You know, something has been nagging at me for a while, and I thought I'd share it with you. My idea, which is mine, and belongs to me, is as follows:

Star Trek: Enterprise did not suck. I repeat, it was a good show, and it did not suck nearly as much as those mouldering, smelly old Trekkies seemed to think. It got low ratings because UPN was a crummy network anyway, and probably because Star Trek stuff has been in constant production for almost 20 years.

If non-Trekkies had watched the show, they might have realized that it was pretty darn good. Frankly, I think the character of Captain Archer was much more of a "captain" than Kirk and a lot less stuffy than Picard (not to diss Patrick Stewart, of course). The interactions between the tactical officer (Malcom) and the chief engineer (Tucker) were always fun, even if they were just a subplot.

Well, at least SciFi is rerunning the episodes on Mondays now. It was a good show, and it deserved better than it got.

Writing about multicultural-ness

My English teacher gave us not one, not two, but three writing assignments over spring break. The first I have written, the second is half-done, and I'm not sure I remember what the third assignment is. In any case, the first essay is about a topic that sounds horribly sentimental, but I found it rather interesting once I took an unsentimental approach to it.

The question that the essay had to answer (more or less) was something like this: "What values are necessary for living in a multicultural society?"

I know, it sounds really vague and just begs for a sappy answer like 'We should all love each other, blah blah blah.' Using my bulletproof brain, however, I came up with a pragmatic answer.

The values that everyone in a multicultural society needs to keep things running smoothly are tolerance and respect. Tolerance, in this context, means allowing (or just ignoring) cultural practices that are unfamiliar but harmless. An example of tolerance in action is seen every holiday season in New York City. Christmas decorations pop up everywhere, and you would probably have a hard time finding a Jew who felt discriminated against by the big Christmas tree. In turn, the Christians of New York City tolerate their Jewish neighbors, so everyone gets along just fine (in the way New Yorkers get along, that is). Essentially, tolerance is like an antihistamine for society: it keeps people from reacting unnecessarily to harmless foreign things.

In this context, respect can be defined as understanding the value of another person's culture even if their practices are unfamiliar or strange. This is different from tolerance in some way that I can't quite recall at the moment. I think respect involves knowing when not to say something demeaning about someone else's cultural practices.

So that's my essay in a nutshell. You'll notice that it doesn't talk about "accepting" other cultures, and I have a reason for it. I think of acceptance as the adoption of certain aspects of another culture into one's life, and this usually only happens after a few generations of tolerance and respect have passed. Cultural hybridization is a wonderful thing (Japan is a shining example of this), but it is not strictly necessary for a society to function. A lack of tolerance, however, results in all manner of nasty things, and causes bad feelings on both sides.

What I find slightly amusing is the fact that I live in Hawaii, yet I wrote nothing about Hawaii's multicultural society. Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and white culture all come into contact here, but I am almost completely oblivious to them. I know the interaction is there, because people tell me about it, and it makes perfect sense, but I know next to nothing about any of them. The only thing I can think of concerning my personal dealings with other cultures here is the fact that I will never accept the practice of eating rice. I can tolerate and respect other people eating rice every freaking day, but I simply cannot stomach it.

The same goes for SPAM. Where I'm from (Northeastern USA), SPAM is practically a joke. Supermarkets always have maybe a dozen cans of SPAM on their shelves, but nobody actually buys it. It's just there so when little kids hear jokes about SPAM and ask their parents 'What's SPAM?', the parent can take them to the store and show them the can, and explain that it's not really for eating. Yet here in Hawaii, they actually eat it. A lot of it.

That is what I say.
What was I talking about?
I am hungry now.

Scientists being Nerds

According to a recent New York Times article, a handful of scientists have been complaining about Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. I bet you're thinking "Great, more of those fake scientists claiming global warming doesn't exist." Well, you're absolutely right; about nay-saying climatologists being fakes, that is. As for whom it is that's complaining about Al Gore's movie, you're horribly mistaken.

It is none other than perfectly credible scientists who are pointing out inaccuracies in Gore's documentary (which I have seen, by the way, and so should you), worrying that taking an extreme stance and "overselling" the science behind global warming is a bad idea. While they have no political quarrels with Gore, they fear he may have overstepped the bounds of what science can reasonably predict about climate change.

If Al Gore were presenting a scientific thesis, I would agree completely. Mr. Gore himself has said, however, that "[He is] trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that [he] understand[s]." No kidding. An Inconvenient Truth is probably the most plain-spoken explanation of global warming and the problems it causes that I have ever seen. There is a very good reason for this "lay language," or plain English: the movie is supposed to educate people who are still undecided about global warming. Mr. Gore and myself might best be described as members of the "educated laity."

For those of you who don't remember your history, the laity was/is the term for the common folk, anybody who did not belong to the clergy, or religious hierarchy (Catholic church, etc.). In modern times, "the laity" can refer to anyone who is not part of an educated minority of some sort. The scientific laity is the majority of people who don't really understand science and its procedures. Al Gore is not officially a scientist, but he understands scientific principles and concepts, so he tries to explain what the eggheads in the laboratory (scientists) are saying to the laity (everyone else). Now those eggheads are treating Gore's movie like a scientific thesis, pointing out inaccuracies that only a scientist would care about.

My point, if I haven't strained your patience too far to care, is that these scientists are shooting themselves in the foot. They may be professors emeritus and whatnot, but they're still being nerds. Remember that one nerd in high school who thought he just had to interrupt the teacher every ten minutes to correct him or her on some detail that nobody cared about and made no difference whatsoever? I used to be that kind of nerd, and these scientists are still being that kind of nerd. They refuse to accept that outside of the university, people don't want to hear every little detail, and they won't give a crap about what you're telling them if every third sentence is a "percent error" statement.

Al Gore knows that they understand everything already, he knows that there are many complex details behind every claim he makes in his documentary, and he knows that the scientific community already agrees that climate change is really happening and humans are partly responsible. The whole purpose of the movie is to get the point across to the rest of the world. So what if he doesn't have a table of data for every single statement he makes? (For the record, he does a pretty darn good job of backing up his claims as it is) The movie would be way too long and way too boring to get an award for Best Documentary if it were made to convince a bunch of scientists. The whole point of being a scientist is that you always question everything, are always skeptical of what you're being told, and look for evidence to back up everything. That's not what An Inconvenient Truth is about, it's about trying to motivate the people who are really going to make the changes for the better: populus pluri (everybody).

Besides, would it be a catastrophe if a handful of exaggerations in a movie motivated more people to buy fuel-efficient cars? It's much easier to make big changes if the general populace understands the problem and what to do about it.

Fortunately, these compulsive nerd scientists are in the minority; hopefully they won't put too much of a buzzkill on Al Gore's attempt to increase awareness.

Here's a banner slogan for environmentalists to shout: "Save the polar bears!"

The Awesomeness of Stonework

I don't suppose I ever mentioned that I'm a huge fan of stonework? More specifically, stonemasonry is my thing. Sometimes I think I'll just forget getting a fancy-schmancy degree and become a stonemason. I've added a new link to this group called the Stone Foundation, an organization with a punny title. That there is a picture of a young Yakov Smirnoff admiring Warwick castle.

What's that? You didn't know that people still did that sort of thing? Well, I'll have you know, Mr./Ms. Modern Smartypants, that there are still people in this world who appreciate buildings that look nice, particularly buildings of stone. I, for one, find the mass of concrete blocks that make up Honolulu to be absolutely hideous. Yeah, yeah, I know, who am I to complain about living in Hawaii, right? You wouldn't say that if you could see what a total dump this place is. With everything centered around tourism, Hawaii's non-touristy parts are really crappy, and we're totally dependent on stuff that comes in by ships.

Anyway, back to stonework, I want to build myself a castle. It'll be big and beautiful, and I'll build stone cottages nearby and sell those to people who want to live in a modern version of a medieval village. I have a cousin who loves horses; I think I'll build some top-notch stables (like the ones you see in Rohan in the Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers). Then I can host jousts and Renaissance faires (Ren faires are spelled with that extra "e", just because). Of course, I probably won't be able to do it alone, so I'll need a few like-minded friends who can help out. Smart people, rich people, creative people, the whole spiel. I honestly hope to make this my life's work.

Yesterday, I actually made some bagels. At home. They were delicious, like this one here. I feel much happier than I did two days ago, thanks to these bagels. The recipe came from jewishrecipes.org, but I found that the bagel's shape is much more satisfactory if you punch a hole in the middle with your thumb rather than pinching two ends together, as this recipe suggests.

Of course, you probably have no intention of baking yourself any bagels. You probably have no intention of baking anything. In fact, you probably don't even know what an oven is for, since you are probably a slave of the microwave oven, like so many jaded 21st century blokes. Sorry, I'm ranting again.

Anyway, nothing special happened that I know of.

Books, Bagels, and Bogus

I've just started reading another one of Steven Brust's novels, The Phoenix Guards. I've read the Taltos series, but this is totally different, and it is hilarious. Mr. Brust's webpage gives a succinct synopsis of the book, along with all his others. Speaking of his other books, you should go buy them. Seriously.

It's a wonderfully boring day here on Oahu, which is good news for people who like consistency. I woke up the boring sound of my boring alarm clock, decided to be boring by going back to bed for an hour, and then woke up for real and ate two boring bowls of cereal. Tomorrow I'm going back to ugly and boring school, and I'll spend the day wishing I had a real bagel. Real bagels are not boring, they're mellow. Get it right.

Bagels... if anyone knows where I can find a real bagel in Honolulu (if you're a New Yorker who has ever been exiled long enough to miss bagels, you know the kind I mean), I would be very grateful if they told me. They have these things called "bagels" in Hawaii, but they are not true bagels.

True bagel: dense, chewy bread with a hole in the middle; best enjoyed with a savory, not sweet, spread, like cream cheese and lox. Made by boiling the dough before baking.

False bagel: soft, round bread with a hole in the middle; comparable to a dense, flavorless donut, which explains why people who eat them often put sweet spreads on them. Made by committing blasphemy against true bagels.

Did you know: That people in Hawaii know what salmon is, but most have never heard of lox? What is this bogus?

Lo, the stars themselves shall pass gas

I have found the answer to all of life's questions, and it is as follows:

"Where is the mustard?"

In other news, the Mossy Coconut continues to grow new ferns, and several healthy fronds have already unfurled. If all goes well, we should experience a full recovery from the minor setbacks a month ago, when several fronds turned brown and fell off. Color diagrams will be available soon.


Don't write poetry
It is a very bad thing
Demands thoughtfulness

Time to throw away money!

You know what really bugs me? The way people are always buying stuff these days. Nearly everyone (in the USA at least) likes to think that they're some kind of mini-millionaire, and they only need to keep track of big expenses like mortgage/rent payments, car payments, school tuition, etc. Do you want to know what keeps so many of us in debt, and why so many of us will have a bitch of a time retiring? We piss away our money on stuff we don't need.

Yeah, I know, it's advice that's been around since the Stone Age. Back when Oog was complaining about how he was living from mammoth to mammoth, Ug hit him over the head with a big stick and told him it was because he kept spending his dried mammoth meat (mammoth jerky was the currency of the day) on every new upgrade of flint spearheads that came out, when the one he had was working just fine. Then Oog hit Ug back with a big rock and killed him, so now we are all descended from a moronic impulse buyer.

This has worked wonders for the economy, of course. Vending machines, Starbucks, fancy cell phones, and no end of other things for us to buy. We're surrounded by advertisements for this stuff, and none of it is stuff we need. Yet we still buy it, partly because we're only half aware of the fact that we're spending money, and partly because its a huge part of our culture. Not buying fancy junk like cell phones, trendy clothing, video games, and lattes you don't really need make you an outcast from popular culture. I've overheard conversations between teenage girls about how they've got some money they want to spend. They go to the mall as a social activity, not because they want to buy something in particular. Come to think of it, most malls don't have stuff anybody really needs, with a handful of exceptions.

What the hell is this? Why are we so absorbed into buying "stuff"? We don't even realize we're doing it most of the time, I expect. I see people at my school buying a bottle of water almost every single day. No one needs to spend 50 cents every single day on a bottle of water, but they do. I buy one bottle a week, sometimes less, and refill it at home.

"But what's the big deal?" You ask, "50 cents is pocket change, it makes no difference." Oh really? Let's see, if you spend fifty cents, oh, let's say, four days in every week for eight months, you spend... holy crap, that's around $68 bucks! And that's just for a 50 cent bottle of water at my school; think of how much you might be spending on that $3 latte you buy every other day. Assuming you have the math skills, try keeping track of what you're spending. You may be surprised about how it adds up.

Of course, nobody cares. We would rather bleed away money in exchange for thinking we can afford these little indulgences. "Sure, I've got some financial problems," we think, "but it's not like buying the occasional doughnut is going to ruin me." Maybe not, but is it really worth it to hit that vending machine every day at work? Bring a sandwich or something. Oh wait, you are so absorbed into the culture of buying things that you have forgotten how to prepare food for yourself? My mistake.

This isn't supposed to be a financial advice column, but if you leave this page a tiny bit wiser then congratulate yourself. Otherwise, go about your life as you always have, secure in the fact that this is America, gosh darn it, and you've got every right to spend money on a premium cable package that has maybe five or ten channels that you actually watch.

This cynicism is brought to you by me (duh), as inspired by this guy's article. I don't completely agree with everything he says, but I don't hold that against him. If you ever find yourself in complete agreement with somebody, slow down and think about it for a few minutes.