MiKE: and this one too... [dec 2006]

For me, this is the marquee picture of our trip to France.


Lovely picture, right? This was a film print, and then scanned, so much of the quality is lost. The camera: Ricoh GR1v 35mm film camera, 28mm 1:2.8. Forgot the film used. Probably some Kodak ISO200 or so. Really loved the pictures taken off that camera - it was so easy to get good shots from it. Distortion free wide angle, excellent picture sharpness from corner to corner, compact, responsive. Really wished it was cheaper to take pictures, and more convenient. There's the GR digital, and GRD-ii, but from what I read so far, it is not something really worth spending the money for. When will a company make a camera with (a) large sensor (b) wide angle lens (at least 28mm, 35mm equivalent) (c) fast lens: f2.0 would be nice (d) compact (e) has manual control. Yes, like the GR1v, but only digital. And, while we're at it, why not (f) has RAW (g) can write RAW files under 2s

ReNe: classical romance [dec 2002]

Talking about reminiscing over old photos, here's a really old set of photos, taken in Paris. We spent a month in France, 2002, and it was an amazing trip for us, full of many firsts and intense emotions. First time we've been out of Singapore for so long, first time we've traveled in winter, first time we've seen snow, first time in Europe... Though Paris was beautiful, it wasn't the highlight of our trip; the memories I loved most were of exploring quaint cafes and old castles in southern France, and seeing snow for the first time at a skiing resort (Le Saisies). In a way, it could be considered the honeymoon we never had, as a trip to romantic France is typically considered a classical honeymoon. However, I like to think that our 'honeymoon' is not restricted to just one trip, nor should this rosy period be one that only occurs for a brief time after the traditional ceremony.

MiKE: single picture retrospective [june 2006]

We've been quite quiet for some time. It's been busy. Still busy now cos the assignment deadlines are just around the corner. When not working, I've been doing various things, including looking at old pictures, incorporating them into my Aperture library. One of the photos I came across was this one. We went to Japan in June 2006, for about 3 weeks; all over Hokkaido. Best trip ever. That day, we had just finished a 27 km hike which was supposed to take about 8 hours - the locals called it the "Hachi Jikan Haikingu Kōsu" (8時間ハイキングコース) - on Rebun-tō, one of a pair of islands on the northern most tip of Japan; so close, in fact, that of the flotsam we saw washed up on the beach was a bottle of Russian bleach (i think). We had started at 7 am in the morning, and were done at about 3 pm, by which time my feet were badly blistered after having to carry food and water for myself and my Hime; and to top it off, the next bus would only come in 2 hours time. With no place to hang out for 2 hours, and the outside being cold (about 15C, probably colder with the brisk wind), we decided to limp the last 4 or so km back to our room. Along the way, we saw this view of Rishiri-san, on the neighbouring island, right beside the torii. Seeing this, made the sore feet all worth it.

ReNe: world figure skating championship '08

Quick fangirl moment: Johnny Weir won bronze at the World Figure Skating Championship yesterday.

Ok, so Jeremy Buttle (of Canada) winning gold was all over the Canadian news today, and that's nice. But one skater I really like is Johnny Weir so I was really pleased to see his good results. Loved his comment in the Canadian Press (I think the 'second' referred to his placement after the short program, not the entire competition):

"I nearly peed myself," he said of being second after finishing eighth last year.

Some of the other skaters I like, including Stéphane Lambiel and Daisuke Takahashi, didn't place as well, but that's ok. Congrats to them all as well. =)

Personally, I think competition shouldn't all be about the medaling, though that's important as well. The trouble with medaling is that it is only an ordinal level of measurement; it tells you the ranking order, but it's not as descriptive as an interval or ratio measurement. For example, in the recent US championships, Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek actually tied for first place; eventually Lysacek won by 0.01 on a tie-breaker (because he scored better on the long program, while Weir's points came primarily on the short program). This kind of victory is hardly decisive at all (I personally think Weir is better), thus reporting the final results as an ordinal ranking can be misleading.

Anyway, my point is, the competitors are all good. They certainly all trained hard and tried their best. Some stumbled on their quads (quadruple axles), but that's extremely difficult and kudos to them as well. For me, if everyone can jump a triple or quad, then that's boring; what I like is the artistry and flow of the entire program.

ReNe: into the wild

Just watched the film Into the Wild, released 2007 and directed by Sean Penn. It was based on the 1996 book by Jon Krakauer about the travels and true story of Christopher McCandless. It's not terribly exciting and it has a bleak ending -- McCandless dies of starvation in the end -- but I found myself gradually drawn into the film.

Brief plot (Spoilers? What spoilers? It's not a thriller or mystery...)
McCandless was a top student and athlete. However, after graduation in June 1990, he decided to donate all $24,000 of his savings to a charity and hitchhiked all around the US, even kayaked down to Mexico, though his ultimate goal was always Alaska. He finally arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska in late April 1992, and lived in the wild until he died later in August the same year.

How many of us ever dreamt about doing what McCandless, or Alex as he called himself once he embarked on his final journey, did? It was an extremely ascetic decision, and it showed an extraordinary amount of conviction and courage. Or, it merely demonstrated his supreme naivety. I think it's a combination of both; he was smart and fit and had gone on similar adventures on a smaller scale before, but he could have been much better prepared.

I'm of two minds about McCandless' story. On one hand, I'm envious. To reach out and grab what you want, to do what you think is right, without worrying about things like the material race; that's something I have thought about. We're only given one short life on this planet, yet how many of us spend the best years of our lives working and worrying?

On the other hand, what he did, was overly confident and hubristic. As mentioned in this article, he has done similar adventures before and it was almost as if, since he survived previous adventures, he *could* do it again. (Rather than, what did I do wrong the last time and how can I avoid that the next time?) He did all that to discover himself, but well, having gone trekking before, I cannot imagine how he could simply go into Alaska for *months* with a 10-pound bag of rice for food. Apparently a lot of people have gone into Alaska with similar intentions of living out their ideals of 'living in the wild'. Negative reactions to his story (mostly from Alaskans and the park rangers) noted that it was simply stupid and selfish.

Still, is it so bad to be so idealistic, even to the point of callowness? Part of McCandless' actions stem from his wanderlust and restlessness; his travels were *for* himself. Is that so bad?

I'd say it was a good film, though it would not be to everyone's taste.

Stop the world, I want to get off.
-- Leo Bloom, The Producers

ReNe: it's cold. or is it?

Officially, it's the first day of spring today.

It was flurrying lightly when I walked to work and the temperature was about zero. According to local newspapers, this has been a colder, and snowier, than usual winter, and it will be a colder than usual spring. At this time last year, the temperatures averaged 13-15C higher. Well, I don't mind much. It's not cold enough that I have to bundle up with scarfs or hats, and it's quite nice to walk in the cold.

The severity of this year's winter was all over the news; it's colder than average in western Canada, while in eastern Canada, quite a number of the cities are on track to break their snow level records; Toronto apparently only has 20cm more to go. Thus some articles, like this and this, have been roughly along the lines of: "Colder than Average Winter. Ice Shelf Thickening. Global warming? Ha!"

(Tried to go back to hunt for the links as much as possible, because it's important to reference claims, but either the newspapers' search engine sucks or my 'search engine', and I'm not referring to Google, sucks. This happens very often. I'd read an article, and later, even on the same day, I'd go back to the site and I can't find it. Just yesterday night, I wanted to show Mike an article I read in the morning on BBC news. Oddly, the BBC search engine couldn't find it, but Google could. So apologies if I refer to a claim that's not linked.)

But writing off global warming because of an unseasonably cold winter is a premature, knee-jerk reaction. For the past two years, it was warmer than average and people were going "Oh No. Ice Shelf Melting. We Will All Drown." I'm sure people must have been complaining last year, "Only 60cm of Snow? What Kind of Canadian winter Is This?" This year, yes, it was colder than average -- in North America and parts of Asia, but apparently not so in western and northern Europe.

In Norway, "this February was the second-warmest since records began in the year 1900", and Germany's Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency says that "this winter will likely go down in history as the one with the least ice since 1720... The Gulf of Bothnia, the northern end of the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, is normally completely icebound from late February until mid-March, but this winter there was ice only in its northernmost tip and in a few archipelago zones farther south". The Swedish weather service reported that this is their "warmest winter ever... the average temperature in Stockholm was above 2 degrees Celsius from December to February -- the highest temperatures since records were first kept in 1756". There was not enough snow so dog sled races and tours were canceled and "instead of dog sledding, tourists could go on hikes in the coastal mountains with the temporarily unemployed huskies". Ski races have been canceled, ice-breaker ships were also idle.

So. What's up?

First, looking at the temperatures one year at a time is statistically not significant. Just because a winter breaks records (whether high or low) is not enough for panic; one has to look at the past trend for decades. You know, a pretty chart, like this:


Moreover, statistics can be very confusing, even misleading. All those statements above about the record warm temperatures, and previous posts about record snow levels and cold temperatures -- they're all true. But here's another statistic: the globally averaged combined land and sea surface temperature was the eighth warmest on record for December and the fifth warmest on record for 2007. The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January was the 31st warmest on record (since 1880), 0.32°F/0.18°C above the 20th century mean. Temperatures were colder than average across large parts of central and southern Asia. The January global land surface average was below the 20th century mean (-0.02°F/-0.01°C) for the first time since 1982.

So. Is it cold? Or not?

Wait, there's more. If the earth really is warming up, there could be more than one cause (referring to the oft-mentioned carbon emissions). This year's lower than average temperature have been attributed to La Niña; some warmer than average seasons have been attributed to her big brother.

And, totally separate from the La Niña phenomenon, we also happen to be at a solar irradiance minimum [Geophys. Res. Lett. 30(5): 1199, 2003]. In other words, there is cooling from a strong La Niña and there is also a little more cooling from being at a solar irradiance mimumum. So if this is still the 16th warmest winter on record, then we are all confused.

Were you expecting me to say, then global warming IS happening? Probably. I think it is. But there is no easy answer.

ReNe: news, quirky

The first two articles were from Spiegel Online, which I've just discovered. It's refreshingly liberal. The third article was from Toronto's Star, which is not so quirky but it was still interesting so I included it. Note that the quoted parts were clipped out from the original articles, and do not constitute the entire article.

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In Germany, a wild black swan fell in love with a big white plastic swan boat one summer and stayed with the boat for a year-and-half, even when the rest of her flock flew south for winter. (How many summer romances last that long?) The local zoo made room for the pair for two winters, until Petra the swan found another swan Paul and ditched the boat. The zoo is giving away her plastic ex-boyfriend.

I found the story really interesting, somehow, and read the entire string of linked articles that dated back to 2006. Especially refreshing after the Spitzergate of last week.

-----------------------------------

This article looks at objectophilia, that is the love of things.

Back in 1979, Eklöf tied the knot with the Berlin Wall and legally changed her name to mark the occasion ("Mauer" means "Wall" in German). Ever since she was eight years old, Sandy K. was hopelessly in love with New York's Twin Towers.

"We're by no means just straightforward fetishists," Joachim A. insists, and he immediately explains the difference: "For some people, their car becomes a fetish which they use to put themselves in the limelight. For the objectum-sexual, on the other hand, the car itself -- and nothing else -- is the desired sexual partner, and all sexual fantasies and emotions are focused
on it."

Psychology student Bill Rifka -- who is 35 and in a relationship with an iBook -- admits he has "often flirted with many a sweet laptop on eBay and felt true desire." Like all objectum-sexuals, Rifka also attributes a clear gender to his partner: "To me, my Mac is male. I'm living in a homosexual relationship, so to speak."Bill Rifka shares his homoerotic inclination for objects with 41-year-old Doro B., who fell for a metal processing machine while at work and "immediately sensed a female presence."

And my *favorite* quote from the article:

Sexologist Sigusch doesn't want to classify such odd behavior as pathological. "The objectophiles aren't hurting anyone. They're not abusing or traumatizing other people," he judges. And then he asks mildly: "Who else can you say that about?"

-----------------------------------

A study titled "To Switch or Not to Switch: A Critical Analysis of Canada's Ban on Incandescent Light Bulbs" found that CFLs may not always be better. It's an interesting article, given that everyone everywhere these days seems to be advocating that we throw away our incandescents and buy CFLs. But just junking still-usable incandescent bulbs seem extremely wasteful to me (I would rather hold on to those bulbs until it's time to replace them naturally) so the approach suggested by the paper appeals to me.

... between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the electricity that flows into old-style incandescent bulbs is used to support its primary purpose, which is to produce light. CFLs, on the other hand, are between four and five times more efficient... Electricity that isn't used to produce light is released into the ambient air as heat. In the summer, and in year-round hot spots such as California, this heat energy is truly wasted.

The question is whether that wasted energy is truly "lost" when you've got sub-zero temperatures outside.

"In Canada, the excess heat produced by interior (incandescent bulbs) is not entirely wasted, at least not during the cooler months between fall and spring," the paper argues. When you switch to CFL bulbs, which are more efficient at using the electricity that goes into them, your home heating system needs to work harder to make up for the heat that your new light bulbs are no longer providing.

Given this, and coming at it from the perspective of greenhouse-gas emissions, we have to ask whether it's better to use old inefficient light bulbs to supplement the heat in our homes during cold months or more fuel to run our existing home heating systems.

If you live in Alberta, which relies heavily on fossil fuels for both its power generation and home heating, then switching to CFLs always makes sense. It's simply more efficient to heat your home using, say, a natural gas furnace, rather than using dirty electricity from the grid to power a resistance heater.

In provinces such as Manitoba and Quebec, which rely primarily on emission-free electricity, you can come to the opposite conclusion. Using clean hydropower to light up an incandescent bulb and fill your home with residual heat during the winter will release fewer greenhouse gases than using a natural gas furnace to provide that same amount of heat.

So where does this leave Ontario? The answer is more complex. This province generates its electricity from a diverse mix of low-emission sources, such as nuclear, wind and hydroelectric, and high-emission sources such as coal, natural gas and occasionally oil.

It's reasonable (if not entirely safe) to assume that at night, when we turn on the lights, we're using more low-emission baseload power from our nuclear and hydroelectric plants, and during the day we're relying more on coal and natural gas, which are both significant sources of CO2 emissions.

So switching to CFLs would, for millions of households, mean using less clean electricity and more natural gas to make up for the lost heat. Based on this crude analysis, it would suggest Ontario households should continue to use incandescent bulbs during the coldest winter months if the province is truly interested in lowering its greenhouse gas emissions.

In other words, if you stay in a cold place, you should hold on to your incandescent bulbs for use in winter and switch to CFLs in summer.

-----------------------------------

ReNe: high park

Saturday afternoon (by the time we get our arses out of the door, anywhere, earliest it's afternoon), after having a looksee-and-march at the anti-war protest, we went for a walk at High Park.

On the good side, it was warm (2C I think) and we didn't need our winter jackets. On the not-so-good side, snow was melting and it was like walking through badly shaven ice kachang.

First thing we saw when we approached High Park. Birds, of the moderately big variety.

And of the water-borne variety. I think that above is one male and female duck.

A swan feeding.

A duck carefully waddling his way across the iced pond.

The ducks were going in and out of that pond, from ice to water. (On the left of the photo is the pond bank, with soil and snow. On the right side is the rest of the pond, frozen.)

Walking along Grenadier Pond, which was almost completely frozen over. There were obvious tracks in the snowy ice, some by humans, some that look like dog tracks. It was tempting to step out onto the ice, but given the high temperatures and the 'ice unsafe' signs, we thought it better not to.

An odd hole in the middle of the pond. Ice-fishing? Underground hot-water vent? Highly localized tectonic movement that cracked the ice and a slab fell in?

Some people were amusing themselves aiming snowballs at the hole.

We started at the northern side of the park and walked southwards. At the south side of the park, there was a quick dash across the Queensway and the Frederick Gardner Expressway to spice up the sedate walk. There's actually pedestrian crossings, but given the low human traffic at that area, the ice banks (after a week of rising temperatures, they are no longer snow banks) continued uninterrupted across the pedestrian crossings. Thus, to cross, one would have to scramble up dirty ice banks about waist-high, then down. Needless to say, slipping on the ice would be extremely painful and embarrassing. On the other side of the street, there would be another quick run up the ice banks. It's tricky because your foot would sink right into the ice, right up to the calf (a little painful in the jagged ice) as you land, and the ice almost wasn't enough to brace you as you scramble up.

True, we could have chosen a safer way to cross (at some point, there would be a dip in the ice banks, making it easier to cross; one just has to search for them), but where's the fun in that?

We ended our walk at Humber beach, which we've been before.

MiKE: bombing for peace is like raping for love

We attended the anti-war (open air) rally and the march today. The march culminated in an indoor rally in a church, but we did not want to attend it, and left to go take a romp through High Park before the snow melted instead. I suppose there are obvious comparisons between Chee Soon Juan and co.'s 6 + approx 2 dozen demonstrators and the over one thousand people here in Toronto, and many more in cities all over Canada. For one, they were held at the same day - Mar 15, but then it all diverges - here, the protest is about war, there, rising costs. Here, police were present to help ensure the safety of protesters, there, the police were present to arrest the 'ringleaders'. Well, to be sure, I was not in singapore, and did not bother to read the articles beyond the headline and google news summary that 6 people were arrested (what's new about that?). So, I suppose, I shall limit my comments about that incident.

The outdoor rally at Queen's Park, where the Parliament house is, was scheduled to take place at about 1pm. As usual, our procrastinating tactics got the better of us, and we only managed to get there 15 minutes late. Still, it was good enough. Even though the temperatures were a cool 3-5C, the sun was blazing bright against a perfectly blue cloudless sky, and we soon felt as if our necks and faces were going to get sunburnt if we stayed out any longer than necessary. The sound system, or rather, the lack of it, at Queen's Park, meant that it was hard to hear what the speakers had to say. We were offered picket signs, but we did not take one up, because we felt that it would be a problem with disposal of the sticks after the protest was done, and also, at least speaking for myself, I felt like a spectator here, and not really a protester, even though my feelings were in unity with them. I have more to say about this, but first, the picture stream?

The protest march was centred on the condemnation of the federal government's decision to extend the mission in Afghanistan till 2011, without dialogue, consultation or discussion, in public or in parliament. There has been recent strong anti-war sentiments, and it seems that, like in many places in the world, goodwill generated in support of an offensive mission in Afghanistan post-911 was squandered away in the hubris associated with the specious case made for the invasion ('liberation', 'surgical strike', choose your euphemism) of Iraq; and along with it, a gradual awakening to the possibility that, after all that saber rattling, the case for Afghanistan could be similarly hollow. Canada has a force of about 2500 troops in Kandahar, and there is public demand for the role of these troops to shift from the NATO (read, US led) 'anti-terrorist' action to a nation building, peacekeeping capacity, as you can see the placards:





One of the messages that was being chanted by the crowds was "War is not the answer! Housing not bombs!", just in case some of the placard needed explanation...

As I mentioned, perfect blue skies. Ok, there were a few clouds, but they did not do much to obscure the blazing sun:


Then, at about 1:30, after some speeches, the march started. The route took us north along Avenue Road, making a left turn at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), and continuing west on Bloor Street till the church where they held the indoor rally. As you can see from some of the placards, the message was not just "Troops out of Afghanistan", it also included demands to end the siege of Gaza, messages of conspiracy: "911 was an inside job", appeals to not start aggression in Iran, and of course, an end to the Iraq mission.



The sign on the right was interesting. I managed to get a close up of it a bit later:
Perhaps the placard was not terribly effective due to its smallish fonts, but for those who could read it, it was certainly powerful; very often, people forget that the entire venture was an illegal one, and unfortunately, just like how it can be hard to stand up to the schoolyard bully, the rest of the world seems to be powerless to stop this.

At one point, the march went past McDonald's on Bloor street, the one just opposite the ROM. I suppose the siting strategy for McDonald's cannot be faulted - place one as close as you can to tourist landmarks, so as to increase the chances of it being photographed, and also so that it can serve hungry tourists who know the standard taste of McDonald's everywhere in the world. To me, what was interesting was the juxtaposition of the stereotype corporate symbol and the messages of anti-war. Like I said, I'll elaborate on this below.

Also, we passed by a condominium project; see the badges of conspicuous consumption:

And an interesting placard:



I like this picture:


The march went past OISE, and someone decided to place a placard next to the sign:

And in what tread a very fine line to animal abuse (animals protesting political positions?), we saw this dog, which was, as you can see, in the midst of... expressing itself. It was powerful - we were about 2-3 metres away, and could sense it almost immediately.

At one point, the march went past the Miles Nadal Jewish Community centre, the glass and aluminium building you see in the background below; given that there were pro-Palestine sentiments within the crowd, from what seemed like Palestinian immigrants, I wondered about the off-chance of violence. I mean, the crowd was very peaceful; not angry at all, no clash with police or public bystanders; I did not even notice pro-war protesters, which could spark conflicts. Generally, what we saw were drivers who, stuck in traffic, were actually happy to honk their horns and flash V signs, in support of the cause.

And finally, the placard that gave this post its title:

Ok, some thoughts:

The first thing that came to my mind was the effectiveness of such protests. I read today news reports quoting the organizers claiming that the Vietnam war was stopped by protests such as these. Still, I wonder; especially in neo-con dominated US, how powerful protests can be, since the public is usually up against very powerful media machines which help to define the norms and terms of discussion: note how, post 911, any discussion whatsoever that was not 'pro-America', any discussion that tried to wake the country up from the collective amnesia and remind the people of the historicity of the conflict were automatically labelled 'unpatriotic' and dismissed wholesale.

I realised that far too often, the vast majority of people are not comfortable with tenuousness, tentative judgment, position shift in the light of new evidence; in short, most people want black and white, and, dare I say it, simple minded, childish certainty (as an aside, this also explains many (not all) people's attraction to simple, B&W moral rules established by religions, rather than general moral principles which need thought in their application with in different contexts). As it is then, many people would find the balanced liberal progressive position uncomfortable, and instead find comfort in the hardline, binary right and wrong, 'clear cut' distinctions.

I also felt that perhaps the complexity of the issues were not acknowledged; for one, I wonder if the demonstrators realised that their very way of life could be dependent on what they are demonstrating against. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but think about it - Is it not strange, the very fact that they (we?) are able here to hold a demonstration with cheap ("free") professionally printed placards stapled on fresh (not reused) wooden stakes, in a city with a police force to maintain law and order? Where do these resources come from? Someone paid for them. Yes. Where did this money come from? It came from the accumulated wealth of a group of people. Why should it be that this group can accumulate this wealth, when there are fellow human beings suffering, in their (our?) own communities, let alone internationally? Especially in the US, where much of the way of life is maintained by externalising the costs of products to communities outside of the borders (e.g. underpaying the Latin American farmers, the Chinese sweatshop workers, and Indian call centre operators), the situation is rather perverse, as some of the objections to such arrangements are smoothed away with armed force, obscured from the public view or blatantly spun into the more palatable narratives of 'feeding the poor', 'quelling a peasant uprising', 'regime change', 'spreading democracy' [1] or 'fighting terrorism'. For the man-in-the-street, it is hard not to become self-centred, fat and ugly.

Ultimately, I feel that the demonstration was useful, if only because I have insufficient imagination to consider an alternative. I think, even in this part of the world, there is still a lot of way to go to achieve participatory democracy rather than the representative democracy that is extant now. The problem of war, especially unjust wars like Iraq especially, and Afghanistan, require that we who have a conscience stand up and speak out against leaders who are ostensibly our representatives. If the institutions of power remain unconverted, at the very least an attempt was made, and one at least gets to say that such actions are not made 'in my name'.

[1] 'spreading democracy' always reminds me of a quip I once read some time back but whose detail I forget; it involves spreading religion, with a knife, as if it were peanut butter or something.

ReNe: name that rumble

It's warmish (-1C) outside, and really sunny. It's been hovering around zero, even going above often, for the past few days, and with the sunshine, *feels* like winter's over. Officially, there's about a week to go.

So we were sitting in front of our laptops, and then we hear a low rumble go by along Spadina road. Obviously a motorbike. Mike lurches out of his seat to crane his neck.

"Ducati!"

I look, nonplussed, not out of the window for the now long-gone bike, but at Mike. Suddenly, I realize that with the advent of spring, and soon, summer, there will be a sudden flood of motorbikes on the roads.

And like a kid going "woof!" or "meow!" every time a dog or cat walks by, Mike will be going "Ducati!" or "BMW!" or "V-twin 888cc, possibly red color!" every time we hear a rumble.

MiKE: and how about...

And how about this excerpt from The god delusion?

LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

John Hartung's black humour is evident from the outset," where he
tells of a Southern Baptist initiative to count the number of
Alabamans in hell. As reported in the New York Times and
Newsday the final total, 1.86 million, was estimated using a secret
weighting formula whereby Methodists are more likely to be saved
than Roman Catholics, while 'virtually everyone not belonging to a
church congregation was counted among the lost'. The preter-
natural smugness of such people is reflected today in the various
'rapture' websites, where the author always takes it completely for
granted that he will be among those who 'disappear' into heaven
when the 'end times' come. Here is a typical example, from the
author of 'Rapture Ready', one of the more odiously sanctimonious
specimens of the genre: 'If the rapture should take place, resulting
in my absence, it will become necessary for tribulation saints to
mirror or financially support this site.'

Hartung's interpretation of the Bible suggests that it offers no
grounds for such smug complacency among Christians. Jesus
limited his in-group of the saved strictly to Jews, in which respect
he was following the Old Testament tradition, which was all he
knew. Hartung clearly shows that 'Thou shalt not kill' was never
intended to mean what we now think it means. It meant, very
specifically, thou shalt not kill Jews. And all those commandments
that make reference to 'thy neighbour' are equally exclusive.
'Neighbour' means fellow Jew. Moses Maimonides, the highly
respected twelfth-century rabbi and physician, expounds the full
meaning of 'Thou shalt not kill' as follows: 'If one slays a single
Israelite, he transgresses a negative commandment, for Scripture
says, Thou shalt not murder. If one murders wilfully in the presence
of witnesses, he is put to death by the sword. Needless to say, one
is not put to death if he kills a heathen.' Needless to say!

Hartung quotes the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Supreme Court,
headed by the high priest) in similar vein, as exonerating a man
who hypothetically killed an Israelite by mistake, while intending to
kill an animal or a heathen. This teasing little moral conundrum
raises a nice point. What if he were to throw a stone into a group
of nine heathens and one Israelite and have the misfortune to kill
the Israelite? Hm, difficult! But the answer is ready. 'Then his non-
liability can be inferred from the fact that the majority were
heathens.'

Hartung uses many of the same biblical quotations as I have
used in this chapter, about the conquest of the Promised Land by
Moses, Joshua and the Judges. I was careful to concede that
religious people don't think in a biblical way any more. For me, this
demonstrated that our morals, whether we are religious or not,
come from another source; and that other source, whatever it is, is
available to all of us, regardless of religion or lack of it. But
Hartung tells of a horrifying study by the Israeli psychologist
George Tamarin. Tamarin presented to more than a thousand
Israeli schoolchildren, aged between eight and fourteen, the
account of the battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua:

Joshua said to the people, 'Shout; for the LORD has given
you the city. And the city and all that is within it shall be
devoted to the LORD for destruction . . . But all silver and
gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the
LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.' . . .
Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and
women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the
edge of the sword . . . And they burned the city with fire,
and all within it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels
of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the
house of the LORD.

Tamarin then asked the children a simple moral question: 'Do you
think Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly or not?' They had to
choose between A (total approval), B (partial approval) and C
(total disapproval). The results were polarized: 66 per cent gave
total approval and 26 per cent total disapproval, with rather fewer
(8 per cent) in the middle with partial approval. Here are three
typical answers from the total approval (A) group:

In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well,
and here are the reasons: God promised them this land,
and gave them permission to conquer. If they would not
have acted in this manner or killed anyone, then there
would be the danger that the Sons of Israel would have
assimilated among the Goyim.

In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reason
being that God commanded him to exterminate the
people so that the tribes of Israel will not be able to
assimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways.

Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the
land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed
them he wiped their religion from the earth.

The justification for the genocidal massacre by Joshua is religious
in every case. Even those in category C, who gave total disapproval,
did so, in some cases, for backhanded religious reasons. One girl,
for example, disapproved of Joshua's conquering Jericho because,
in order to do so, he had to enter it:

I think it is bad, since the Arabs are impure and if one
enters an impure land one will also become impure and
share their curse.

Two others who totally disapproved did so because Joshua
destroyed everything, including animals and property, instead of
keeping some as spoil for the Israelites:

I think Joshua did not act well, as they could have spared
the animals for themselves.

I think Joshua did not act well, as he could have left the
property of Jericho; if he had not destroyed the property
it would have belonged to the Israelites.

Once again the sage Maimonides, often cited for his scholarly
wisdom, is in no doubt where he stands on this issue: 'It is a positive
commandment to destroy the seven nations, as it is said: Thou shalt
utterly destroy them. If one does not put to death any of them that
falls into one's power, one transgresses a negative commandment,
as it is said: Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.'

Unlike Maimonides, the children in Tamarin's experiment were
young enough to be innocent. Presumably the savage views they
expressed were those of their parents, or the cultural group in
which they were brought up. It is, I suppose, not unlikely that
Palestinian children, brought up in the same war-torn country,
would offer equivalent opinions in the opposite direction. These
considerations fill me with despair. They seem to show the immense
power of religion, and especially the religious upbringing of
children, to divide people and foster historic enmities and
hereditary vendettas. I cannot help remarking that two out of
Tamarin's three representative quotations from group A mentioned
the evils of assimilation, while the third one stressed the importance
of killing people in order to stamp out their religion.

Tamarin ran a fascinating control group in his experiment. A
different group of 168 Israeli children were given the same text
from the book of Joshua, but with Joshua's own name replaced by
'General Lin' and 'Israel' replaced by 'a Chinese kingdom 3,000
years ago'. Now the experiment gave opposite results. Only 7 per
cent approved of General Lin's behaviour, and 75 per cent dis-
approved. In other words, when their loyalty to Judaism was
removed from the calculation, the majority of the children agreed
with the moral judgements that most modern humans would share.
Joshua's action was a deed of barbaric genocide. But it all looks
different from a religious point of view. And the difference starts
early in life. It was religion that made the difference between
children condemning genocide and condoning it.

ReNe: why we fight

Oddly, we seem to be watching a lot of these kind of critical documentaries lately. Perhaps it's because watching one provides issues to ruminate upon, names to watch out for, and like browsing the net, making the jump from one film ('web-page link') to another gets easier. I told a colleague about watching The Corporation and he recommended Why We Fight.

Why We Fight, a film by Eugene Jarecki and released in 2005, looks at the anatomy of the American war machine. It starts off looking at 9/11 and the war that followed, but really, the Iraq war was just the latest in a long series of conflicts the US has been involved in all over the world since after WWII. It discusses the military-industrial complex or MIC, as first coined by former US president Eisenhower, and the planned rise of the 'American Empire'.

What was disturbing was the stupendous amount of outright lies spouted by the people in power (the US president and his team, the generals, the think-tanks) to the public. For example, they were saying things like, "the first strike in Iraq at Dora was successful and it was targeted so as to minimize collateral damage because we were using smart missiles", when actually no military people were killed in that attack (much less Saddam Hussein, the supposed target) and instead 15 civilians at Dora Farms (a farming community) were killed. Even the two pilots who flew that mission didn't really know what was going on; they were 'following instructions' and though they were not told what was they were attacking, they probably were ordered to take out some important military building.

During the first six months of the Iraq war, 50 precision air-strikes were conducted against Iraqi leadership. Of these strikes, none hit its intended target.

And of course, most famously, no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were ever found in Iraq (one of the supposed reasons for attacking Iraq in the first place). However, as one of the interviewees said it very well,

"We know that they have nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, because we have the receipts."

I recalled when the US attacked Iraq in 2003; I thought, all right, even if Iraq has WMDs, does that give the US the right to attack them? The reasons given, the so-called 'intelligence reports' linking the 9/11 attack to Al Queda didn't seem convincing, and the leap of logic to conclude that 'Iraq has WMDs and therefore we should attack Iraq', seemed rather unreasonably aggressive. But then, I am not a US citizen and I was not in the US at that time. An American friend was describing the scenes the day after 9/11: she was driving back from another city, trying quickly to get home, and there would be people on the bridges waving US flags and people displaying patriotic placards and just an amazing emotional fervor that was hard not to get caught up in.

And, like being given a rope to hang himself, there was actually a news clip of Bush actually saying,

"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September the
eleventh... but what the vice-president said was...."

Another particularly famous quote from Bush, who said it with absolutely no sense of irony, in light of what the film reveals,

"If the war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force of the US military and we will prevail."

(It should be, "And we will force our war upon others...")

But, as mentioned earlier, the film is not about the Iraq war, it's about the American war machine. If it's not Iraq, it's Vietnam. Or Cuba. Or Haiti. Or Yugoslavia. Or Iran. There is a long list of countries the US has invaded. This page also has a nice summary.

I was complaining to Mike that the trouble with this kind of critical documentary is that one ends up feeling angry, frustrated and helpless in the face of all these stupidity. Environmental issues on the other hand, I feel I can actually make a small but direct difference.

Still, it's a very good show. Go watch.

MiKE: bible wtf...

Okay, so i spent the better part of the vacation week (this last week) reading Dawkin's The God Delusion, catching up on body maintenance, and just lazing around. Yes, I know, I should be going to the gym. But when it is cold outside, and warm indoors, it becomes a task to have to put on the multiple layers and brave the snow and slush. For what it's worth, I could still manage 2.4km under 12 minutes on Wednesday night, and that felt good. There is a warming trend this coming week, maximum temperatures are now clearly above zero. While still tentative, I suspect this could be the start of spring? Anyway, remembering that Easter is just around the corner, this must mean that spring is really coming. After all, what the sadomasochistic torture, execution and promotion to sky-fairy status of a once-human deity have anything to do with rabbits hiding coloured eggs is a mystery to me; it's fairly obvious that it is yet another attempt by the religion to co-opt a popular pagan fertility festival (come on, think about it... eggs, rabbits?) for its own ends to me.

One of the passages that was discussed in Delusion was the following from the book of Genesis. Yes, there is a 'proper' way to interpret the bible, there are bible scholars out there who are best equipped to interpret, and not all messages in that book should be taken literally. Then it becomes - how does one decide? Whose authority will it be to adjudicate such contests? What do you say to the fundamentalists who proclaim that the bible is the literal word of god, and there can be no interpretation? Why choose one interpretation over another? Simply because it sounds better or paints the religion in better light? Its just... complicated.

So, here is the passage. In reading it, think about the people who claim that the bible should be the authoritative source of all moral judgment in this world. What a strange world it would be:

Genesis 19 (King James Version)

1And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;

2And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.

3And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.

4But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

5And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

6And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,

7And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

8Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

9And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

10But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.

11And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

12And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:

13For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.

14And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.

15And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

16And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.

17And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

18And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my LORD:

19Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:

20Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.

21And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.

22Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

23The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

24Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

25And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

26But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

27And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:

28And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

29And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

30And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

31And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:

32Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

33And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

34And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

35And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

36Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

37And the first born bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

38And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

MiKE: end of suburbia

So here I go with my own additions to serene's comments...

For many people around the world, the dream is to be able to live up to the 'America' standard of living, the 3 car garage, huge lawn, even bigger house, rooms filled with stuff which continually get replaced whenever the latest and greatest technology and fashion come out, 'better living through chemistry', and relatively peaceful, comfortable lives. Consumption of natural resources just becomes a bill which one pays every month, and stuff just magically gets made, with little or no sight of the costs, environmental, social, and economic, that go into the production of this stuff. One lives on 'private property', in lands cleared from tracts of nature[1], to give the (often caricatured) idyllic sense of being close to wilderness, away from the noise and bustle of the city, away from the closest neighbour even; and in order to get to work, play, school, and sites of consumption, one drives, often great distances (50-100 miles daily).

But then, what many people do not know, the dirty little secret behind all of this, is that this entire lifestyle (and this is the proper use of the term, not the warped sense of 'gay lifestyle' some people have co-opted) is predicated on the availability of cheap oil: Oil is refined for petrol for cars, natural gas for electricity generation, and the heavier fractions for the multitude of chemicals from plastics and other synthetic materials that are now ubiquitous in our lives.

And the oil is running out. Except that, unlike the situation where we are all familiar with, say, in cars, where, if the fuel tank runs out, the engine dies, and that's the end of it, with oil production, the graph of production over time follows a bell shaped curve, and past the peak, although oil will still be extractable, it will become progressively harder and more expensive to continue to extract. In the 1800s and early 1900s, oil was so abundant that it was even cheaper than water in Texas, but now, as serene has noted, oil just crossed the $100/bbl mark, and it does not look like we would be able to go back to the days of cheap oil.

What does one do?

One could, if one had a sufficiently developed sense of moral responsibility for future generations, divert funds away from war (and the military-industrial complex) spending into an R&D surge looking for alternative sources of energy, while at the same time, convincing the population of the benefits of new urbanism, in short, moving people into denser population centres, where one can work, play, spend time, create a sense of community, and be close to other people, without excessive claustrophobia or ills associated with excessive urbanisation and inner city decay. Convince people to stop using energy and petrochemical derived products as if there was no tomorrow - and that includes the 'green revolution' farming methods of using the earth as a sponge for our generous application of growth compounds, pesticides and other chemical products. Retool industries and prepare work processes to take advantage of technologies - for example, why not telecommute?

Or:

Start wars all over the world in an attempt to further secure hegemony and ensure continuity of oil supplies in the guise of a 'never-ending war on terror'; open up drilling in the Arctic and other wildlife refuges; continue pretending that it is 'business as usual', the corporations still need to get fatter and the most important thing is that the way of life of suburbia must prevail; continue externalising costs to parties outside the country, making other people pay in terms of environmental, social and psychological costs; all the while laughing to the bank?

Somehow, I am not optimistic that the first option is going to be taken up anytime soon.

[1] Ironically, the interviewee (I think it was James Kunstler) described how many suburban housing projects often name themselves after the species that have been murdered to make way for the project. James has interesting ideas. A concise summary of many points in the first part of the video can be found here:

ReNe: end of suburbia

Just watched yet another environmental issue-related documentary that was very well done and powerful. The full title is The End of Suburbia: Oil depletion and the collapse of the American dream, and was produced/directed by two Toronto filmakers Gregory Greene and Barry Silverthorn.

The focus of the film was on two issues, I'd say: suburbia and oil. Suburbia is driven by cheap oil, and so suburbia cannot be discussed without mentioning oil, but a large portion of the film also examines the peaking of oil (production) and its implications.

Back in Singapore, I've heard a little bit about suburbia, but I had imagined mostly in the context of the term 'suburbs', the 'residential' area where people live, as compared to 'commercial' and 'industrial' areas where people work. Like what the private estates in Yishun or Sembawang are to Shenton Way or Tuas. It was only after coming to North America that I found out more about what 'suburbia' in the North American context actually means, both from informative media and through a short experience (in St Louis). It's more than just a zoning label to describe a separate municipality; it's a concept.

It's also a misguided ideal, as this film (and many other people, books, etc.) expounds in detail. I'm not in a position to say very much about suburbia, having never really lived it, but I found myself nodding (figuratively) at parts during the film where suburban sprawl was discussed. The strip malls, the one-storied mega-malls with huge carparks, the ubiquity of car ownership (it's like a civil right). On the drive from St Louis to Toronto, I noticed huge empty tracts of land -- no surprise there; the US is huge -- and then the occasional building or house, almost literally, in the middle of nowhere. I was mystified; whoever lived or worked there would have to commute (i.e. drive) many tens of miles... I also noticed a lot of huge trucks on the inter-state highways. They probably formed half, or more, of the vehicular population on the road on a regular weekday.

Guess it's one thing to learn about such things intellectually, but like visiting a foreign culture, it's quite another to actually see it. I would say that living in St Louis was very comfortable; things were cheap and plentiful, and I can see the seduction of the so-called American dream.

Released in May 2004, the film was made very soon after the US invaded Iraq. Some of the experts interviewed in the film cited their doubts as to the veracity of the justifications for war, and its projected length (remember the WMDs that were never found, and Rumsfeld's claims that US soldiers would be welcomed with flower strewn streets?) "If there wasn't oil in Iraq, the US wouldn't have invaded it." A couple of the experts further predicted that the ongoing Iraq war, which they consider part of a more generalized war (or euphemistically, 'contest') for oil and gas resources, could easily last a lifetime, as a template for upcoming conflicts between nation-states to secure energy supplies.

Here's a ratio: the US gets 15% of their natural gas from Canada, but that 15% accounts for 50% of Canada's production. Clearly, it will only be a matter of time, given the diminishing stocks, that Canada will reduce exports to the US. When that time comes, what is going to happen to US electricity rates?

There were some interesting predictions mentioned in the film. One was about the peaking of oil production by Marion King Hubbert; he predicted that the US would peak in the late 1960s to early 1970s, and this came true in 1970. Experts also realized that though the price of oil after WWII was extremely cheap, oil prices would continue to rise, and rise rapidly, after the peaking of oil production. A tickertape on the TV footage in the film showed the price of crude oil to be $38 per barrel (accompanied by terms like 'record' and '!'). That was in late 2003. Curious, I googled around. Post-WWII, the price per barrel rarely exceeded $18.53 and until 2000, only exceeded $24 per barrel in times of crisis or conflict in the Middle East. Interestingly, only 50% of the time period from 1947 to 2006 have oil prices exceeded $18.53 per barrel. This time last year, the price of oil was between $50-60 per barrel. On 12 Mar 2008, that number hit $110.70 per barrel (all prices here in USD).

That's a very rapid rise in the past few years.

Global oil production has, very most probably, peaked already. The fact that it would peak is not even a matter of dispute anymore; it's only a matter of when. As Richard Heinberg says it in the title of one of his books, the party's over. And this would have far-reaching consequences, most fairly bleak, some not-so, but overall, it means that we simply cannot go on leading a non-sustainable lifestyle. Environmentalism is not for a small group of 'hippies' anymore.

At the moment, alternative energy sources cannot provide the same level of energy production and at the same kind of prices as oil, and the hype over hydrogen and ethanol is simply overdone. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen (energy that requires electricity produced from oil) than it provides, and the earth does not have enough land to grow the corn needed for ethanol required to maintain Americans' current lifestyle. That was what the interviewees were saying back in 2003, and this has shown to be even truer today. But the crux of the problem is that of excess -- Americans simply cannot afford to live the lifestyle they've been leading for the past half-century. Coming up with new fuels just so that one can continue driving cars (which require resources to make) on long six-lane roads (which also take resources to maintain) between their suburbs and city is not solving the problem at its fundamental level.

Good show. Go watch (promo).

ReNe: winston churchill park

What we like to do after any major snowstorm is to go out to the beach or park, basically any place for which the snow would not be cleared. Also, it's really pretty to see the natural landscape swathed in snow. So after last weekend's storm, as we've already been to the two beaches, it was a toss-up between High Park and Winston Churchhill Park. We went to the WC park.

This is a shot of the park from Spadina road. One can almost believe this was taken at a ski slope. There are a couple of skiers, a few snowboarders, but most of the people there were tobogganning. I really want my own sled too...

Taken at the entrance to the park. The bridge is part of Spadina road; the first photo was taken from the bridge.

Again one of the oddest things about winter; the temperatures after a good snowdump usually isn't very cold, and by the time we walked to the park, we were sweating a bit. I had to unzip my coat and I only had a T-shirt underneath. Oh yeah, and though it's not obvious in the digital photos, it was blindingly bright because of all the snow. Hence the shades.

That's about the same spot four months earlier, in autumn.

Mike playing in the snow.

Mike taking a break after playing in the snow. That's how deep the snow was. On the footpath, the normally waist-high railings and information boards were knee-high.

Just a empty sweep of white. I like the starkness of the landscape.

Just for contrast, this was the same spot, four months ago.

On the way back home, we noticed the snow piled up outside this house. Guess this is what happens when you don't clear snow.

And, more buried stuff.