Thoughts on What Really is Asian

Posted on 19 January 2011 by Larry Russwurm

It seems that using the name Asian to describe orientals is all the rage. Especially amongst the younger, more with it crowd. I think the name came from the oriental community, itself.

Sometimes I am all for people defining themselves. But when they do this while stepping on the toes of others, I am no longer for it. I’m against the Asian example in particular.

Asia is the largest of all the continents. It’s not surprising that it is also the most ethnically diverse of all the continents. It has Orientals in the east, Indians in the south, Turks in the west, Russians in the north and Eskimos in the far north. And what the bleep are Ainu? Apparently they are light skinned people of Japan but are also not closely related to the European Caucasian.

Orientals being called Asians just has too much of an expansionist flavour to it. Perhaps that is their intent. Perhaps they have the long term goal of owning every last bit of territory in Asia. Thousands of years from now when this is all complete, future people might look on us as wilfully ignorant for not seeing the threat. “They even told you. How daft can you be?” the future historians will ask.

As you can tell by my frequent use of the name Oriental, I am a living fossil of 43. Maybe we could use this term even if it is a bit old. But then again I’ve looked in my dictionary and the Orient means anything east of Europe. That’s why the famous train route is called the Orient Express even though it ends in just Istanbul. Granted my dictionary says especially east Asia. But Orientals may take this as meaning they have the right to all of Asia and Australia. They might develop this idea to be their manifest destiny.

So, for a non expansionist world, I think it’s best to call the largest ethnicity of the east, East Asians. In fact, to me, this goes back to my University days where York U. had an East Asian Studies. They knew how to name. You can call higher learning pretentious but sometimes it is just right when dealing with a sensitive issue.

And if East Asians don’t like this conciliatory name then perhaps we can divide them. Maybe East Asians ought to be called Han Chinese. Ethnically Han Chinese make up 1.2 billion people and are considered to be the largest ethnic group in the world. With this moniker, other East Asians might realize that the expansionist games can be played a different way.

So now please can we take a less threatening stance toward Indians, Russians, Turks, Eskimos, Ainu and even Australians. Especially since some of them have the atomic bomb.

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How Art Made Me Fail a Science Course

Posted on 15 January 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Whereas my last post wast kind of boastful of my unique handwriting, this post is the opposite.

Being an artist, taking science courses is usually just a bit curious. Usually it only has slight ramifications. Like for graphing in 3D, the texts and teachers just used the below left axes. But I made my own, I thought more artistic axes, shown by the below right axes.

It even had its perks to be an artist in a science program. York University was divided into 7 colleges. Mine, Bethune College, was the science college. It also had its own newspaper – the Lexicon. The editor of this paper asked me, upon seeing some of my art, if I would be the political cartoonist for the paper. I had never done actual political cartoons before. I refused initially because I felt it would cut into my study time. But then he offered a sum of money at the end of the school year if I would do it. I figured out that at 3 hours a cartoon it would pay as much as a minimum wage job. So I agreed. And I was glad to do it, being a news junkie I had built up an intolerance to politicians. So I think it was successful.

My 3rd year Electromagnetism course started innocently enough. Early on they introduced a small r variable. Because I was enamoured by my new lowercase written r, I decided to use this r for the little r. Despite the fact that my lowercase written r is a smoothed capital r written the size of lowercase letters, it didn’t even bother me that they introduced a capital R variable. I just made sure to make the uppercase R blocky and large.

But mentally I freaked out a bit when later that semester they introduced a 3rd r. It was called a script r. It was basically a written small r. At first I didn’t know what to put it down as in my notes, but I felt I had to make a decision that class. Aesthetically and artistically I never liked my written small r. So I refused to use that. Instead I fancied up my small written r as shown below, last amongst all the r’s.

Now taking 3rd year Physics is a fast and pressured existence. And my passing cushion was never that high. I did okay in my other courses but when the dust settled at the end of the course I realized that I had failed this course and thus took it again the next year.

I had the presence of mind to keep my notes and looked at them at the beginning of the next year. I perused them to the introduction of the 3rd r. My suspicions were more than confirmed as I realized that in the first few pages I made a few slips and wrote the wrong r. I don’t know how bad my old notes got because I didn’t continue the autopsy. But I simply decided from the outset to stick firmly with the r’s as given and not do anything fancy. I passed that second time around. So that is how art made me fail a science course.

And I see the official Electromagnetism 3rd year script r up there that I wrote for this article and, still, artistically I don’t like it.

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Handwriting Ideas

Posted on 12 January 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Once upon a time I would laugh at my Dad’s handwriting. Oh you could read it if you squinted a lot and were persistent. And aesthetically it wouldn’t be considered visually pleasing.

Still, while going through early school my own handwriting wasn’t aesthetically pleasing either (although I thought it was more intelligible). So for years, I resorted to printing for my handwriting, which I thought looked better.

Finally, in my last couple years of schooling, I came up with a style of writing I liked. It incorporated a sort of twitchiness that I had better control of than in ordinary writing. To myself I called it “electric handwriting” because the writing kind of reminded me of the zigzags of lightning or the electric Jacob’s Ladder or even a plasma ball. In fact I’m so proud of my handwriting that I think it should almost be a font. Below I picture the capital letters of my writing so you can have a taste. Then there are the lower case letters, the biggest oddity among them being a small “capital” r for the lowercase r. I never could manage the normal written lowercase r. And thirdly I show an abandoned method of dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s. I figured at the time that not lifting the pen might be faster just as it is with the rest of writing. But then there are all the crossed letters like l and h. Plus dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in antidisestablishmentarianism takes a longer time than I hoped.

But I had to write bigger than normal to show you all this (the blog sizing then made it smaller). Because almost 20 years out of school, my writing isn’t nearly as neat as it used to be.

In fact, my signature these days approaches the look of my Dad’s signature. I just don’t know how long I can pretend my handwriting is still superior. And in fact, when I first noticed my Dad’s bad handwriting, he was just a bit older than me and many more years out of school than I am.

Which leads me to the theory that with little or no practise, aesthetically pleasing handwriting goes the way of the dodo.

But you may well know of the obvious exception: doctors. They go to school longer than almost all of us and yet have worse handwriting than the norm. Indeed some even say that interpreting doctor’s handwriting for prescriptions can be one of the hardest jobs.

And I know the stereotype is true because of the only close relative of mine that could be called a doctor, well that is a PhD, my Uncle Lorne who was a professor of Geography. The first time I saw his handwriting was when he made a trip to Australia and sent us a post card. It was worse hand writing than my Dad’s. I spent a long time trying to read it and I think I guessed at about half of the words on the card.

Deteriorating hand writing may be the standard way to go but perhaps doctors have developed so much disdain for the written word that this is how they show their contempt.

Then there is theory number two about handwriting. All 4 of my sisters had neater handwriting than myself before I adopted the “electric handwriting” answer. In fact I think on the whole the average female can write neater than the average male. You might guess at my theory from something I said earlier.

Remember I mentioned that I can write neatly if I make it bigger?

Well women have wee hands, arms and wrists. Writing neatly and in the standard lines given by a sheet of paper should come easy for them. If the lines were bigger, perhaps us large strapping males could be neat, too.

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Cut Off the Coattails

Posted on 8 January 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Most of what we call progress is brought to us through science. And that science is generally moved forward by scientists and technologists.

As science becomes more complex and is built upon more previous work, shouldn’t we as a society try to make life easier for those scientists and technologists so real progress can be made in the world? What I am about to suggest is cutting off some people and influences in society that have been getting a free ride on science’s coattails while actively inhibiting scientists and technologists.

Let’s take those people who pooh pooh carbon dating as a technique and claim the earth is only 6 000 years old. Since they don’t really believe radiation theory, perhaps when some of them develop cancer we can avoid radiation treatments and opt for something they are more likely to believe in like the power of prayer.

What about the bullies that worked against the nerds that were to become future scientists? Are we just to let the adult scientists and technologists possibly take revenge in later life? Or should we just make it automatic that the year the bully started his targeting of a victim, is the year he thought things had come to perfection. In other words all technology past this year should never be allowed to work in the bully’s favour. Or perhaps we can make him regress even further and live the life of an Amish person or Old Order Mennonite. Wouldn’t it be even more sweet if we could throw in the non violence part, too?

Scientists and technologists are sometimes also disdained by the people they would like a romance with. Perhaps potential lovers who spurn all scientists and technologists could be banned from undergoing all plastic surgery procedures and the like. Undoubtedly a lot of them are vain enough that this would hurt. A warning to the scientists and technologists: while maybe not being scientists, doctors and nurses are certainly technologists and romances with those in either field are usually considered higher than normal status. So it would be rare to find a person who spurned romance with all scientists and technologists.

Now, with the road clear from some obstacles in life, maybe the scientists and technologists could see life being less about man vs. man and more about man vs. nature. Then perhaps progress would move faster. But then again I’m a self admitted progress junkie.

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Of Rock Picking and Cow Tipping

Posted on 5 January 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Now anyone who has seen the dark comedy Heathers (1989) has heard of cow tipping. This is the “sport” of sneaking up on a sleeping cow and pushing it onto its side (cows can sleep standing up). It has a made up sound to it and Heathers never shows it actually being done.

Sounding equally made up is the activity of rock picking. Farmers go about picking up the rocks they find in their fields and put them somewhere that their farm implements will not be damaged by them. But after doing this once, shouldn’t a farmer have to never do this again in the same field?

One of these two activities happens regularly on farms. The other almost never happens. This is a test, city people. Which of these two things is more a part of rural life?

Don’t look down, decide right now.

Let’s look at cow tipping. First of all, cows are skittish of all movement near them. Maybe most or all of them will be asleep, but they hang out in herds. All it takes is for one to be a light sleeper and it will awaken the rest just by moving loudly away from the movement.

Secondly, if you can sneak up on one, cows weigh about 1300 pounds or 580 kilograms. It’s probably going to take a couple of strong men to tip one over. And you still can’t wake it.

Thirdly, dairy cows cost thousands of dollars. Do you think a farmer is going to stand idly by while you tip over his prize cow and possibly injure it?

Fourthly, cows are rounded up by night fall and sleep in the barn. How many cows have you seen outside at night?

I lived 16 years in a rural area and not once did I hear about a cow being tipped. I did however hear about rock picking. In fact I helped rock pick a couple times.

I tried looking it up briefly online but couldn’t find anything about rock picking.

I had heard it said once that rock picking was needed because of long ago ice sheets.

I forget exactly how it works, now, but I know that ice sheets, as they move, sheer off rock from some parts and bring them to non rocky soils. So that’s why rocks exist in the soil in the first place. But I am not sure about the mechanism that brings new rocks to the top of the soil every few years. Plowing only disturbs the very top of the soil.

So, quite probably, rock picking is not necessary in tropical or near tropical areas. But I live in the Great Lakes area and those five lake beds were supposed to also be carved by ice sheets that were as much as a mile high.

So, to me, cow tipping is an interesting fiction but rock picking is a sometimes necessary task.

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Did the Vain Cat Start Bulimic Reasoning

Posted on 3 January 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Svelte, lithe, limber and supple all are words often used to describe cats. So much so that mixing the word feline into this list, wouldn’t be thought of as far off base.

Many times this same list could be used to describe thin and slender humans. Especially if they are of the more graceful kind. As for the feline quality, think how many times you’ve seen a slender female dressed as a cat for Hallowe’en.

All these words are thought of as a positive. So much so in society that many people suffer from bulimia. In an effort to be thin and have it all, bulimia victims allow themselves to eat a lot but only if they are willing to vomit it out and thus maintain a svelte, lithe body. Purging is the one activity that can merge these disparate states, making repeated acts of purging almost addictive.

Was the idea of purging a human act, first, or did we look to our cat friends and put together svelte and lithe with vomiting?

Sure some cats might not realize what they are doing and really only cough things up because too much fur gets ingested during grooming. But doesn’t that very act of grooming suggest that cats are somehow vain?

Isn’t it just possible that some cats are indeed purging? They can’t put their fingers down their throats but they can lick up more fur. Did cats pass on this ill behaviour to human kind? Did the original bulimic watch a cat and get inspired? Did not someone realize that some cats can be fed as much food as they want but still stay svelte and lithe?

But then what about the fat cats of the world? They exist, especially in the indoor cat population. Perhaps they are the mentally healthy cats. But I and many others have seen them groom, too. Why aren’t they svelte and lithe?

Don’t forget the fat cats of this world compete against other cats. Perhaps they groom just enough to look pretty but not so much to make themselves purge. Maybe they think that there are other attractive properties than svelte, lithe, limber and supple. Even in the vain cat world, beauty isn’t always just one dimensional. Too bad that message hasn’t escaped into all of society, especially the bulimic parts.

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The Machinations of Plastic Surgeons

Posted on 29 December 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Plastic surgery may look pretty good to us who are unbeautiful. Maybe plastic surgery is a conduit to a pleasant, superficial life. But what lies behind the dark doors of that profession?

There is no undo button on plastic surgery. If you get an operation you might have some scars. If you try to undo the operation you might look the same as you started only with two operations worth of scars.

That’s looking at it from your perspective. Perhaps there’s an undo button from the surgeon’s perspective. There just might be but it’s macabre. I don’t believe I’m the first to think of this. I believe many surgeons have thought of what I’m going to relay. And the human species being what it is, it’s even probable that some surgeon has acted on the idea.

The surgeon’s undo button would be the next patient. You see, as with any surgery, there is a risk of death with plastic surgery. Now let’s say the plastic surgeon has horribly ruined the operation. Doesn’t the idea of letting the patient die on the operating table cross their mind? Then the surgeon can pretend the death was an accident. And there would not be living proof of a patient that has gotten uglier instead of more beautiful.

Indeed, once it has come to the attention of the union of plastic surgeons, would it not be for the betterment of this organization to kill off any number of horrible accidents from the operating room.

Loved ones would know that the victim had died without healing first from the surgery. Thus, if the operation was on the face, closed casket ceremonies would be provided. Clothes would cover the other types of plastic surgeries.

If the plastic surgeon union found one member was having too many “accidental deaths”, then perhaps they would censure him and perhaps take his licence. Here is where we might catch the conspiracy in the act. Perhaps the plastic surgeon union would replace him with someone who is more artistic rather than someone more competent at medicine.

And if this more artistic surgeon had fewer deaths than most plastic surgeons, you could bet that the undos in plastic surgery were happening exactly as I stated it.

So what can you do if you’re interested in plastic surgery even after what I’ve explained to you? Just put yourself in the mental mode that you’ll either become more beautiful or die trying. Which, knowing of the death rate, you have to do anyway.

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Santa Stakeout

Posted on 25 December 2010 by Larry Russwurm

I did indeed stakeout the neighbourhood last night, just like I said I would last post. I had a chair, paper and a pencil and that promised red light flashlight. Most of the time I stood, though, because the chair was cold.

It was a long stakeout. I went out just after 10 p.m. because I figure that’s when kids are put to bed. I was out for hours and was getting a bit cold although dressed very warmly. However, what made me go in for a few moments was the fact that I had to go to the washroom. I rushed inside and into the washroom but I still almost missed Santa. What I saw when I came out I’ve copied to this blog below.

What I saw agreed with what my friend Jerome Watson said! (last post)  The blobs pictured are, I think, flying reindeer lifting Santa’s sleigh and pulling it forward.  The reddish glow I think is Rudolph and the big blob being towed could be Santa in his sleigh.

Since the sleigh and everything else left really quickly, I didn’t get to see them in action delivering gifts. But this is how Jerome says it goes down. The reindeer are able to hover like a helicopter or a hummingbird and can gently lower the sleigh to a roof or the ground. This explains why Santa doesn’t make a huge clatter and wake everyone in the house.

Of course what I saw wasn’t definitive. I can’t be sure that the blobs were reindeer and Santa’s sleigh. But Jerome and I propose this alternate theory of Santa and his sleigh. Maybe one day we’ll be able to decide between our theory and the Standard Model of Santa.

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On Santa

Posted on 22 December 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Some years ago I traveled to Buffalo, New York with my Dad. While there, we went to a second hand shop. On the wall ( I forget if it was for sale or not) was an elaborate etching. I’ve crudely drawn the outline of it below. As shown it contained Santa and all his reindeer and the simple point “If Reindeer could fly…”

Now I know a bit about engineering and mechanics and the etching was correct. If Santa’s sleigh were pulled by the reindeer in the ordinary fashion, this is exactly what would happen. There has to be another way. I’ve mentioned this to a few of my interested friends. The more science adept agree with the etching.

But one of my friends, Jerome Watson, suffers from insomnia and he claims to have seen Santa on Christmas Eve one year. He says that the Standard Model of Santa’s sleigh being pulled by reindeer is incorrect. He told me how he saw it the one year. Now I’m not going to relay what he saw until after I’ve seen for myself. I don’t want to unfairly prejudice the public’s opinion.

On Christmas Eve this year, I will stay up for Santa’s arrival, There are a few kids in the neighbourhood and at least one of them must have been good. I will keep watch and hopefully sketch my results for you. Unfortunately I don’t have a camera that can shoot in the dark very well, so the sketch will have to do.

I’m an amateur astronomer so I’ve sketched things in the night sky before. I will use a red light flashlight which will allow my eyes to remain dark adapted. I will try to publish my findings on Christmas day.

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Happy Blogiversary

Posted on 20 December 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Today marks my first complete year of blogging. Like most bloggers I’m stat obsessed so let me share some with you.

I’ve written 82 posts. That’s one a week for the first half of the year then all the way up to two posts a week for the second half. I never thought at the beginning that I’d be able to put out two a week but here we are.

I get over 100 unique visitors a day. That’s been steadily increasing – it was much lower at the start of the year. In total I’ve garnered over 7500 unique visitors and with them got over 45 000 pageviews.

More interesting is to see which blog posts got the most views. With my stats the way they are, I can only name the top 3. They are “The Horny Shower Curtain”, “What I Don’t Like About Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics”, and “Theme Songs and Age of Shows”.

I knew there would be buzz about my take on Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics. It’s not every day that you find flaws in a set of short stories and books. But Asimov’s own success led to this, I came up with my problems without referring to an Asimov book or story. You see I had memorized the 3 Laws of Robotics. I was actually trying to see if I could extend or build upon them and found the flaws instead.

So I’m a bit surprised that The Horny Shower Curtain was the most popular of my posts. It’s not as totally original as one might think, I know I’ve heard the phrase “overly amorous shower curtain” before. I’d say where I heard it but I don’t remember that. If anyone knows please comment and I’ll post it. I added the correct reason for the ‘horny shower curtain’. It is indeed because of the partial vacuum in a shower. I forgot why this is so – I did a project on about 20 vacuum creating systems and machines and how they are measured – so many that I only remember a couple. But now we have the internet and I rediscovered the answer just a minute ago. The moving water moves the air and moving air is less dense than the air on the other side of the shower curtain. Which creates the partial vacuum. And no, I didn’t really ask all the people I said I did. I’m a firm believer that if a tree falls in the forest it does make a sound.

I’m most surprised that “Theme Songs and Age of Shows” is the third favourite post. I didn’t even draw a straight line graph for it though that was ‘drawn’ with words. Maybe people are captivated by the almost disappearance of the television theme song.

I can guess at the other most popular posts because I check my stats regularly. The No Name Decades, Not Novel and What Has Fair Trade Coffee Spawned were all in the top 3 at one point. Squealing on my Bacteria and Virus Overlords, Rap as Social Engineering, They’re Coming, I Believe in Astrology, Blast from the Past II, Playing With Bitstrips, And Some Think Hawking’s American Accent is Funny, Metallica’s “One” Not So Bleak, and Slackers are/were popular posts. So if you just want to navigate my “best of” that’s a good start.

I get rid of many comments with hardly a second thought. Most of these are spam. If you want your comment to make it, something as simple as mentioning part of the post makes it obvious that you are not spam.

When I started out, it was as a joke site. Set as my default category is “Humour”. But it was apparent very early on that some of the posts I meant and was really ranting about. Thus I added the category “Wee Bit O’ Humour”. So if I added as little as one joke, I could put the post here. Half my posts involve this newer category. What can I say? I grew into my blog name and am really ranting half the time.

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