YOU: The owners manual

YOU, now isn't that an interesting subject? I thougth so, so I bought a book about it. I actually saw the author on Oprah talking about "your poo and you" and thought; anyone who could speak that openly on the subject is someone I'd like to read.

The book was decent but not as blunt as I would have liked. I did take some interesting things out of it (asparin, wine, nuts every day) but I'm not sure if it was worth carrying around this hard cover for a week. ;)

To do that, we want you to think of your body as a home -- as your home. When we
started thinking about the similarities between bodies and homes, we realized
that the two have a more striking resemblance than the Olsen twins. Your house
and body are both important investments. They both provide shelter to invaluable
personal property. And they're both places you want to protect with all your
power. That's the big picture. But if we explore the comparison even more -- and
we will throughout this book -- you'll understand the relationship even better.
Your bones are the two-by-fours that support and protect the inner structure of
your home; your eyes are the windows; your lungs are the ventilation ducts; your
brain is the fuse box; your intestines are the plumbing system; your mouth is
the food processor; your heart is the water main; your hair is the lawn (some of
us have more grass than others); and your fat is all the unnecessary junk you've
stored in the attic that your spouse has been nagging you to get rid of. If you
can get past the fact that your forehead doesn't have a street number and that a
two-story brick Colonial doesn't look all that good in a bathing suit, the
similarities are remarkable -- so remarkable, in fact, that we believe you can
learn about how your body works by thinking about how your house does.

Lies my teacher told me

Alright, so maybe my teacher didn't exactly tell me all of these (I wasn't raised in the States), but this book is chalk-full of interesting "Lies" that are taught in American text books. While I cannot confirm that the books mentioned are being used in American schools, I can say this; if they are, god help the poor buggers.

Canadian texts are not always right, but they sure do go out of their way to show many sides of the same picture (well, at least from what I can remember. I'll have to glance at some when I go home next time). here is an excerpt from the book to tweak your interest.

Teachers have held up Helen Keller, the blind and deaf girl who overcame her physical handicaps, as an inspiration to generations of schoolchildren. Every fifth-grader knows the scene in which Anne Sullivan spells water into young Helen's hand at the pump. At least a dozen movies and filmstrips have been made on Keller's life. Each yields its version of the same clichE. A McGraw-Hill educational film concludes: "The gift of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan to the world is to constantly remind us of the wonder of the world around us and how much we owe those who taught us what it means, for there is no person that is unworthy or incapable of being helped, and the greatest service any person can make us is to help another reach true potential."

To draw such a bland maxim from the life of Helen Keller, historians and filmmakers have disregarded her actual biography and left out the lessons she specifically asked us to learn from it. Keller, who struggled so valiantly to learn to speak, has been made mute by history. The result is that we really don't know much about her.

Over the past ten years, I have asked dozens of college students who Helen Keller was and what she did. They all know that she was a blind and deaf girl. Most of them know that she was befriended by a teacher, Anne Sullivan, and learned to read and write and even to speak. Some students can recall rather minute details of Keller's early life: that she lived in Alabama, that she was unruly and without manners before Sullivan came along, and so forth. A few know that Keller graduated from college. But about what happened next, about the whole of her adult life, they are ignorant. A few students venture that Keller became a "public figure" or a "humanitarian," perhaps on behalf of the blind or deaf. "She wrote, didn't she?" or "she spoke" — conjectures without content. Keller, who was born in 1880, graduated from Radcliffe in 1904 and died in 1968. To ignore the sixty-four years of her adult life or to encapsulate them with the single word humanitarian is to lie by omission.

The truth is that Helen Keller was a radical socialist. She joined the Socialist party of Massachusetts in 1909. She had become a social radical even before she graduated from Radcliffe, and not, she emphasized, because of any teachings available there. After the Russian Revolution, she sang the praises of the new communist nation: "In the East a new star is risen! With pain and anguish the old order has given birth to the new, and behold in the East a man-child is born! Onward, comrades, all together! Onward to the campfires of Russia! Onward to the coming dawn!" Keller hung a red flag over the desk in her study. Gradually she moved to the left of the Socialist party and became a Wobbly, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the syndicalist union persecuted by Woodrow Wilson.

The Island

I have been quite busy of late and haven't really had a chance to post but I wanted to mention a movie I saw a few weeks back.

The Island was quite impressive, and while I didn't see it on the big screen, it still got me jumpin' at times.

Watch it.

Dan Dufresne: 2005 Mr Canada !!

Well I just got word that my good friend has won the Canadians!! I can't express how happy I am. I've known dan for about 10 years now and trained with him for quite some time. I always enjoyed him as a training partner and repected him even more as a friend.

I remember first hearing about him from another training partner (darrell). Hearing that he was such a big monster and all (remember, he was only about 17 at the time) I have to say I was a little dissapointed when I first me him. He didn't have the arms or chest by which (at the time) I judged all great bodybuilder (lol). He did have the best set of legs around (other than Tom Platz) and a great training spirit.

After training together for a few years we became really good friends. He is like that mellow brother I never had. I've been frustrated with his "lack of a win" at the Canadas over the past few years and was hoping for the best this year.

Way to go Dan, I wish I could have been there man.


-Ed

The Fish Man

For those of you who have known me for some time, you know that i'm quite fond of fish. I enjoy eating them AND I enjoy keeping them as pets. I always enjoyed seeing my own little world in front of me. An ecosystem that was reliant on me to manage (to an extent). I also enjoyed collecting some odd creatures. So far in Korea, I haven't bent to temptation yet and bought an aquarium. Maybe I'll get one in the new apartment.
Until then I am forced to occasionally go to the COEX Aquarium (a mall) to get my fix. It's expensive and after the first time, not really all the exciting.