Author: Warren Tang

I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.

Is cloned food safe?

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1.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has decided to endorse that cloned food is safe. If given the go ahead FDA will allow the sale of cloned cattle, pig and goat, but not sheep, pending comments over the next three months and final approval.

But is cloned food really safe?

Sure, the direct result is just a cow, a pig, or a goat. But, surely, there must be a reason why nature “chooses” to make every single organism across species as well as within species different.

2.
This reminds me of the Borg Collective in Star Trek: The Next Generation. If one central area is attacked successfully the whole system collapses. That is not so far fetched. We have examples in our modern world. Disease is one.

Take Aids, for example. It is a virus which knows how to bypass the body’s defences. But not everyone is susceptible to the disease. You may be a Aids carrier but may not be HIV positive. In other words, variation helped contain Aids in this instance.

Variation in life has this important function. It simply means we react or relate differently to the same conditions. On the biological level this has saved us from completely being wiped out.

3.
Rat plagues work in the same way. I once watched an old Eastern European television documentary on a rat exterminator. He gave a step-by-step psychological guide to the rat socio-structure. There is always one rat which is smarter, or less trustful of the exterminator’s method. Literally. this man would feed the rats right out of his hand. He gained the trust of the rats infesting a farm. Once they trust has been created he begins to feed them rat poison out of his hand. But the rats ate the poison becuase of the established trust. Even as the other rats around them were dying the rats continued to accept the “food”. The remaining handful of rats which were cautious to his “gifts” were then killed with a rifle. In this way he was able to exterminate an entire rat population that had taken over a farm property. If some were left behind this would be disastrous because you then have supersmart, superwise rats the next time around.

4.
But coming back to cloned food, why are we in such a hurry to sell it? Are we in some kind of meat shortage that I do not know about? It seems it is all about money, and nothing else.

Why are we always trying to play God? Make yourself heard that you don’t want cloned food before it is too late, especially if you are an American citizen.

Don’t forget to have your say over the next three months with the FDA.

Seeing Red and White

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The end of year Red and White Song Contest (Japanese: Kouhaku Uta Gasen) has just finished here in Japan. What it is is a competition between male and female Japanese music artists. Each side has about twenty members singing their songs and judges decide which side overall wins by vote.

Why it is called “Red and White” is because the male is White and the female team is Red. This has been the tradition and it has been going on for sometime now. This year the MCs were Yukie Nakama, a popular young actress, and Masahiro Nakai from the immensely popular group, SMAP. While Ms. Nakama was rather awkward, Mr. Nakai was the veteran that he is.

The highlight must have been DJ Ozma’s over the top caberet-style number where he had dancing girls filling the entire stage. Some were seemingly topless when in fact they were wearing bodysuits with a female anatomy print design. NHK, the government channel which produces and airs this show, got a number of phone and fax complaints from viewers, to which one of the MCs had to explain while on air (this show is live).

In the end White Team (the male side) won through a tight vote – audience and television viewers were given a chance for giving one extra vote overall.

A note on why white for men and red for women – red and white are the two colours of the Japanese national flag. So, slyly, patriotism was injected to a seemingly an innocent annual event for the family, for New Years in Japan, unlike the West, is a family affair, and not one for spending with friends.

So better luck for Red next year. But now we all know either way the real winner every year is Japan.

Recharge or reduce?

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Brian Larter wrote this great little guide on rechargeable batteries. Thank you, Brian.

But still I have my gripes about upstream energy consumption and production. Are we just deceiving ourselves by not seeing the damage of energy production methods like coal. The best thing really to do is reduce consumption and use non-energy products.

Why use a PDA when we can use a diary produced from recycled paper? Why not just listen for danger in traffic coming from behind, or even better, the sound of nature on those bike rides instead of your music device? If something needs energy then it is still contributing to the problem.

Reduction – not more efficient technology – is the best method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More efficient energy use will only leads to more use because we can.

In short, buy less, use less.

Blogging is work!

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1.
Since Christmas holidays started I have had the luxury to blog again.

Yet, this break has taught me one important lesson – that maintaining a blog is really time consuming. It takes more than just the desire to blog – the want to be heard – to keep one going. And even if you have the drive to have one you may not have that much to say. So one has to consider why one wants to blog.

When I started this blog it was to talk about my belief in sustainability, Buddhism and theory. And it still is. While I have much to talk about I don’t have the time to put it down into posts. A “good” blog needs at least two hours of work a day. And that does not include reading. To be a good writer one must also be a good reader, I believe. Because I do not have the time to keep up with the latest news, my blogging suffers for it.

So why I do not have this time? Well, I have twelve hours of lectures a week. I have the homework that comes with these classes. I drive at least as many hours just to get to and from university each week. (Don’t talk to me about contributing to greenhouse gases. If I could move closer to campus I would.) I have two children under two, so my time at home is devoted to helping with looking after them and doing other chores to free my partner’s time to perform other household duties (and to relax). And I teach three nights a week to slow the rate of dwindling of our savings.

So, when I say I do not have time, yes, I mean I do not have time.

2.
There are plenty of websites out there that give advice to people about blogging and how to be a good blogger, etc. They usually tell you you need to post regularly, you need to read other blogs and comment, you need to do this and do that. Well let me tell them – great, if you are single, or somehow you are blessed with much time on your hands (this usually means an disgruntled wife or husband lurking somewhere in the background).

But most people are not like that. Most people have real work that takes up most of their waking hours. I repeat again, most people are not like that.

3.
So here is my advice for people who want to consider starting a blog or has already started a blog:

  1. Do you have things to say that are important or interesting?
  2. Do you think you have enough to say for at least one year?

If you said ‘yes’ to both these by all means, go for it.

Even if you do not have time it could be done if the content is important or interesting. If you are like me – without time to even read let alone write – then I still say it is fine. Don’t listen to those “professional” bloggers telling you you need to do this or that.

And don’t worry about stats and hits. If you have good content people will come.

Be realistic about what you can do with a blog. It is an only outlet for your thoughts. It is only a glorified webpage. It is only a personal journal of sorts. It isn’t the whole world. If you want to be blog-popular then by all means put work much into it. But if you are like me, who does not care for ratings, then it can be a rewarding means of self-expression that does not take up most of your life, because there is life beyond the internet and blogging.

Arctic ice shelf breaks off

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Relating to my recent post on polar bears an ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has broken off the Canadian Arctic. Let’s just hope it doesn’t drift too far south or we might be watching Day After Tomorrow live from our living rooms.

Floods in Aceh kill 120

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In “lesser” news (those that are not reported as much because other “more important things” are in the news) floods in Indonesia’s Aceh Tamiang district have killed over 120 people. Neighbouring Malaysia’s Meteorological Department has labeled it as “extreme” weather phenomenon and has issued warnings as already 90,000 people in the country’s south as been displaced.

Saddam’s death and karma

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Saddam’s death seem to bring joy to most, and hate and vengence to others. So just when is this karma going to stop?

While his death may have been his own doing through his karma, it is not for us to continue our own by rejoicing his death. Our own karma will only come back to us.

This is why I hate politics.

We can only work to free ourselves and no one else.

Polar bears and skiing

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What a week for global warming.

The Bush Administration has finally agreed to look into protecting polar bears. This move only came after much pressure from a lawsuit which found the polar bears were not adequately protected by government policy from the effects of global warming on their habitat. All the while groups from within the Bush Camp still believe that greenhouse gas emissions is not the cause of the rapid lost of Arctic ice threatening the bears’ way of life. Gas and oil drilling in Alaska will continiue until a clear picture comes from a 12 month study.

So, tell me Mr. Bush, how many signs do we need before you realise that global warming is actually happening? And how deeply we have to get before you – the leader of the nation with the greatest output of greenhouse gases, as well as, the leader of the nation which exercises such power only because of “economic” wealth – will listen to the drowning cries of the bear (and perhaps the people whose houses will be below the sea level)?

I just hope you, Mr President, are not going to the skiing World Cup this week. In case you haven’t heard they haven’t had much snow in Europe. Bormio, Italy, where one of the events is being held, had to bring in forty-seven (yes, 47) snow cannons to produce 100,000 cubic metres of artificial snow due to the lack of real snow.

Do we need any more signs before we realise global warming is here?

Reviving literature

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The trend today is to teach and learn only the practical. Does this spell the end for the teaching of literature in the langauge classroom?

My teacher in my teaching materials class made a comment about how one of his colleagues is lamenting the lack of literature in langauge teaching today. With the emphasis now on communicative grammar, poetry, short stories and novels have all but disappeared from the langauge classroom.

But only as recent as fifteen years ago it was still different. During my undergraduate years I studied Japanese. It was expected that one studied Japanese literature. It was not because literature would help directly with communication, but rather we were reading what the Japanese were reading. It is was this kind of authenticity which helped us understand the Japanese and their culture. Certainly my Japanese vocabulary is better for it today than if I did not read Japanese novels. Where else would come across words teppatsu (elms bowl for Buddhists teaching exchange for food) or learn about sabi (rusticness. But it means much more than this and as an Japanese cultural aesthetic, inseparable from their identity).

Literature therefore teaches you more than language. It teaches about culture also. And in some ways langauge is culture. How else would I learn these things except for novels. While in this age of fast pace and quick and efficient solutions I still believe the quality of learning gained from just a few pages of hard and studious translation is worth more than, say, a week in Japan observing only and trying to find hints of meanings from gestures and practices. I feel books – any books in the target language – are undervalued as a resource. Books need not be especially designed for language to be useful. If anything they are better because they are authentic.

But coming back to the language teaching, textbook writers and publishers highlight this point. For if ordinary books are seen as good as (or better than) specific-purpose textbooks then these publishers’ and writers’ potential market to sell becomes smaller. In other words there is a hidden agenda to the reasons to promote textbooks in this way.

Twenty years ago still we saw literature as an important part of language learning. But communication was also taught if we were to go into the real world and mingle with real Japanese. However, today you can talk to a non-native speaker of Japanese and he or she will almost know or say nothing of Japanese culture or literature, but talk only about her or his country or about his or her opinion. If this is what internationalization means then I do not want to be part of it.

Since literature is still being read widely today it is not that troubling. Sooner or later the pendulum will swing back and literature will once again become fashionable, that is, until it is overdone, again. Remember this: trends are so predictable in this way, and how we teach is also nothing but a trend.

Will science save the planet?

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My father came to visit recently. As a habit we try to see each other once a year. As he works for a multinational company he is always on the move flying around globetrotting to meetings. So getting together for a couple of days is usually all we can manage.

This also means he is very much a person who believes in business as a way of life. His business life is something I am not particularly fond of. Personally I want to be a teacher or academic even though these jobs are not without its own politics. It is really a pick from a bad bunch of livelihoods.

So it is during these couples of days that I get to talk to (read: argue with) him about business ethics and philosophy. This time we talked about the relationship between science and sustainability. We agreed that global warming that is happening right now and that something needs to give. However he believed science will create new technologies which have less impact on the environment, that it will eventually save the planet from death by consumerism.

And it is this belief in science that we differ.

To me there are two types of scientists – Observers and Manipulators. To the Observer science is a tool for investigating the nature of the universe. Observers want to know the fundamental laws of motion. So they invent things like calculus and telescopes to gain this knowledge. The object of their investigation is the world. It is to be looked at, to be learned from and to be understood. Observers do not touch the object that is under investigation. By contrast to the Manipulator science is a tool for tampering with the very nature of the universe. The Manipulator wants to know how much they can get out of the world. So they create things like machines for mass production and the electric light bulb for personal, and often short-term, gain. The objective of their investigation is to find ways to apply their knowledge for gain and to see how efficiently something can be produced for consumption. To the Manipulator the world is to be played with, to be harnessed and harvested, to be made a slave of its technological master.

Observers are the astronomers, the oceanographers, the meteorologists of this world; Manipulators are the research scientists, the inventors, the designers of this same world. So it is really a choice as to how we want to relate to the environment, what we choose to do with it or to do to it.

We need science to solve all the problems we wouldn’t have if there were no science.I believe that much of our problems are from the application of science in the form of technology, and that it has snowballed into something bigger because we have tried to use more science to solve these problems. So the advent of science is akin to opening Pandora’s Box or starting a vicous circle. While both seem to imply we cannot reverse the course, I do not believe science’s blunders are irreversible. It may be difficult but not impossible. And certainly using less technology and reverting to a simpler lifestyle will help.

So whether science will save the environment really depends on when we will listen to the Observers over the Manipulators. By nature Observers are the silent type and Manipulators are the loud type, and so their seems to be only ever one discourse – that of the Manipulator. This seems to mean it is not only important for the Observers to scream their silent scream as loudly as they can, but also for us to be listening for it.