Diamonds Are a Girl's Worst Friend

As usual, long overdue in posting, and much of my posting lately has been of a political and social commentary nature. Here's another, from Slate magazine, on how diamond engagement rings are, besides being one of the greatest marketing ploys ever pulled on the public, but also a symbol of a man's financial commitment to his prospective bride and "the status of a woman's sexual currency."

Writes Meghan O'Rourke, "it's telling, for example, that in many parts of Scandinavia, where attitudes toward gender are more egalitarian, both men and women wear engagement rings." Huh. Now that's a thought.

the end of the seas...coming soon

I just read this fascinating article on overfishing at Salon.com - read it if you want to be shocked at how poorly managed fisheries are around the world. And, if you want to do something about it, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Oceans Alive have great guides on better choices at the fishmonger. And, if you're like me and live abroad, fishbase.org is an amazing fish database. If you've ever wanted to know what grouper is called in Chinese, as well as all the various grouper species, fishbase is the place.

Now I just need to make my own handy guide for the fish market...

Buy One, Give One

Help light the world - with this great concept, you buy one solar-powered flashlight for yourself, and they will send another one to the developing world to help kids study at night, keep women safe, and make providing or finding health care easier. Check it out.

Food blog recipes

I just made a lemon banana cake because I've got my baking itch. We'll see how it comes out (it's in the oven now), because I got the recipe from a food blog. The recipe seemed to check out okay—a mix between a pound cake and genoise—and I realized she forgot to put the measurement for the melted butter (likely 3/4 cups). No problems there. But, BUT, when I poured the batter into the specified 9" round cake tin, I realized she probably meant a springform pan. Way too much batter. I've baked enough to know this was going to spill over and cause disaster in the oven, so I quickly grabbed my ice scream scoop and a small muffin tin. So now there's 6 little cupcakes waiting it's turn in the oven...

I'll let you all know how it turns out.

We love tag sales

Yesterday I took the High Speed Rail (for the first time!) to Hsinchu to check out a moving sale. We scored some nice stuff, including a lovely mid-century modern walnut china cabinet for about a third to half the price of a particleboard item from IKEA. It's nice getting quality furniture at bargain prices. And infinitely better than having the same IKEA as everyone else, although this site, IKEA Hacker, has some creative ideas for personalizing that ubiquitous and affordable IKEA stuff (much of which I love, btw - design for the masses!).

A State of Mind

Last Friday, Sophie, Neil, and I went to see A State of Mind at the Urban Nomad Film Fest. Despite "donating" a lot of blood to the voracious mosquitoes out that night, we thoroughly enjoyed the movie and got to chat with the producer, Nicholas Bronner, afterwards. The movie is a documentary of the Mass Games in North Korea, the world's largest choreographed spectacle with over 100,000 participants. The documentary follows two girls as they prepare for their roles in the Mass Games, and it is an interesting and fascinating look into such a mysterious country.

Here's a music video of Faithless' I Want More, with video footage from the movie. Amazing stuff.

Yeah, but...

There's a saying, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." Yeah, but all societies have crazy people, and there is a difference with what is easily accessible to them. There's an interesting article in the Economist this week about how politicians in America have avoided talking about gun control.

Did you know that "since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns."? I didn't. That's an amazing figure.

Writes the Economist:
No phrase is bandied around more in the gun debate than “freedom of the individual”. When it comes to most dangerous products—be they drugs, cigarettes or fast cars—this newspaper advocates a more liberal approach than the American government does. But when it comes to handguns, automatic weapons and other things specifically designed to kill people, we believe control is necessary, not least because the failure to deal with such violent devices often means that other freedoms must be curtailed. Instead of a debate about guns, America is now having a debate about campus security.

No civilian needs an AK-47 for a legitimate purpose, but you can buy one online for $379.99. Guns could be made much safer, with the mandatory fitting of child-proof locks. A system of registration for guns and gun-owners, as exists in all other rich countries, threatens no one but the criminal. Cooling-off periods, a much more open flow of intelligence, tighter rules on the trading of guns and a wider blacklist of those ineligible to buy them would all help.

Let's hope the rest of American develop louder voices than the NRA.