more espionage; mystery photo

Mermen, Monsters, or Cephalopods?

I think I liked the world better when no one could prove they had seen a live giant squid.

Calculated Gloom

Getting out of bed this morning produced sound effects not unlike velcro, I wanted so much to stay in it. After getting up and glancing out the window, I actually did crawl back in, effectively choosing sleep over breakfast this wet Monday. Yep, so bad it's a cliche of bad- a wet Monday; rainy but cold. New York umbrellas (a whole different species of umbrella) were out this morning and people were not afraid to knock each other around with them.

As you can tell, I was feeling low, but I made it to work and figured I was just tired until I stepped into the elevator. The fancypants elevator at my workplace has a little screen which flashes various (random) headlines, usually pertaining to the odd celebrity tidbit, but today it had another announcement: today is the Gloomiest Day of 2006, as determined by "scientists" based on a calculation having to do with weather, debt, days after Christmas, and some other factors. Who exactly are these scientists that woke up this morning and said "yes! This is it!" Those are the people I'm going to worry about the rest of today.

So this may seem far-fetched but apparently this news does NOT only exist in my elevator: there is an article on a website called Scotsman.com titled "It's 23 January... have a bad day." Long excerpt from said article below:

But, wait for it, the worst is yet to come, and it falls today: not a blizzard, a financial crash or even a rogue asteroid, but the dire convergence of all our seasonal woes, the most depressing day of 2006, as identified by psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall of Cardiff University's Centre for Lifelong Learning, an expert in seasonal disorders and a man who likes his formulae.

Last year Arnall created a formula enabling those rash enough to do so to calculate their life expectancy (involving factors such as genetic inheritance, optimism, nutrition, and relationships). We don't know what percentage of the population decided not to bother getting up this morning as a result, but expect a rash of absenteeism today, as another formula he has made up identifies it as the most miserable day of the year (last year he similarly predicted 24 January as Day of Gloom).

Taking into account factors such as foul weather, Christmas debts, the lingering effects of seasonal overindulgence, failed New Year's resolutions and generally reduced motivation, Arnall's worst day "formula" is ([W + (D-d)] x TQ) ÷ (M x NA). (W: weather, D: debt, d: money due in January pay, T: time elapsed since Christmas, Q: time since failed New Year's resolutions to quit smoking, drinking etc, M: general motivational levels, NA: the need to take action.)

...and they called him Meal

Hamster and Snake Forge Unlikely Friendship

TOKYO (Jan. 19) - Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one's a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a four-foot rat snake. Zookeepers at Tokyo's Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster - whose name means "meal" in Japanese - to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice. But instead of indulging, Aochan decided to make friends with the furry rodent, according to keeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The pair have shared a cage since.
"I've never seen anything like it. Gohan sometimes even climbs onto Aochan to take a nap on his back," Yamamoto said. Aochan, a 2-year-old male Japanese rat snake, eventually developed an appetite for frozen rodents but has so far shown no signs of gobbling up Gohan - despite her name.
"We named her Gohan as a joke," Yamamoto chuckled. "But I don't think there's any danger. Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan's company very much." The Tokyo zoo also keeps a range of mostly livestock animals, and promotes "cross-breed interaction," according to Yamamoto. But Gohan and Aochan's case was "was a complete accident," Yamamoto said.

Why I'm Not Cut Out For This Job

I just had a just-barely-resistable urge to go over to my coworker's cubicle- where he sits silently, patiently hardworking- and start shaking him and yelling, in his face, "aren't you excited about numbering these pages? Aren't you?!!!" This is sick. Even writing it makes the muscles in my arms clench longingly to go & do it.

Child Abuse, Removal

So for the past week the story of Nixzmary Brown, a seven year old child, and her death and abuse (see today's New York Times article) at the hands of her stepfather has been all over the papers in New York; on the cover of each one this past week. It is a tragic story, a story made more terrible the more you read about it. It has people up in arms over the child protective services, and even the mayor spoke out against the state system for failing to protect this child. Some of this attention may result in positive change, but there is also a likely result of encouraging social workers to pull children from their homes prematurely. Which is also a hard concept. On one hand, if it may prevent death and abuse like in the case of Nixzmary Brown, how can one not take a child from a home? On the other, abuse is not always easy to prove, not always cut and dry, and to take children from homes which may not, in the end, be considered abusive, can be far more traumatic than allowing them to live at home, with ongoing services.

It should be recognized that taking a child away from their home is perhaps the most incredibly violent well-intentioned act that exists. Imagine you are five years old, sitting around watching T.V. with your mom, and some person walks into your home, tells you to pack a suitcase and grab your favorite teddy bear, and leave for an undetermined amount of time. You are five and have no idea when you will see your mom again, and no one will give you any answers for the million questions you are too confused or afraid to ask. A social worker can rip a child away from every single thing they know and have ever known: their parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, neighbors, pets, possessions, culture, daily routines, school. Then, when the child is taken out of the home, there is no magic place to bring them. Foster homes may be hard to come by, may be temporary, may be terrifying and strange. A lot of times children that have been removed bounce around, to eventually land back where they started.

Child protective services (ACS, as they are called in New York) did fail Nixzmary Brown; child protective services in an inherently flawed system. Having worked in a similar child protective state system, reading the various details of the case provokes odd realizations of understanding, resignation, fear, disgust, and anger. I have been the worker that could not get access to a home in which there was abuse going on. Firing a few people involved and hiring a few more is not, unfortunately, the solution.

I take birthdays seriously.

I wake up with a strange feeling on friend's birthdays, especially when they live elsewhere. On their birthday, absent friends get on my mind like that thing you walked from the bedroom to the kitchen to get and then promptly forgot. Sometimes it takes me most of the day to figure out where that feeling is coming from, but usually the birthday person's countenance will come floating to my brain and I will think of the date and say, aha, the feeling has an origin. I am starting to think of this feeling as the Observation of the Missing Celebration; a day that should be and yet is not a celebration in your life. Like the experience of being in another country on the 4th of July. You're walking around missing things you generally don't need or want- missing fireworks, hot dogs, beer, Lays potato chips- with a vengeance.
So, happy 25th birthday to Myla, who is somewhere in Utah(?)!

A Birthday Poem
by Ted Kooser

Just past dawn, the sun stands
with its heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come
with his bucket
for the foamy white light,
and then a long day in the pasture.
I too spend my days grazing,
feasting on every green moment
till darkness calls,
and with the others
I walk away into the night,
swinging the little tin bell
of my name.

...also, speaking of birth, how wild is this?

From Ireland On-Line:

After a decade parents discover babies switched at birth
10/01/2006 - 13:13:29

Two babies born on the same day in the same hospital in Thailand were accidentally switched at birth, but nobody knew about it for a decade.

The parents of the children, now 10 years old, learned last month they had been raising children that biologically were not theirs, doctors said today.

Doctors at the hospital in the southern Thai province of Trang where the children were born said it was still a mystery how the mix-up occurred, but noted that the pair shared certain traits.

“They were (born) in the same room, had the same weight, and were delivered at the same time,” said Sinchai Rongdet, the current director of Yantakhao Hospital where both babies were delivered. “The only difference is their gender.”

Doctors typically tell a mother her baby’s sex as soon as the child is born and tag the baby’s wrist with his or her particulars.

The children – Orawan Chanthong, the girl, and, Cherawut Bunyu, the boy – grew up in neighbouring villages and went to the same school.

Neighbours constantly told the parents that their children bore close resemblance to the other child’s family.

To end nagging curiosity, the parents and children went for DNA tests, Sinchai said.

“DNA tests confirmed that the children were switched,” he said, adding that the families have not yet decided how to handle the news.

A senior Health Ministry official, Prat Bunyawongwirot, said the ministry was investigating the incident and assigning psychologists to speak with both children.

Havana Bourgeois

I saw the play Havana Bourgeois this past Sunday; it was the first night it played, so it was a little rough around the edges (the play started and immediately someone sprinted out of the room to turn out the audience lights) but very well done all the same, with some amazing actors. The play concerns someone embarking on their career, on the verge of achieving "the American Dream," when the Cuban revolution gains power & eventually upsets the country and notion of the Dream itself. The play was made more interesting when Sharyn and I talked to the director afterward and found out the play is the playwright's father's actual story.

Also, if you are in the mood to contemplate some philosophical conundrums on the order of angels on a pinhead, check out this wikipedia entry on the omnipotence paradox (Could an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even that being could not lift it?). The highlight of the wikipedia entry being the Simpsons' reference: On the TV Show "The Simpsons", while Homer is using medicinal marijuana, he asks the question, "Can Jesus microwave a microwaveable burrito so hot, that even he himself could not eat it?"
Now THAT provokes some thought. It also bring to mind a classic Deep Thought by Jack Handey:
"If God dwells inside us, like some people say, I sure hope he likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting!"
Also, apparently the Simpsons and Philosophy are so entertwined they teach a course about it at Berkeley.

"If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled." -P.G. Wodehouse

This poor woman in the other room keeps sneezing, and she has one of those unfortunate loud sneezes that sounds like screams. So every time she sneezes the woman sitting closest to her reacts with a surprised noise. From this room it sounds like a fight.

I just spent a pleasant lunch hour reading P.G. Wodehouse. He writes with all this great 1920s English Oxford chap slang. Dialogue from the book I'm reading, Very Good, Jeeves:

"I found a difficulty in boosting along the chit-chat. He was not a responsive cove.
'Nice day,' I said.
'Quite.'
'But they say the crops need rain.'
He had buried himself in his paper once more, and seemed peeved this time on being lugged to the surface.
'What?'
'The crops.'
'The crops?'
'Crops.'
'What crops?'
'Oh, just crops.'
He laid down his paper.
'You appear to be desirous of giving me some information about crops. What is it?'
'I hear they need rain.'
'Indeed?'"

Wanderlust

It was this time two years ago I was preparing to leave for my journeys in South America, and this time 2 years before that I had just arrived in Oaxaca, Mexico, and, as much as I like my life in New York, it is painful to break that streak. There's nothing in the world like walking out of the airport in January into weather that was previously inconceivable, carrying all the belongings you will have for the next few months, ready to see what it is you want to do now.

One time when traveling in Europe my friend Roxy and I got on a train going to Geneva, Switzerland by mistake. We got onto the train and sat down, pulled out our snack (croissants- we were coming from France) made ourselves comfortable, and barely managed to get off right before it pulled away. We were amused and relieved when we finally got on the right train, going to Genova, Italy, but the strangest moment was when we
realized it would have been no catastrophe had we gone to Switzerland instead. A little more pricey, maybe, but we'd heard they had pretty mountains and tasty chocolate, so we would have managed. The possibilities that rule you and your life while traveling are just infinitely more probable. I think some of the best times Myla and I had traveling in South America was when we were not where we expected to be; but then again, we often forgot to expect ourselves to be anywhere.

Also, I searched the term wanderlust and found the work of this incredible photographer, Howie Garber. You must look at his wilderness photos.

Hogmanay

Hope you had an enjoyable Hogmanay (Hogmanay \hog-muh-NAY; HOG-muh-nay\, noun: The name, in Scotland, for New Year's Eve, on which children go about singing and asking for gifts; also, a gift, cake, or treat given on New Year's Eve.)

I greeted the New Year on a lower east side rooftop with good company and bad champagne. It was swell.

"New studies suggest that cute images stimulate the same pleasure centers of the brain aroused by sex, a good meal or psychoactive drugs like cocaine, which could explain why everybody in the panda house wore a big grin."

As you can see, I have been ruminating on cuteness this morning, inspired by this New York Times article. I especially liked the line above, as I happen to know a couple people beyond obsessed with the baby panda at the National Zoo. They are not, apparently, the only ones with this interest: "And though the zoo's adult pandas have long been among Washington's top tourist attractions, the public debut of the baby in December has unleashed an almost bestial frenzy here. Some 13,000 timed tickets to see the cub were snapped up within two hours of being released, and almost immediately began trading on eBay for up to $200 a pair."

Anyway the article talks about the Darwinian tie to cuteness- the fact that our concept of "cuteness" is based on babies' physical characteristics, the characteristics of which are based on babies' helplessness and need for protection- and therefore our strong reaction to cuteness makes sense. For propagating the human race and all. It gets more interesting as researchers look at how much we find cute because of this ("The human cuteness detector is set at such a low bar, researchers said, that it sweeps in and deems cute practically anything remotely resembling a human baby or a part thereof, and so ends up including the young of virtually every mammalian species, fuzzy-headed birds like Japanese cranes, woolly bear caterpillars, a bobbing balloon, a big round rock stacked on a smaller rock, a colon, a hyphen and a close parenthesis typed in succession."), and how different cultures respond more to cuteness than others. Cuteness is a cultural taste- i.e.- let's add some cuteness to this product and it will sell like wildfire in Japan. That's some weird shit. -) -) -)

Also, this article corresponds to a heavy theme running through the New York Times recently- they just can't get enough Darwin. I guess this is liberals fighting intelligent design- bringing evolution to every section of the Times. I bet people with really impressive opposable thumbs are going to be on the Sunday Styles page next week. And Arts and Entertainment will have some article on how the cowboys in Brokeback Mountain represent the pinnacle of evolution somehow.

Lifted from The Onion:

Hopes For 2006

December 28, 2005 | Issue 41•52

What are your biggest hopes for 2006?

Nick Del Mar Waiter

"A pair of novelty 2006 spectacles. At first, anyway."

Jim Sclavanous Package Delivery Man

"I just want to stay on that bull for eight seconds. Eight goddamn seconds. Is that too much to ask?"

Nicholas Knox Chemist

"Settle down, man. We're not even sure if Congress is going to approve funding for 2006 yet."

Miriam Bateman Tax Preparer

"I hope they come out with a third, better Hilton sister."

William Linna Career Counselor

"I just want to spend quality time watching my baby grow up. Of course, I guess I'd have to impregnate some sort of woman first.

Kate Alexander Produce Manager

"Next year? But...but I only just finished this one! When may I finally rest?"