The prologue of the epilogue: Violence
You get numb to these things. Humans, like animals, get habituated easily, be it violence or nonsense. Evil-doing is easier to pick up and once you’ve slaughtered a chicken, the next few become easier. It’s difficult for some to lose their conscience, but with some determination and effort, all’s possible. Just do it–such a beautiful slogan with a tick to assure you it’s right.
Just Pay It: Nike Creates Fund for Honduran Workers
It’s no secret that the global economy hasn’t exactly been a boon to the labor movement. But globalization can be cruelest to the Third World employees it was supposed to raise out of poverty. As developing countries compete for investment from large foreign corporations, they all too often push workers’ wages, benefits and rights so low that many of them ought to be called sweatshop nations today instead of banana republics.
Case in point: In January 2009, 1,800 laborers lost their jobs in Honduras when two local factories that made shirts for the U.S. sports-apparel giant Nike suddenly closed their doors and did not pay workers the $2 million in severance and other unemployment aid they were due by law. Following proper public-relations protocol, Nike lamented the situation — while insisting that it wasn’t responsible for the actions of the plants it contracts. Nike did not match its regrets with dollars; the company was, in effect, taking advantage of the cover that the rules of globalization tend to afford so many companies like it today.
This week, however, Nike finally tossed that disingenuous defense like a worn-out pair of Air Jordans. Under pressure from fair-labor groups, the Oregon-based company announced on Monday an agreement with one of Honduras’ largest trade unions to create a $1.54 million “workers relief fund” for the factory employees laid off in 2009. Under the deal, Nike says it will work with its suppliers in Honduras to get still unemployed workers vocational training and hiring priorities as jobs open up. The value of Nike’s total contribution to the Honduran workers will probably be more than $2 million. But what matters more than the money — petty cash compared to Nike’s $19 billion in revenues last year — is the precedent, one that could help make globalization a fairer game. “This is a significant departure from past industry practice,” says Scott Nova, director of the Worker Rights Consortium in Washington, D.C. “It’s a testament to these workers’ courage.”
True, but it was due as much if not more to the business pressure applied on Nike by groups like the Worker Rights Consortium. They convinced scores of U.S. universities whose athletic programs and campus shops buy Nike shoes and clothes — and which effectively make their students walking billboards for the corporation’s products — to threaten cancellation of those lucrative contracts unless it did something to rectify the Honduras mess. Another labor watchdog, United Students Against Sweatshops, staged demonstrations outside Nike shops while chanting “Just Pay It,” a play on Nike’s commercial slogan, “Just Do It.”
While it’s good to see that college campuses haven’t lost their idealism, the Nike agreement is in reality just a first step in addressing a problem that “costs workers around the world hundreds of millions of dollars every year,” says Nova. A big question now, for example, is whether Nike will require that all its subcontracted factories worldwide set aside escrow funds to make sure that severance and unemployment obligations are met. On Tuesday, Nike would only refer to its corporate statement, which said it hoped to “develop long-term, sustainable approaches to providing workers with social protection when facing unemployment.”
Even if Nike was to mandate escrow funding or some similar economic backstop in countries like Honduras, there’s no assurance that other companies would follow its lead. And it’s hard to see Congress passing legislation requiring U.S. corporations to adopt a practice that only benefits foreign workers. But Nova argues that Nike’s move is important as it “will give labor advocates a stronger basis in the future. They can point to this precedent now and say that no less a brand than Nike agreed that companies have an obligation to do more than just cajole these factories.”
Someone also needs to cajole governments like Honduras’ into enforcing their own labor laws. Technically, Honduras, like so many other developing countries, requires companies to provide unemployment aid like severance. But the two Nike contract suppliers in this case, Hugger and Vision Tex, were apparently able to flout that code as easily as a military coup was able to oust then Honduran President Manuel Zelaya last year.
Again, the root of the problem is globalization’s unwritten code: politicians in impoverished countries like Honduras, which has a near 70% poverty rate and whose economy is run by a small clique of wealthy families, get elected by writing strong labor laws, but they’re convinced that they get foreign investment by allowing weak enforcement of those laws. Nike has at least made a strong start in correcting that perverse principle.
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I think when you are a minority by definition, good luck to you. Luck on its own might not be powerful enough, and in the year of the rabbit, there might not be enough rabbits’ feet to go around. Violence is another way to get one’s attention. Maybe Lisa A. Goldstein (a deaf journalist, writing in USA Today on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act; in Time [print], Aug 9, 2010) ought to consider this, especially when “it’s been 20 years”:
Though the ADA established rights, it has not reduced the need for advocacy. People with disabilities have always had difficulty finding jobs. In fact, there is a 42% employment gap that separates working-age people with and without disabilities … Right now, a real problem is the gap in the ADA regarding the Internet. People with sensory loss are routinely being left out when it comes to online content … It has been 20 years. Why are we still struggling?
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Life is unfair and it’s all about sympathy or action. Real action. “People’s action” gives people the impression that all the people will take action for any problem when in fact those who are not affected by an issue will not take action, or the majority sees no need in taking action to help the minority; given the fact that it is almost never frequently possible to find a cause which 100% of the people believe in, no real action will take place. “People’s action” is then a mirage, an illusion in contemporary times. For the minority then, they can only bank on sympathy. Or violence.
Yet the minority may well be the subject of violence…
The Plight of Afghan Women: A Disturbing Picture
Our cover image this week is powerful, shocking and disturbing. It is a portrait of Aisha, a shy 18-year-old Afghan woman who was sentenced by a Taliban commander to have her nose and ears cut off for fleeing her abusive in-laws. Aisha posed for the picture and says she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan, many of whom have flourished in the past few years. Her picture is accompanied by a powerful story by our own Aryn Baker on how Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban — and how they fear a Taliban revival.
I thought long and hard about whether to put this image on the cover of TIME. First, I wanted to make sure of Aisha’s safety and that she understood what it would mean to be on the cover. She knows that she will become a symbol of the price Afghan women have had to pay for the repressive ideology of the Taliban. We also confirmed that she is in a secret location protected by armed guards and sponsored by the NGO Women for Afghan Women. Aisha will head to the U.S. for reconstructive surgery sponsored by the Grossman Burn Foundation, a humanitarian organization in California. We are supporting that effort.
I’m acutely aware that this image will be seen by children, who will undoubtedly find it distressing. We have consulted with a number of child psychologists about its potential impact. Some think children are so used to seeing violence in the media that the image will have little effect, but others believe that children will find it very scary and distressing — that they will see it, as Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston, said, as “a symbol of bad things that can happen to people.” I showed it to my two young sons, 9 and 12, who both immediately felt sorry for Aisha and asked why anyone would have done such harm to her. I apologize to readers who find the image too strong, and I invite you to comment on the image’s impact.
But bad things do happen to people, and it is part of our job to confront and explain them. In the end, I felt that the image is a window into the reality of what is happening — and what can happen — in a war that affects and involves all of us. I would rather confront readers with the Taliban’s treatment of women than ignore it. I would rather people know that reality as they make up their minds about what the U.S. and its allies should do in Afghanistan.
The much publicized release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has already ratcheted up the debate about the war. Our story and the haunting cover image by the distinguished South African photographer Jodi Bieber are meant to contribute to that debate. We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it. We do it to illuminate what is actually happening on the ground. As lawmakers and citizens begin to sort through the information about the war and make up their minds, our job is to provide context and perspective on one of the most difficult foreign policy issues of our time. What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead.
Time, Aug 9, 2010
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Life is unfair and some crimes committed are beyond redemption, yet life has to move on unless you become the monster yourself:
The Moment
After a decade’s work, a U.N.-Cambodian court has found former Khmer Rouge torture chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, guilty of crimes against humanity. From 1975 to 1979, some 1.7 million died as the Khmer Rouge pursued their macabre vision of a collectivist utopia. At Tuol Sleng prison, where more than 14,000 lost their lives, Duch’s guards smashed babies’ heads open and performed “autopsies” on living inmates. His punishment? Thirty-five years, reduced to 19 for time served. Khmer Rouge survivors wept with outrage at the sentence, which could see Duch end his life a free man if he makes it to 86. The four most senior living Khmer Rouge leaders go on trial next, but may not even live to be sentenced given their frailty. Like those who have lived through horrors elsewhere — in Rwanda and Bosnia as much as in Southeast Asia — Cambodians may never be happy with the punishments meted out to the monsters who still haunt their memories. But in their way, surviving and prospering are their own forms of vengeance.
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And so it is, even in the most trustworthy tie-up of jurisdiction for the case, the result is still felt to be inequitable.
I myself have been fighting hard over the last few months (it took them quite a while to read my full-page accusation [apparently] against myself, and an important person later commented that my write-up was too lengthy and no one has the time to read lengthy emails). Now, why would anyone want to accuse himself? To be precise, it wasn’t an accusation against oneself at the outset. It was a report. But I finally realised only a couple of weeks ago that a report of my action in the terms of “Off Peak Car” amounts to an accusation against myself, or an act of surrender. When they say “it’s an offence”, they don’t have to catch you; fine, I agree with that.
But what made this an unjust nonsense is the ‘fact’ that they would never have caught me if I had not reported it. And I have all the evidence on my side. Again, the important person and the Low Tech Authority said this has always been inconsequential (and it’s back to the it’s-an-offence-naturally argument).
I don’t disagree with the fact that they have shown clemency and have taken my honesty into account. It could have been a different charge (of cheating) altogether, but given the 50-50 chance of not getting caught and be punished, it’s worth the try–if you really don’t intend to cheat the system.
Now that I know for sure the Low Tech Authority isn’t that high-tech (I guessed it four years ago, actually), I was reminded of my wondering why the bloody money was wasted on the ex-link system which makes life more painful than inserting a thin magnetic card into the gantry for entry and exit at MRT stations since years ago. I still have to take the card out of my wallet while the gantry flaps still occasionally slam against my crotch. That too isn’t so high-tech. Oh, maybe that gantry system isn’t operated by them–it’s not the ERP gantry.
They claim that they are not the one who sells the OPC-e-‘fix’ and they have five vendors doing that. They don’t own any of the five agencies. And I remember damn well the ‘druglord’ I spoke to on Jan 4 saying the daily system down-time from 12-6am isn’t their fault–it’s the vendors’ problem. Well, all five vendors having the same down-time sounds like a kind of cartel in operation:
I was also told this analogy by the same guy: imagine you walking into a store and taking something off the shelf. You walked out of the store with it, forgetting to pay for it. You only remembered that you had not paid for it two days later, and you went to the police station to report it. The policemen would naturally treat it as an act of surrender.
I was kind of baffled, but the aggression in his speech warned me not to pick out the flaws of that ‘perfect’ analogy or I’d suffer the wrath. Kingpin is somewhere there and I left my superhero costume at home.
Looking at the facts presented, if they don’t own the ‘stores’ which sell the dope for my car, and there is no way I can go back to the ‘stores’ to ‘return’ the ‘stolen goods’, where can I go if I want to remain an honest person in the community? I obviously shouldn’t go to the police station because I did not steal from the ‘police station’–the ‘police station’ was not the one who tasked the ‘stores’ to sell the dope (unless of course it’s back to those good old days when the police are corrupt and linked to the drug cartels in the city). So the analogy certainly didn’t suit the situation and it’s once again crappy analogies from civil servants.
They ought to read more epic novels and classics and refrain from skipping lengthy emails. Literature is a beautiful thing and so is that game called Dante’s Inferno. Honesty doesn’t seem to pay in life, but I probably am not going to Hell.
Or they should just admit there’s something problematic with their system. To be fair, they did indirectly admit it’s not a foolproof system. They should invest in hiring quality thinkers who can tinker it to perfection. But what’s there to be gained to improve something which only affects the minority?
It comes to be concluded that certain policies and initiative are crap and they don’t really work. People are perhaps polite to not tell them the truth. The OPC system which I thought was a marvellous thing is bullshit because (1) as proven by the low take-up rate, smart Singaporeans know best it’s a trick (2) it is not intended to curb pollution problem and all other road congestion problem because it should have been more intelligently tweaked.
I’m going to join the majority pretty soon as soon as I can gather about S$13000. I am planning to do some painting and hopefully it can fetch some money. Haha.
This is the post before the last–it’s difficult to end a beautiful mess of a blog this is. But it is time, I guess. Like what Time’s China Blog said, “Blogs are by their nature ephemeral and this one no less than others. Happily they are also in a sense Buddhist in that they can be reincarnated in different forms.”
It’s just one of those things that fall into desuetude. For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while.
The end is near
The end of this blog is near. There will be one more post coming up soon and as it was with my previous post, it will be a serious and justified rant against the same government agency that has been an irritant. It is the agency that just recently made me understand that, first and foremost, honesty is not a virtue and lies can get you off. So this agency has very much revolutionalised the way I see life in Singapore, although I accept their explanation over my predicament.
Another government agency (which I don’t think I will reveal explicitly) enlightened me on the point that if only more people would read Dante’s Divine Comedy, or any other great literary works, this would have been a better place. But it isn’t. And there’s no point in reading. I have not read too many great literary classics myself.
I think one point about reading is you become a more empathetic person, a more appreciative person. These soft skills are not really required in some parts of the world, though. And I finally would admit that I am too soft to do law even if I had the money to pursue that dream, so I am content with my lot, my position in society.
I will devote more time to finally putting paint on canvas this year and doing a good one. I hope to raise some money LOL but I probably will still find it hard to part with any of my paintings.
Coming up in the last post, a short story. And, finally, the PW tab on this blog will be updated.
Interestin tech/engg gags & real life gaffes (or not)
The pics around the world, in relation to technology and engineering feats or freaks…
– TIME
Just before it all fell apart…
– IAHGames
Reminds me of some sci-fi horror-thriller where humans are so hooked on computers (was it HG Wells?) I can hear Mr Roboto playing in the background…KILLROY!!!
– Likecool
Say, I thought I came up with the phrase, “There’s a Kitty in everybody” first?
– Collegehumour
If only life could be that simple!
– msn
Seriously, MSN has been around for 15 years (they claim) and they can’t tell the difference between a 3210 and a 3310?
And finally, from the game that I’m currently hooked on, you have Nessie in the HOUSS!
– Gtpla
But this is certainly not a gag (well, none of the pictures here are really gags; they just make one think):
– TIME
Oh, you can actually turn it around!
And sometimes what is shown is politically correct–can you see what’s ‘wrong’ with this picture? (No monster will pop out…)
Well, better be safe than sorry, like these guys:
I thought it was a well-designed piece of clothing. Oh well.
Just watched Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me the second time in my fast-food-fuelled life (but I’m eating responsibly now, with less stress and sugar!) and I remember seeing him in the star-spangled banner trunks, but hey, the whole show’s rather insulting to the Americans if they believe what they’ve been doing to their life has been right (in relation to food-choice, of course, and the majority).
– 170869
Any one offended? No worries, Wonder Woman can do wonders!
Big Money Phenomenon
Finally, a credible take on this thing called Neuro-linguistic Programming and it appeared in the ST, written by Andy Ho (Of course, I wrote about it briefly once here at https://akbywerk2.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/fearful-phenomenon/):
WITH the end-of-year school holidays upon us, parents may be packing their children off to learning camps involving ‘neuro-linguistic programming’ (NLP). But some worried parents are asking if this is ‘brainwashing’ as NLP trainers say they analyse learning styles and reprogramme brains to improve learning.
Though popular among personal development circles, NLP remains taboo for health-care clinicians. This is because it has never been thoroughly subjected to scientific scrutiny.
The meagre scientific research on NLP involves mainly lab studies conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s. These did not find support for NLP.
However, the use of NLP in real clinical contexts has never been scientifically studied. Academics are leery of the fact that anyone can become a certified NLP practitioner after a 14-day course and then be certified to train others after a 21-day trainer course.
Conversely, there seems to be little reason for NLP practitioners to subject themselves to scientific studies as they perceive academe to be hostile.
Despite its name, NLP has nothing to do with neuroscience, linguistics or computer programming. Practitioners explain that ‘neuro’ in NLP refers to the neurons in the brain that send, receive and process signals that become information; ‘linguistic’ refers to the signals moving across the networks of neurons in our brains that are interpreted into thoughts; and ‘programming’ is about manipulating the content of those signals into useful thoughts. One’s internal experience (neuro), language (linguistic) and behavioural patterns (programming) are purportedly interconnected in systematic ways.
In traditional psychotherapy, building long-term individual relationships between therapist and client to unearth the roots of a psychological problem is stressed. By contrast, in NLP, dozens of trainees are together subjected to days of intense instruction on how to unearth their personal obstacles towards a fulfilling life.
Much is made about observing behaviour and learning how to read ‘body language’. Unlike psychotherapists, NLP practitioners do not look for the roots of a psychological problem. Instead, they focus on how to solve it by homing in on how one communicates. What they emphasise is one’s verbal language, body language and eye movements.
The basic premise in NLP is that how people express themselves outwardly reveals how they perceive and represent their problems internally. That internal representation may involve any of the five senses, which is supposedly mirrored in one’s choice of words, tone of voice, body posture, eye movements and so on.
For example, someone in a visual mode may say, ‘I see a way to…’, while a person who has auditory images could say, ‘That sounds right to me’. If I tweak my nose while talking to you, I think your idea stinks. And so on.
But the small body of scientific research available shows no correlation between word choice or eye movement and reported thoughts.
In NLP, your words are analysed, your facial expressions scrutinised and your body language monitored. In this way, your internal state is elucidated and any negative mental associations therein identified. Next, your thoughts are remodelled to overcome these associations. The way to do this depends on learning about and imitating the patterns of thinking successful people supposedly have. Thus recognising successful patterns of thinking is key to modelling human excellence in NLP.
Practitioners have supposedly studied the thinking, language patterns, internal imagery and behaviour patterns of individuals who are masters of a particular capability.
They have extracted models of how these individuals – say, Walt Disney – work, which lesser mortals may then adopt.
Writing with co-author Carmen Bostic St Clair, in the book Whispering In the Wind, NLP co-founder John Grinder says people can be trained to model these patterns and assimilate the exemplar’s capability.
NLP promotes the idea that ‘reality’ is something one defines and constructs individually. Such constructions are maps of the world to guide action even if they are not truly the same as the real world.
Trainers agree that NLP seeks to manipulate behaviour by installing new beliefs or ‘reprogramming’ the brain. They often exhort trainees to test NLP for themselves.
But such ‘testing’ is subject to peer pressure and the fear of a backlash (imagined or real) if a trainee expresses scepticism. Remember, trainee participants are closeted away from the real world in a small group where there is likely to be intense peer pressure to conform. Moreover, one is probably loath to express disbelief in something for which one has paid a tidy sum.
But glowing testimonials are no substitutes for real data from rigorous scientific studies conducted under controlled conditions to ensure people are not deceiving themselves.
If you have the money to put your child through some motivational programme, NLP may do little harm. But your child may not get straight As next year as a result. Take these claims with more than a pinch of salt.
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A lot of things are unproven in life but people still would believe in them, and the power of belief is strong (eg: placebo effect) and it may ultimately work. The trick/trigger is confidence.
Coincidentally where I’m working at now there is currently consideration about engaging a team of trainers to ‘impart’ some skills to some of the teachers/lecturers here, and strangely I ended up on this team by no design of mine. And coincidentally this team of trainers were the ones who were engaged by my previous employer to train us. There’s also no surprise if I am to tell you that we (at my previous employment) didn’t have many good things to say about takeaways of the training as we have already been either well-trained by Moe’s or seasoned by the brutality of time and tide at AMK. To be fair, they probably are useful, but we were the wrong crowd to be trained. I think I know who were those smarty pants who believed we needed those skills, who assumed we didn’t have those skills (I think there were indeed a few really clueless ones who needed the help, but nobody consulted us on the supposed needs where it was apparently not obvious that our needs were time time time.) That’s a lot of money wasted.
So anyway, after the initial meeting with the boss of the team (I think he was slightly harrowed when he was reminded that I was from that college), the impression I got was that it’s going to be the same old thing over again (I mean, who would want to invest so much time and effort recreating things when you can reuse, reduce and recycle? Only us folks at that college do! Well, most of us, and I’m proud of it.) But thankfully now I have a bigger say here in charting the direction of this workshop for my fellow colleagues, and so I proposed a few things just so that history doesn’t repeat itself (since we cannot do away with that training). I mean, I think some people will benefit, so I think the smartest thing to do is to check with would-be participants what they like to get out of it and we’ll try to ‘force’ the trainers into complying. wahaha… (I think I was really curt with my reply when my colleague, weeks ago when she heard that I had attended the workshop before, asked what I thought of it. There’s just so much animosity in me with regard to those not-so-useful workshops. The scars are deep. I didn’t know I was that traumatised!)
But it was doubly cathartic (when I scared the hell out of my colleague and the boss of the agency). But I shouldn’t be that mean to these ‘enrichment programmes’ since I may just want to dabble in that in future–that’s where the money is.
If today was a fairy-tale…
From http://www.teenink.com/opinion/discrimination/article/181533/Sexism-in-Fantasyland/
Sexism in Fantasyland
These sappy, wistful endings seem to be the uniform finish of fairy tales. Back in the days of Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, fairy tales were the wish fulfillment of medieval-day peasant girls.
Think of the fairy tales you know – the popular gooey ones with princes and kisses. Now think of the boring, vapid girls who star in them. Their grand role is to sit pretty and mope around until a handsome hero comes to their salvation. It’s a popular case of the classic someday-my-prince-will-come syndrome.
In Hans Christian Andersen’s famous “Cinderella,” Cindy’s simple jobs consist of cooking, cleaning, crying until a fairy godmother shows up, wearing a pretty dress, being home on time, and ultimately being rescued from slavery to her step-family by none other than … Prince Charming.
Now ponder Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” who lives “under the sea, under the sea.” Clad in just a skimpy seashell bra that would shame a Victoria’s Secret model, Ariel starts out as a spunky, happy-go-lucky redhead who rebels against her stern father’s rules. But as soon as her sky blue eyes glimpse her prince, she becomes meek and shy. And since trading her beautiful voice for a pair of nice legs was her pact with the sea witch, Ariel must capture his heart with just her looks and bashful smiles. Not exactly a good message to send to children, Hans. The story ends just as the star-struck mermaid wants. The evil sea witch is defeated, Ariel’s voice is restored, and the prince is hers. Of course, in the process she gives up her family, underwater friends, her home, her royal title, and everything she knows and loves – all for a man. But hey, whatever makes you happy, Princess.
Think of the Grimm Brothers’ “Snow White.” Snow White herself is described as a translucent beauty with raven hair and blood-red lips. She also happens to be meek, sweet, and a great cook and housewife. The fairy tale depicts women as beauty-crazed fanatics in desperate need of male protection. When Snowy’s evil queen stepmother declares that she wants her stepdaughter’s heart cut out of her chest so she can eat it, Snow White runs away to the forest. At first, it seems this darling femme might actually have an adventure for herself, but alas, no. As soon as she enters the forest, the silly nit joins up with seven dwarves and washes, cooks and cleans for them in return for protection. Apparently, male protection is what Snowy needs, even if they are only two-and-a-half feet tall.
And you can add “vulnerable” and “idiotic” to the list of negative traits fairy tales attribute to women. After all, only an idiot would open the door to a gnarly, creepy old woman in a black cape and actually buy apples from her. Especially if she gives you a hint they’re enchanted. And when she falls into a death-like coma, who wakes Snowy up? You got it … another predictable, face-sucking prince.
And now a different fairy-tale star: Rapunzel. Trapped in a tower by an evil witch who kidnapped her at birth, Rapunzel somehow manages to keep her 100-foot-long tresses shiny and clean with no running water or Herbal Essence shampoo. Her fabulous escapade is to “let down her hair” out of a window. It’s the prince’s job to climb up the side of the tower using her locks. Anyone who’s ever tried to climb a rope, even with knots in it, knows how hard that must have been. Vain ‘Punzel refuses to chop off her lid to get herself out of the tower, so instead she slowly knits a ladder, which adds weeks to her escape date. Then she’s stupid enough to tip off her witchy captor. Even after thorns blind her darling hero, he still commandeers the final escape and provides transportation to his castle.
Think of Mulan. This Chinese girl probably is the best fairy-tale subject out there. She fights, saves the man she loves, kills the Huns, and gets to shoot cannons. Of course, her story is set back in sexist Imperial China, where, as a woman, she is expected to serve her husband. The only way Mulan gets ahead in life and makes friends is by disguising herself as a man. When the truth finally comes out, Mulan’s friends shun her. This fairy tale clearly supports the idea that being born female is a bad thing.
Who remembers the story of Rumpelstiltskin? Oddly enough, the girl we must call our heroine doesn’t even get a name. The creepy, baby-stealing stalker is the villain who snags the title. The lovely miller’s daughter responds to the news that she must spin straw into gold or die, by crying and sniveling. Then when she realizes she must give up her baby, she cries and snivels some more. Throughout the tale, she does almost nothing for herself besides producing enough tears to water a cotton field. The only reason Mr. Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t triumph in the end is dumb luck, happenstance, and a faithful male messenger who informs his queen what he heard the little man sing at the campfire.
All of the classic fairy-tale females end up being saved by masculine heroes. The only women in the tales with any cunning, wit, cleverness, boldness, or strength are hideous hags, murderous witches, and beauty-obsessed stepmothers. The young, lovely heroines are meek, good, obedient, submissive, and naturally weaker and inferior to their heroes. We need more heroines with independent traits.
We need a Rapunzel with the brains to have cut off her hair and climbed down it years ago. We need a Gretel who saves her beloved brother. We need a Beauty to rescue her Beast. We need a Bella to fight alongside her Edward, and a Maid Marian to spring her beloved Robin Hood out of prison. We need a Cinderella who stands up to her stepmother. At least can we have a Snow White who won’t open the door to strange, wizened women?
We need a gal with guts, derring-do, moxie, gumption, and agency. We need female characters who can fight for themselves, and maybe pick up true love along the way. We, along with the rest of America, need a good dose of fresh, unadulterated girl-power.
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I am just reminded of the one and only romance novel I’ve ever read in my life and that’s The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks. I finished it in half a day, and it was surprisingly engaging. I had difficulty putting the book down, I remember. The gender roles are not as stereotypical as those of the fairy-tales, but nonetheless you can’t help but wonder if Noah and Allie could switch roles. It probably would not work, considering the target audience, and in many societies there are still the prescribed roles for men and women–what constitutes gentlemanly behaviour, what a woman should not do…Like what MissMaegan said about her article, “Fairytales can be just as sexist to men. After all, in Fantasyland, a man isn’t worth his salt unless he can kill a dragon.”
<Insert Plato’s printouts here, about family & society & gender & education & everything else…>
Never Let Me Go
This post is in dedication to Kazuo Ishiguro’s hauntingly sentimental novel which I have not yet read but will one day soon (and so any adjectives that preceded it here should not be trusted without doubt!) But Corliss gave a reflective look at the story from print to screen, from fiction to reality. Read it here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2015774,00.html
“Any story about what it is to be a clone implicitly asks what it is to be human,” echoes Corliss. “Whether we live to be 30 or 90, we all have a death sentence hanging over us. Live and love well, so that long before our time is up, we will truly have reached completion. That way, we can live forever.”
The story reminds me immediately of Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail, but this is well-contextualised in contemporary time where science pushes boundaries while romantic love remains evergreen like a musk over the hard edges science cuts.
What remains debatable is–once again–the way the East and the West view heroism. As Ishiguro commented, “It’s antithethical to the American creed of how you should face setbacks.” Submit to your fate.
The option has always been there: to submit or to retaliate, to do something about it.
This story somehow reminds me of the issue of adoption, the life after: when the adopted cant adapt
I never go down without a fight, so I will find the story disturbing, as with a ‘prescribed’ life. I personally don’t quite like Sparta. Plato and Confucius can say all they like about self and the State, but I am probably selfish.
This Sep 16, 2010 comment by Prof Koh Tai Ann should make sense: “These days, people talk about tolerance as a virtue. But tolerance is a kind of sloth because it’s passive: you’re not doing bad, but neither are you doing good. So we have to ask: ‘What good can we all do?'” (Read the full interview here; check out her take on the 3Cs of Singapore–witty.)
AP Ian Macduff was also stressing the importance of thinking and the role of philosophy in an earlier interview (May 26, 2010).
Because we are always short of time, because we are forever fighting to stay ahead, because we want to survive in an environment that doesn’t endow us with the treasures of nature, sacrifices have to be made. The arts are the next best alternative forgone in the cold world of economics. Now, there seems to be a kind of restlessness about the soulless (or mindless) people here.
I think when science and the arts flow as one, great things can be achieved. Here are more examples of what, together, we can achieve:
Shun blood diamonds go for cultured
And here is a sketch done by my favourite doctor, Tan Cheng Bock, when I last consulted him for my throat problem about a year or so ago. A pity he retired from politics and I’m not sure if there are many more hearty and compassionate political leaders like him nowadays.
(Non Sequitur, Oct 4, 10)
Never let me go insane, never let me go away alone. A little love and critical thinking can go a long way.
The Collector of Things
People collect things as a form of recollection later on, especially if they are things that are unlikely to be easily attained in future, and I think I’ve just been attracted by the bibs used in runs or walks. Have just proudly stuck the two bibs I’ve ever received in my life on wall of my bookshelf. One more to come at the end of the year…
A few days ago, I also received a specially designed class tee from an ex-student, and that was a real surprise too. Such commemorative t-shirts are to be worn with pride, and once I get a wardrobe for my office, I will be hanging it there with the other special t-shirts from students. But this one is special; it’s got a poem on the back. The gusto of the message reminds me of Yue Fei’s mother. *haha*
I haven’t really quite finished decorating my workspace, but I will be moving to the section by the window soon, once my room-mate leaves in December. So I think I will ‘renovate’ the place after that. Currently I have a special shelf with some of the nice paraphernalia from my good friends and ex-students displayed there.
I do wonder why people quit this place (maybe I haven’t been here long enough to know why, and the ‘outside world’ is not as open as the small enclave of teachers in most MOE schools); perhaps I have been through a more gruesome pace and I can take the heat better than most. I think this is the quality of most people who have survived at least two years there in Ang Mo Kio. But I just realised–having been idealistic all these years–that money is number one on the survival kit list in Singapore, and if somewhere-out-there offers me a bigger pay, I will go for it. Hell, I’ve almost maxed out all my savings on a new home in Yishun and my wedding and all. This money misery business could be averted, but I simply couldn’t wait till the end of the month for my supposedly big bonus, and so I forfeited it when I left; I couldn’t wait till the end of next year for my supposedly big monetary reward called the “Connect Plan”, and so I forfeited that too when I left. But it wasn’t a mistake; it’s just opportunity cost–money or sanity.
I’m beginning to love the principle of Cristiano Ronaldo, as Giggs slowly belongs to the past. Rooney has just caused Man U to suffer from a sort of identity crisis where Loyalty, Giggs, Scholes and Neville will all retire at the same time. Old Trafford is no longer the Theatre of Dreams it used to be, but a Theatre of Dreams of the Rich and Mercenary. They might as well merge with Manchester City in future–Great City of Manchester Re-united. Wow. But I am more worried about the rich Indian woman who now owns my favourite club, Blackburn Rovers. She even talked about renaming the club ground to raise funds–I hope Ewood Park will not become Bollywood Park, but if her millions could bring in Messi and Kaka, I don’t mind.
Some collect football clubs as if they were horses because they are a mark of prestige and affluence. Some collect sweaty handshakes from footballers as if sweat was blood because it shows they are one of them at the ground, touching base: some are likely to be genuine while others have been accused of some hidden agenda. I remember about 20 years ago, one PAP member, while doing her rounds at a hawker centre, had to wash her hands at the wrong moment and that cost her the Gombak constituency. I’m not sure if Merkel’s washed her hands after visiting the German national team dressing room–maybe she’s some fetish over sweaty bodies–but she’s received some dressing down from some purists:
(crying foul over merkel’s dressing room visit)
I would guess that she had to do something like that after saying something like this…germany wakes up
On the topic of naked bodies and integration (we’re not talking about sex, although some people do believe the world will become a better place if we have more inter-racial marriages), Ground Zero is (was) really hot. (See one hot, sexy article here.) In the name of political correctness, I wonder if some rednecks would actually want to come to the primary schools in Singapore and beat up the kids playing Zero Point during recess or after school–or is Zero Point history?
As people and things slowly become history, the green ones hope to make the problem of the environment a problem of the past too. And technology will expand as far as the human will and imagination can stretch to do good for the world…
The human race can one day collect the badges of honour and the purple heart in the fights against evils and recollect the past in the present which would not have a future if there were no dreams of a better tomorrow.
The importance of being dishonest
This post will likely be updated again–very likely in two month’s time because that is the amount of time a particular government agency takes to do so. In any case, it is not going to be a pleasant wait. If the outcome of the wait is in favour of truthfulness and logic, then this post shall not see any updates. The odds are stacked against honesty though.
But Blair has been rather honest, as reported in ST, Sep 3, 2010: “It’s a strange thing, politics and sex [well, are you admitting it is unnatural?]…Politicians live with pressure [so do many professionals]. They have to be immensely controlled to get anywhere [so too my taxi driver], watch what they say and do, and behave [teachers and parents too]. And your free-bird instincts want to spring you from that prison of self-control…Then there is the moment of encounter, so exciting, so naughty, so lacking in self-control. Suddenly you are transported out of your world of intrigue and issues and endless machinations and the serious piled on the serious, and just put on a remote desert island of pleasure, out of it all, released, carefree [if you are in heat and you can’t take the heat and the hot seat, go free yourself and get another job].” (For the uninitiated, Blair’s talking about extra-marital affairs.)
Probably society isn’t ready for straight talking, and honesty is best hidden from view. Blair could have observed the Gricean Maxim of Quantity in his writing by simply telling the world it is fine for politicians to be infidel, but that would probably give the sense that he’s going to be a weasel of a premier. Or it will sound too casual and irresponsible for anyone like that to qualify as the head of the nation. As you can see, it hurts to be plain truthful. The truth must be concealed by some make-up (such that it is rather beyond recognition). People do love a beautiful lie more than an ugly truth, and certainly a beautifully designed truth wins hands down.
| The Straits Times |
| October 16, 2010 Saturday |
| The young general’s realm; Straits Times Correspondent Sim Chi Yin was among foreign journalists allowed into Pyongyang when it celebrated the 65th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party last weekend. She first visited North Korea in mid-2008, and gives her latest impressions of the hermit kingdom as it embraces a new leadership. |
| THERE he stood, beaming a rare smile and clapping as his father waved to the cheering crowd with an unsteady hand.?The chubby, civilian-clothed Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s anointed next leader and youngest son of the ailing Kim Jong Il, was making his second appearance before his people and the world’s media, whose cameras were trained on him.?Piercing the still, autumnal Pyongyang night with their loud cheers, emotional young dancers hailed the leadership from their perfect formations across the grey- slabbed Kim Il Sung Square, named after the country’s founding president and the younger Kim’s late grandfather.The sickly father and his chosen son looked down from a balcony just above a giant painting of a grinning Kim Il Sung – completing the three-generation family portrait, as it were.
They had just watched a mass dance and song performance to mark the 65th anniversary of the country’s ruling Workers’ Party which, along with a massive military parade on Sunday morning, was the coming-out party for the leader-in-waiting, widely believed to be about 27 years old. Symbolically enough, the last segment of the night was an energetic modern dance by teenagers dressed in fluorescent orange and green, while shots of computers played on two giant screens on the square, projecting a North Korea ready for the 21st century. It may be no coincidence then that while little is known of the mysterious Kim Jong Un, he has been referred to in the North Korean media as ‘CNC’, short for ‘computer numerical control’ – as if to boost his credentials as a leader for the future.? Following months of murky murmurs about the secretive communist nation’s succession, the younger Kim, who has emerged in the past two weeks to be appointed a four-star general and anointed heir, may be seen as a source of stability at home.? North Korea expert Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul said this may be so, since Mr Kim’s oldest son Jong Nam – a former favourite to succeed his father – has told the Japanese media in recent days that he is opposed to the hereditary transfer of power to his younger half-brother but seems unlikely to challenge him. But that stability, Professor Lankov said, will hold ‘only as long as the leadership does not reform, continues with the policy of zero tolerance for dissent (everybody who openly expresses doubts about the system should be shot) and does its best to roll back changes – like private businesses springing up – which have happened spontaneously’. Much also depends on how much longer the current leader is around.? ‘If he lives for several more years, Kim Jong Un has time to grow into the responsibilities of running the state as well as to put in place within the top levels of officials some of his favourite people,’ noted Professor Brian Bridges of Lingnan University in Hong Kong. ‘But if Kim Jong Il passes away in the near future, then the son may take over as a figurehead, while three factions – the military, the party, and the family – jostle for real power. That would be destabilising.’ Nonetheless, some within and outside of North Korea’s borders hope this changing of the guard and the future leader’s youth might usher in a new era of change and more openness, with Western diplomats already calling on Kim Jong Un in recent days to engage with the world in a way his father did not. But North Korea watchers warn there are few signs yet that the young man is any different from his dad or that he is in a hurry to bring about change.? Prof Lankov told The Straits Times: ‘We do not know anything about him. His face was first shown to the public a couple of weeks ago. Nobody is aware about a single act or policy decision which is initiated by him.? ‘But the fact that his rise began from the promotion to general and that his coming-out took place during a military parade does not look too encouraging.’ After all, the North Korea that Kim Jong Un – now commonly referred to as the ‘Young General’ by ordinary people – will inherit is still an impoverished state which locks its citizens away from the outside world, and a temperamental, nuclear- and missile-armed nation which causes regional powers to lose sleep.? And the Pyongyang he lives in seems to stand still in time.? Tired-looking, boxy, grey or pastel-coloured apartment blocks line the capital’s wide, smooth streets – as neat as milk cartons, as I had described them on my first visit two years ago. Save for a couple of new buildings, a construction site, and spanking new restaurants lining two sides of the street leading up to the downtown Koryo Hotel where I stayed on both trips, not much appears to have changed.? Outside, women cut the grass with scissors and scrubbed pavements with hand brushes, while children wielded toy guns and swords shaved out of wood, or roller-skated or ate ice-cream.? A row of food stalls selling buns, pancakes and grilled chicken across from the hotel seemed busier than before, bustling as Pyongyang residents were out on the streets to enjoy the long weekend public holiday for the anniversary. Flags lined the streets while women walked home in traditional chima jeogori dresses, lending an air of festivity. Bright red and yellow flowers sat in pots on almost every balcony in the city, as if all Pyongyang residents were uncannily green-fingered.? At night, streets and apartment blocks which sat in stony, pitch-black silence on my previous trip to the electricity-starved country were lit this time. But middle-aged men and women strolling or sitting at the foot of their blocks for a leisurely chat at night held torches, hinting that power outages might not yet be a thing of the past. In the morning rush hour, men in Western-style suits and red ties, school children with backpacks and teenagers with fashionable calf-high boots jostled on the electric trams with middle-aged women with worn shoes and scruffy bundles on their backs. ? There were few hints of the crisis brought on by a currency devaluation late last year which reportedly, for some North Koreans, was the worst disaster since a famine that killed hundreds of thousands in the mid-1990s. Prices of food and other items were said to have doubled in the months following that devaluation, but have since levelled off. Still, past 11pm on the night before Sunday’s massive military parade, women waited in line at a store holding big cooking oil bottles.? At a seven-storey department store near the railway station, only two counters had queues. One was selling porcelain ornaments of a pig holding a fruit The ornaments cost 850 won each. The currency exchange rate for the North Korean won is somewhat secret – the hotel had it as 140 won to 1 (S $1.82). In this city, which is known to be home to only the politically approved and the privileged elite, there appeared to be more cars on the streets this time around, including new Toyota four-wheel drives and China-made BYD sedans.? While private enterprise is still not officially allowed in North Korea’s command economy, young couples and families washed down three- or four-dish lunches with beer and soda in a local restaurant, where three journalists including this one had a similar meal for 10 – suggesting the possibility of a growing middle class.? More Pyongyang residents seemed to be able to afford mobile phones now, using a 3G network installed by the Egyptian company Orascom Telecom in 2008. A government official I had met that year who did not have a cellphone back then told me this time: ‘All my friends have mobile phones now.’ Perhaps, seeing how excited I must have looked, he added, somewhat apologetically: ‘Domestic calls and text messages only.’ ? For foreign journalists whose phones are still confiscated upon arrival at the airport, that sounded like an improvement.? But to veteran North Korea watchers, this is nothing new – cellphones were first introduced 10 years ago, only to be recalled in 2004 – and not a sign of new openness, but just another symptom of Pyongyang’s two steps forward, three steps back way of ambling along.? There is little doubt the country’s leadership could take the advice that its top ally, China, and many others have been giving it – to open up and marketise its economy – should it want to. But that would mean risking all the accompanying sweeping changes marketisation would bring to its society and puncturing the carefully cultivated and protected image of the Kims as all-caring leaders who have given the good life to their people.? The fact that foreign journalists were even let in to cover the political anointment is read by some as a tentative signal of greater openness to come, perhaps with the younger Kim at the helm. But even if that were true, other indications show Pyongyang to be as contradictory and unpredictable as ever.? Reporters were packed off home by Tuesday morning, having served their purpose by covering the parade, despite some having seven-day visas. And while many took the opportunity to walk around the streets, minders ran after some to yank them by the backpack and order them to return to the hotel. At least one journalist was told to erase pictures she had taken of a heap of corn by a military post, and I was chastised by a military-uniformed man for taking pictures of residents cheering parading tanks. When a British photographer took pictures of two women bearing cloth-wrapped boxes on their heads, an agitated minder yelled, getting his English idiom a tad wrong: ‘When in Rome, do as the Romanians do.’ In the Rome that is Pyongyang, what is constant and unchanging is the cult of personality that surrounds the leadership.? Giant paintings of Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung pop up in crop fields, in housing estates, bookstores and at monuments. There are no books, posters or drawings yet of the chosen one. But it may only be a matter of time.? At a flower exhibition set up for the 65th anniversary, portraits of the two older Kims stood among beds of a purple-pink orchid which is the ‘Kimilsunglia’ and a red begonia, the ‘Kimjongilia’. A young woman guide who spoke pitch-perfect English explained: ‘The bright red of the Kimjongilia symbolises a person with passion. The style of the flower is just like a lion’s mane. Its stem is just like a pillar.’? Asked if there was a Kimjongunlia flower named after the ‘Young General’, she smiled and said: ‘In the future, we will.’ |
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In such a hermit kingdom, what the photographs can capture are less powerful than words because your camera is unlikely to shoot anything without the permission of the officials or you risk losing it. I think the writer did a great job in this report.
Truth is easily mired in fear and what results may be inconsistent knowledge or warped memory. It happens.
Review – Others
The myths behind fears of nuclear power
David Ropeik
18 October 2010
GERMANY’S ambivalence about nuclear energy, common in many developed countries, has been on display again recently, following Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to extend the operating life of the country’s 17 nuclear plants for an average of 12 years beyond their currently scheduled closure dates.
Dr Merkel says this will help Germany develop the ‘most efficient and environmentally friendly energy supply worldwide’. Opposition leaders say that the government is ‘selling safety for money’.
Both sides argue about the facts, but underlying that debate is an argument about how those facts ‘feel’.
Decades of research have found that risk perception is an affective combination of facts and fears, intellect and instinct, reason and gut reaction. It is an inescapably subjective process that has helped us to survive, but sometimes gets us into more trouble, because we often worry too much about relatively smaller risks, or not enough about bigger ones, and make choices that feel right, but that actually create new risks.
Consider the two aspects of the risk of nuclear radiation: the facts and feelings.
For 65 years, researchers have followed nearly 90,000 hibakusha, the name in Japan for atomic bomb survivors who were within 3km of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions in 1945. Scientists compared them to a non-exposed Japanese population in order to calculate the effects of the radiation to which they had been exposed. The current estimate is that just 572 hibakusha – a little more than 0.5per cent – have died, or will die, from various forms of radiation-induced cancer.
Research by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) found that the fetuses of hibakusha women pregnant at the time of the explosions were born with horrible defects. But the RERF found little other serious long-term damage – even genetic damage – from exposure to those extraordinarily high levels of radiation.
Relying on the Japanese research, the World Health Organisation estimates that over the entire lifetime of the population of several hundred thousand people exposed to ionizing radiation from Chernobyl, as many as 4,000 might die prematurely from cancer caused by the leaked radiation. That is tragic, of course, but it is a smaller number than people assume.
So, if ionizing radiation is a relatively weak carcinogen, why is nuclear power so scary? Research into how people perceive and respond to risk has identified several psychological characteristics that make nuclear radiation frightening:
It is undetectable by our senses, which makes us feel powerless to protect ourselves, and lack of control makes any risk scarier.
Radiation causes cancer, a particularly painful outcome, and the more pain and suffering something causes, the more afraid of it we are likely to be.
Radiation from nuclear power is human-made, and human-made risks evoke more fear than natural threats.
Nuclear power plants can have accidents (many still believe that they can explode like bombs), and people are intrinsically more afraid of risks associated with a single large-scale ‘catastrophic’ event than they are of risks that cause greater harm spread over space and time.
Many people don’t trust the nuclear industry, or government nuclear regulators. The less we trust, the more we fear.
Despite all these fears, public attitudes towards nuclear power are shifting. The psychology of risk perception explains that too. We are more aware of the benefits of CO2-free emissions, and when the benefits of a choice seem larger, the associated risks seem smaller.
These psychological factors have nothing to do with the facts about the actual risk of nuclear radiation. But, as is often the case with risk perception, emotional filters, more than the facts, determine how afraid we are, or aren’t.
Whether this is rational or irrational is irrelevant. It is, inescapably, how it is. But we must recognise that our response to risk can pose a danger all by itself. Our fear of nuclear power has led to energy economics that favour coal and oil for electricity, at great cost to human and environmental health. Particulate pollution from fossil fuels kills tens of thousands of Europeans every year, and CO2 emissions fuel a potentially calamitous shift in global climate.
No amount of education or good communication can get around this. Subjective risk perception is hard-wired into our architecture and chemistry. What governments can do is to learn what psychological research has established: our perceptions, as real as they are and as much as they must be respected in a democracy, can create their own perils.
With that understanding, government risk assessment can account not only for the facts, but also for how we feel about them and how we behave. That way, we can reduce conflict over nuclear power and other risk issues, and foster wiser and more productive policies for public and environmental health.
The writer is is an instructor at Harvard University and the author of How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match The Facts
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Editorial Desk; SECTWK
Magic by Numbers (ST, Oct 18, 2010: Magic numbers influence decisions? It all adds up)
By DANIEL GILBERT
17 October 2010
I RECENTLY wound up in the emergency room. Don’t worry, it was probably nothing. But to treat my case of probably nothing, the doctor gave me a prescription for a week’s worth of antibiotics, along with the usual stern warning about the importance of completing the full course.
I understood why I needed to complete the full course, of course. What I didn’t understand was why a full course took precisely seven days. Why not six, eight or nine and a half? Did the number seven correspond to some biological fact about the human digestive tract or the life cycle of bacteria?
My doctor seemed smart. She probably went to one of the nation’s finest medical schools, and regardless of where she trained, she certainly knew more about medicine than I did. And yet, as I walked out of the emergency room that night with my prescription in hand, I couldn’t help but suspect that I’d just been treated with magic.
Certain numbers have magical properties. E, pi and the Fibonacci series come quickly to mind — if you are a mathematician, that is. For the rest of us, the magic numbers are the familiar ones that have something to do with the way we keep track of time (7, say, and 24) or something to do with the way we count (namely, on 10 fingers). The ”time numbers” and the ”10 numbers” hold remarkable sway over our lives. We think in these numbers (if you ask people to produce a random number between one and a hundred, their guesses will cluster around the handful that end in zero or five) and we talk in these numbers (we say we will be there in five or 10 minutes, not six or 11).
But these magic numbers don’t just dominate our thoughts and dictate our words; they also drive our most important decisions.
Consider my prescription. Antibiotics are a godsend, but just how many pills should God be sending? A recent study of antibiotic treatment published in a leading medical journal began by noting that ”the usual treatment recommendation of 7 to 10 days for uncomplicated pneumonia is not based on scientific evidence” and went on to show that an abbreviated course of three days was every bit as effective as the usual course of eight.
My doctor had recommended seven. Where in the world had seven come from?
Italy! Seven is a magic number because only it can make a week, and it was given this particular power in 321 A.D. by the Roman emperor Constantine, who officially reduced the week from eight days to seven. The problem isn’t that Constantine’s week was arbitrary — units of time are often arbitrary, which is why the Soviets adopted the five-day week before they adopted the six-day week, and the French adopted the 10-day week before they adopted the 60-day vacation.
The problem is that Constantine didn’t know a thing about bacteria, and yet modern doctors continue to honor his edict. If patients are typically told that every 24 hours (24 being the magic number that corresponds to the rotation of the earth) they should take three pills (three being the magic number that divides any time period into a beginning, middle and end) and that they should do this for seven days, they will end up taking 21 pills.
If even one of those pills is unnecessary — that is, if people who take 20 pills get just as healthy just as fast as people who take 21 — then millions of people are taking at least 5 percent more medication than they actually need. This overdose contributes not only to the punishing costs of health care, but also to the evolution of the antibiotic-resistant strains of ”superbugs” that may someday decimate our species. All of which seems like a rather high price to pay for fealty to ancient Rome.
Magic ”time numbers” cost a lot, but magic ”10 numbers” may cost even more. In 1962, a physicist named M. F. M. Osborne noticed that stock prices tended to cluster around numbers ending in zero and five. Why? Well, on the one hand, most people have five fingers, and on the other hand, most people have five more. It isn’t hard to understand why an animal with 10 fingers would use a base-10 counting system. But according to economic theory, a stock’s price is supposed to be determined by the efficient workings of the free market and not by the phalanges of the people trading it.
And yet, research shows that fingers affect finances. For example, a stock that closed the previous day at $10.01 will perform about as well as a stock that closed at $10.03, but it will significantly outperform a stock that closed at $9.99. If stocks close two pennies apart, then why does it matter which pennies they are? Because for animals that go from thumb to pinkie in four easy steps, 10 is a magic number, and we just can’t help but use it as a magic marker — as a reference point that $10.01 exceeds and $9.99 does not. Retailers have known this for centuries, which is why so many prices end in nine and so few in one.
The hand is not the only part of our anatomy that gives certain numbers their magical powers. The tongue does too. Because of the acoustic properties of our vocal apparatus, some words just sound bigger than others. The back vowels (the ”u” in buck) sound bigger than the front vowels (the ”i” in sis), and the stops (the ”b” in buck) sound bigger than the fricatives (the ”s” in sis). As it turns out, in well over 100 languages, the words that denote bigness are made with bigger sounds.
The sound a number makes can influence our decisions about it. In a recent study, one group was shown an ad for an ice-cream scoop that was priced at $7.66, while another was shown an ad for a $7.22 scoop. The lower price is the better deal, of course, but the higher price (with its silky s’s) makes a smaller sound than the lower price (with its rattling t’s).
And because small sounds usually name small things, shoppers who were offered the scoop at the higher but whispery price of $7.66 were more likely to buy it than those offered the noisier price of $7.22 — but only if they’d been asked to say the price aloud.
The magic that magic numbers do is all too often black. They hold special significance for terrestrial mammals with hands and watches, but they mean nothing to streptococcus or the value of Google. Which is why we should be suspicious when the steps to sobriety correspond to a half turn of our planet, when the eternal commandments of God correspond to the architecture of our paws and when the habits of highly effective people — and highly trained doctors — correspond to the whims of a dead emperor.
Daniel Gilbert is a professor of psychology at Harvard, the author of ”Stumbling on Happiness” and the host of the television series ”This Emotional Life.”
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(Apr 23, 2008)
Campaign City: Life in Posters
Been to this wonderful exhibition featuring local artists at one of those back alleys I’d never known, and it’s pretty cosy I’d say; I was the only visitor on a warm Thursday afternoon. Took 166–it’s been a long time since I last took a long journey on a bus–to Niven Road and the place looked really rustic…
I'm not sure if the surveillance camera's part of the exhibition...
One of the two mock-ups requiring audience participation (standing by the heart-shape balloon within the photographic frame) such that you are indeed part of the campaign--for mockery or sincerity
One of my two favourites...
Here’s eeshaun’s site: http://www.gardensilly.com/projects/2010/world-of-watches (he’s one of the artists who designed this year’s NDP goodie bags, which I am still looking for around dumpsters.)
Bunnies breed really quickly...somehow I was reminded of the Killer Rabbits in Monty Python & the Holy Grail
Reminds me of David Beckham's Hindi tattoo
My second favourite work, by Ian Woo...you know why...
And here are the souvenirs I bought: one for Ivan, in commemoration of the publication of his short-story about a loser and the Aedes. I didn’t have much cash on me and these cost me $8; I wanted to buy more cool stuff, but unfortunately they only accepted cash. Thankfully, the girl was nice enough to agree to my request to buy two of the postcards in the pack of 10. That’s flexibility!
Anyone interested in discussing the works, please let me know. I don’t think there are many, so I didn’t post extra comments about them here. Operators are standing by, nonetheless.
And more shots of the works can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artituteart/sets/72157624909726628/
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