Logic of Punishment

Every time a natural disaster hits somewhere, the overly enthusiastic believers of gods would try to convince others that it is god’s punishment on the sinners. HIV was bought to punish homosexuals. The last major tidal wave was to wipe out believer of false gods. And now Katrina is part of jihad. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and everyone else can play this game. Something terrible is happening to someone somewhere, anyone at anytime can find someone else being punished by some god. Add to fun is when something terrible happens to the overly enthusiastic, they would consider it the grace of god that thing didn’t get worse. So, when things happen to others, they deserve every bit of it; but when it happens to us, god saves us. Isn’t that convenient? It would really be inconvenient if we look at the whole picture. God’s punishment is not discriminatory, everybody gets his share. If we follow this kind of logic, there can be only one conclusion—god hates us all, regardless.

Fashionably Senseless

Taste is a subjective thing. I, for example, like Burgundy reds; but one of my best friends thinks drinking something with the characteristics of “barnyard” unfathomable. There is no right or wrong about it. It is what makes us human and individual. Unfortunately, people who sell things try to confuse our tastes with fashion. Our world is saturated with them, advertising people, reviewers, gurus, sells departments, retail outlets, “news” media, the list is endless. These people try to convince us that our taste buds are meaningless, our eyes are faulty and our noses are constantly stuffy. Consequently, we cannot rely on ourselves to choose what we like. Instead of suggesting things to us to try, they make us throw away all our senses, so we will buy whatever they are selling. More insidiously, they hollow out our memories so we do not even remember what they told us yesterday and buy whatever they are selling today. They call this fashion. So, now, syrah is undrinkable and pinot noir is just divine. Martini is so yesterday, and obscure jisake is the new in-drink. Truth be told, syrahs are the same today as yesterday, so are the Burgundies. The problem is, when syrah was in, fashionable people drink it with everything everyday. No wonder they get tired of it. All the “people who sells” saw a movie with a few losers who like pinots and move to sell pinots and sell things (like their empty words) with pinots. Good pinot still smells like a barnyard, and my friend still hates it. But all of a sudden it is fashionable to those without taste bud, without nose, without eyes and without memory. And now, when I go out with the senseless, out of politeness, I will have to drink bad pinots (and they have more potential to be bad than all other varietals combined) with the oddest food. I hope I can live through this. Maybe I wil drink only with my piont-hating friend, to weather the storm, so to speak.

Longer Road to Hell

One of sayings that makes absolutely no sense to me is “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” It sounds smart and I have used it; and then, I realize what a moronic statement it is. The statement is usually used to tell people to stop whatever well-intended things they are doing. The rationale behind it is that people mean well but often do unintentionally bad things. That sounds reasonable until you wonder what the alternative is. Do nothing at all? Do things with bad intentions? Neither seems superior to what is being warned against. Sure, when we do thing, sometimes we mess things up instead. But if we give up on good intentions, what do we have left? We are then just a bunch of depressives living in a mess of a world. We would truly be in Hell, no road needed. In fact, the statement has provided us with its own fallacy. The road not only leads us to hell but mark the distance between Hell and us. The longer the road is, the further away is hell. So why worry about the road to Hell? We want it as long as possible. We don’t want Hell on earth do we?

Smart Adse!

Ad people are sometimes too smart for their own good. Take this summer’s “Drunk Driving Counterattack” TV commercials from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia for example. In two of these, a woman in the front passenger seat nags the drive about driving drunk. The car keeps moving and gets into a serious accident. And in the third, a guy does the same to the camera while walking down a path in the park. He sits down on a bench and a SVU runs over him. Now, these are all very clever and new. But I am not sure if they send the right message. If we do not assume that they are telling us not to drink and drive, then the logical conclusion would be, “don’t nag a drunk driver or they will crash and kill you” and “watch where you are going when you nag a drunk, because another drunk will run you over.” Instead of warning against drunk driving, they are really saying, “don’t warn drunk drivers. Say nothing if you want a chance to live. That is not a good message for ICBC. Maybe they should sell them to Anheuser-Busch and take the money to make less smart ads.

Arar

I usually do not quote or link to The Toronto Star, but today they have an Op/Ed piece on the CSIS that mirrors many of my reactions to Jack Hooper's testimony in the Arar inquiry. More than just the CSIS, however, I have even more problem with the Foreign Affair Ministry, the minister responsible for the CSIS and indeed the Prime Minister. What is the foreign affairs department afraid of the CSIS? What power does the CSIS have that we don’t know about that make diplomats afraid of their displeasures? Is the minister responsible for the CSIS blind? Or, did she orchestrate the whole thing? What was Chrétien doing? Did he know anything? Who was running the show anyway?

Home WMD

House cleaning these days uses more WMD then Saddam Hussein ever processed. Once upon a time, not too long ago, house cleaning products consisted of water, soap, and maybe a little vinegar or soda. Nothing that can be deemed hazardous to human life, only the dirt. These days whenever I pour some cleanser or squeeze the trigger of a spray bottle, my respirary system reacts like I were in a gas chamber. I am not sure if they are trying to clean for me or to clean me from my home. And I pay good money for them to gas meself. Ironically, the one product that does not irritate me is bleach, the chemical that share half of it components with a WWI chemical agent. It disinfects, whiten, cut through most things, and it is cheap. I can even add it to my laundry. I have chosen my weapon, the old is new again. It is so much nicer to use a weapon that does not insist on mutural distruction.

No Home for You Yet!

The anti-war movement in the US has moved to the simple-minded slogan of “bring the troops home” because of Cindy Sheehan. I guess to balance the scale the anti-war camp has to be foolish and irresponsible too. They are basically saying, “Oops, we really shouldn’t have coming here to hurt you, destroy everything and leave you venerable to the wolves, because it hurts my knuckles. So, bye.” Cindy Sheehan lost her son, so it is understandable for her to feel this way. It is, however, unforgivable when others join in, either to sponge on her grief or to use it to serve their own ends. If you break into someone else’s house, beat them up and trash everything, at the very least, you should pay for all the damages and keep them safe until they can take care of things again. And if they are really nice, they may get ride of you when the time comes, without extracting their pound of flesh. You can’t just leave because it is inconvenient.

Who are the 700 and why are they not on the Lists?

Here is the situation: a “religious” leader with a large following publicly calls for the assassination of a democratically elected leader of a sovereign country. I think you would agree that he should at least be considered a dangerous religious extremist and be sanctioned. The public advocacy of murder can also be considered a prosecutable offence. And if we go with the fashion of the time, he is a terrorist. Should this “religious” leader and his followers be put on some no-fly list, at least on flights going anywhere near the country of the proposed assassination? Following this logic, very much in line with the U.S., even Canadian, government, Pat Robertson and his followers should be on top of these list. Someone got to stop crazies taking a flight from Virginia Beach to Caracas and hijacking it to slam into the Presidential Palace!

Iran

Why do I just have this sense of deja vu all over again?

Interesting Matches

This is an interesting article on matching food and wine. Although I don't much care for Champagne, it is still thought provoking.

Leave Me Some Food Wine, please!

There are two kinds of wine drinkers. One is like my friend Allan who drinks wine for itself. He once told me that the food is kind of a distraction to the wine. I can understand the feeling--he just want to drink wine. I, however, like my wine with my food. I enjoy the combination of the two. I want the best of both worlds, I suppose. These two kinds of practices require two different kinds of wine. If wine is drunk by itself, you need a more complete kind of wine, something big and full and not lacking in anything. But if wine is drunk with good food, the wine had better left some room for the wonderful taste of the food. A good food wine then is, by definition, lacking in some ways. The wine and the food are like puzzle pieces--when the sharp points and holes of each fit into the other, it is a perfect match. These two ways of drinking are not necessarily in conflict with each other. You drink yours and I drink mine. Everybody can be happy. Unfortunately, there is only one large wine market. As people, both producers and buyers, increasingly rely on “expert” ratings, my kinds of wine are becoming extinct. The result of wine rating is the product of wine tasting where there is no food, for fear of interfering with wine. This is all well and good but it does favour Allan’s wines over mine. Religious readers of Wine Spectator and Robert Parker look at their ratings and buy wines accordingly. They drive up the price of some wine and other makers start to make wine to satisfy the market. Consequently, less and less of good food wine is produced. This is a sad thing since most of the wines are drunk with food. I am not against what other people like to drink, just leave me some of what I like.

wishy-washy morals

Why is it that it is always the people who preach value and moral that first turn against them whenever pressure is applied? Think, who told you not to be naïve and do what is necessary, i.e. do the unethical thing. Is it not the most righteous one around? Politically, is it not the law and order, faith and righteousness, conservatives? They are always the one to use dubious means and justify them by some unconvincing ends. Their insincerity destroys the ends, however good they may be, by tainting them with dirty hands. They think of everyone else as wishy-washy on values and moral and such. But went you question their actions, they tell you to grow up and don’t be a wimp. It makes you wonder who is wishy-washy, doesn’t it? Maybe its not wishy-washy but down right hypocritical. Wishy-washy is character fault. Hypocrisy is a moral/ethical failure. I can forgive wishy-washy, but not hypocrisy.

Neo-Paganism, Source of All Evil

It is perhaps good that the Pope visited a synagogue in Cologne. It is good public relations for both. It is however hardly a moment of truth and reconciliation. The speech Benedict XVI gave was self-serving and full of denials. Take his explanation of the Nazi’s anti-Semitism for example: “And in the 20th century, in the darkest period of German and European history, an insane racist ideology, born of neo-paganism, gave rise to the attempt, planned and systematically carried out by the regime, to exterminate European Jewry.” The Catholic Church and its teachings had nothing to do with Nazism at all. It is instead the evil of neo-paganism! So, the Nazis were a bunch of new world witches running about killing the chosen of God. Isn’t this convenient? He would have been more convincing if he had blamed Calvinism. But he blames a non-existing religion? It is blaming a ghost, a ghost killed by Catholicism. So, after all is said and done, the only way the European Jewry can be safe is when Catholicism is the dominant religion of Europe. How very nice for him. If the Catholic Church really had nothing to do with the Nazis, then there is no explanation needed from the Pope. If there are culpabilities, then he should own up to it. A religious leader acting hypocritical and self-serving, who would have thought?

Good Arbor

I am drinking a wine called Pergolas, Crianza, Old Vine Tempranillo, 2000, and feeling sorry for paying more for wines before. Now is the height of summer, time of the grill and spicy food. This is just the wine we need, a true food wine. It is a ripe, soft and well-structured wine from Valdepeñas, Spain. At ten dollars, it is perhaps the best wine value I have come across in the past 20 years. Why can’t other people make wine this good at this price? What can’t everybody make wines this good at twice the price? This is the kind of wine that everybody used to drink: good, solid and unpretentious. My summer will be great as soon as I get my hands on a few more of these bottles.

Respect yourself!

I wonder why countries even bother to enter into trade agreement with the U.S. After years, sometimes decades, of negotiation, everybody agree on the terms of the treaty and the mechanisms to resolve disputes. As soon as the ink dries, the U.S. government dismiss any and all things that they do not like. Case in point is the softwood dispute between the U.S. and Canada. NAFTA, the agreement that governs trades between the countries, has ruled three times that the U.S. is wrong in imposing punishing duties on Canadian softwood imports. U.S. acts as if nothing has happened. This is not only an act of disrespecting others (for which the U.S. is world famous) but disrespecting itself. By not respecting an agreement it signed is to disrespect all the signers of the agreement, which include the U.S. How can anyone do business with someone who does not respect itself?

Gaza

Last Sunday’s NY Times has an interesting article analyzing Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza by Ethan Bronner. There are a few things rather refreshing about it. It brings to light some things mainstream U.S. press has been ignoring or denying. For example, the failure of much of the Zionist ambition, namely the recovery of the biblical Israel, is not all because of any conspiracy but the lack of true support from the world Jewish population. More than money, Zionism needs Jews to immigrate to Israel. Not enough has gone and now there is too much land and not enough Jews. It must be hard for the Jewish population outside of Israel; they have supported Israel with their money and political prowess, but now they may have to admit that they may have failed Israel by deny it their physical presence. The mainstream media, which have for too long been working on the assumption that Zionism has the full support of the U.S. Jewish population, may now have to reassess the degree to which most Jews support Zionism. This is not an easy adjustment, as it requires a more complex view of the whole relationship.

What is truly disturbing is to face up to the possible success of terrorism. It has come to be the mantra that terrorism has no positive value: it just kills innocent people and accomplishes nothing by venting misguided anger. It is therefore often called “senseless violence.” Bronner suggests that suicide bombers proved to the Israelis that their expectation of Palestinians just giving up and going away is wrong. Sustained terrorism proved that Palestinians are dogged fighters willing to give up their lives for their nation. While no one really want to admit it, this has to earn some suppressed respect. It does make it harder to make the statement that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian.” What is most disturbing is that, if terrorism can achieve the same national/political ends as formal military actions with a far smaller death toll, can we comfortable dismiss terrorism as crime and nihilism? Can we deny their leaders as negotiating partner? Maybe Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza can bring a more workable situation in the region and better our understanding of the problems. One can only hope.

Time to Rot

Late summer is a fun and troubling time for gardeners. Things are growing faster than we can eat them. We have to either give them away to people or store them for the winter. I decided to make some cucumber kimchi today. It is a process which, to be successful, I have to suspend almost all my modern food hygiene trainings. I have to make friend with microorganisms that I have waged war against my whole life. I was told, from toddler on, that I must put away my food in the refrigerator to prevent it from turning sour and killing me. To make pickles, I am doing exactly what I was not supposed to do. Come to think of it, it is like swimming with sharks, a calculated confrontation with death. We are constantly in fear of bacteria these days. We believe the commercials on TV and buy anti-bacterial everything and turned our kitchen into an ICU. In East Asia, it is coming to the time of the year when people plan a fruitful future for friendly yeast and bacteria. Vegetables are to be turned into pickles, beans and grains into sauces, and all kinds of starch into alcohol. In other words, almost everything is to be rotted into tasty basics of life. That is so much more appetizing than anti-bacterial wipes.

Solution of One National Identity Crisis

One of the most bizarre things about being a Canadian happens when we buy cars. We look at ads and reviews, and see them divided into domestic and foreign. This is easily understandable in any other country but Canada. We have no Canadian carmakers. We have car factories but they are all foreign own. What it really means is that we have U.S. company made cars and non-U.S. company made cars. We can buy a Ford Mustang made in Flat Rock, Michigan, and considered it a domestic; and we can buy a Honda Civic made in Alliston, Ontario, and considered it a foreign. Talking about an identity crisis. If we expand this way of thinking, there are two ways to go about it. First is to think all things remotely Canadian that are not U.S. own to be foreign. Maple syrup, for example, would be foreign food. The Conservative Party is the political voice of this way of thinking; that is way they are so offended that we did not send troupes to Iraq: the government briefly suggested that our military do not belong to the U.S. The other way is to think of all things U.S. as Canadian. This would give the so-called tax-disparity between the two countries a solution. Since all things U.S. would be considered Canadian in this way of thinking, we can tax them everything that they under-taxed or do not tax. I like this way of think. We are an all-embracing society after all. Oh, we can send our U.S. navy to fight Denmark too! The more I think about it, the more I like it. OH, CANADA…

Church Matrix

The Catholic Church has come up with a new priest recruitment poster that portrays the priest as Neo of the movie Matrix. This is indeed very cool but not in the way the poster was intended. If we port the Matrix mythology over to the Church’s structure, then the church would be the Matrix itself and god the combination of mother and father of it. What does this leave the priest in the poster but the rebel against god and its church in Neo’s part? That would truly be cool as a new priest call up god and says, “I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.” Somehow I do not think that is what the Church has in mind. This makes me wonder what are they teaching priests in seminaries these day. The Catholic Church, after all, is the body that created hermeneutics, the art of reading behind the lines. They were able to re-interpret the Old Testament into something complete different from before by reading it as a metaphor from beginning to end. Now, they are unable to read an elementary metaphor in the mass culture. That is truly sad. Maybe they figure young people are dumb now, so there is no reason for them to be intelligent. Or, may be a new religious revolution is coming from within the Church. One can only hope!

Patriotic Krank

The news in Canada in the last few days is crystal meth. A federal law has been passed to make the maximum sentence of making and trafficking in Methamphetamine to life imprisonment. This is a meaningless cynical gesture in the government’s part. As the courts are reluctant to impost heavy sentences for drug offences now, what makes the government think that they will come anywhere near life sentence in the future? Maybe they should take the opposite road by promoting meth as a Canadian solution for cocaine and heroine. Think about it, meth is produced domestically instead of imported by criminal cartels; meth is cheap and that makes it unnecessary for addicts to commit property crimes to support their habits; and when meth heads try to cook their own crystals, chances are that they will just blow themselves up. It will solve much of the complaints society has on drug users by getting ride of most of the nuisances. Plus, meth is perhaps the best diet drug there is. Is a whole society of cranked up skinny people just what will make us truly Hollywood North? We can even have a new industry with vast international clientele: weight loss through Krank. That certainly is the ticket.

Hold on to your brains, fans!

Sports fans are not necessarily dumb but when a person, even the smartest one, is acting as a sports fan he seems to forget everything he has learnt in his life and swallow all the propagandas the professional sport machine spills out. This is particularly true when it comes to players. Any adult should have learnt, before adulthood, that human are flawed. Yet, when it comes it their favourite players, fans think they can do no wrong. Fans watch TV that tells them their favourite players are heroes of the city, collectively rescue every citizen’s pride from total destruction, and they believe it. As soon as these players start to under perform, they can do no right; as if collectively or single-handedly they stomp on everyone’s pride. This continues to the most passionate issue--player’s salary. Fans first swallow the lie that fans pay for the players. The owners like everyone to think so to put everyone on their side. In truth, the players are paid by the company that owns the team. Fans pay the company to watch the players play. The ticket price is determined by the price level at which the teams can make the most money off spectators. It is a fallacy then that the ticket price is determined by player’s salary. Do you think if the team can sell out a section at $100 they will cut the price to $75 because the players take a pay cut? I don’t think so. Nothing will lower prices as much as prohibiting corporate sales and allow outside food and drinks into stadiums. That won’t happen, will it? If fans won’t pay for ticket prices they consider too high then the prices will come down. That is what we all do when shop for other things. But if there are people who would pay that price, then we can have no complaints. We don’t usually complain that the best cars are unfairly priced out of our range. We don’t complain that working family cannot afford 28 days aged Angus prime ribs. Why complain about not being able to afford NHL. Watch it at home, go to minor hockey, hold on to your intelligence and stop whining like a little idiot.

Software Robin

A survey has found that over half of Canada’s university students are pirating software. This should not come as a surprise. As the price of hardware has declined steeply in the last few years, the price of software has increased. One software suite can easily cost as much as the computer on which it runs these day. For a university student, computers are indispensable. And as computer networking has been integrated into lessons and assignments, certain programmes have become essential to participate in learning as pen once was. Microsoft Office Student Edition is selling for C$200 and the Professional Edition $650 right now. I bought my last computer for C$300 and the Windows OS cost C$250. If I were a student taking out loans to pay bills, I would pay for the computer but I would not be able to pay for the software. Computer companies, like Microsoft, always say that their high prices are the cost of development. The reality is that development is the excuse for high prices. Think about it, how many of us can use the MS Office 2000 to do everything we need and still not use 70% of its functionalities? These suites and OS have become so bloated that if they were organic they would be diagnosed with cancer. As you cannot blame starving people for stealing from profiteers, you cannot blame students for stealing software. If software companies want to stop privacy of their wares, price them reasonably.

I wish I believed

Every time my body fails me or something terrible happens in the world, I wish I grew up a Judeo-Christian. As I get older and as news gets more immediate, that has become almost a daily event. If I were once a Christian, say, I would be angry with god for being a poor designer and manufacturer of bio-organisms and worlds. I can then raise my fist and wave it at the sky. I can be bitter and disillusioned. I would have someone to blame for everything. Unfortunately, I cannot. No one is there to be blame for an atheist. For a Buddhist, it is hard to blame a universal and eternal mechanism of suffering that is the illusory world of desire. And it is equally hard for those who believe that the world started from the fragmented body of the first creature, for it no longer exist. I am convinced that monotheist creationism is good for this thing at least. I just wish I could take advantage of it.

CYellBC

CNBC got to have the most puzzling programming strategy of all television stations. They say that their viewers are wealthy investor yet they have shows like Mad Money and The Suzy Orman Show where viewers call in and get yelled at as if they were foolish children. I am not saying that the advice given in these shows are bad but that they are stuff that your friendly neighbourhood banker or broker would tell you. And they will not yell at you or lecture you. Yelling, in this case, passes for authority. The louder these people yell, the more they convinced themselves that they are providing great services. There are certainly masochists out there, and they no doubt watch these shows. It is a relief to know that their viewership is low. The sad thing though is that these masochist viewers do not sound anything like wealthy investors but greedy working people—the worst sufferers of a market downturn. These shows, particularly Mad Money, get them into the market and ready them for the slaughter. No wonder CNBC’s viewership drops in the market downturns—most of their viewers have to pawn their TV. But then they do not need it anymore, their family and themselves can yell at them for losing everything.

What are they watching?

Read the article and tell me this is only a mistake and not a vendetta from corporate interests.

Stop it, Jon Steward!

Maybe I will start to hate Jon Steward. Just when I was writing about how ridiculous it is to call the survival of all involved in the crash in Toronto Pearson Airport a miracle and forget about the excellent work of the crew and the rescue workers, he talked about it on his show. I don't want to sound like a copycat, so now I have come up with something else. I am starting to hate him.

TV Radio

I am all for saving money and using resources to all their potentials, but sometimes being frugal is just dull and cheap. Case in point is programs like “Prime Time Sports With Bob McCown” on Sportsnet in Canada. It is a radio sports talk show on FM radio directly broadcasted on cable TV. It certainly saves money and efforts for Sportsnet, but the reason to watch it is somewhat uncertain. There are other talk shows and people watch them to see celebrities or interesting footages. This, and similar shows, has none of that, just large mikes on long swing arms obscuring the unkempt faces of radio mouthpieces in a tiny room. Howard Stern used to do this kind of things but he had celebrities, naked people and stupid stunts in the studio. The “Prime Time Sports” has none of it. It makes me wonder who watches it. I watched five minute and confirmed that radio people look as boring as their artificial voices are. There are reasons for radio; the main one is that some things are better not seen. What are they think when they program it in?

Canadian Sovereignty

Within the last two weeks, the DEA had two seperate marijuana actions in Canada with the help from the RCMP. A drug tunnel across the border was shut down and Canadians were captured over in the US. Marijuana activist Marc Emery was arrested by request of the DEA, awaiting extradition hearings. People are concerned about Canadian sovereignty but I do not see any US infringement on Canadian sovereignty. If the US sees these people as importers of illegal drugs to the US in violation of US laws, it is fully within it rights to capture suspect in the US and request extraditions of those in Canada. What the Canadian government decided to do though is pitiful. They intentionally let the smugglers cross the border to be captured by the DEA while they could have captured and charged these Canadians in Canada. This is an underhanded and dishonourable way to handle the situation. The Canadian agents may find the Canadian courts too lenient on marijuana dealers, but to give Canadians over to the US for crimes prosecutable in Canada is a slap on the face of Canadian justice. If these agents think there is something wrong about Canadian courts, they should do their best to change it. That is what sovereign democracies do. To let someone else do their dirty works is giving away sovereignty. Let us see what the Emery case will bring. Will Canadian authorities have more backbone this time?