POTD: Love Parade
Costumes & Floats at the Love Parade in San Francisco (2005)
Mike Peters, author of the daily cartoon “Mother Goose and Grimm” had this as his daily cartoon yesterday:
Even Gandhi is not spared these days.
[via SAJAforum]
As regular readers know, I am on the first leg of a year long odyssey away from the Netherlands, starting in China. After more than three weeks here, I am beginning to fall in love with this country…something that I didn’t expect when I landed with some trepidation in Beijing on a smoggy day in late June.
With absolutely no knowledge of the language and having never been in this part of the world before, I was a bit anxious when my taxi made its way through throngs of bicycles and smoke spewing automobiles into the heart of Beijing where I had booked two nights in a very touristy district targeting westerners named Sanlitun. I did this because I wanted to orient myself with the city before venturing into the unknown.
After a couple of days wandering around Tiananmen Square (yes, that square) and the Forbidden City (a truly magnificent architectural achievement), I checked out and moved into a less touristy part of town in the north and while it meant that I had to take public transport to get to the city centre, it was a big relief for a long time backpacker like me. I finally felt at ease.
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Reflections on “Sicko,” collective compassion, and (fantasies of) quitting the corporate world
I finally saw “Sicko” last week, and it had a strong impact on me. That’s not surprising if you know how susceptible I am to the emotional pull of movies — and if you consider that Michael Moore was “preaching to the choir” in my case, since I’ve long been an ardent supporter of government-financed universal health coverage (my last job was as the communications coordinator for a health policy research center).
A caveat: I fully acknowledge that “Sicko” has its share of flaws and oversimplifications. For example, Moore makes a big deal of how the evil health plans deny patients’ appeals for medical services. While health plans have certainly denied many legitimate, needed treatments, it’s also true that — given the need to use our limited healthcare resources wisely — not all treatments for all medical conditions can or should be covered. Also, we never hear even a negative peep about the healthcare systems of France, England, Cuba or Canada (but Michael Moore is not exactly about balance!).
That aside, what really disturbed me about Sicko was not just the stories of suffering and hardship that sick people have endured because of our refusal to provide universal health coverage (although that was part of it — I cried when confronted with the Sept. 11 volunteer rescue workers who gave selflessly to their country, then couldn’t get decent care for the resulting ailments). What disturbed me even more was the broader point Moore makes (effectively I think) when he asks the question, “Who are we as a society?”
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The other day while riding downhill on my bicycle, averaging speeds above 35mph, I happened to notice that a squirrel had been struck, perhaps a few moments before I passed it, by another cyclist or a car. The squirrel was not dead, it was struggling and writhing, its head almost entirely severed and it lay there dying. It probably died long before I reached the bottom of the mountain. Note that I captured all this in a fleeting moment - there was a brief instinct to brake and help put it out of its misery but I continued downhill, my thoughts moving quickly - from the shame of not helping the miserable creature by putting an end to its suffering, to the ethics behind my inaction.
I asked myself the question what my “kartavya” (duty) was to that squirrel. What was my role in the death of that squirrel? Am I as responsible for its death as the person who directly laid the hit. What if instead of a squirrel it were a person? Is letting a person die as dastardly an act as laying a hit on that person that caused them to die? I know the utilitarian answer to that question but that is not at all comforting.
I know that if it were a person, I would have done everything in my power to help that person, but that got me to the question - what if the only reasonable help that I could offer that person was, like the squirrel, a quick death. Would I act illegally? Obviously what was supposed to be an exhilarating downhill ride was quickly filled with angst. At least the physical pain of the uphill ride was masked easily with memories of funny expressions. There was zero thrill to be had in this downhill return. I confess that I was at a complete loss, I even blew past a STOP sign, with a middle-aged man yelling sarcastically from his car “Nice Stop”.
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When I was studying for my BSc, undergrad to you ‘mericuns, my friends (a very colorful bunch - I must add) and I, had some hilarious - albeit crass, expressions. These were expressions you would dub as “poly” (i.e foul) in kannada and they indeed were, but I am convinced that we made some of these up on the fly. One that I had reason to remember yesterday is “niN tHeega karGathe” ( i.e. arse will dissolve or reduce). Another Hindi expression also came to mind yesterday- “gaanD phategi” less chemical than the Kannada expression and a tad more pathological, it simply means “arse will rip”.
Why was I remembering these yesterday? Actually I can Google map the exact spot at which I remembered these expressions..but I am getting ahead of my story. Over the last 10 years, every year, I have set myself a physically challenging goal to accomplish. There were a couple of trips up Mt. Whitney, a few up Half Dome, and a few backpacking trips etc. Most of these goals I successfully accomplished but there have been a few failures, the most notable one being Mt. Dana. A few frequently tell the story of my stupidity that cost me the mountain, but I attribute it to chivalry (yes, it is not dead, long live and all that rot). Turns out I gave my gloves to someone and as I continued my way up the summit, the wind-chill was so brutal it was dangerous to continue which forced me to turn around.
This year has been like none other. I started off in May by doing a 3 day backpacking trip along the Lost coast (will do it again, anytime). Ran a 10K and next week is the opportunity to go back to Mt Dana - (I have given adequate caution to my hiking partner about warm clothing and gloves). I have been telling my buddies that given my fitness this year I will whistle my way to the top of this 13,500 feet mountain. We start hiking at Tioga pass (which is at 9000+ ft). It looks simple but the wind-chill and the elements make it one of the toughest mountains I have hiked.
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For those lazy blogging days (weeks), I am going to start a series called Photo of the Day (POTD) to showcase a photograph from my now extensive digital collection. While I don’t expect rantlust to become a photoblog, this will enable me to at least see my own photographs once in a while. These photos will be randomly chosen from my collection and will be those taken after 2001 when I first acquired a digital camera (Minolta Dimage 7).
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