Marry A Bear? What The...?

(Note: Before reading this post, please consult the very serious Deonandan.com disclaimer.)

Today's perv link is actually a discussion of the sexual fortunes of the animal kingdom... without the involvement of people. The money quote: "A male lion held a record of 86 sexual intercourses in 24 hours. " Aieee. I feel soooo inadequate now.

Apparently, you can get a real honest-to-god quasi-celebrity, like Mr T or Boy George (and a lot of losers I've never heard of), to leave a message on your answering machine. Click here!

Here's an obscure article reporting that a re-created version of the 1918 Spanish flu virus has been allowed out of the lab. Sure, that's shocking and all. But I'm more impressed that they were able to re-create the virus at all! How come nobody told me?

Well, it's election time in Canada again. At present, I'm predicting a Conservative minority government. But things might and will change in coming weeks.

You know, it's easy to mock the political Right (and fun, too!) for its inclusion of loony wingut bigots and religious zealots. But the Left has its idiots, too. Here's a story of political correctness gone mad: In Provincetown, Mass., an elected official succeeded in getting removed an historic painting depicting the Pilgrims voting on the Mayflower Compact when they first landed in Provincetown ...because the painting only showed men voting, which is, apparently, offensive, albeit historically accurate.

Stories like that make me want to move to a shack in the Yukon and marry a bear.

It's Not a Party Until Someone Brings The Iron Crotch

(Note: Before reading this post, please consult the very serious Deonandan.com disclaimer.)

"The 10th anniversary this week of the Dayton Accords that ended the genocidal war in Bosnia, and the 1999 rescue of Kosovo's Albanians from genocide, must remind everyone -- especially the Muslim world -- that the U.S. used to be a champion of human rights rather than what it has today become, one of the world's major offenders." -Eric Margolis

The article cited above is a neat summary of the good things the US has done for the Muslim world. This in no way mitigates the crap they are pulling now. Rather, it accentuates how far from grace our neighbours to the south have fallen. And now the news...

A man pulls a truck with his iron crotch. Yes, you read that right.

Happy birthday to the late Bruce Lee, one of my childhood role models (hence my funny accent). He would have been 65 yesterday.

Perv link of the day: the Australian bunny molester's story gets weirder and weirder.

Interesting quasi-perv link which might have strong political implications: a study unsurprisingly shows what most unbiased people have known forever, that men who are sexually aroused make bad decisions. Specifically, "erotic stimulation increases a young man’s propensity to engage in uncharacteristic sexual acts or crimes of passion." Nothing too shocking there, right? Except the obvious implication of this study is the following: "arousal should be given more credit as a mitigating factor — although not a justification — of the immoral, exploitative behaviours of sex offenders." Thoughts?

From Nepal comes this story of a young boy, who some claim is a reincarnation of the Buddha himself, who has supposedly persisted in meditation for six months, without food or water. Reminds me of reports of the girl with x-ray vision. Whatever happened to her?

Watch a video of ex-President Jimmy Carter telling it like it is.

Then watch this video of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog interviewing some foolish Republican backbenchers on the topic of global warming. What did these morons expect? That a comedic dog puppet would make them look good?

And it seems the story of Bush trying to wipe out the civilian headquaters of the Al-Jazeera news organization refuses to die, thankfully. Here's a summary of Bush's alleged on-going campaign against AJ.

You know, today I intended to write about two-tiered medicine. Then I lost interest. Maybe tomorrow.

Bombing Civilians and Making Donald Fart

Remember yesterday's discussion of online dating services? Well, the world of South Asian online dating is a whole special subset of that industry. Thanks to Sheila J. for providing this take on that particular world. Oh yes, you have to click on it. you have to. Do it. Now.

Well, looky looky. It seems there exists a memo suggesting that Bush the Younger actively sought to bomb the Qatar offices of Al-Jazeera, a legal group of civilian newscasters. And in the UK, the press is being gagged about this memo. This crap gets stinkier every day.

As many know, I'm a fan of reality television. And yes, I'm aware that it's mostly scripted. But it seems that the writers of such programs (yes, they have writers) are up in arms because the corporate sponsors are compelling the producers to change aspects of "reality" to suit their marketing ends. In other words, editors are being forced to change episodes to suit the advertisers. I suppose this is to be expected. But the Writers Guild of America is fighting back with the launch of Subservient Donald. Click on the link to pretend to be a sponsor and make Donald Trump do as he's told. Tell him to "fly", "show me your chest" or "yawn". You can even get him to whore products. Now that's reality TV!

Longtime Deonandan.com reader Nasty Nicky B. now has his own blog over at logbase2.blogspot.com. It's a niche market, but he's got some clever ideas.

Lastly, this Sunday my weekly sitar class will be held at my place! Our teacher, the wise and powerful Anwar Khurshid has agreed to hold council at Chez Wat from 11:AM onward. If I can wrangle it, I will webcast the whole class on the watcam.

Free Food And Online Dating.... Is There A Connection?

In an earlier blog post, I lamented the failure of the world's prevalent economic systems to account for the intangibles that should truly define progress. Thanks to Baljit W., I've been alerted to this website, which strives to redefine progress in terms of ecological footprints. I leave it to the more diligent among you to sort through the details.

Continuing on the rubber chicken circuit (or, more precisely, the rubber samosa circuit), last night I attended yet another diwali celebration on Parliament Hill. The things I do for free food! And yes, I will continue to do much for free food. In fact, back in the glory days of The Podium, we used to maintain a specific web page just to list events where people could get free food. The page is cached here.

While I no longer maintain that page, I'm still interested in eating for free. So if you know of any such events in my neck of the woods, do let me know. I don't just show up and stuff myself, you know. I bring friends; we chat with people; we make the event seem important. Consider it a social service.

Now, on an entirely different topic, I'm open about the fact that I have used online dating services. Heck, in this day and age, who hasn't? For busy single people, it's the most efficient and comfortable way to meet potential romantic partners. However, there have been some disturbing developments lately in the world of online dating.

First comes the news story that Match.com is being sued by a patron for supposedly getting employees to pose as singles and lure lonely people into memberships and fake dates.

Second, the same article contends that Yahoo!Personals used fake profiles to lure people into using its services. This is actually fairly well known. Anyone who's ever browsed the Yahoo!Personals site can immediately identify impossibly beautiful women with glamour photos, whose profiles are thinly disguised fictions.

Now comes this barely noticed change in the Lavalife.com terms of agreement:

"You agree to grant Lavalife a license for the right to use any images*, text* or recordings* you posted in any advertising campaigns, marketing materials or on third party advertising mediums."

Ignore the bad grammar for a moment. Lavalife now retains the right to post your photo and profile in its marketing materials, with no remuneration or notification to you. This is, of course, utter bullshit. They are invading the privacy of vulnerable people, many of whom have turned to them after assurances of privacy and anonymity. I for one will never again use a service with such a policy. Will you?

They Call Me The Wankmaster

(Note: Before reading this post, please consult the very serious Deonandan.com disclaimer.)

Charley Reese has a good idea: next election, vote out every incumbent in the country! He's talking about the USA, but it works in Canada, too. Regardless of party affiliation, just don't cast a single vote for anyone presently sitting in office. How cool would that be?

Stolen from a link from Andrew Currie's website, I present to you the Ghetto Shiznit Name Generator. From now on, you may call me, Wankmaster D.

A South Indian film starlet is being villified in her native land for daring to suggest that consensual pre-marital sex is okay. Can you believe this? Just in time for my trip to India next January. Of course, part of the fun of anything is its taboo-like nature. As pre-marital sex increasingly becomes mainstream in conservative parts of the world, pervs must turn to more extreme forms of sexual behaviour.... like dog fucking. But not this dog, 'cause he's dead. (Of course, dead dog fucking might be the next big thing after regular dog fucking becomes mainstream, as seems to be happening!)

And speaking of sex with bitches, Debra Lafave, the "hot" teacher accused of having sex with her 14 year old student, gets off with house arrest because, in the words of her attorney, "To place an attractive young woman in that kind of hell hole is like placing a piece of raw meat in with the lions." Hmmm.... so if you're good looking enough, you shouldn't be sent to prison for a sex crime. Noted. (He says, doing his best Zoolander pose in the reflection of the computer monitor.)

So, John J. and I went to an Asian Heritage Month party at the Indonesian embassy last night. (Yes, 6 months too early.... or too late, depending on how you do the math.) Here's the great thing about the Indonesian diplomatic mission: no matter what they do or for whom they do it, they always provide the best spring rolls in town. Yumm!

We pressed the flesh and got some great PR for the big art show next week. Yours truly even got to get up on stage and plug the event. So I can now check off, "speak at the Indonesian embassy" from my lifetime to-do list. (It's up there between "sex with conjoined twins" and "tango with a monkey.")

Don't forget, those of you in the Ottawa area, to come out next Wednesday night. Details of the event are at http://www.milanottawa.ca/ (click on "upcoming"). The official event poster is here.

Wankmaster out.

Today We Discuss Leftist Crap For A Change

Shit.

You know, it's been some time since I pissed some people off. So today we're going to examine this story about the University of Washington. Specifically about its Women's Studies department. Specifically about the uproar that the new department chair is a --gasp!-- man.

The skinny is that everyone agrees that the fellow is a nice, charming and qualified dude. But that's just it-- he's a dude. Weirdly, some critics have pointed out that he's also straight and white, as if that has some merit to a Women's Studies program.

On the surface, uproar over his appointment might seem understandable. After all, what can a man know about what it is to be a woman? And how would women feel havingto discuss women's issues with a man?

But in my humble opinion, such criticisms are utter bullshit. Either Women's Studies is a valid academic subject, or it's a counselling program or some such, but it can't be both. If it's a counseling program, then it makes sense that the head should be someone the clients can find resonance with; but a counseling program has no business masquerading as a academic department. So if Women's Studies is to be taken seriously as a valid academic subject, then it shouldn't matter what the race, orientation or genitalia of its proponents are.

In short, no academic discipline "belongs" to a specific biologically-defined group. Or even to an specific ideologically-defined group. It shouldn't matter, for example, if the department head is anti-abortion or pro-war. All that should matter is that s/he is a competent professor and administrator with sufficient seniority.

The heads of several South Asian studies departments I have known have been non-South Asian. A chair of the University of Toronto's East Asian studies department --a friend of mine-- is a white dude. In each of these cases, these individuals were superlative academics with unquestionable expertise in their disciplines. That should be the only relevant criteria, not whether they have a genetic claim to the subject matter.

It's this kind of crap that sometimes makes me embarrassed to be on the Left side of the fence.

Okay, Not Quite 40,000 Yet

In light of high-profile official visits to China by President Bush and Ontario's Premier McGuinty, the press is a-buzz with tales of the Chinese economic juggernaut soon equalling the monetary power of the USA. After all, China is a nuclear and space power whose exports have flooded the world, whose large population serves as a tempting market for Western products (ain't gonna happen), and whose espionage shenanigans are making it future enemy #1 for the neocons. (And not just because they possess superior door technology.) Interestingly, despite those bloviating sounds, China is not expected to suffer an energy crisis anytime soon; a quarter of the world's coal reserves are located there. What China is likely to experience in the near future, believe it or not, is a labour shortage. This has to do with a number of factors, not the least of which is the soaring price of health care in that country. Here is an example of how unaffordable health care in China is driving a sizable segment of their substantial population to misery.

Reason #324 why dogs are better than cats: A bull mastiffe drove away a killer mountain lion. Meanwhile, when a racoon wandered into my brother's house, his heretofore ferocious and overfed cat hid like a scared little.... pussy.

Okay, let's do away with the tracking of bestiality stories and move on to another seeming prevalence spike. Have you noticed, in the past couple of years, a dramatic increase in media reports of female teachers having sex with male students? The epidemiological question before us is: has the prevalence of female-teacher-on-male-student-sex (FTOMS) truly increased, or is it an artefact of overreporting? I don't have the answer (yet). What I do have is a good story.

Breaking news! Chemical weapons have been found in Iraq! Bush was right! Oh wait, the Americans brought them there and are using them. Never mind.

Lost: one video tape containing amateur sex scene. How long before this tape makes it onto the 'Net? If anyone has any leads, you know where to report them.

I leave you with this story about a Thai zoo offering exotic meats from its own pens! Reminds me of something I tried about 14 years ago: to eat one of everything that has ever lived. My rules stated that I couldn't just wrestle a kangaroo to the ground and bite its ass. Rather, the meal had to be part of an indigenous cuisine, and I had to go to that country and try the meat in person. I got through a variety of bugs and weird meats in Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. But I was stopped by something I tried in mainland China ---rat kebab. I ate it fine. Then I was sick for days afterward, and I realized the stupidity of my quest. Mind you, I might have been made sick by consuming the skewered rodent, or maybe it was because I did so in close proximity to a fellow depositing a steaming turd into a sewer. I guess we'll never know.

Say it with me, now: Ewwwww.

40,000!

By tomorrow, this blog will have reached 40,000 hits. Brings a tear to my eye. Sniff. Want to send me a present to comemorate this auspicious event? Buy me this.

Anyone who'sever engaged in some online dating will find resonance in this story.

For my brown brothers and sisters, I present this article, courtesy of Brother Hrab, which details a contention that modern Hinduism was invented by para-colonial forces. Weirdness, man, weirdness.

Two things to plug:

1) This coming Friday, my sitar guru the great Ustad Shahid Parvez will play a special, intimate (and inexpensive!) concert in Mississauga.

2) Don't forget to come to the fundraiser I and some friends are organizing for Nov 30th:

OUR WORLD ON THE MEND
Photo exhibition and Silent Auction Fundraiser

Galerie St-Laurent + Hill, 333 Cumberland, Ottawa.
November 30th, 2005
Time: 7pm -11pm
Tickets 10$.
Available at: East India Co, Cafe Shafali and Kanaks
For more information call 858-0620 or 261-0020 or 853-1077

PHOTOS
See images from around the world, including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Eritrea, Sri Lanka and other recovering countries.

The exhibition features the work of Lyndon Goveas and Richard von Erlac. There will also be contributions from Monika Taylor-Schreiber, Juliette Rabussier, Nandini Saxena and Apurv Shah.

MUSIC
Includes live music by sitarist Adam Duncan and tabla player Kulpreet Badial.

FOOD
Complimentary hors doeuvres and drink refreshments.

AUCTION
Bring your cheque books! There will be a silent auction of selected works
with proceeds to go to the following charities:

CHARITY
Bruce House and Pakistani earthquake relief: CARE, OXFAM and Save The Children. Tax receipts can be arranged for donations greater than 30$

War

Just saw the movie Jarhead. Highly recommended. Seems to summarize (American) military life thusly: long hours of boredom interrupted by the occasional flurry of homoeroticism.

Reminds me of my one experience with paintball. Some months/years ago, a friend was getting married, so we --his droogies-- agreed to play paintball in lieu of a traditional bachelor party. We didn't have enough numbers to be able to play on the field by ourselves, so we were compelled to share the facility with some serious militaristic types who took the paintball lifestyle way too seriously. Strangely, some of the most hardcore players were these fellows with thick Serbian accents who came with their own expensive fully-automatic paintball rifles.

Now, you may be surprised to learn that I, Grandmaster Wat, after a lifetime of martial arts, war movies and video games, actually suck at paintball. You do not want me watching your six during a fire fight. I will curl up into a foetal ball or run away screaming like a little girl.

But this war-time dysfunction of mine was useful in using the game of paintball to try to see the world of the soldier. Or so I tried. Yet it was Good Ol' Nojjy Boy who summed up our observations most poignantly and poetically. As we huddled in a darkened bunker on the paintball field while our erstwhile "friends" tried to pick us off one-by-one sniper style, he commented: "Now I understand war. Hiding in a bunker with Serbians, feeling simultaneously bored and terrified. This is war."

(Really, it was much funnier when he said it aloud.)

Fatwat

Perhaps it's due to having slipped from my militaristic workout regime (due to the insane amounts of work I've been doing of late). Or maybe it's due to the recent infusion of both mother's high-carb home cooking and endless amounts of conference food. Or maybe, God forbid, it's a sign of old age. But as of this morning I, Dr Ray, the "Professor of mad, mad monkey love", am heavier than I've been in 10 years, weighing in at a whopping, if underwhelming, 164 pounds. Maybe it's all hair.

Thanks to Brother Hrab for pointing out that the Mediadirt blog is now offline. Hmm, we speculate, could it be that the fearless muckrakers behind the lines of Canada's top media offices have been found out and canned? Stay tuned, as I am sure this story is not over.

I return now to my economics workshop at the Marriott hotel in Toronto. Update: it seems the toilet seats are not heated. Rather, for some reason yesterday, they were filled with hot water! Say it with me now: steaming turds.

Economic Evaluations

Greetings from inside a workshop on economic evaluation in the Courtyard Marriott hotel in Toronto. Here's a bit of trivia: toilet seats in the Marriott are heated!

Something one of my economics instructors said this week has resonated with me: if you hire a housekeeper, the economy improves (GDP goes up). But if you marry your housekeeper, the economy deflates. This is because the way that governments keep accounts is from a market perspective, whereby only businesses can produce, and whereby the only role for households is to consume.

But the reality, as I hope is obvious, is that there is a great deal of economic activity that occurs within the household, but which is invisible to formal accounting. When you raise your kids, you are improving the economy by creating more consumers and producers and by preventing the creation --one hopes-- of criminals and other resource drains. When one spouse does the chores, it frees the other spouse to do more measurable economic activities. By tending your garden you improve property values. And so on.

Yet societies who have excelled at such subtle and longterm economic activities have been artificially devalued by the expanding global market perspective. The result is that the Western-style accounting stance is being exported to all societies, with mixed results.

The postive results are there: seeming increased wealth. But the negative results are often hidden because our methods of accounting do not permit us to measure or even acknowledge them: reduced social cohesion, less time spent between parent and child, etc.

More and more, I'm starting to suspect that much of the woe in the world is not caused so much by capitalism per se, or by evil imperialists (though both play a role). Rather, it's all due to our mistaken reliance on flawed and non-inclusive economic models, the outputs of which feed the overvaluation of such things as the free market and currency valuation.

Okay, back to the heated toilets...

Help!

Help! I'm trapped in a house terrorized by two small children! Help!

Don't Turn To God

(Note: Before reading this post, please consult the very serious Deonandan.com disclaimer.)

Yesterday I reported that the town of Dover, PA, had tossed out the uber-religious zealots who were shoving Intelligent Design down the school boards' throats. Now, thanks to Brother Hrab, I see in a news item that that eternal bastion of rational thought, Pat Robertson, has warned the citizens of Dover that, "If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city." Yes, Pat Robertson has told these folk that God has forsaken them because they had forsaken God. This is just another variation on the American right's theme of, "vote this way 'cause God wants you to; and if you don't, then you hate America and baby Jesus."

Okay, this is kind of creepy. Know that slimeball who makes the Girls Gone Wild videos? Joe Francis? He keeps popping up in the weirdest places. I've even seen him on dating shows. Now it seems a thug has forced Joe, at gun point, to pose in sexually compromising positions... and blackmailed him with the video. The gunman, it turns out, is a fascinating character worthy of his own movie (and some serious jail time). Read about it here. I wonder how long before Joe's tape makes it onto the 'Net.

Which brings us to... today's perv link.

Good, Bad and Ugly (News, That Is)

Dig this, my droogies. After an anti-war sermon was delivered in an LA church, the church was warned by the IRS that its tax-exempt status was now in jeopardy. Technically, the IRS is in the right, since tax-exemption is dependent upon the church remaining apolitical. Yet how many evangelical churches get away every day with Bush-worshipping sermons? Some churches were known to have printed and distributed Bush/Cheney stickers during the 2004 campaign. Why were they not visited by the IRS? Could it be --God forbid!-- that the US federal government is using its power to selectively quash dissent?

In Australia, a teacher has been suspended from work because she moonlights as a prostitute in a brothel. Weirdly, she was discovered when a fellow teacher visited the brothel and subsequently turned her in. Of course, the john/teacher is apparently not in any trouble. This is, of course, utter bullshit, since in her jurisdiction, nothing she has done is illegal. It is not the state's job to enforce morality; if it were, such would be codified in law, yet the electorate has chosen to keep prostitution a non-criminal endeavour. This hearkens back to the days when teachers were expected to be virginal spinsters. I hope she sues their asses for illegal suspension, etc.

Good news: In Dover, Pennsylvania, voters showed intelligence by booting out of office the idiot Republicans who were trying to force Intelligent Design into classrooms, and replacing them with Democrats who want nothing to do with fake science. Yes, my droogies, say it with me: this was a case of natural selection in action.

Bad news: the sequellae of the Kashmiri earthquake continue to mount. New reports of a diarrhea epidemic among the refugee camps is particularly troubling. (I've written a little bit about diarrhea here and here.) These poor folk are in for a long haul of misery. So those of you in Ottawa, remember to come out to our art show on November 30, to raise money for earthquake relief.

Ugly news: this week I met a young woman who is actually a member of the Canadian army reserves. (No, she is not ugly; quite the opposite, in fact.) What a sweet deal this is! She gets paid quite well for it, and can work as often as she wants. She's being trained to be an infantry medic, but spends a lot of time firing weapons and running about the compound. She also has the option of being shipped to Afghanistan. And the army subsidizes her university education! Why didn't anybody tell me about this when I was young and spry? Damn! The best part is that you can quit anytime.... but the ugly part is that the army has the option of recalling you anytime within 5 years of quitting, in the event of a national emergency or a declared state of war. Hmmm, not sure I like them odds.

Plugging a Friend (Not In a Sexual Way, You Pervs)

Running around like a mad man this week. Not much time for anything, really. So today, my entry will be exceptionally abbreviated. In fact, I only have one item to share. Deonandan.com reader and pal, Brother Hrab, has scored an op-ed in the Washington Times, on a topic touched upon in this space: possible UN administration of the Internet. Read it here.

Yes, The Times is a bit of a right wing rag these days, especially since it's acquisition by the Moonies. But Brother Hrab is an enormous intellect who brings honour to its pages.

Keep Nov 30th Open

The Sound of Silence

"I also feel very sorry for people who have to toss salads in prison." -A blogger (whose hilarious site also contains some very bad misinformation about anal sex from, sadly, a medical student.)

In these times of global distress (though, really, when hasn't there been global distress?) it's comforting to note those stories of genuine heroic behaviour. The Scotsman has this list of recent recipients of the Scottish police's meritorious award. The lead example is of a teenager who saved his neighbour by bonking an attacker on the head with a frying pan. Unbelievably, the teen's mother was not singled out for a medal, as well, even though it was her idea... and even though she provided the frying pan.

Remember cold fusion? Now comes hydrino power. I'm not sure I understand the science underpinning this new claim to cheap, plentiful energy. But the upshot is this: if this thing works, it invalidates much of quantum mechanics theory, which has formed the foundation for all subatomic physics over the past century. It also means the world's energy crisis may be abated. And if it doesn't work.... well, we can all create our own desktop cold fusion kits with grape kool-aid and alka seltzer.

Okay, so there's chaos in the suburbs of Paris. This is a complicated issue that I want to give serious time to in the future, so I won't get into it too much today. It's just interesting to point out that all the right-wing boards, blogs and news sites are complaining that the rioters have been insufficiently labelled as "Muslim", while all the left-wing boards, blogs and news sites have been complaining that they have been inappropriately labelled as such. What's the correct perspective? Maybe we should worry less about who they are and more about what they're doing, why they're doing it, how to stop them doing it, and how to prevent them from wanting to do it in the future.

Meanwhile, the right continues to obsess over the 2004 murder of Theo Van Gogh. Yes, it was a tragic, hateful thing, and the murderer deserves some serious justice. But get this quote from conservative journalist/blogger Andrew Sullivan, who is actually one of the more reasoned "conservative" voices:

"The silence on much of the left about van Gogh is as telling as the silence on the right about torture."

Now, while I appreciate Sullivan's continued beratement of the Right for its complicity in the U.S. torture of detainees, I think he's a tad off-base here. Van Gogh was murdered by a single demented individual who was tried in a court of law. Torture is an on-going, systematic abuse of power leading all the way to the White House, for which no one of influence has yet been made responsible. Van Gogh's murder does have a political dimension, but I find it ripe that these people who argue that not enough public attention is being paid to the sociopolitical implications of his murder are often the very same people who denied that Marc Lepine's 1989 muderder of a group of women had any political implications. Hmmm.

In short, Van Gogh was murdered by a criminal who was perhaps influenced by other criminals. There is no disagreement on this point; hence any accusations of "silence" are ludicrous. The torture of detainees, however, is a systematic criminal enterprise that taints an entire society; silence on this matter is tantamount to approval.

Boobies!

A death row inmate in Texas just walks out of prison by posing as a lawyer. I have to admit, he's so brazen that I'm sort of rooting for him. Hey, it's Texas, after all. He's probably on death row for a parking violation!

In an earlier blog post, I talked about a discussion I had with a lawyer ex-girlfriend many years ago about the lack of guarantees of anonymity and responsibility for sperm donors. Here is the latest amazing story to add fuel to that fire: A teenage boy tracked down his sperm donor father by sampling his own DNA. The father ought to be proud that his kid is a super genius.

Here's a unique twist on the blogger phenomenon. I had posted some months ago about a blogger noting his final moments of life before an intruder murdered him in his home. And of course, brave bloggers around the world are being murdered for political reasons, like Steven Vincent. Now comes this tale of a Japanese girl slowly poisoning her mother, and blogging about her progress. This is a dangerous and twisted business I'm in!

Speaking of blogs, here's an excellent one which provides dishy insider information on the Canadian media scene. You'd have to be a media nerd to really appreciate it, though.

My friends will attest that over the past few years I've been harping on about a specific biological/sociological observation that no one else takes seriously: that women's breasts are getting bigger. I had no data to support this conclusion, but I suspected my observations were due to both better bra design and to hormonal changes in the female population, the latter perhaps due to earlier use of the contraceptive pill, earlier puberty (a global phenomenon, it seems) and maybe even hormones in our food. I'm relieved to see that I was not imagining things. This article suggests that the phenomenon is real. And, of course, like everything else fun, the Grim Patrol is lining up to tell us all what a horrible, unhealthy development this is. Poopers.

I want to end today with a mini-rant. You know what bugs me these days? Empty adages. You know the type: "everything happens for a reason", "somewhere, someone is thinking about you" --that crap. Like everyone else, I've taken solace in one or two of these adages over the years, particularly last year when I was having a particularly rough time. But ultimately, I find them insulting, unproductive and dangerous, inasmuch as they prevent us from accepting the true gravity of a situation.

"Everything happens for a reason"? Tell it to the mother whose child has been raped and murdered by a paedophile. "God doesn't give you anything you can't handle"? Tell it to the thousands of people who commit suicide every year. "Every cloud has a silver lining"? What's the up-side of millions murdered in Rwanda?

You get the picture.

Grandpa Wat

Continuing with the recent theme of this blog, here's today's link about another kind of animal love.

Want to read about something that is macabre, enlightening, disturbing and fascinating? Click here.

Last night I went to an adut recreational gymnastics drop-in class, my first attempt at a practical full-body workout since I gave up martial arts five years ago. Mind you, I did not expect the definition of "adult" to be 16-20 year olds. So I was easily 15-20 years older than the average age of the class. Still, it was a lot of fun, though extremely physically challenging.

When we --Miren C. and I-- first arrived, we mistakenly assembled in the wrong part of the gym, which was being used by the Ottawa University cheerleading team. Now, Miren and I are very fit and muscular fellows. But these cheerleading dudes had intimidating Dolph Lungren-esque physiques, and the dudettes were all babe-ishly fat-free --we were terrified that they were the typical adult drop-in gymnastics students. Whew! I've never been so relieved to be told to get lost.

Anyway, the actual class was challenging but not insurmountable. It's sad to note that 10 years ago, I might have breezed through the strenuous warm-up and had energy left over to try every gymnastics station 11 times each. Nowadays, I'm just happy to be able to walk out without assistance.

But I'm aching like a grandpa this morning!

A Lucky Life

2:AM and I'm watching Liz Phair videos here and here, not because I necessarily like the music, but rather because sexy Liz looks eerily like one of my ex-girlfriends (to me, at least). Brings some warmth to my sentimental heart. See, I've been extraordinarily lucky in my dating life. I've had relationships with truly gorgeous and brilliant women, each of whom I have loved thoroughly. Yet somehow they all seem to be married to other men now. Hmmm.....

Big news in Canada right now is, of course, the release of the Gomery report, which specifies who is to blame for Adscam, a financial scandal that goes right up to the Prime Minister's office. This whole affair sums up all that is wrong and right in Canadian politics: even our scandals are boring. And that's the way it should be. Other countries have crises involving blowjobs from fat chicks, clumsy executive burglaries, international arms and drugs deals, and misadventures leading to wars and death. We, on the other hand, get some payola thingy that no average citizen really understands or, outside Quebec, truly cares about. In a word: unsexiness.

I had an interesting thought earlier, while I was walking to work anticipating a potential confrontation with an individual of some influence. It occurred to me that these days few things that aren't of a life-and-death nature really can't make me nervous anymore, just amused. And I wondered where such --for lack of a better word-- confidence comes from. I think part of it is age and, dare I say it, the maturity that comes from age and experience. Once you've reached your late 30s, you've likely faced true crises and have dealt with death and illness; such things give you some perspective.

The other part of it, I suspect, is my history in the martial arts. Now, I am the first to admit that the way the martial arts are taught to Westerners these days, it's pretty much all about jumping up and down in your pyjamas as a little Asian man screams at you --all rather silly. But there was a time when I took it all quite seriously.

My first taste came at the age of 13, when my brother and sister compelled me to attend a few karate classes in the basement of Northern Secondary School in Toronto. I didn't know it at the time, but the teacher of those classes was Cezar Borkowski, who would go on to be a major force on the Canadian karate scene. But it wasn't until I turned 19 and joined the dojo of Burt Konzak that my life really changed. Now, I won't share my opinions of Konzak and his school in this public forum; let's just say that once I learned about the greater martial arts community, I quickly realized that Konzak was not the teacher for me... and by quickly, I mean five years later! (I'm a slow learner.)

So I took up a style of Indonesian kung fu called Kun Tao, and my life continued to change. Such training hardens both yor body and your will, and you slowly learn how to endure discomfort and sharpen your mind. A few months in, though, my teacher had to move to Calgary for advanced training with his teacher. So I joined The University of Toronto Karate Club and started a new style from scratch, this time intent on competing in the ring. Under the incomparable tutelage of Master Tominaga, a teacher I truly love, I earned a black belt and spent years competing around Ontario and Quebec (with, to be generous, mixed results.) Karate competition in Ontario is very very safe, especially if you're only doing kata demonstrations. But there is still a palpable fear associated with it, and much of the challenge of competition is overcoming that fear. That is where the personal growth occurs, and that is where such training confers a real benefit to practitioners. All that self defence stuff is hooey.

But my fascination continued. I travelled to Japan and Korea to see karate and taekowndo in their native forms. I went to India and observed kalaripayattu. I started to train in jiu-jitsu with Sensei Shawn Rodie and judo with the local club of the University of Western Ontario. I even took a serious try at aikido with Master Takeshi Kimeda, earning my first belt before leaving that art for harder styles.

The biggest impact came, though, when I decided to spend some time training at a kickboxing camp in northern Thailand 13 years ago. When you train with professional fighters in a village environment, all pretenses and whitewashed philosophies go out the window. After you've been in the ring facing a hardened Thai man intent on hurting you, and you survive to tell the tale, no other forms of human conflict, save ones with greater violence and ones involving lectures from girlfriends, can make you nervous. It's a wonderful side effect and perhaps the most vauable lasting gift I have received from 15 years of martial arts training: no shmuck in a business suit across a boardroom table is ever going to be able to intimidate me; I've already been beaten by the best!

Other people receive such insights by experiencing tragedies. After the death of a loved one, for example, nothing your employer or client or some random suit can threaten you with is going to mean anything to you. It's nice to have achieved that perspective without having suffered too much of the personal tragedies most people need; yet one more way in which I have lived a lucky life.

Vrtuwat

Popular Science has published the top 10 worst jobs in science. Interestingly, it's the #3 spot that is most poignant: biology teacher in Kansas.

I love it that online news services still have a sense of humour. Check out the title of this MSN news story.

Deonandan.com has commented several times upon the avian flu possible pandemic. Yet even I, known for my hyperbole, hysteria and histrionics, have never gone so far as to compare the epidemic to a nuclear holocaust! This is a good time to announce to the world that yesterday I got my flu shot. Have you done so?

Given the kerkuffle over the morality/science underlying vaccinations (yes, there' s a kerfuffle), maybe it's time for another Deonandan.com survey on the topic? The current survey is almost done; Iwill close it off at the end of the month and publish the results. So if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and take the survey!

My big news for this week is that I have signed up for a car sharing programme called Virtue Car (or Vrtucar). The model is simple: all members collectively have access to 30 or so vehicles in the city. You pick up and drop off each car at its assigned station, and stations are scattered throughout the city. We each pay a nominal monthly fee, then a small hourly rate when accessing the vehicles. It ends up being uber-cheap, when compared to renting or owning a car.

Last night, I signed out a Vrtucar for the first time and drove to friend Pegatha T.'s place to attend a Hallowe'en festivity. At the event, I absconded with a bag of books, magazines and candy. Instead of lugging the bag from the Vrtucar station to my place, I first dropped off the bag to my apartment building and cached it in the corner of my poorly lit and unattended lobby. Then I parked the car and walked the 10 minutes back home.... where I discovered that someone had absconded with my books and candy!

So somewhere in my building is a well read thief with tooth decay. Hmmmm.