Name:SJ Country:United States State:Virginia Metro:Arlington Gender:Male
Interests:Airplanes 'n rocketships, politics, drawing, fine food, good drink, sleep, and watching television. Expertise:Procrastinatin', eatin', sleepin', and manipulatin' numbers. Occupation:Accounting/Finance Industry:Other
Hawaiians, or at least the residents of the Big Island in this beautiful little state, really love their fireworks on New Years Day. I'm not sure whether it’s because the weather is warmer allowing for more outdoor activities, the strong Chinese influence, or the near nonexistent fireworks regulations, but the locals really do enjoy ushering in the new year by blowing up a chunk of their state.
Starting from around 8pm, the neighbors in our small cul-de-sac had a steady stream of fireworks flowing four hours straight until midnight. At first, we thought it might simply be the eccentricities of our neighbors, but the air around our neighborhood was soon punctuated by the continuous cacophony of the steady staccato beat of detonating explosives. When we went to downtown Kona to check out the sights, people were tossing fireworks into the streets (disrupting traffic continuously), launching them into the ocean, or just firing them off randomly for sheer entertainment. On the mountainside above, you could see streams of green and red sparks launched from the neighborhoods above, regularly punctuating the smoky, sulphuric veil with brilliant bursts of color.
Our neighbors really topped it off though. They had been blowing up thousand string firecrackers all evening, and for the grand finale, raised a rope with twelve three thousand count lines to represent each month. Attached to one was a ten thousand line firecracker chain that seemed to go on for a long time. While this pyrotechnic display deafened us, they ignited fountain after fountain of sparks to keep pace with the seemingly endless chain of explosions.
My father explained to me that the Chinese originally lit firecrackers during the New Year to drive off devils. Given the small arsenal of explosives that were lit in this cul-de-sac this New Years, I think that every single devil on the entire island of Hawaii has been driven into the sea.
After watching my assets implode along with the markets, I figure I should write on a more pleasant subject. Here we go...
As I was walking back from the grocery store, I couldn't help but think how much I love fall. Some of you who have read my ramblings for years will probably find this topic familiar; I think I've written one each fall for the last six years, so I figure, "why break tradition?"
Anyways, I love fall for several reasons. As someone who has had his feet in the academic world continuously for twenty four years, the fall semester represents an opportunity for a fresh start. Much like New Years, it provides a time where I can regroup and vow to clean up the messes and repeat the successes of the prior academic year.
Fall also represents the end to the oppressive summer. Some of you are probably thinking, "But SJ, there are so many great things about the summer! How could you dislike it so much?" I do admit that I enjoy my time at the beach and the barbecues, but you must remember, I grew up in the South. Summer in the South is not like summer in New England, the Midwest, or California. The Southern Summer is a continuous barrage of mid to upper nineties heat coupled with a oppressing humidity to breaks all thoughts of productivity. Summer is walking into work sweaty every morning, walking home from school sweaty, sweating to death whether in the easybake oven known as your car, the underground saunas we call subway stations, and continuously smelling the very stench of humanity. Summer represents freezing to death as you constantly go back and forth from the blistering heat to the icebox in the office or classroom. Rain, which provides cleansing and renewal in other seasons of the year, represents even greater misery in the summer as the humidity goes into overdrive. Percipitation brings not relief but horror as the temperature only goes higher and you are perpetually sticky and wet. Toss in a few mosquitos to add just that much more wholesome entertainment. In the style of Lewis Black, f--- summer.
What about spring? Spring is similar to fall. That certainly true to an extent. However, spring brings about the rise of pollen, continuous rain, and oceans of mud. Why deal with that when you can enjoy the fall? As for winter, I used to like winter. Then I moved to New England one year and saw my world turn white from November to April. Sure, Christmas and New Years are entertaining, but after that, its one very long and miserable empty space between January 2nd and Easter.
Back to the positives. I love fall because it brings a certain crispness to the air. In early fall, when its still mildly warm, that cool sharp edge creates a contrast that helps bring a vibrancy, a clarity that is not seen any other time of year.
You have lots of holidays that make fall entertaining. Labor Day, Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Celebrating the proletariat, eating candy, honoring veterans, enjoying perhaps the last non-commercialized holiday in the United States, and then celebrating the birth of Christ through hypercommercialism. What more could you ask for?
Fall has always been the true outdoor season for me. The weather is perfect for outdoor activities including my favorite of camping and backpacking. The scenery is breathtaking; anyone who's ever been leafing in the Pioneer Valley or along the Smokey Mountains can testify to one of God's most brilliant, recurring masterpieces.
Fall kills all those accursed mosquitoes mentioned above. That gives me warm fuzzies.
Fall is the harbinger of football. Need I say more on this point?
Fall brings Octoberfest-style beers to my supermarket. That makes me happy though my liver cries in anguish.
I think that's enough for this year. So as you agonize over the horrors inflicted upon your 401k, just remember, its fall. So its all good.
It feels odd to think that its already been seven years since 9/11. Even crazier to think about how much has happened over those seven years.
I find it funny that people actually thought that bringing the European supercollider online would somehow bring about the end of the Earth. Outside of generating a few painful pickup lines, no harm seems to have been inflicted upon me, humanity as a whole, or the Earth. I will sleep better tonight.
The alleged illness of Kim Jong Il has again brought up the discussion on the future of the North Korean state. Amidst the hopes for a gruesome death of Dear Leader and collapse of the North Korean state, Professor Andrei Lankov made an interesting point that despite all the cries of "tongil" and the talk of reunification, the players in the region have little interest in both the elimination of North Korea and the reunification of Korea. I'm not going to make a rather irrational nationalist case about how people object to reunification out of fear of a powerful, unified Korean state, but when one thinks about his theory, it really does make sense.
First off, its within the means of the international community to destroy North Korea. Despite their policy of Juche, North Korea is truly dependent upon international donor nations for their survival. All it would really take to bring down the North is to simply stop providing them with aid. It wouldn't even require the Chinese, if it were simply South Korea, Lankov thinks it would be enough to bring the North to its end. Yet its obvious that its not happened yet. Why?
Any collapse would lead to a mass exodus of North Korean refugees into China, Russia, and South Korea. The former two have little interest in taking in the small numbers of North Korean refugees that trickle in at this point; I doubt they'd be interested in taking a couple million. Nor does China have any interest in a democratic, relatively pro-American Republic of Korea right along its borders. There are interesting rumors in China policy circles that if North Korea were to be on the verge of collapse, the PLA may move in and try to establish a friendly puppet government to maintain a buffer.
South Korea also has little interest in taking refugees, let alone taking over a bankrupt and backwards North Korea. North Korea would be a giant weight hung around the South Korean economy's neck and would drown both nations. If one looks at South Korean policy towards the North, all of it is designed around propping up the Northern state; the apparent goal is to outlast the current leadership and help guide the next generation of North Korean leaders into building up the North Korean economy. Its a completely rational plan but can easily be viewed as a callous one given its complete disregard for North Korean human rights. I suppose in the South Korean ethical calculus, it is better to leave them in immediate suffering in hopes of engineering a gradual and gentle end to North Korea than to bring about the North's quick end and create a spectacular and sudden crisis that could easily burn the entire peninsula. Some would criticize it as being harsh, but given that the other scenario could easily lead to war, one can't blame them for pursing such a path.
Then there are the Americans, who despite their loathing of the short dictator of the North, aren't in the mood for dealing with the complete demise of the North Korean state. Sure, the Bush administration loves to poke the North and harass them about ongoing nuclear issues, but I don't think the United States truly has the stomach to deal with the consequenses of rapidly bringing down the North Korean regime; most of those scenarios end with Seoul burning to the ground or mushroom clouds over Tokyo. This is why I can't ever imagine any sort of American attack on North Korea, despite the fear and paranoia by others that such an attack is somehow imminent.
Above all, I think that all the players are a little scared of what a post-North Korean future will look like. The DPRK's removal from the scene will force the nations of the region to openly deal with and focus on the many simmering issues in the region: the future role of the United States, Chinese hegemony, ROK identity, and the future of Japan.
Many of you probably remember the 29 footprint fireworks during the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony. Apparently on Slashdot, there's this big hoopla with half of the audience talking about media conspiracies by Dick Cheney and corporate America while the other half pointing out how the NBC announcers clearly pointed out that they were rendered CGI, even giving the name of the animator who put the sequence together. I was perplexed as to why this story was such a firestorm overseas while in the US, it's a side column story or a mocking one talking about crazies with tinfoil hats.
Then, while reading over the Slashdot hysteria, I stumbled across a comment about how the ceremony video came across a single international feed and had an epiphany: did the foreign broadcasters fail to point this out to their viewing public? This would explain why so many foreigners were pissed about this story and casting stones while most of us in the United States scratch our heads wondering what all the fuss is for (except for the the small handful of angry Americans who weren't paying attention to the commentary and would later write of conspiracies and the evil American media machine in their newspapers and blogs).
