World Series

I can't exactly hate the Red Sox, since they beat up on the Yankees and that is doing God's work.  Then again, they're kind of character-less without Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz.

So normally I'd root for any non-Yankees American League team in the World Series, but over the past five years the Dodgers and Cubs have emerged as teams I semi-regularly follow.

Add Manny Machado into the mix, along with South Korean starter Ryu Hyun-jin, and I've got to cheer for L.A. to win it in six.

Also, Puig.  I guess as I get older, I grow fonder of the guys who are willing to tell the "Unwritten Rules Of The Game" to go fuck themselves.

2018

Republicans are officially the party of "just a little murder by live dismemberment"

— Register To Vote, Then Vote. (@wetcasements) October 18, 2018

Worth A Dive

I finished Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach yesterday, and it was good.  You can tell she did a ton of research for this project ranging from the history of the Merchant Marine service during World War II, the history of children's games during the 1930's and 40's, the specifics of underwater welding and shipbuilding, to the ins and outs of getting an abortion 80 years ago.  And it doesn't come off as pedantic at all, but gets woven naturally into a story of family, sex, war and wartime, gangsters, and protecting your family at all costs.

It's much more conventional and "straight" than what I consider an obvious classic of 21st century novels, A Visit From The Goon Squad (2011).  Maybe there are a few moments where it feels like Egan wants to prove she can still tell it straight, and the book sags a bit for it.  Also, the technical details of an important scene towards the end of the book didn't make any sense to me, but that could be my own inability to understand the science involved in diving.

Recommended.

Philosophy Shmalosophy

Another awesome find via Open Culture, an interactive "History of Philosophy Visual Timeline."

It's the Thursday afternoon before midterms, and I'm doing my Global Zone hours (basically, students can come practice their spoken English with me).  So nobody's here, and I'm playing with this and it's great.

Forever Wars

Who would have thought that launching literally unending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, directed at abstract concepts like "terror," would come with high costs in terms of cash wasted, lives lost, and an American public that has pretty much tuned out when it comes to sacrifices made by military families?  Turns out, war-without-end is a pretty shitty thing for everyone involved:

"Young Americans now becoming eligible to enlist have seen primarily two portrayals of military service in their lives — either the heroics of Navy SEALs taking out high-profile terrorists or soldiers coming back with post-traumatic stress disorder in films such as American Sniper or The Hurt Locker, she said. One makes all military service seem unrealistic for most, the other a terrifying ordeal that ruins lives. This increases the likelihood that those who do enlist come from families and communities where they have been exposed to a more realistic image, and the range of options, she said.

'There is this huge respect and admiration for the military [in the US public], and very little real understanding,' she said."

The whole article is worth your time.  I'd only add that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were explicitly marketed as cheap, quick-and-dirty affairs that would be over in months with few costs in either blood or treasure.

Just shy of two decades later, here we are.

So I can understand why actual soldiers and vets and their families would be confused as to why regular Americans will have seizures when some athletes take a knee for the anthem, but at the end of the day can't really be bothered by somebody's son or daughter getting blown up by an insurgent's explosive device.  Not in 2018 at least, and not in any meaningful way beyond "thoughts and prayers."  War On Terror fatigue is real, and it's no accident that people basically don't care about wars where the "Mission" was "Accomplished" 15 years ago.

It's just sad all around that at the end of the day, we're talking about a "military caste" rather than shared sacrifice that cuts across class lines.  But it's no surprise, either -- support for post 9/11 invasions were based on the premise that deaths would be minimal at best, and that democracies would flourish with just the right amount of magical thinking and cash, and that everyone would be home in under a year.

Sure, I'll burn a pair of my Nikes in protest.  But that's about the extent of it.  Patriotism in America has become the ultimate form of virtue signalling.  And a lucrative one at that.

Winter Wordage

New books!

Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us

Viv Albertine, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes.  Music, Music, Music.  Boys, Boys, Boys.

Samuel Delany, The Motion of Light In Water

Matthew Cutter, Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices

Min Jee Lee, Pachinko

"male cruelty towards women is a bonding mechanism"

Adam Serwer takes the Trump era for what it is -- "The Cruelty Is The Point":

"The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected. As Lili Loofbourow wrote of the Kavanaugh incident in Slate, adolescent male cruelty towards women is a bonding mechanism, a vehicle for intimacy through contempt. The white men in the lynching photos are not merely smiling because of what they have done, but because they did it together.

We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era. There were the border patrol agents cracking up at the crying immigrant children separated from their families, and the Trump adviser who delighted white supremacists when he mocked a child with down syndrome who was separated from her mother. There were the police who laughed uproariously when the president encouraged them to abuse suspects, and the Fox News hosts mocking a survivor of the Pulse Nightclub massacre (and in the process inundating him with threats), the survivors of sexual assault protesting Senator Jeff Flake, the women who said the president sexually assaulted them, and the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting. There was the president mocking Puerto Rican accents shortly after thousands were killed and tens of thousands displaced by Hurricane Maria, the black athletes protesting unjustified killings by police, the women of the #MeToo movement who have come forward with stories of sexual abuse, and the disabled reporter whose crime was reporting on Trump truthfully. It is not just that they enjoy this cruelty, it is that they enjoy it with each other. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to each other, and to Trump."

All completely true.  I didn't think Trump would win in 2016 because I didn't want to to even flirt with the idea that a solid one-third of Americans are racist, hateful towards women and non-whites and gays, and, simply, cruel.  In their very bones, hateful.

I was wrong.

The Universe Has Many Known Realities

It's such a cliche that Canadians are nice, but we have these Canadian nursing professors visiting my college and like, they're super-fucking nice. Just sayin'.

— I Like Beer. Do You Like Beer? (@wetcasements) October 3, 2018

Mister You're On Fire Mister

Busan, South Korea.

Over the years I've been down to Busan, the street performance scene has really developed in a good way.  As mentioned, they've made the whole Haeundae Strip area a lot more pedestrian friendly (which is kind of a shocker in South Korea).  So instead of just one area right by the beach, the jugglers and fire eaters and even the crappy Euro-trash / Australian hippy drum circle bullshit have relatively comfortable places to do their respective things.

Honestly, other big Korean cities could learn a few things from Busan's development here.  You don't need a gimmick to revitalize an area, you really just need quality public spaces and trust people to step in and provide their own forms of entertainment.

But this being Korea, people are suspicious of organic, bottom-to-top actions that don't involve multiple layers of bureaucracy and authority.

On The Beach

Haeundae Beach, Busan, South Korea.

I've been down to Busan many times during my years in South Korea, and it gets a little better with each visit.  The city government has narrowed the road of the Haeundae Strip, making it a lot more pedestrian and street-performer friendly.  I've also made it to new places around the city, although I've always considered Haeundae to be my anchor.  And if my biggest complaint is that I couldn't get a table at my favorite Spanish restaurant in the country, well, so be it.  (Unlike Koreans, I'm not a fan of waiting in line.  I had to settle for some pretty good Indian grub instead.)

Clothes And The Country

Hanbok are traditional Korean clothes that are associated most closely these days with the major national holidays of Korean Thanksgiving and the Lunar New Year.  But as times change, so do the designs:

"Hoping to make the traditional garment more a part of people’s lives, the government and experts in related fields have been trying to encourage people to wear hanbok, or at least variations of the dress that embody a hint of the traditional attire. Their efforts involved a series of events ranging from declared hanbok-wearing days and holding hanbok festivals and giving discounts to the country’s royal palace to people wearing hanbok. Thanks to their efforts, wearing hanbok has become more familiar to the general public compared to a decade ago.

The biggest problem in traditional clothing today actually stems from the efforts of trying to increase the number of people wearing hanbok, regardless of the style. While at first it was important to get people to try hanbok, the variety of styles that have been created now have some wondering if there are rules for what constitutes a proper hanbok.

As more people take to the streets wearing forms of hanbok that have never been seen before, two perspectives have come into conflict. On one hand, some advocate that hanbok should adhere to the traditional form of the dress, while the other side believes that it’s meaningful in itself that more people are wearing hanbok, even if it is somewhat distanced from the conventional form."

I had no idea that in addition to banning the Korean language, hanbok were also outlawed under the Japanese occupation (1910-1945) as being too strong of a symbol of Korean national identity.