I asked this week’s F5 Question: Sometime in the last few years, I crossed a couple of great divides. For one thing, I stopped being depressed about my life. For another, I completely changed my dietary habits and my attitude toward exercise. Both of these are major changes that I never thought possible, and having made them, I feel somewhat of a discontinuity from the person who, for so long, waited to cross those divides. What are the five greatest divides that you’ve crossed so far in your life? Here I go again, getting myself into trouble. I’ll see if …
Month: May 2004
A Dinner Conversation Gone Horribly Wrong.
I just got this from my friend Patrick, in Montreal. Don’t click “continue reading this” if you’ve heard it already. WIFE: What would you do if I died? Would you get married again? HUSBAND: Definitely not! WIFE: Why not – don’t you like being married? HUSBAND: Of course I do. WIFE: Then why wouldn’t you remarry? HUSBAND: Okay, I’d get married again. WIFE: You would? (With a hurtful look on her face.) HUSBAND: (Makes audible groan.)
To Lie or Not To Lie: Thoughts on Strategy For Environmentalists
So it seems that since the release of the film The Day After Tomorrow, everything in the literati media (such as what you find on Arts & Letters Daily) is saying the film is alarmist… and yet, other environment-related pieces are also showing up in somewhat higher proportions. I’m not sure what I think about “alarmism” as a political strategy. As with everything, there are pros and cons that are difficult to weigh. I guess the thing we need to do is think about what’s at stake, and what are the probable (and possible) consequences of our strategies.
The Way We Eat Now
Here’s a piece on the obesity epidemic in America: its causes, and possible solutions.
Korea, Corea, and Linguistic/Nationalist Pride
Earlier today, I was looking at some websites (not just one) and noticed some people using (and in some cases insisting on others using) a spelling of Korea that begins with a “C”. The common reasoning, which I’ve encountered a few times since arriving, is that the country was, until the arrival of the Japanese, known as “Corea.” The anti-Japanese urban legend is that during the colonial era, the Japanese shifted the spelling to “Corea” in order to ensure that all of their subjugated colonies appeared after them in alphabetical order. One wonders, mind you, what they would have done …