what's on the main menu?

After dinner on a weeknight, I often like to saddle up in front of the television and watch a DVD. In the mornings, I tend to read and mobile-blog on the trains (as I'm doing now) and listen to music. And for about 8 hours-a-day I'm in front of a computer at work, researching and writing for rather technical reports. Thus, the few hours before bed then become dedicated to rather mindless activity.
Tuesday night was the movie "Click", pretty much a modern-day version of It's a Wonderful Life, and last night I watched the first Macaulay Culkin movie I'd seen in a long time, called "Saved!". I really knew little about Saved before popping it in the disk player, and although the overall mood of the movie was rather "after-school special", I put the educational undertones aside and, for the most part, enjoyed it. Sure, at that point in the day, I'm likely to enjoy anything with a storyline and a credit role, but the movie managed to take the pieces of an old formula (in this case, an antagonist up against restrictive social conditions that not only threaten to stifle her self-expression, but also the stability of her future due to poor decisions made in the past - hence a simultaneous search for redemption and a new, more ideal ideology) and mix them together in such a way that it made an enjoyable picture to watch. The basic elements of the story are tried and true, but it doesn't always turn out so well. In fact, Click tried to pull off something along the same lines - granted, in a radically different context - by putting an old formula in a new package, but I didn't ever question the outcome or the feel the internal struggle of the main character.
Before putting in Saved!, actually, I was going to watch a wacked out, pirated version of the animated movie Chicken Little. For those that laugh at my intention to watch a "kids'" movie, just wait til I tell you about the translation job someone performed. The setting for English audio was actually French and the English sub-titles were probably composed by a teenager making his debut in the translation biz, but embarrassed with the movie's kiddie dialogue, deciding to jazz it up a bit so that Chicken Little proclaims his surprise with four-letter expletives quite unbecoming of an animated bird boy.
Nonetheless, my transformation into a nightly arm-chair critic (sans arm-chair) seems an enjoyable way to spend time relaxing after work. And although my daily formula for activity doesn't always add a twist, at least I hope this wonderful life defies the formulaic or at least comes with extra selections to be enjoyed following the main feature. One more day and then it's the weekend! :)

Marco...

Lately I've been reading a bit about old Marco Polo, thinking, "Just who was this guy?" Turns out he may have been one of the best orators of all time. There are plenty of claims that have been put forth to challenge whether or not he actually went to all the places he proposed he traveled to in his manuscript, "Il Milione". Similarly, there has been plenty of rhetoric to show his stories are viable. But the fact remains that, at a time when the West understood very little about The Orient, Polo elucidated on an advanced civilization with such poise and fervor that his stories spread rapidly throughout Europe. It is said that Christopher Columbus had a copy of Il Milone among his possessions for his journey to find a Westbound route to India - and mind you, this was prior to the printing press.
Polo was held in captivity for some months during the regional clashes at the time (1298), and it was then that a fellow inmate transcribed Polo's stories into old French. Whether Polo actually served as a pseudo-Ambassador for the great Kublai Khan in the 13th century, or if he merely embellished stories he'd collected while stationed at his families trading post near Constantinople on the Black Sea remains shrouded in controversy, however, his ability to relate those stories made him the historical figure he is today, and I would gather, one of the greatest orators of all time. Nonetheless, Marco Polo has become a key figure in understanding history, which at times can be an exercise much like the children's game that bears Polo's name.

Cheers

About 6 weeks ago, the president of our company dropped off a platter of sushi to our department and after hours a bunch of us gathered around to partake. Someone even had a bottle of sake (rice wine) and another person unveiled a case of premium beer. The beer was none other than Yebisu, a coveted brand of beer often reserved for gift-giving events, so most likely we received it at some point from a customer (my guess is an airline considering all the overseas business travel). There were only 10 of us and about 20 cans of beer, not to mention the sake, but it would have been decidedly uncouth to get smashed, even after hours, in the office; in Japan, "office parties" are always held off-premises.

Anyway, the end result was that after less than an hour, people had finished a few paper cupfuls of beer and slowly went back to their desks to finish their work for the day. The remaining 15 cans were put in the refrigerator. The problem is that no one has authorization to break them out again without a very good excuse, so people have done their best to just put those beers out of mind. But for those of us who put our lunch in the fridge every morning, and line up for the microwave at noon, those beer cans have become something of a table topic. This has now been compounded by the fact that our Section Chief brought back a bag of spicy cashew mix from Sri Lanka last week. Now as some of us munch on cashews at our desks in the late afternoon, the Ceylon tea just doesn't seem to cut it. In the back of our minds, we know that beer would be the perfect companion to those cashews, and must try to resist the urge to cough "Yebisu" as we clear our throats and take another sip of tea, trying to come up with some excuse why we should drink those beers.
Hmmm, anyone know a method to change the Best Before date on a beer can?

SPF 45: surfing the project flow

I suppose if my inbox were the ocean and the reports coming in were waves, I could say I caught some prime surf today. One big, 60 page wave I've been riding out for 10 days finally washed into shore, and I caught two smaller waves this afternoon, one titled "Supplemental Contract for Waste Management in Cambodia" and the other title wave bearing the words Digital Orthophoto across the top. I had to put in a bit of overtime to keep up with the surf, but in the end, felt good about staying afloat despite some wobbly moments.
Of course, I suppose if I could have it any way, I might pick my next ride to be a boat. The surf adventure is fun from time to time, but with a bit more experience I hope to soon be able to put on a captains hat and say, "looks like smooth sailing today!"

You can pick your nose

On public transportation in Japan, the weary businessmen are commuting home from work after a hard day in Tokyo, one of the world's most populous and industrious cities. They are exhausted, but they still have the will to emerge victorious, to put in the elbow grease and dig deep within to grasp success. And, they are fighting back against anyone who says it's bad manners to pick your nose in public. They are, afterall, adhering to the old rule of thumb that says, "You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends' noses." They remain faithfully engaged with their own nostril, with a dedication rarely seen in this world anymore. It is encouraging to see them sitting across the aisle striving for success against all odds, sometimes in the face of silent ridicule by some petulant passenger staring in disbelief (or is it pure awe at their awesome nostril maneuvers and perfected techniques?).
It is moments like these that I renew my faith in the ability of mankind to rid itself of waste and impurity; the trajectory of mankind to shrug off constricting social rules and explore new territory. It is these men, who put their nose to the grind, that prove to me that we should let nothing block our path to reach new heights.
And one more thing, if it's true that two heads are better than one, maybe we should reconsider the "friends' noses" part as well. Indeed, a friend may have some good ideas and new techniques to share. So go ahead and saddle up next to a new friend and ask if they wouldn't mind if you picked their brain for a bit. They might even consider your efforts a breath of fresh air.

On the second hand

Ben Franklin is attributed with the saying "time is money", although it was Fredrick Taylor in the early 20th century that contributed most to modern ideas of management and efficiency. The important part, to me, is simply the acknowledgment that mankind really has no control over time aside from the way in which we choose to spend it. I, for one, can spend hours writing a speech for Toastmasters Club or an entry for this blog, but what I realize is, all this is dependent on how other people choose to spend their time (i.e. by giving their attention) that, in the end, justifies (or not) the time I take to write it.
The inverse of all this is my misjudgment of both how much time I really have to spend writing and how much time or attention people are willing to give. In the end, lest the right balance is struck, either I write nothing for you to hear or I spend so much time on it that it throws off the balance on time people can devote their attention to the product of that time.
So, I'm giving myself a challenge to set a strict time limit for which I can prepare a blog entry (Toastmasters actually helps with this because we are given a strict time frame in which to deliver a speech). Hopefully the outcome has more impact, remains concise, and becomes more frequent. Not to mention the added benefit, should I happen gain more satisfaction from these activities, of feeling like I have one up on ol' Father Time afterall.

A Lesson in Futility

This is a speech I gave on March 29th at Toastmasters, for which I ended up receiving the vote for "best prepared speaker" of the evening by those present.

A Lesson in Futility

"If you spend your time arguing with an idiot, you now have two idiots."

This is the phrase that comes to mind when I think about the subject of smoking cigarettes. Fifty years ago, trying to explain to someone that smoking was a health hazard would have been a lesson in futility - something that results in no significant benefit, i.e. a waste of time. At the time, smoking a cigarette was a sign of glamor and intelligence. Back then, people who claimed “I’m a smoker” merely meant that they had a habit of lighting cigarettes on fire, but so did half the people around you. In other words, it was socially acceptable, if not encouraged, due to the commonality of it and the ubiquity of cigarette ads fifty years ago.

I was surprised when I first came to Japan in the late-90s to find smokers still enjoyed a similar status, as sophisticated individuals that could handle rolled tobacco set on fire in one hand and peruse important documents or hold a book using the other hand. Smokers were also seen as the fun people who knew how to drink and have a good time at social gatherings. There was nowhere in Japan you couldn't smoke, it seemed, from the office to the department store, even on many airplanes and trains. It was certainly no problem in restaurants, bars and coffee shops, where the non-smoking area was usually a dingy corner in the back.

Oh, how times have changed! For those smokers in the room, you will look back on those times as "the good 'ol days" where you were allowed to enjoy a simple pleasure. Now people want to tell you it's not only bad for your health, but it's bad for their health if you smoke. The argument of passive smoking, or inhaling second-hand smoke, has changed the way society looks at and thinks about smoking and turned the debate on its head.

In America, things started to change around 1964, when the Surgeon General first released a report about the health hazards of smoking. The link to lung cancer was firmly established and the risk of heart disease was becoming apparent, but still, most people didn’t pay much attention. At first, physicians and dentists began to kick the habit, and as more and more evidence mounted that showed smoking cigarettes caused premature death, a greater number began to join them in giving up the habit. Then, in the mid-1990s, there was a real sign that the tables had turned. In America, civil lawsuits against tobacco companies had been happening since the 1950s, but Big Tobacco won every time. All of a sudden, cases were being awarded to individual smokers or the families of dead smokers. Now it was the tobacco companies that started coughing. On a larger scale (i.e. big flashing neon sign that times had changed), in 1994, the State of Mississippi sued the tobacco firms to recover Medicare costs, and eventually Big Tobacco agreed to pay a total of $246 billion to the 50 states over the next 25 years.

Today, the health risks of smoking tobacco are widely publicized and well-known by most of the developed world. This includes Japan where you can’t buy a pack of cigarettes without seeing a warning label about the risk of disease from lighting up. In addition, the dangers of second-hand smoke are also being paraded in campaigns to ban smoking in public areas; a well-known example being the Chiyoda Ward in Tokyo. Back in October, 2002, this was the first public ban on smoking in Japan and has encouraged people to cease smoking in such places as department stores and theaters as well. Even the popularity of Starbucks, a smoke-free establishment, is testimony that times have changed. Nonetheless, you may or may not be surprised to know that statistics from the World Health Organization as recent as 2003 state that 48% of males and 12% of females in Japan over the age of 15 smoke cigarettes. It has been over fifty years since the dangers of smoking were made clear, but still, we can find cigarettes in many convenience stores and even vending machines throughout Japan (and apparently underage teenagers smoking them!).

On the other side of the world, back in the United States, the public outcry against smoking is almost overwhelming, and over 50% of the population is covered by some form of smoke-free ordinance. In California, you can’t even smoke in the prisons! Yet, many people insist that it is their right to smoke, and 24% of males and nearly 20% of females in America continue to smoke cigarettes (WHO 2003). Because much of the basis for public smoking bans comes from the idea that “passive smoking” is putting non-smokers at the same risks as those who are lighting up, the debate may just be heating up. It has become a struggle between individual needs of smokers and non-smokers.

..."If you spend you time arguing with an idiot, you now have two idiots."

The most interesting thing about this debate to me is it’s similarity to another debate that is heating up these days. It is also a sensitive issue to many and challenges the survival of the human race. Since the early Nineties, climatologists have been warning about the effects of greenhouse gases on global temperatures and the risk of melting the ice caps. Thanks to the 3rd Assessment Report by the IPCC, the Stern Review on the economics of climate change and the popularity of Al Gore’s recent documentary, some would say the proof is there, the evidence has been provided, and now it’s time to do something about it. The website for “An Inconvenient Truth” even provides “10 simple things you can do” to help stop global warming. The list does indeed give simple suggestions, but sadly, stopping global warming won’t be that simple.

Consider the theoretical simplicity of quitting smoking. To do so, one must stop lighting tobacco and smoking it. To simply stop "cold turkey" may be more complicated to someone who enjoys smoking and derives pleasure from the act, resulting in nicotine gum or patches adhered to various place on the body. They say withdrawal from nicotine can be unpleasant. Alas, over 20% of American find nicotine withdrawal so unpleasant they would rather declare war on non-smokers. Now consider the percentage of the world that has grown dependent on oil to maintain their lifestyles. Consider the energy we consume in our homes, at our offices and moving from place to place. It’s explicitly linked to the way we live so much so that we are the smokers of the 21^st Century.

To "smoke" today is not about tobacco, it's about the amount of greenhouse gas emissions you are responsible for. Like a nicotine addiction, our withdrawal from our oil dependent lifestyle promises to be a painful one if we can manage to do so. The hope is in the fact that, in recent years, there is no glamor or intelligence in driving a gas guzzling vehicle or being ignorant about the melting ice caps. The Supreme Court has recently ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants subject to federal regulation (a landmark similar to the fall of Big Tobacco in the courts 15 years ago). We have entered the stage where we can decide if we will argue about our liberties to smoke, or - aware of the problem - we can do our best to kick the habit. So it is my hope that, looking back at all the idiotic arguments over whether or not smoking was bad for your health fifty years ago will be a lesson in futility that we can finally learn something from.

Thank you.