curiosities. After all government is, at least to some extent, just an artificial social structure. A necessary one, but not one set in place by the forces of nature. George Bush is still just a man. Jacques Chirac is still just a man. And the Chinese are starting to figure out that Mao was just a man. We support the governments of the people we think share our morals, we pooh-pooh the people who do things differently, and in the meantime my friend Kaman doesn't feel safe raising her children in the place where she grew up.
Maybe I've been reading too much John Locke, but doesn't this defeat the purpose of government in the first place? Isn't the whole point kind of a safety in numbers kind of deal? And how did it end up that, even in America, in the end it's still just the rule of the many by a few idiots with really white smiles?
Thursday, February 03, 2005
中文版
我 剛才發現了我在電腦裏寫得 到 漢字。 這個讓我很高興； 現在我可以讓每個中國人哈哈大笑。 是的，我的中文真的那麽懷。所以我對讀這封信的中國人說：非常對不起。我從來沒說我會說中文說得很好。 哎呀，英文我都不會說吧。就是寫中文的時候可以玩一下， 也讓別的美國人覺得我很聰明阿。:)
I just figured out that I can type Chinese characters on the computer. This makes me really happy; now I can give all the Chinese people a good hearty laugh. Yes, my Chinese really is that bad. So to all the Chinese people who are reading this I say, I am really sorry. I never said I could speak Chinese well. Heck, I can't even speak English. It's just that I can have a little fun writing in Chinese, and it makes other Americans think I'm really smart. :)
I just figured out that I can type Chinese characters on the computer. This makes me really happy; now I can give all the Chinese people a good hearty laugh. Yes, my Chinese really is that bad. So to all the Chinese people who are reading this I say, I am really sorry. I never said I could speak Chinese well. Heck, I can't even speak English. It's just that I can have a little fun writing in Chinese, and it makes other Americans think I'm really smart. :)
Untitled Because I'm Cool Like That
I have to start out by apologizing for the fact that I haven't posted anything in almost a month; my parents were up for Christmas, and after that school started back up again, and to be frank I've had hardly a moment to myself since I sat down to write my last post. But I'm still alive - at least I think I am, though I'll admit I've been looking a little ashen in the mirror lately - and thought a small update would be appropriate for those of you who still either are desperately looking for ways to kill time on the internet or are serious gluttons for punishment. Because I should think, seriously, that by this time all the impatient riff-raff would have been weeded out from my readership. You all are the special ones. Or one, as the case may in fact perhaps be.
We've been keeping ourselves ridiculously busy; myself with a full courseload of Chinese classes (including a course in Chinese linguistics, which covers such course matter as all seven dialect groups and the memorization of the International Phonetic Alphabet), and John with his math, physics, and programming. I'm still mulling over the dilemma of whether or not I should apply to graduate school next year or wait awhile; the GRE's are rapidly approaching, and still I change my mind every day. John keeps telling me to make a list of the pros and cons, but I'm afraid that I'm so moment-minded that any foresight with organization of that magnitude completely escapes me. Besides, I can't much see the value in this methodology: it stands to reason that some pros and/or cons are potentially going to have more weight than their opposing counterparts. By the time I wrote the appropriate mathematical formula for figuring it all out and programmed it into my graphing calculator, I could have already made the decision the old-fashioned way. I'm starting to see the attraction in flipping a coin.
I'm reading two books right now: Carter Beats the Devil - so far intriguing, but I haven't gotten past the second chapter, so maybe not that intriguing - and Sourcery, one of Terry Pratchett's hilariously fantastic Discworld novels. Great stuff, those. John bought me a signed first-edition of Going Postal two weeks ago, which I ploughed through in two days before wrapping it in bubble wrap and putting it in a safe. I'm sure we all wish I was exaggerating. I've been writing, too, much thanks to John who pushes me endlessly (he says it's because he believes in me; I say it's because he wants me to write a runaway blockbuster so he can live high on the hog. Or tofu. Either way, his support is a lifesaver. I'd have given up on myself a long time ago if it wasn't for him.)
And that's it. I will try to post more often, though probably not every day. Which is more boring, a person who could fill the entire allotted memory of her blog with one long page of random information, or a person who feeds you small bits of random information on a daily basis? This isn't a rhetorical question, either. I'm a writer. I need to know these things.
We've been keeping ourselves ridiculously busy; myself with a full courseload of Chinese classes (including a course in Chinese linguistics, which covers such course matter as all seven dialect groups and the memorization of the International Phonetic Alphabet), and John with his math, physics, and programming. I'm still mulling over the dilemma of whether or not I should apply to graduate school next year or wait awhile; the GRE's are rapidly approaching, and still I change my mind every day. John keeps telling me to make a list of the pros and cons, but I'm afraid that I'm so moment-minded that any foresight with organization of that magnitude completely escapes me. Besides, I can't much see the value in this methodology: it stands to reason that some pros and/or cons are potentially going to have more weight than their opposing counterparts. By the time I wrote the appropriate mathematical formula for figuring it all out and programmed it into my graphing calculator, I could have already made the decision the old-fashioned way. I'm starting to see the attraction in flipping a coin.
I'm reading two books right now: Carter Beats the Devil - so far intriguing, but I haven't gotten past the second chapter, so maybe not that intriguing - and Sourcery, one of Terry Pratchett's hilariously fantastic Discworld novels. Great stuff, those. John bought me a signed first-edition of Going Postal two weeks ago, which I ploughed through in two days before wrapping it in bubble wrap and putting it in a safe. I'm sure we all wish I was exaggerating. I've been writing, too, much thanks to John who pushes me endlessly (he says it's because he believes in me; I say it's because he wants me to write a runaway blockbuster so he can live high on the hog. Or tofu. Either way, his support is a lifesaver. I'd have given up on myself a long time ago if it wasn't for him.)
And that's it. I will try to post more often, though probably not every day. Which is more boring, a person who could fill the entire allotted memory of her blog with one long page of random information, or a person who feeds you small bits of random information on a daily basis? This isn't a rhetorical question, either. I'm a writer. I need to know these things.
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