Food post: #2

Rob was getting a haircut so I plumped down at the local food court and sipped a beer. S$5.80 for a 630 mL bottle (For conversion to USD, about USD$4. For comparison to food, a plate of rice with 3 different curries spooned on top costs half of that, S$2.80.)

Two tables over, an older man also sipped a beer. (This is not him, but here is a picture to give you an image.)

I wondered if it was his daily ritual. And then I wondered, how much the beer cost when he was my age. I wondered, how he had reacted to beer taxes (light paternalism) [1] over the years. I wondered at all of the changes in his country during his lifetime. I wondered, what goes through his mind when he compares Singapore today to the Singapore of his youth?

[1] The excise tax on beer is S$3.50 per liter (it's S$70 per liter of pure alcohol). That's about USD$0.70 per 12-oz beer. There's also 7% GST (goods and services tax) and a customary 10% restaurant service charge.

Pictures

Sums up my impression of Singapore.

Pictures

Flying into Singapore, you can see container ships lazing about. No work for them at the moment.

 

Food post: #1

Check this off the life list: eating an entire animal in one sitting (next box after this is kill and eat an entire animal (after that is kill with bare hands or teeth and eat an entire animal)). Ordered a kabob stick called "small bird," thought I was getting some small pieces of chicken. Nope, I got a small bird, the entire thing, featherless and stretched over the skewers. Breaking off a leg was like eating a drumstick, except at 1/10th the ratio. Tasty meat, but .1 grams of protein. Getting the wing off was more trouble, though, and it had no meat on it. As I moved on to the breast, the head started looking at me. I tried to ignore it, to no avail, so I ripped the head off to get it out of my vision. But the little bugger still stared at me sadly from the plate as I put the rest of what little meat he had to offer into my stomach. At this point I started getting paranoid about diseases being carried in animals' nervous systems, and worried I'd eaten some of the spinal cord. It was hard to tell between the small bones and the thick spice rub seasoning. Blissfully the paranoia quickly passed after a moist towel, I felt clean. All in all, check that one off the list.

Daily question: #5

Complexity...Simplicity...

What do you prefer, simplicity or complexity?

What do you prefer, simplicity or complexity?

What a poignant question. I, for one, prefer simplicity.

What a poignant question. I, for one, prefer simplicity.

Simplicity...Complexity...

Daily vocation: #2

A sense of oneness, flow, in the zone.

A sense of oneness, flow, in the zone.

Daily question: #4

If all the people in the world are good, then where does evil come from?

If all the people in the world are good, then where does evil come from?

Philosophy

Google results, top of page one. Six links to cosmetics, one link to Wikipedia.

This is how I am thinking about Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty.

Daily vocation: #1

To make other men stronger.

To make other men stronger.

What is the World's Story about?

Burdens on the Youth

Back in the 1930s, FDR started up this thing called Social Security. Some would call it a pyramid scheme. And the pyramid is estimated to break in 2037 when there won't be enough youth to pay for the old.

Today, the news is filled with big plans for health care reform. With the federal budget already broken, any reform will have to pay for itself. Guess who is going to end up paying for it? Healthy people will be subsidizing the sick.*

Another burden on the youth. Call me a pessimist with a callous attitude toward the old and the sick.

* Two ways of financing the health care reform are a) taxing employer-sponsored benefits and b) mandating all citizens buy health insurance (Kennedy plan). The insurance companies appear likely to go along with a mandate for every citizen to buy health insurance. Needless to say, the above claim remains pure speculation on my part.

Daily question: #3

Sometimes, I look around and wonder, how do you know it hasn't all been a dream up to this very point? How do you really know?

Sometimes, I look around and wonder, how do you know it hasn't all been a dream up to this very point? How do you really know?

Daily question: #2

When you go on Wikipedia to look up some information, do you leave the website once you found what you wanted, or do you keep on clickin'?

When you go on Wikipedia to look up some information, do you leave the website once you found what you wanted, or do you keep on clickin'?

Daily question: #1

I wonder how many jokes George Washington used to tell?

I wonder how many jokes George Washington used to tell?

Letters

This one's for ellie.

"[t]he last of them," you think?

Theirs Truly: The Lowell-Bishop Letters