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Sunday, Oct 16, 2016 - 22:42 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Grabbing Life By The Gender-Equal Organs

"He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them."

- Psalm 78:45



No rally like a GOD-EMPEROR rally - MAGA!
[N.B. Yes, WWE's "You Suck" has been adapted into "CNN Sucks";
to understand this election, a grounding in pro wrestling helps a lot.]


No less than Deng Xiaoping once declared that, it doesn't matter if it is a white pussy or a black pussy, as long as it is a good pussy; now the TRUMP repeats this truth in private, and this is what he gets?! After Hillary got smashed in the debates (among ordinary people, not pre-coached CNN focus groups), and with impending Wikileaks releases threatening to uncover the depths of Establishment deceit and Clinton two-facedness, it was all they could do to unleash the worst they've got on the GOD-EMPEROR (with treacherous GOP Quislings, no less)

If that's all they've got, TRUMP is free and clear.

The GOP elite attempted to use this completely overblown non-scandal to force His Himperial Majesty out, with Paul Ryan reportedly trying to raise a coup in his usual slimy backhanded manner, but this was overwhelmingly rejected by the rank-and-file, who know who's the future of the Republican Party. So, they're all against him once more - the Democrats of course, but also his "allies", the skewed press, liberal pollsters (who are quietly tweaking their underlying distributions to keep Crooked Hillary ahead)... and the United Nations. Yes, the GOD-EMPEROR has the whole bloody world against him.

We know how that tends to turn out.


Rather more than that actually, but it doesn't matter
[Lyrics]


But frankly, what's grinding my gears is the unfettered hypocrisy involved here - TRUMP indulges in some off-colour braggadocio, and he's crucified for it on days on end, despite no one pretending that he's running for Pope (and honestly, it's not like that would exactly be disqualifying either). On the other hand, there's much better evidence that ol' Randy Bill has (and likely continues to, given Colin Powell's memorable emails on how Bill's still "dicking bimbos at home") actually gone the whole hog. True, Hillary could have gained sympathy as the long-suffering spouse here... had she not consistently enabled her hubby's numerous "adventures", many of which went far beyond the demonized talky-grabby.

Still, she's at least declared her allegiances (and Kravitz's wee-wee); far more unforgivable would be the Republicans who bailed at the first opportunity, instead of rejecting the desperate smear as what it was - seriously, they could have spun it any number of ways. For example, McCain: for what it's worth, I felt that the GOD-EMPEROR had treated him kinda unfairly - guy deserves some respect for being POW-ed in the service of his country - but surely he could have held back here, given how he himself had likewise been set up?

Happily, I don't see this having a permanent impact on TRUMP's support (what supposedly plunges quickly, can recover as quickly), and if all the discerning ladies who ain't falling for this manufactured groundless outrage are any indication, the worst is behind him. Running mate Mike Pence remains firmly on board, as the future FLOTUS certainly is - and, it appears, she's learnt a thing or two about well-deserved trolling, from the best in the business.


"TRUMP's behaviour is unbefitting that of a prospective President of the... uh... where was I? Ah yes, we will get to the butt of these allegat... sorry, I mean, the bottom of, um, scratch that... ass it is, around these issues... damn it, Sarkozy, stop smirking at me like that!"
(Source: r/the_donald)



Beginnings, And Ends

I came across a posting on r/funny, about a month back. It wasn't actually funny, as many noted, but that's besides the point.

The comic was a tribute to a man. Patrick Joseph Falterman II. Barely a couple of weeks before that, he had passed on, after crashing his stunt plane into the Trinity river. Tragic, certainly, but this is not the whole of the story either.

Patrick was nineteen, living in Texas, and as the telling goes, "trapped in a viscious [sic], monotonous cycle of school-work-study-repeat". But he dreamt of the Amazon. Therefore, he put US$1200 on his credit card, bought some supplies and gear, and began hitchhiking towards his destination.

Just like that.

Only, he didn't reach it for two more years (yes, he could have just overdrawn his account by another six hundred bucks or so, and flown into Manaus or Rio de Janeiro in a couple of days, but again that's not the point), since he figured that he might as well hitchhike through the entirety of South America, right down to Cape Horn. To support himself, he busked with a harmonica, but evidently not well enough to afford a canoe. Therefore, he borrowed a hatchet, built himself a raft, and spent three years sailing the waterways of the Amazon.

His story captivated me, as few others have. Let's get this straight - there is no shortage of motivational tales online, and many, I daresay, are even more objectively impressive. No, hitchhiking isn't especially hard. Risky, yes, Uncertain, true, uncomfortable, certainly, but not that difficult. Not quite on the level of, say, conquering Everest, probably, or completing a multiday ultramarathon, or swimming the English Channel. What got me is the complete absence of any recognized goal, any accomplishment other than "I was there".


It's pretty, I'll admit it, but three years?!
(Source: amazontours.co)


That was what got me.

Intellectually, one can well imagine the whys and hows behind the journey. Practically, however, his motivations remain wholly alien. If it had been a couple of weeks, well, I might even be down for it (this would then involve planning, to maximize the ecological diversity encountered, including rare Pokémon distributions). If there was some aim involved, such as mapping the basin, or seeking out a long-lost tribe or species, I could understand spending years out there (this is not unknown with anthro fieldwork, for example)

But five long years, for "nothing"?

I'm sure Patrick - and many others - would disagree on this part, but if I am to be honest, I cannot help but comprehend it thus. It could be a question of upbringing, which in Singapore all too often goes:

Excel in primary school → get into and excel in top secondary school → get into and excel in top junior college → (maybe optional) snag top scholarship → get into and excel in top university (prefably as a medical doctor/lawyer if not on aforesaid top scholarship, otherwise in business, or whatever major currently has the hardest admissions criteria [generally a proxy for perceived earnings potential]) → get a top-paying job → get married and get a BTO flat while salary is still under the limit (for the subsidy; unless really rich) → spawn 2.5 child processes (who branch off back to the start of this loop; don't have space is not an excuse, hor, minister zeh zeh say one) → upgrade to private property, rent out flat, amass promotions, amass cash, acquire more properties if all goes well → retire at 65 (if not dead yet) → do whatever one wanted... but what was it that I really wanted to do, anyway?


Maybe not quite a champion - and yet, there is a certain weight...
(Source: mangapanda.com)


...

Changing it up a little here; the past week has seen a couple of lunch/dinner gatherings, which is not a common occurrence for me. First, on Thursday, a visit to Menya Musashi at Star Vista, in the best traditions of graduating members of my lab. This got slightly delayed, but with a couple of my colleagues leaving, it was now or never. I figured that nobody could have much against ramen (they were all once grad students, after all), and got to sample their Tiger Mori (black base). This was followed the next day by an evening at a Burmese cafe at Peninsula Plaza. Many topics were covered (I realise I'm a lot more at ease with smaller groups - easier to track fewer people?), but a few kept getting returned to: careers, research, and the underpayment of when the twain meet.

Though one of us (a top A*STAR scholar, no less) was nice enough to qualify this with the statement that he didn't want to sound ungrateful, it remained hard to escape the persistent feeling of being, well, slightly undercompensated. Indeed, for all the talk of engineering and tech being "hot" here, very little has changed in the past decade; as a senior once noted well, a decent civil servant of four years' experience, was earning a quarter more than his best local offers, despite him being armed with a doctorate! Not to engage in degree snobbery or anything, but this isn't very amusing (he eventually left for Google - a good decision, given that their base salaries for undergrads is north of US$100k, without factoring in equity or bonuses, or the other non-monetary benefits)

And, the thing is, I'm not even that afraid of work (as long as I don't have to entertain the - frankly increasingly-annoying - calls to return home), or of failure (the heavens know, I've gone through enough of that); further in the positives column, there's a far higher salary (even assuming reasonable worst cases, taxes, and rents), and much, much more freedom - even if one is effectively ten years behind fresh grad recruits (wasn't exploring quant stuff last year for nothing, just saying)

...I don't know. It's one thing to listen to advice not to chase the dollar, but it's another to observe how things tend to turn out in reality. It may be hard to believe, but despite studying economics, I didn't actually want to be rich - in the sense that I wouldn't necessarily give it all away if I somehow struck the lottery, but I imagine that I would have been kinda okay with a typical academic career or equivalent. When you think of it, a bank balance is merely a trick of magnetic force, an invisible dab of atoms - and yet, how significant a mere byte can be!

Ten, or even five years ago, it was nothing, but now... let's just say that there's a growing sensation of being pissed-off, that demands answering - very soon.

...

Then again, five years isn't that much, in the grander scheme of things; I have heard it described as being a rounding error, in a mature researcher's career. So perhaps Patrick was the smart one, chasing the stars under the boundless sky, to be one of the few who lived as he pleased, before he died? The GOD-EMPEROR was wise indeed - one can grab it, if he dares!



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