A message passed on
I’d like to share this eloquently written piece with you as a quote of someone else’s words.
“On May 1, 2011 Pres. Barack Obama appeared on national television with the
spontaneous announcement that Osama bin Laden, the purported organizer of
the tragic events of September 11th 2001, was killed by military forces in
Pakistan.
Within moments, a media blitz ran across virtually all television networks
in what could only be described as a grotesque celebratory display,
reflective of a level of emotional immaturity that borders on cultural
psychosis. Depictions of people running through the streets of New York and
Washington chanting jingoistic American slogans, waving their flags like
the members of some cult, praising the death of another human being,
reveals yet another layer of this sickness we call modern society.
It is not the scope of this response to address the political usage of such
an event or to illuminate the staged orchestration of how public perception
was to be controlled by the mainstream media and the United States
Government. Rather the point of this article is to express the gross
irrationality apparent and how our culture becomes so easily fixed and
emotionally charged with respect to surface symbology, rather than true
root problems, solutions or rational considerations of circumstance.
The first and most obvious point is that the death of Osama bin Laden means
nothing when it comes to the problem of international terrorism. His death
simply serves as a catharsis for a culture that has a neurotic fixation on
revenge and retribution. The very fact that the Government which, from a
psychological standpoint, has always served as a paternal figure for it
citizens, reinforces the idea that murdering people is a solution to
anything should be enough for most of us to take pause and consider the
quality of the values coming out of the zeitgeist itself.
However, beyond the emotional distortions and tragic, vindictive pattern of
rewarding the continuation of human division and violence comes a more
practical consideration regarding what the problem really is and the
importance of that problem with respect to priority.
The death of any human being is of an immeasurable consequence in society.
It is never just the death of the individual. It is the death of
relationships, companionship, support and the integrity of familial and
communal environments. The unnecessary deaths of 3000 people on September
11, 2001 is no more or no less important than the deaths of those during
the World Wars, via cancer and disease, accidents or anything else.
As a society, it is safe to say that we seek a world that strategically
limits all such unnecessary consequences through social approaches that
allow for the greatest safety our ingenuity can create. It is in this
context that the neurotic obsession with the events of September 11th, 2001
become gravely insulting and detrimental to progress. An environment has
now been created where outrageous amounts of money, resources and energy is
spent seeking and destroying very small subcultures of human beings that
pose ideological differences and act on those differences through violence.
Yet, in the United States alone each year, roughly 30,000 people die from
automobile accidents, the majority of which could be stopped by very simple
structural changes. That’s ten 9/11′s each year… yet no one seems to pine
over this epidemic. Likewise, over 1 million Americans die from heart
disease and cancer annually – causes of which are now easily linked to
environmental influences in the majority. Yet, regardless of the over 330
9/11′s occurring each year in this context, the governmental budget
allocations for research on these illnesses is only a small fraction of the
money spent on “anti-terrorism” operations.
Such a list could go on and on with regard to the perversion of priority
when it comes to what it means to truly save and protect human life and I
hope many out there can recognize the severe imbalance we have at hand with
respect to our values.
So, coming back to the point of revenge and retribution, I will conclude
this response with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., likely the most
brilliant intuitive mind when it came to conflict and the power of
non-violence. On September 15, 1963 a Birmingham Alabama church was bombed,
killing four little girls attending Sunday school.
In a public address, Dr. King stated:
“What murdered these four girls? Look around. You will see that many
people that you never thought about participated in this evil act. So
tonight all of us must leave here with a new determination to struggle. God
has a job for us to do. Maybe our mission is to save the soul of America.
We can’t save the soul of this nation throwing bricks. We can’t save the
soul of this nation getting our ammunitions and going out shooting physical
weapons. We must know that we have something much more powerful. Just take
up the ammunition of love.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, 1963 -
~Peter Joseph”
Back once more
How long has it been since a last message? Dunno, but very long. I guess I could just look up the date of my last entry but really, who cares. So many things have happened and are happening. So many things I’d like to write, complain about but the time is simply to short to do anything anymore. Life’s so busy and there are never enough hours in a day to do everything and so you put things off to the next day but the next day is no different. You end up with even fewer hours the next day cause you’re trying to do the things you couldn’t the day before so the things you wanted to do today aren’t getting done once more and are being put off till the next day again. At this rate no wonder I’m always doing things I should have done months ago.
Malli’s growing at an exponential rate, not only physically but the mental changes are subtly under-exagurated and easily missed by anyone who doesn’t spend every single day with her. I think that child psychology just didn’t bother going into the tiny details of the psychological changes kids go through. The book volumes would simply be too staggering.
As of April 10th, she’s officially 8 months old and as of today officially 8 months and 7 days.
Us posing in front of the mirror. This actually was in her 7th month. But wanted to post it anyway, since I’ve been lacking in time to post any photos to anyone. Early morning or maybe not, but this is what chronically sleep deprived people look like.
7th month as well.
So this is month 8.
I’m sure I will post more within the next, few, months. If i find time that is. I’d love to have my wife look over my shoulder as I type as she’s doing it right now. She actually just was that’s I wrote the last sentence.
Anywho. Till next time sports fans.
Sitting habbits
Wow, how long has it been since I wrote anything down. Who keeps track of time when life flows in an uncontrollable rush of events?
Malli’s in her 7th month and beginning to sit. She’s managing to lean forward and backward without support but like a kid on a bike with support wheels on each side, she can’t manage to turn left or right without falling over. Still some ways to go before a complete sit up. One question I have is, shouldn’t crawling come before sitting up? Not sure if the order of physical development but is the progression of things in her case.
And now it’s time hit for work. This is why I hardly ever write. Between work, studies and home, I’ve hardly got time to sit down and do something completely brainless before heading off into dream land.
My child is trying to eat me, should I be concerned?
Mallie’s been chewing things more and more. She’s also been enjoying sitting in my arms more and more. Her favorite position is facing out while I hold her against my chest, with one arm under her bottom and the other across her chest. This way she gets to see all the fun stuff I get to see when I move around the apartment. As my hand is often in the vicinity of her mouth, she tends to drool or sometimes nibble on my thumb. But recently she started to actually bite and chew, and she’s not being gentle either. No teeth yet to leave any marks but I definitely can feel the force behind her gums grinding away at my ligaments and bone. Other developments, are laughter, not just smiles or cooing but actual laughing sound. Ou yeah cooing is definitely new as well. She’s been cooing for the past month and I seem to have dismissed it as a normal thing but it’s new.
And now I’ve got nothing else more to write but to go on a political runt about the shitty state of our current world. But since I’m too tired to even do that, I’ll leave it at that.
Death
A part of life or the end of it. Who cares in essence what it is. It sucks, in most cases. A few months ago, a kid was found dead just outside the design building I happen to be residing in. Not sure what happened as the stories I heard were few and differed greatly. Some say he was beaten to death. Others that he fell out of a window. In any case he was drunk at the time of his death. The guy was in his early 20s and I’m sure not very eager to go just yet.
Two days ago another death was discovered. This time in the teachers apartments. A guy who apparently had been working here for the past three years, is said to have died from a heart attack. This is just hear say. I met him once, had a brief conversation, saw him a couple of times around campus, he did not look good either one of those times. The next thing I hear of him he’s gone. wow. One day you’re here, the next you’re gone. I can’t imagine it being easy on the family, dying alone in a foreign country.
Updates
Tis crazy but that’s the status of my blog entries. I visited the dentist twice after having had the crown installed. It took a while for my hard drive to register the change but things are back to normal after only a day or so. The last two visits, which involved a mere clean of the sanded down to nothing tooth, placing some glue and capping it up with the crown. First with temporary glue, than with the permanent stuff. Both times I walked out of the dentists office without having been charged a dime. SERIOUSLY!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, yeah he already charged me for the crown, 350000 won, but have you ever heard of not paying for a visit to a dentist? Even if it’s just a check up? Unheard of!!!! Yet, in some places of the world, still possible. Just placing your butt onto a dentist chair in Canada, will set you back something like 50-60 bucks.
Apparently it’s snowing in Seoul today. My mom’s been sending me picks from Winnipeg from a week or so ago, and it already looked, well like it always does at this time of the year. Deep winter. Masan get’s snow, once every decade or so and I don’t even think that its enough to even reach the ground before melting. But it is getting colder. Uncomfortably so.
On a walk, up a hill, behind the uni
Here’s me and my babe on a little morning walk. It was pretty crisp and I’m lucky I didn’t give her another cold, although she does sound a bit stuffed up again. When will I learn. But she was enjoying herself and I definitely was as well. She looks funny in this shot but but I love it. A bit like a little boy. To me cute none the less. Babies. They’re funny
Second last visit
So the price for the root canal went up rather than to nill as I anticipated. What a huge disappointment. The last visit was 18000won or around 15 CAD. Today I doled out 350000won or around 320CAD for a gold crown to be fitted. I assume that there may be a small fee for my last visit next week when the crown gets set in place. So the total should be around 400000won or 370CAD. Can anyone complain or compete with the theft committed in Canada, 1200CAD or 1.4mil, won? UK isn’t much cheaper as I don’t assume the US is. If this procedure seems expensive to those expats who have gone through it in Korea, I’d like to remind you that the prices of gold have recently gone a bit off the scale.
Little Miracles
What’s so great about being a parent?
What I find fascinating is watching Mallie grow. Just recently she has started to try and sit up. She no longer stretches out her legs when I hold her up in the air facing me. Instead she curls up in an attempt to push herself up into a sitting position. Laying down is no longer her preferred position of existence. When she’s flat on her back she’s flat on her back, there’s nothing much she can do about that just yet, although today she’s been managing to do a half belly flip. But when there is the slightest hint of incline in her position, she immediately starts curling up not realizing that her head is still to big for her body size to carry.
Most recent are her attempts at grasping things. There was a time when her tiny hands clenched and unclenched reflexively. I could tap her knuckles with my index finger and she would open her hands for me to slip one of my fingers in and for her to close her hands into fists once again. Than came the open hand, just twitching randomly, waiting like a venus flytrap for a finger to land so it could close in on it. That was a week ago or so. Three days ago, I noticed something new. Something much more intentional, something which I could easily have missed in the absence of patience. Since her vision has improved significantly and she now can see and follow objects with her eyes, she can see things placed in front of her. I started placing things, small toys, in front of her hands, which still twitch in random directions, and after a couple of seconds of Mallie looking at the thing I was holding in front of her, her clenched hands start to relax, open and she tries to grasp
She’s located her fists about a week or so ago. They became a part of her existence, and they spend a lot of time in her mouth. Teething is on the brink. Today I gave her a toy to hold and noticed a slight shaking in her grip. She was sitting on my lap and I had to lean over to see her face. Her open mouth was aiming for the toy and the visible effort she was putting into coordinating her arm movement with the aim of placing the toy into her open mouth was to die for. It was like watching an elastic being tensed with the sole purpose of releasing the tension at one particular target. The first couple shots missed ending up on her cheek and nose. But she finally managed to get the toy in her mouth and cover it with baby drool. What a moment of triumph. I can just see the gray matter grow with baby steps such as these.
Still a bit out of sync on the grip.
It also made me appreciate the every day things I constantly take for granted, like the ability to hold a utensil and safely place it into my mouth with food on it. Babies are babies, they’re learning, I’m just thinking about those who no longer are babies and their brains have already forgotten. Little things.
Teeth 2
Did I tell you that my first visit to the doc cost me a whooping 15000 won, which equates to an approximate 13 CAD? Root canal, who would have figured. Well today I went in for my second visit and the price was definitely different. 45 minutes of rather painless surgery, and I walked out of the office 9000 won lighter. Yeah that’s a whole 8 CAD for the second visit, perhaps even less than that. If things continue on this path, within the next couple of visits I’ll be walking out without paying. I’m still waiting for the big shock when the gold crown is capped. What’s gold sold at these days? Can I make a request for a 18 or 24 carat cap? I’d like to keep it on the reasonable side of the price range……beans the 1200 CAD on a root canal I recently heard about being done in the family.
