Fattest of the Fat

Americans are stereotyped as being:

* stupid
* painfully monolingual
* fat
* materialistic
* lazy

... among a number of other negative characteristics. If I look back at my life, I think much of it was spent on defying each stereotype that came in my way, but I won't get into that.

One thing that is kind of true... well, all the above stereotypes have some truth to them, though not all Americans possess all the aforementioned traits... obesity in America is a growing problem (no pun intended).

Of all the "fat" Americans out there, apparently the fattest state in the U.S. is, with 31.6% of its population being obese (and even more being overweight), Mississippi according to this 2008 map:
The leanest state of the United States is Colorado. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but I'm not surprised why so many of the southern states have huge populations of obese people. Most of the food traditional to the South is greasy and fried... which I don't understand. If it's hot down there, wouldn't you want to eat things like fresh cold fruits or something more refreshing instead of fried chicken? That's just my logic, but I guess Southerners disagree.

Education in America

I guess, despite hating the state as a whole, the education system in New Jersey isn't too shabby. Although "evolution" is a theory, it's the most accepted theory as to the origins of mankind and everything on Earth. I don't believe in a God at the moment, but I can't say I buy into the evolution thing 100% either. I mean, there are too many unanswered questions. We all came from an atom that exploded that created the whole universe, right? The whole "big bang" theory... but where did the atom come from? Honestly, no one knows and thus the question of our purpose here on Earth. Either way, I'm going off an a tangent there.

Coming back to where I was going with this initially, the teaching of evolution can be correlated with the quality of education a child receives in each state in the U.S. While this cannot be deemed as a "perfect" example, I think it's pretty accurate when compared with national standardized test scores and distributions.
Most of the South and some of the Midwestern states receive poor grades in terms of their treatment of evolution in public schools. Iowa, apparently, has no state standard at all. I guess I should be glad that I received most of my primary/secondary school education in Pennsylvania/New Jersey respectively.

Good teachers are actually hard to come by in the states. Even teachers that molest children have found loopholes to teach again in the mass network of teachers unions that almost prohibit schools from firing ineffective teachers. This probably contributes to the lack of quality education one can get through public schools here... though some teachers are genuinely interested and informed.
Maybe it's not our fault that the stereotype of "dumb American" came about.

Comparing Global Economies

Back in 2000, when our economy wasn't about to hit rock bottom, someone published this map:
(Here's a darker version of the same map since the first is a little light and hard to read)
Just thought it would be interesting to observe.

There's another similar comparison of global economies and the states of Brazil:

Barack Obama's Honeymoon is Over

I have to admit, I'm not a fan of any politician and although Obama was the lesser of two evils, looking back at what he has done in his 100-days of presidential honeymoon, I can't say I'm completely pleased with the rate things are going. There were people who were skeptical from the beginning:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech
thedailyshow.com

And now, the latest critique of Obama is concerning the issue over abuse photos. After all the promises made about transparency and "change", I guess "change" is only skin-deep. I think I've been disappointed by Obama quite a few times already, but no one has noticed until now. The court-ordered release, Obama said, would "further inflame anti-American opinion". Honestly, if they are that bad, then all the more reason to see them. All right, I admit that it could pose problems with anti-American sentiments in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it's not like the photos are going to change anything dramatically. We are already hated, might as well suck it up and bite the bullet, be prepared for the worst so to speak.

As an American, I want to see the photos, not only to follow the court order, but to know the extent to which abuse is going on. No one knows these things unless the information is released to the press... and press, so far, has been disappointingly cooperative with the administration. Barack Obama is not some kind of demi-god. Now that the "honeymoon period" of his administration is over, I think it's time to cut to the chase and see exactly what he has done so far. Criticizing his administration is neither sacrilegious nor is it "colorist". I don't care if he's brown, blue, black, white, red, purple... ok, I hate the color purple so that might be different, but anyway, you get the picture.

1. Passed the largest economic stimulus bill in American history. (-1)
2. Is attempting to block release of abuse photos. (-1)
3. Set a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq. (+1)
4. Lifted restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research. (-1)
5. Signed laws to expand children's health insurance to be financed by a 61-cent/pack increase in federal cigarette taxes. (+1)
6. Lifted travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban Americans, allowing them to send more money and travel to Cuba. (+1)
7. Ordered 21,000+ troops to Afghanistan and enlisting European allies in a new multi-layered strategy in both Afghanistan and Pakistan (though with minimal success) (0)
8. Attempted to "forge a meaningful statement" from the UN to criticize North Korea's "ballistic" missile launch. (-1 <>
9. Engaged world leaders with "strength and humility." (+1 <>
10. Signed a bill meant to improve the ability of women to sue their employer for wage discrimination. (+1)
11. Signed a bill that permits government wiretapping of citizens' phone calls (-1)
12. Claimed to have dimished the role of lobbyists in the White House, though he really hasn't. (-1)
13. Approved a bill that creates more bureaucracy and legislation that hinder organic farmers from selling their products. (-1)
14. Five of his cabinet members are millionaires. (-1 <>
15. Ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolished "enhanced interrogation techniques." (+2)
16. Signed a bill that had thousands of earmarks (-1)
17. Claimed he would post all bills on his website for 5 days for all Americans to be able to read it before it was signed... but he never did. (-1)
18. Messed up the oath then didn't allow filming of the second time around. (-2)
19. The "bipartisanship" that he promised is nowhere to be found. (-1)

The tally: -6

Of course, there are a ton of more legislation to weed through, but I feel as though I was too optimistic. Barack Obama, when it's all said and done, is just another politician, and like all politicians, he's mostly all talk.

Atheists are Loved More than Scientologists in America

I used to be Christian up until high school. I guess I really started questioning my religion and became agnostic sometime at the beginning of my studies as a college Freshman. By the time I graduated, I was leaning more and more towards atheism and now, I realize, I'm more of an atheist than an agnostic. A lot of people think that atheists are 100% sure that "God" doesn't exist and that there is no such thing as a "God". In reality, even among atheists, I think it's rather rare that people are 100% sure that "God" doesn't exist. The reason why I can safely say that I'm now an atheist is because I'm about 75% sure there is no deity and 25% unsure. Agnosticism would have those numbers at 50-50, or closer to an equal division - that the existence of a higher being can neither be proved nor disproved. This used to be what I thought, but now, I'm more on the other end of the spectrum - there is no higher being, unless I see evidence of some kind that proves otherwise. Seeing is believing, after all.

In America, I realize I am now a minority in terms of religion, falling into a category representing less than 5% of the total population.
According to this Gallup poll, atheists are one of the most unfavorably viewed groups of people. Only Scientologists are viewed in a worse light (if you know anything about Scientology... you must know how I feel about being only slightly less "hated" than them). I think I can understand why people hate atheists. People often think that atheists automatically have no morals or principals and therefore, they are most likely to be "evil" and self-interested. I think that is completely untrue. Yes, I call myself an atheist, but I am not self-interested. The only reason why I became atheist is after I went to Mali and realized that in this world, there really could be no "God" and if there was a "God" this deity obviously doesn't give a shit about all the people since there are those who have nothing while a scanty proportion of the entire human race owns "everything." Why is that? Why do so many people suffer? Why do the majority of the people in this world suffer? Why, when there is enough food to feed everyone, do people starve? It's not just a question of economics or politics, but if there is a god out there, then how come such injustices exist? There are too many 'why's in this world for me to believe in god and if I'm hated to questioning such things, then so be it.

Yann Tiersen Helped Me Get a Free Piano

I don't know my neighbors too well. It's New York, no one really "knows" their neighbors too well. They're all paranoid that the other might be a psycho killer, stalker, or they are just too self-absorbed to notice other people living next door. I only know one neighbor who watches "Russian" channels through satellite and that one neighbor that I know is moving away. So the neighbor who's moving away has a piano in the apartment. I was over his place once before with Victor last summer when we first moved in. He and his then-wife invited us over for some drinks and there was a piano in the living room. He asked if one of us could play it since his wife was just beginning to learn how to play.

OK, so I went through a phase in my earlier years when I wanted to become a pianist/artist. I even spent some time studying at the MSM (Manhattan School of Music), but this was YEARS ago and all of the more difficult pieces have left my memory and my fingers are no longer agile enough to even play them. I hadn't played piano in over 4 years and here I was being asked if I could play. Play I did. Despite the 4 or so years that I hadn't touched a piano key, the 10 or so years that I did play helped me muster up one song. The only piece that came into mind was a piece by Yann Tiersen (the French composer/musician who has composed music for such feature films as Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain and Good Bye Lenin!).

Nearly a year later, my neighbor was divorced (they apparently got divorced sometime at the end of last year while I was in Mali) and since he's moving out by the end of the month, he offered to give me a piano that he has. His ex-wife had never learned it and he didn't want to take it with him. So voilà. I now have a piano. I'm kind of nervous to start playing again. I think instruments are like languages. You play it for a long time, you study it, you practice it... but if you stop for even a year or two, you lose your ability. You have to re-train yourself slowly to get to the level you were once before. I read in a language psychology book that if you learn a language after your critical period (after around the age of 10), even if you study it and master it, if you don't speak it or use it at all for about 2 or 3 years, you will lose your ability to speak it. Doesn't that suck?

Today's Random Video:Please don't be offended! It's just a joke and besides, I fell for it the first time I saw it ;)

World of Film

World Map according to average budget per feature film... and the winner goes to...

*drum roll please*
... New Zealand?!?!?!?!?

Surpringly, despite American films dominating popular culture worldwide, New Zealand averages higher dollars/film than the United States! I guess it seems shocking, but in spite of all the Hollywood blockbusters, there are many, many independent and low-budget films being produced in the United States, which might account for the unexpected discrepancy.

The country dominating according to the cartogram of feature film production per capita is...
Iceland?!?!?!?!?

I definitely did NOT see that one coming. Then again, if you think about it, Iceland has, what 300,000 people give or take a few thousand? I imagine that it's not that hard to produce a good number of movies per year, giving it a good per capita ratio. Denmark and Slovenia are doing quite well in terms of per capita ratio in film as well. Hong Kong isn't doing too shabby either.

Finally, overall feature film production...
Japan and India are gigantic on this map. France and Spain look like they're competing for dominance in Europe and on the African continent, I'm safely assuming that the winner is Nigeria.

These maps are all credited to:

VE Day

Today is VE Day. While "VE Day" is celebrated in Russia on the 9th and a few countries in Europe have a bank holiday on the 8th of May... in America, VE Day isn't really given much attention. It's been 64 years since the end of World War II in Europe and somehow, though neither I nor my parents were alive to see it end, it's kind of an eerie feeling I having thinking and knowing that it was that long ago. My grandparents who were alive during WWII are long gone. It seems like that whole generation, the generation alive during that time, is passing on and soon enough, there won't be a single "survivor" of the "Great Generation". Very strange to think about.

On a lighter note, I found an interesting map with all the old currencies in Europe before the evil euro came along and crushed my dreams of owning such currencies as the French franc, the Belgian franc, the Luxembourgian franc, the Dutch guilder, the Spanish peseta, the Greek drachma, the Cypriot pound, the Italian lira, the Maltese lira, the Irish pound, the Deutschmark, the Finnish markka, the Portuguese escudo, the Austrian schilling.
At least I got my hands on the Slovak koruna and Slovenian tolar before they adopted the euro.

Today's Random Quiz:

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's Your Inner European?

Rules of the Road

I hope you find this as amusing as I did =) No one likes to admit that s/he is a bad driver, myself included. I think I drive better than 90% of Americans only because I drive stick shift!!! =P

Verbs

Despite English being a very rich language (in terms of the sheer quantity of words, English surpasses most, if not all, other languages with something around an unofficial count of 500,000 words), I feel as though our grammar is rather simple. Yes, of course, pronunciation can be erratic, spelling is mostly based on memorization, and while there are some rules of punctuation, grammar and the like, it's pretty simple. I've been noticing the simplicity of English as I study other languages. Okay, the only other language that I know that has even simpler verb conjugations is Swedish.

Take for example, the verb "to run".
English: I run ~ you run ~ (s)he/one runs ~ we run ~ they run
Swedish: jag kör ~ du kör ~ han/hon kör ~ vi kör ~ ni kör ~ de kör
French: je cours ~ tu cours ~ il/elle/on court ~ nous courons ~ vous courez ~ ils/elles courent
Spanish: yo corro ~ tú corres ~ él/ella/Usted corre ~ nosotros corremos ~ vosotros corréis ~ ellos/ellas/Ustedes corren
Italian: io corro ~ tu corri ~ lui/lei/lei/egli corre ~ noi corriamo ~ voi correte ~ loro/Loro/essi corrono
German: ich renne ~ du rennst ~ er/sie/es rennt ~ wir rennen ~ ihr rennt ~ sie/Sie rennen

Now, I've always said Russian was the hardest language I've ever tried learning... but I think the reason why it's so hard is because of grammar. I just don't get it. I understand verb conjugation, the tenses, most of the cases, etc.... but some things are still beyond my level of comprehension.

For example, they have the "Imperfective Indefinite" for which the verb "to run" is бегать and is conjugated in the present tense:
я бегаю ~ ты бегаешь ~ он/она/оно бегает ~ мы бегаём ~ вы бегаете ~ они бегают

But then there's the "Imperfective Definite" for which the verb "to run" is бежать and is conjugated in the present tense as:
я бегу ~ ты бежишь ~ он/она/оно бежит ~ мы бежим ~ вы бежите ~ они бегут

I'm not sure if I understood these correctly... but is it similar to "I run" vs. "I am running"? So that's my bone to pick with Russian. As for French, I've been reviewing all the literary tenses that are used only in writing and rarely (more likely never) in spoken language. I feel like if I want to read Victor Hugo in French before I die, I should be familiar with such antiquated cases like Past Anterior (j'eus couru), Future Anterior (j'aurai couru), Imperfect Subjunctive (je courusse), Past Subjunctive (j'aie couru), subjonctif plus-que-parfait (j'eusse couru), conditionnel passé 2ème (j'eusse couru) and a new tense I had never learned before "impératif passé" (j'aie couru !).

Now that I think about it, I can't think of how to use the latter tense... when the hell would I used a past-tense imperative????? In total, there are 17 tenses in French, and if you include the present participle as a tense (courant), there are 18, just like the 18 tenses in Spanish. I can't even think of 10 tenses in English... I'm surprised. I actually thought that French was rather easy to learn and was an overall simple language. Maybe it's not as simple and maybe the only reason it was easier for me was because I'd already studied Spanish. Seriously, I always complain about German or Russian but rarely about the Romance languages. Upon counting, I think in terms of tenses, there are "only" 15 tenses in German while there are perhaps 8 tenses in Russian (don't quote me on that). I guess the only issue with German and Russian then, are the cases. German has 4 and all four cases can be somehow related to English. Russian has 6 cases... and not all 6 can be related to English. I mean, what the hell is an instrumental case?

Ok, I'm done ranting. I had to get that out there. Sometimes, I wish I had a simpler, easier obsession instead of languages. Sometimes, learning languages is really discouraging and it seem really fruitless... until I get to speak the language with someone who speaks it and then I feel like it's worth all the time and energy.

Today's Random Picture:
Oh, what is the world coming to? I mean, that kid looks like he's 8! Children these days, they're maturing too fast.

Singles in America

Here's a map that shows the concentration of single females and single males in America.
As you can see, single women outnumber single men greatly in the East/Midwest while single men outnumber single women significantly in the West. The largest female plurality is found in the New York-Newark; NY-NJ-CT urban areas where there are 195,000 more single women than single men. THe largest male plurality is the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana urban area where there are 40,000 more single men than women. Hm... I wonder why...

Today's Random Quiz:

You Are 63% Likely to Survive Another Great Depression

Even though you may not be expecting the worst, you're the type of person who prepares for the worst. You live a relatively modest life. You don't overspend, and you aren't very materialistic. You are also quite self sufficient and independent. You have many useful skills. You can take care of yourself and those you love... which is crucial to surviving another Great Depression.

Could You Survive Another Great Depression?

Queer Babies

I don't mean to use "queer" in the slang term to mean homosexual. I mean "queer" as in weird. Babies are scary even if they're normal (in my opinion) because they're just... I don't know... they're just scary! When they're not "normal", then they're even scarier.

In this photo released by the Loyola University Health System, Rumaisa Rahman, is seen next to a hand a few weeks after she was born at the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. Rumaisa, whose parents came from Hyderabad, India, weighed 8.6 ounces (243.80 grams) when she was delivered Sept. 19. She is believed to be the smallest baby in the world ever to survive. (AP Photo/Loyola University Health System, HO)


Nine-month-old Milagros Cerron is carried by a doctor at the hospital in Lima, on February 1, 2005. The Peruvian baby dubbed the 'Little Mermaid' because she was born with a rare condition in which her legs are fused, will have surgery this month to try to separate them, doctors said (Pilar Olivares/Reuters).


A woman in northeastern Brazil, Francisca Ramos dos Santos, 38, gave birth to what one doctor called a "giant baby," a boy weighing 16.7 pounds.


A nurse holds an Egyptian baby named Manar Maged in a hospital in the city of Banha, 25 miles, north of Cairo Feb. 18, 2005. Egyptian doctors said they removed the second head from the girl, who was suffering from the rare birth defects in an operation on Saturday. (Reuters)


Xuan Minh, 3, looks out from his bed at the Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Min city on Friday March 25, 2005, suffering from what is believed to be the effects of the jungle defoliant Agent Orange, used heavily in the region by the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War. Vietnam celebrated the end of hostilities on April 30, 2005, marking 30 years since war in Vietnam ended. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)


A doctor inspects a 59-day-old baby boy who was born with three arms, at a hospital in Shanghai, in east China Monday, May 29, 2006. Doctors are checking the boys physical condition before deciding whether to remove his third arm. (AP Photo)


Charikot, Dolakha, March 29 - The birth of a bizarre-looking baby in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, on Wednesday, drew a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight. The neck-less baby with its head almost totally sunk into the upper part of the body and with extraordinarily large eyeballs literally popping out of the eye-sockets, was born to Nir Bahadur Karki and Suntali Karki at the Gaurishnkar Hospital in Charikot. The bizarre baby, however, died after half an hour of its birth, Suntali, the mother, informed. It was taken to the hospital after its death.


Mother Sushma holds her daughter Lali at their residence in Saini Sunpura, 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of New Delhi, India, Tuesday, April 8, 2008. The baby with two faces, two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes was born on March 11 in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

Population Cartogram

I remember when I was a 7-year-old in the 4th grade, we learned that there were 4 billion people on the earth. Today, amazingly enough, that number is almost 7 billion (an estimated 6.7 billion at present). Amazing how quickly we've reproduced... well, certain countries more than others. Below is a cartogram sizing individual countries based on population in relation to landmass. China and India dominates while the countries "up north" (i.e. Canada, the Scandinavian countries, Russia, etc.) are thin slithers... I guess no one wants to live in the cold.
Today's Random Quiz:

You Are Blooming Flowers

You are an optimistic person by nature. In even the darkest times, you are hopeful about the future. You feel truly blessed in life and can sometimes be overwhelmed with emotions. You have an artist's eye. You are always looking for beauty in the mundane. You have a good sense of aesthetics, especially when it comes to shapes and color.

What Part of Spring Are You?

Olfactory Overload

Today's entry is just a funny picture.

Multifarious Misunderstandings

"It's all Greek to me!" This is what Americans usually say when someone is saying something that is incomprehensible or just way over your head. Actually, in Swedish you'd say the same thing, "Det är rena grekiskan!", when you don't understand something. The Spaniards also don't understand Greek nor do they know Chinese (Eso es griego para mí /Esto me sueña a chino, no me hables en chino). Perhaps, however, the "Greek" thing will change in the future to Chinese in English as well because I just watched an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" and in it, Marshall says to Lily, "It's like your speaking Chinese to me." Then I wondered if there's an expression in Greek or Chinese similar to the expression "It's all Greek to me!" in English, Swedish, Spanish, etc. Greeks, according to my research, don't understand Chinese or Arabic, and Arabic speakers don't understand Hindi.

Overall, though, my conclusion is that most people don't understand Chinese:

Jettisoning Vices

Not quite sure when it started happening, but I know it's been at least a day since my heart has been hurting. It's like I'm "heartbroken", but literally. It's been over a week that I haven't had coffee. Yes, yes, believe or not but I am trying to quit coffee. My boyfriend, for those who've met him, smokes. I want him to quit. So we made a deal. I quit coffee and he quits smoking. In addition to coffee, I even agreed to quit drinking alcohol, making this deal a little unfair but still, I'm willing to hold true to my part. Our deal is quite good, actually. Neither is allowed to create another vice (i.e. I can't drinking Red Bull in the morning, he can't start chewing tobacco) otherwise that would defeat the whole purpose of jettisoning one vice only to trade in for another.

What is strange though, besides the initial withdrawal effects of caffeine (including headache, extra-groggy mornings, crankiness, short-tempered moments in the morning, etc.) I have an additional "side effect" from quitting coffee, painful heartbeats. Is it the coffee withdrawal? Is it because I'm stressed out and panicking on the inside (which I am for other reasons I don't feel like discussing) or is it because I'm anxious? I don't know. All I know is, coffee might have been a magical drink that kept me going. These days, I'm always tired, I doze off on the subway all the time and mornings are a little better than hell since I can barely lift my head up off the pillow. Not drinking hasn't given me any negative physical conditions but it has made my weekends banal - I stay home reading/studying instead of partying.

Have you guys ever tried to quit something and actually succeeding in doing so (indefinitely)? I don't know about you... but for me... whew... it's tough. The alcohol, I can manage with no problems but it's the lack of coffee that's killing me.

Today's Random Picture:
A little quiz for you guys. If you can read this, I'll give you $5. =)