a glimpse into our future

© 2004 Kevin Kim


_

Ave, Masamania!

Japanese culture report by MasaManiA with fucking photo & poor English you never seen at boring CNN, Time or major sophisticated jurnalism.

SimonWorld is hosting this year's Asia Weblog Awards contest, and it was while flipping through the list of nominees in various categories that I came across the URL for Masamania, which I now proudly add to the blogroll.

I don't know what is good, bad, right or wrong, but I certainly know there is the truth ! and I also know it must be FUCK ! I'm not moralist. but wana be mania of the truth. MasaManiA means that. this is my philosophy.

A commenter at SimonWorld pointed out this Masamania post-- "Action Reading vs. Skin Head Monk," which depicts the wildly different ways in which an Average Joe Japanese guy reads his book, versus a black-robed Buddhist monk in the same cafe. You Zennies out there will get a special kick out of this, but the series of photos (and their hilarious captions) will appeal to everyone, I think.

I'm glad to add another Japanblog to the roll. Damn... I'm behind on making sidebar images for a few of these folks.


_

concluding remarks

Before I schlep off to bed, a few final thoughts.

Cosmic Wisdom

The Tao Te Ching tells us, "Soft conquers hard; weakness overcomes strength." We can add to that the following: Gillette conquers Nivea. I ran out of Gillette Clear Gel a few days ago-- I'd had a supply with me since January. In desperation, I went searching around Kangnam for deodorant, a product Koreans don't seem to use much. I'd heard a rumor from one of my expat colleagues that some pharmacies (!!) sell deodorant, but the two pharmacies I checked had nothing. A Korean co-worker suggested that I visit the beauty shops in Kangnam station; they sell all sorts of perfumes, and they might have deodorant.

That's where I found the Nivea. I paid a ridiculous W8000 for a bottle of the stuff (the shopkeeper did me a favor by knocking off W1000), and it sucks. Gillette is far better for funk like mine. By the end of eight hours on Saturday, my armpits had thoroughly kicked the Nivea's ass. There was nothing left. When I took a tricorder reading of my armpits, the reading was sulfur and ammonia, off the scale. My pits were miniature versions of the Miller-Urey experiment, generating the foul building blocks of life.

I need Gillette Clear Gel, goddammit.


A Question for the Philosophers

Are all slippery slope arguments consequentialist?

1. They always (as far as I know) apply to things in the real world.

2. Further, they almost always apply to human behavior.

3. I take this to mean that, to the extent they apply to human behavior, they always have an ethical dimension.

Philobloggers like KBJ have written on the distinction between deontology and consequentialism. KBJ is a deontologist, which is to say he evaluates human action through the lens of duty and principle, as opposed to evaluating human action in terms of its consequences. KBJ has also associated consequentialism with the Left and with totalitarianism (see here, for example).

The problem is that, while KBJ himself might not do this, plenty of conservatives rely on slippery slope arguments to make their cases, especially with regard to social issues (e.g., "You can bet they'll be euthanizing healthy newborns in Holland next!"). A quick trip through the right end of the blogosphere will confirm this in spades.

If slippery slope arguments are by nature consequentialist (and I think they are), and if it's documentably true that many conservatives resort to slippery slope arguments, is KBJ on solid ground to associate consequentialism so closely with leftism and totalitarianism? Might it not be the case that both left and right, taken as wholes, resort to consequentialist arguments?

Just wondering.

UPDATE: Hold your horses. A quick trip to Wikipedia reveals that the contrast between consequentialism and deontology might be nothing more than a false dichotomy. Here's a snippet:

Consequentialism is often contrasted with deontology. However, this may be mistaken. Many forms of consequentialism at bottom are deontological, demanding that we simply have a duty to produce a certain kind of consequence, whether or not that kind of consequence personally moves us. And even paradigmatic deontological theories, such as Kant's, do not disregard consequences entirely. For instance, one might argue that for Kant, the more expression of rational nature, or the good will, the better. It is difficult to find a theory that posits an intrinsic good (such as the good will in Kant) in which it is not better to have more of the intrinsic good. A more fundamental distinction is between theories that demand that agents act for ends in which they have some personal interest and motivation (actually or counterfactually) and theories that demand that agents act for ends perhaps disconnected from their interests and drives.

Wikipedia's a true "people's reference" in that any old schmo can write these articles. How much do you trust Wikipedia?

_

swag: hit it hard

Nothing says "Christmas!" quite like a BigHominid greeting card. Here, once again, is a review of what we've got in the online store:


The Tittie Christmas card:

The Santa's Judgement card:




The Dog Fart Christmas card:




The Ass-flavored Christmas card:




The Phosphorescent Snot card:




The Pungent Genitals card:




The Rudolph card:




The Santa Didn't Come card:




The Gift of Pain card:




The Tongue Chomp card:




The Ass Lion card:




And last but not least-- the Two Assholes card:





Many thanks to the folks who bought my book through Amazon. Don't let the current "only 1 left in stock" discourage you; more can be had either through Amazon or directly through me via PayPal (see here).

My online store also features plenty of other items, like mugs and mousepads. A quick reminder of some of the things you can find there:











Another mousepad!

This one confronts, in haiku form, one of the great, sad truths about mousepads. Click on the image to buy one. And watch where you stick your dong.




QUICK NOTE: The images I slap onto my blog are, by necessity, rather low-dpi, always lower than 200dpi, and usually hovering around 72dpi. You'll have noticed some graininess or blockiness to the images, but this does NOT translate to bad image quality for the CafePress products. The graphics files I give to CafePress are all 300dpi images (sent in PNG format), and since I've seen what they look like on CafePress products, I can vouch for their quality.


More:





Click the above image to see a FULL-COLOR version of the mouse pad!

Don't forget all the other lovely, loathsome designs-- it's practically a little art gallery now. Visit my online store. Help feed a religion student (not that I need much feeding... OK, help buy me a treadmill, Pilates work station, and Everlast 70-lb punching/kicking bag).










The mugs:


































_

day-yamn

At least one white man can jump. You might not realize the magnificence of what you're seeing until you see the slo-mo takes. (link via Cobb)

_

the soldiers

Koreablogger Polymath went back to the States, then shipped out to Iraq, making him arguably the world's first Koraqiblogger.

Read his first Iraq-based post here. I hope we get more such posts-- OFTEN. Stay safe, man. Shoot straight if need be.

ABCNews.com has a story about a tough soldier who was wounded in the hip, back and brain-- and who may very well make a 100% recovery. Given the regular litany of negativity, this comes as a welcome change. Apparently, quite a few of the wounded are refusing to abandon their fellows in the field and are requesting continued service. I suppose we could focus only on the bad news from Iraq-- and there's a lot of it-- but we do so at the expense of good people like Polymath and this soldier. I'm not asking for blind optimism from the naysayers; I'm asking for the same thing any soldier would ask for: realism.

_

this holiday season...why not give the gift of sperm!?

Sick of long lines during the Christmas shopping season? Disenchanted with e-commerce? At a loss for what to give your friends, loved ones, and pets?

Well, why not give the gift of sperm?

Spermatozoa come prepackaged in their own seminal fluid, and are absolutely free! Even better, you don't have to search very far to find your local semen dispensary! Just reach down and feel around until you locate your patented Sperm Delivery Tube, and crank that puppy up!

If you're looking for a clever gift, there's nothing more original than spoo, a gift that comes straight from the heart!

Do you have bickering relatives? Imagine how they'll all fall silent when you spray 'em with steaming gouts of your love gunk! At last-- peace reigns supreme in your household, and just in time for the arrival of the Baby Jesus!

Is your wife looking for cheap glue so she can paste the Christmas cards to the wall? Sperm to the rescue! Trapped in an elevator with a beautiful stranger? Does she look like she needs cheering up? What are you waiting for!? Hose her down with the ultimate symbol of good cheer!

Let's face it: nothing adds zest to saumon en papillote quite like cock snot. And if you're hard up for an unbeatable pet shampoo, well... the answer to that problem lies within! No need to tell your pet you're sorry: spray it, don't say it!

Sperm is a gift you can give immediately! You can fire off millions at a time, which means everyone's a multimillionaire! Delivery is instantaneous; freshness is guaranteed, and best of all, there's no postage!

With all these advantages, you'd be a fool not to give the gift of sperm this holiday season! Launch some love today!

_

the pickle conundrum

Every Western expat in Korea has, at some point, been faced with the pickle conundrum. The conundrum is this: Why do Koreans include sweet pickles as a side dish with Italian food like pizza and spaghetti? Every time I order pizza from my apartment, I get a teeny plastic bag of pickles. When I was at Bennigan's with a co-worker the other day (no, not on that horrific Thanksgiving Day), my co-worker got seafood pasta... and it came with a small tub (for lack of a better word) of pickles.

Why, God? WHY?

My former teaching partner, J, offered her own explanation recently: Koreans need something kimchi-like as a side dish. Pickles are the closest American equivalent to this. Crunchy. Easy to pick up with chopsticks. Pickled.

In an alternate universe, in a South Korea hosting German troops, I imagine we would see a sauerkraut conundrum.

_

fooled 'em all

Apparently, I've convinced the Korean faculty and staff of EC that I'm a radical extravert. They assume this because I tend to be rather animated when I teach, and the students-- who are constantly asked by the receptionists about how their classes went-- consistently report that my teaching style is "energetic." This, plus the low-grade flirtation that seems to mark all male expat/female receptionist relationships at every hagwon I've worked in, has created the impression that I'm just a wacky, fun-loving guy. I've even heard teasing speculation that I must be a very good dancer and singer.

Like a farmer staring sadly at a horse with a broken leg, I do my best to put these ideas down when I hear them voiced. I suck at singing and I'm a lousy dancer.

Even J, the teacher with whom I partnered for three months (I'm now partnering with the intrepid D), is convinced I'm an extravert. This boggles my mind, since she's seen how quiet I normally am when not teaching. I told her today that I'm nae-seong-jeok-in, or introverted, but she's not convinced.

Then again, the Korean notion of introversion isn't quite congruent with the American notion (and Americans don't all agree on what introversion is; some associate it rather closely with selfishness or self-absorption, which I think is bullshit: my own introversion is only occasionally introspective; I often find myself absorbed by something outside my skull-- a book, nature, etc.), so this may be contributing to J's confusion.

My Western colleagues know I'm pretty quiet after work. Once I board the subway for the ten-minute ride from Kangnam Station to Nakseongdae Station, I'm usually silent unless someone speaks to me first. I can spend the entire ride just staring into space or reading the ads on the subway's interior walls or observing the folks around me.

But the Koreans, probably because they can't read Westerners as well as other Westerners can, see me through their cultural filter and conclude I must be Joe Sociable. And what a filter it is: J told me that "introverted people can't act." I countered that a lot of actors are introverted, wanting attention but also wanting to be left alone after their performances. I'm not sure this computed with J; despite the fact that she was a psych major, she didn't seem to be thinking of Jung and shadow sides.

My shadow side is what people normally see in public. Teaching is performance for me; I like teaching, and I'm "on" when I do it. This is what the students get: the cheerful, eye-popping, fat version of Jim Carrey-- or an embryonic Rodney Dangerfield, take your pick. When I go home, the shadow side subsides and the real Kevin makes his appearance: quieter, mellower, just wanting to be left alone.

Yup, I fooled 'em all.


_

take up your cross and follow me

I was pleased to get so many different reactions, joking and serious, to my imitatio Christi question.

Although my brother nailed me for calling Jesus a "compassionate being," I don't think my phrase necessarily implied that Jesus was merely human. The term "being" can, for many people, apply directly to God (e.g., "Supreme Being").

Of course, being a nontheist, I don't believe in a literal, personal God, so it's true that I view Jesus as a man and not as God incarnate in the classical Christian sense. In my opinion, trinitarian theology works best when you think of the trinity as a metaphor, not as something literally the case.

The general consensus among my respondents seems to be that, yes, Jesus was indeed calling people to suffer, but the respondents differed on what this vocation means. I think the responses that factored in the historical situation of Jesus' time were closest to my own feelings on the matter, but ultimately, I'm not concerned about the possible contradiction between Jesus'/God's compassion and the call to suffer.

Kangmi quotes a biblical passage very much on my mind, Matthew 11:28-30:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Kangmi quotes this passage, I think, because it juxtaposes the yoke and the offer of rest. Paradox, indeed! Who speaks of easy yokes and light burdens?

For me, the fascination is in the synonymous imagery of the yoke and the cross. As any number of students of world religion have pointed out, the word yoga comes from the same Indo-European root as the word yoke, and even today the words have overlapping semantic fields. To follow the path of yoga is to yoke yourself to a set of principles and practices. This is what I take Jesus to mean: he's asking for nothing less than one's deepest commitment to the Way. The path to salvation will be a path of suffering, but suffering is always part of the human condition. The achievement of any goal, the fulfillment of any purpose, requires sweat, focus, and determination. The initial commitment to the Way isn't for the weak, and if you stray from the right path, you have to find your way back again and recommit yourself to staying on it. Whether Christ-yoga or Buddha-yoga (or some other yogic path), the important thing is to commit and persevere.


_

postal scrotum: Lee tackles the Jesus question

Kevin,

re: Your question about "taking up your cross" to follow Jesus.

I'm sure this has already occurred to you, but for the record my take on that exhortation has always been that suffering will inevitably be the lot in life of a follower of Jesus because his way is so fundamentally at odds with the standards of the (fallen) world. In other words, Christians don't need to *seek out* suffering, because if they are faithful disciples they will naturally find themselves pitted against the powers that be. The fact that so many Christians nevertheless manage to live quite comfortably perhaps says a lot about our idea of what it means to follow Jesus.

Is it "compassionate" for Jesus to want his followers to live this way? I think the answer is "yes" if you accept that the life of discipleship is consonant with the way the universe works at a fundamental level. To steal a line from John Howard Yoder, "the people who bear crosses are working with the grain of the universe." That is, despite the ample evidence that the universe is an agonistic struggle for existence, Christians believe that the final word is one of love & peace. Living in accordance with that deeper truth (if it is in fact the truth!) would then be the most compassionate thing one could advocate.

Keep up the excellent work.

Best,

Lee

http://www.verbumipsum.blogspot.com

_

postal scrotum: more theology

The Maximum Leader writes in on the Jesus question:

Yes. Jesus did want us to suffer. In fact, in some recently discovered texts (thought lost until recently found in a crypt under a Coptic Christian church in Ethiopia) Jesus exhorted us to fully follow his example. Indeed, he said that to attain salvation we must submit ourselves, ultimately, to crucifixion.

These new texts, possibly derived from followers of St. Paul, stated rather clearly that it wasn't a figurative cross that we had to bear but a literal one.

One can understand why the Presbyterian Church, USA; the Church of England; the Lutheran Churches of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; the Vatican, the Trilateral Commission, and Col. Saunders have tried very hard to keep this under wraps. What such news would do to the hard wood futures market and Georgia Pacific stocks is hard to imagine.

Kangmi also writes in:

Hi Kevin,

I had a couple of questions about taking up the cross.

1. What is your definition of taking up one's cross and following Jesus?

2. In addition to enjoining his followers to take up their crosses, Jesus also says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." How does this saying fit into the picture?

Kangmi

When I'm home from work around 11PM this evening, I'll react to the letters I've received.


_

Seung Sahn retrospective

Lorianne DiSabato*, a Zen teacher in the Kwaneum (Kwan Um) School of Korean Zen and all-around neat person, has a great tribute to Seung Sahn up on her fantastic blog, Hoarded Ordinaries.

I dug around my archives to find posts I've written that make some reference to Seung Sahn. Not all of them are glowingly positive, especially since I learned about the Zen master's past dalliances. I'm not quite as forgiving as some are about Seung Sahn's personal failings. It would be as wrong to say "let bygones be bygones" in this context as it would be to ask certain members of the Catholic community to forget the wrongdoings of a maverick priest who betrayed the parish's trust.

At the same time, I don't doubt that Seung Sahn did a lot of good during his time. I've read a few of his books and find his practical wisdom to be both sound and extremely enjoyable to read.

Here are the links, in chronological order, to my blog posts mentioning Seung Sahn. Some posts merely drop his name; others deal with him a bit less superficially.

Buddhism question: redux

fucking with Derrida

...but before Hindu cosmology...

Monday ups and downs

proximate testicles in a single scrotum

le parcours

On Mindfulness

people, trust, and life

Buddhism/Zen Thursday: jae beop gong sang

Tuesday Worldfarts

Seung Sahn sex scandal??

Wednesday Madness continues: Cleanup in Room 9013

Buddhism/Zen Thursday: Reckoning with Sex Scandals

Buddhism/Zen Thursday: Go Wash Your Balls

Buddhism/Zen Thursday: mixed nuts

Religious Diversity Friday: the dialogue continues

more re: analogy, etc.

Buddhist common sense

Panikkar redux: Andi gets the floor

It's a lot of material, so choose wisely.

---

*I originally wrote "Lorianne Schaub," which is no longer Lorianne's last name. Sorry, Lorianne!

_

postal scrotum: theology

With regard to my earlier imitatio Christi post, my brother David (whom you can hear in this post) writes:

I think there are two flaws with your question:

1) You're referring to Jesus as a person and not God when you call him a "compassionate being." Of course, since I was raised to believe in the holy trinity, I am basing my remarks solely off of that belief. Jesus, in the flesh, was mortal but his own being was something beyond human pain and suffering. Jesus spoke to people not as a human, but as God. And, of course, God wants everyone to "take up the cross."

2) Did Jesus believe his path was one of suffering or of enlightenment and redemption? If you look at His life from a sufferage point of view you are only seeing things from a humanistic perspective. Sure, things and people can hurt down here on Earth, but looking past our blink-of-an-eye mortal existence we see that our actions during our time on this planet have an enourmous effect on how we will life after our mortal existence. Again, all of this is based upon the belief in the holy trinity, etc etc... so if you don't believe in the Trinity or in heaven then my arguements are pointless. By taking up the cross God was asking, through Jesus, for man to lead a life of divine inspiration.

YEAHHHHHHHHH baby - yeah?
Moat goat Noate Goat Note Goat Float goat?

OH NOOOOOOOyeah?

Scott, who also mentions goats, writes in:

Hi Kevin,

Re: "Would Jesus, a compassionate being, truly have wished other people to "take up [their] cross and follow" him?"

It's a question of being a goat-fucker. At the time he asked the question, your choice in life (slightly exaggerated) was to live a comfortable, but non-10-Commandments-following life (like Pontius Pilate, a goat-fucker, etc) or live a virtuous, and diffcult life. So you had a choice: live an easy life with a crummy afterlife, or 'take up your cross' and have it good/better in the afterlife.

Given a choice, and assuming the afterlife is as long & nice as advertised, Jesus' admonition is very much in line with his perceived character.

Having said that, I would have been tempted to cast stones at the goat-fuckers who were throwing things at my cross.

_Scott

_

Hollywood: damned if you do...

Brian has a good post up about the "Hollywood Left," i.e., those prominent stars who use their stardom to voice political opinions. Brian points out that there are social reasons for this phenomenon. To wit:

The problem is not Hollywood celebrities making a pitch for their pet political issues, the problem is the media for giving these people an undeserved soapbox to yell from. Actor Daniel Day-Lewis has the right idea when he says (in the Alterman article), "The media are sick and tired of people in my profession giving their opinion, and yet you're asking me my opinion. And when I give it, you'll say, 'Why doesn't he shut up?'"

It's trite to say so, but I'll do it anyway... we live in a celebrity-obsessed world. And as long as the cult of celebrity worship remains so strong, we'll continue to see celebs across the political spectrum using their influence to sway politics this way or that. The blame lies not with them, but with our society for making their words sacrosanct.

It would be ridiculous to argue that the larger culture plays no role in what these stars do and how they do it. However, it would be equally ridiculous to posit that "society" is the sole cause of this phenomenon, as if individual choice had nothing to do with, say, Tim Robbins's outspokenness. Tim Robbins, despite his contentions to the contrary, is perfectly free to voice his opinions-- free to voice them, and responsible for their voicing. As free and responsible as Noam Chomsky, actually.

But it seems that Hollywood gets criticism whether it's outspoken or silent. Via Andrew Sullivan, I found an article by Pat Sajak (yes, that Pat Sajak) that takes Hollywood to task for its deafening silence in the wake of the brutal murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.

Sajak writes:

So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!

Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space.

Maybe they think it would be intolerant of them to criticize the murder, because it would put them on the side of someone who criticized a segment of the Arab world. And, after all, we are often reminded that we need to be more tolerant of others, especially if they’re not Christians or Jews.

There’s another possibility; one that seems crazy on the surface, but does provide an explanation for the silence, and is also in keeping with the political climate in Hollywood. Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?

I think the jury's out as to Hollywood's motivations. Maybe it does boil down to Bush-hatred; I don't know. But I think Sajak is on solid ground to ask why the American artistic community isn't up in arms about this. It does seem more than a little strange.

_

parinirvana

Zen Master Seung Sahn, founder of the Kwaneum School of Korean Zen, has passed on, according to the Marmot, who got the drop on me. The first commenter to the Marmot's post sums up my own mixed feelings about the man quite well.

_

imitatio Christi?

I'm going to start my block shift today (Wednesday, Korea time), so I'll nix the hiatus and ask a quick theological question:

Would Jesus, a compassionate being, truly have wished other people to "take up [their] cross and follow" him? Why would a compassionate being enjoin others to embark on a path of suffering?

[NB: I'm not asking the question in a spirit of wide-eyed innocence. I have my own ideas about how best to answer this question. Discuss amongst yourselves, or share your answer with me and I'll slap it on Ye Olde Blogge.]

_

belched Thanksgiving wishes

[NB: Sorry, but this was too good to pass up.]

My brother David called me up this past weekend by cell phone-- he got a really cheap deal for international calls, so he decided to take advantage of it.

We talked for a bit, and then David said he could send an audio message to Mom and Dad from his phone by email. I've heard of this feature plenty of times; it's been a commonplace in Korea for a while. So I decided to send the parents my Turkey Day wishes. David set his phone up to record. What follows is a transcript of the audio. After the transcript is a link to the actual message I sent-- the Hairy Chasms's first-ever audioblog.



TRANSCRIPT:


DAVID (my little brother): Go ahead, baby.

ME: Hi, guys, this is Kevin. Just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and that I love you and miss you and hope you all are doing well. If you have a chance, send me an email! (pause)

DAVID: Eeeee? (This is a standard Davidism. I can have entire conversations with David in which not a single English word is uttered.)

ME: EEEEE. (My helium-voiced reply.)

DAVID: That it?

ME: Was that recorded, too? (The "EEEEE," I mean.)

DAVID: Yey-hey-hey. (A sort of tremolo version of "yeah.")

DAVID: Still recordin', baby.

ME: [belch #1] (I love the way my belch was distorted on the cell phone. I had no idea it sounded like that when I first made the recording. Sounds a bit like the last stages of a toilet flushing, doesn't it?)

ME: Did you get that?

DAVID: Yey-hey-hey-hey-hey.

ME: [belches #2-14*] (Intermittent chuckle from David during the belching. One of us starts laughing at the tail end.)

To hear the audio, click below and enjoy.

Link

---

*Depending on how you count a particular pair of belches toward the end.


_

my Thanksgiving: the untold story

It was unfortunate to have to keep blogic silence during Thanksgiving, but part of this past week was about seeing whether I could make it through five weekdays without blogging. I did just fine, though my site visit stats have taken a major hit. On the plus side, I suppose this means my readers are quick to adapt to adversity: they knew I wasn't going to be posting, so they went on with their lives (a hint of what the world will be like after I get splattered by a careening cement truck). This also means my readers take me seriously: they stopped coming because I told them not to expect anything.

That's power. The power of the dark side.

One of my closest friends sent me a triumphant email describing his new crapping prowess, now that he's on Metamucil. I did Metamucil while back in the States, and I can vouch for the power of that amazing, magical orange dust. You might have been shitting watery rabbit raisins in your pre-Metamucil phase, but once you start down the 'Mucil path, forever will it dominate your asshole. A single serving of Metamucil will produce shit that's denser than a neutron star. It's the kind of stuff Shakespeare would have written about, had Metamucil been available in the England of his day. Imagine shit that sinks immediately to the bottom of your toilet and stares evilly up at you, slowly breathing toilet water like a moray eel. Poke it once with a stick and it curls in on itself as a defensive reflex. Poke it again, however, and it leaps out at you in fury, going straight for the throat.

My own Thanksgiving, Metamucil-free, was nevertheless dominated by my asshole, which ruled the day with an iron polyp. After my morning shift ended I walked, alone, to the local Bennigan's (much nicer than the ones in the States, let me say), in the hopes that they might recognize America's special day by offering a one-day-only platter of turkey and stuffing and veggies and pumpkin pie.

No such luck.

I therefore opted for one of the lunchtime specials: the Southwest Sampler.

For those of you who don't know, the Southwest Sampler is a large appetizer, ideally meant to be eaten by several people. I'm only one man, but I too am large, and my stomach can easily store the screaming multitudes. All the same, the Southwest Sampler is a mostly-fried mess of greasy Mexamericana that will leave an impression on even the most inveterate glutton.

Undaunted, I ordered the Sampler and a Coke. I then followed this up with a Brownie Bottom Pie for dessert.

I finished the awful slaughter of my meal sometime around 1PM, got home, peeled off my skanky clothes, and then prepped myself for some Net surfing and a nap. Around 5PM I got up and prepared for the evening half of my split shift. I had to leave my place by 5:25PM to be on time.

Now that I'm 35 years old, I've got a pretty decent idea of some of my body's major rhythms. Digestion is a case in point. It takes roughly six hours for the food to do the Olympic bobsled ride from my mouth to my anus. My guts are pretty reliable on that score.

You see the problem already, yes? I'd made a costly miscalculation, having finished my meal around 1:00PM. My evening classes were to begin at 6PM, and I had a brief interval from 5:00 to 5:25PM in which to get dressed, brush my teeth, reinsert my contact lenses, un-muss my hair, and take a pre-shift shit.

That, friends, left about a 10-minute window just for shitting. Not much time for those of us who prefer to take long, leisurely dumps, the crap sliiiiiiding out of our asses like the Titanic leaving its berth. Compounding the problem was that only four hours-- not six-- had passed from mealtime to departure time.

So, based on what you now know: do you think the shit was ready to come out?

Aha, you guessed correctly!

Like the world's most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, my shit was deathly afraid of its own shadow and refused to emerge from its burrow. But I was not to be deterred. Intestinal coaxing commenced. As a master of hangmun-do (the Way of the Anus), I'm able to manipulate the peristaltic process to some degree, and can produce a load of shit where others would simply explode from the effort. I grimly settled into the ancient breathing, tummy-rubbing, push-hrrrrrgh-push rhythm of hangmun-do's most advanced form.

As you know, forcing your shit out is never good policy; it produces hemorrhoids, distorting the appearance of your anus and making your girlfriend unwilling to take core samples of it with her tongue. "Eewww, it's like the Mars landscape!" she'll squeal. After all that grunting and straining, your once-proud "brown starfish" (as one of my other friends calls the anus) ends up looking like an angry vampire squid.

But when you've got only a few minutes, and you know that you're not going to have time to shit while at your job, you make the effort to launch as many glistening ass-babies as possible. I did so, and was rather impressed with the results.

So I skipped over to EC, blissfully unaware of the danger I was in. I had badly, badly underestimated the size and malevolence of the Southwest Sampler which, coupled with the equally evil (and aptly named) Brownie Bottom Pie, was about to wreak some major havoc on my evening.

Of late, EC teachers have all experienced a marked spike in student attendance. The Kangnam branch of EC isn't that old, and business is now starting to pick up. Way up. In July, when I first arrived, I could expect a few breaks during my evening, but now... it's routine to teach eight 25-minute classes in a row. If I'm lucky, I get a 5-minute break between classes, but sometimes I or my Korean partner teacher will run a little overtime, which means I occasionally have to teach nonstop.

Thanksgiving evening was an 8-class-in-a-row whammy.

The seismic activity started somewhere around the third class. I could feel it: something down there was screaming to get out, pummeling my poor hangmun with increasing desperation. Maybe there was a fire in the transverse colon. Maybe a fight had broken out between warring factions of E. coli. Whatever it was, the Brown Slug wanted out.

And now, a personal note: if you ever see me in a cold sweat when no normal human should be sweating, it probably means I'm trapped in a situation where I need to take a fucking shit and can't. Outwardly, I might appear mildly uncomfortable, or even a little sick. Inwardly, though, my mind and my ass are going:

I started sweating.

My student either didn't notice or didn't care to bring up the fact that I was suddenly looking mighty constipated. I was finding it hard to concentrate on the lesson, but somehow I managed. We finished a little bit overtime; I had about three minutes to flee to the restroom and let fly, but I knew myself: I would need at least five minutes for a proper shit and wipe-down, and there was always the possibility that not everything would come out at once.

Should I stay or should I go?

Should I stay or should I go?

This happens to me a lot. I often wonder if I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a condition that normally strikes women and is often linked to stress. I'll be sitting there on the crapper, the shit seems to be flowing freely, and then... nothing. I can feel that there's more to come, but for some reason, my sphincter has decided that it's Ian McKellen as Gandalf, screaming, "Yoooooooouuuu shall not paaaaaass!"

Consistent with this Tolkien analogy, the remaining shit acts like the menacing Balrog and waits until Gandalf has turned around before striking. I'll shit out a log, then wait... then suddenly the urge to shit will strike again a few minutes later. This cycle usually occurs in threes. When I talk about this problem with my little brothers, I call it "writing a novel," first chapter, second chapter, third chapter.

The timing of all three chapters was awful that evening, and none of my students cancelled on me, which meant I had to run to the bathroom THREE FUCKING TIMES to obtain temporary relief, as opposed to having a 30-minute break in which to proceed at a more leisurely pace. I faced the horrible command decision-- to shit or not to shit-- several times. The front desk ladies looked concerned. I told them I was a little sick. One shit session ran about a minute too long*, and a student had to wait for me.

By the time 10 o'clock rolled around, I was a beaten man. My ass had won. I could feel it vibrating in triumph, grinning that vampire squid-shaped grin.

And that, Gentle Reader, was how I spent my Thanksgiving. I've since learned my lesson: no more big meals between shifts. Luckily, I start a block shift on Wednesday, but now I'll have to persuade my intestines to adjust to a new rhythm. That ought to provide fodder for a few more blog posts.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Don't get trampled by the shopping hordes. Think about doing a lot more online shopping this year (hint hint).

And watch your ass.

---

*Ever had one of those unwipeable craps, where you're sacrificing sheet after sheet of toilet paper, but an equal amount of brown is being dispensed with every wipe? Those take time to defeat, and that's why I ran overtime.

_

freedom of-- or from?-- religion

Scott writes:

Hi Kevin,

Happy Thanksgiving from the USA!

I've got a religion versus establishment question for you. Please pardon my improper use of terminology, I'm out of my league here. But I would like your take on my basic question (the last line of this mail).

This week a San Francisco school principal said a teacher can't use documents in class which include reference to 'God' in them. In this case it was government documents such as [The Declaration of Independence].

Link to The Smoking Gun

Putting aside the issue of the teacher's previous questionable behavior and intent - is it possible to truly ban 'religion' in this case? The school wants to ban reference to 'God', and instead issue a decree that all students will follow the doctrine (and I believe 'religion') of "Anything But God".

Isn't the school's cry of "Anything But God" in-and-of-itself a 'religion'?

Thanks,
_Scott

Scott's letter isn't concerned with the larger question of whether this story is bogus (see a liberal take here-- very interesting). Instead, his focus is on whether the "anything but God" refrain is itself somehow religious.

My instinct is to say it's not, because to me, a religious attitude entails some proper "disposition to the Real," as John Hick might put it (where Hick's Real refers to the nameless, ineffable ultimate reality that is mediated to us through personal experience and our culture milieu). Instead, "anything but God" is simply a reaction to the possibility of religious speech in the classroom.

I find such an attitude shamefully PC. Call me optimistic, but I think most public schools have a proper sense of boundaries when it comes to religious discourse. Most public schools do not advocate daily prayer in the classroom. Most biology classrooms teach the theory of evolution, and the ones that give air time to "creation science" do so without casting evolutionary theory aside. Yes, the name of God will be invoked at high school graduation ceremonies, but even here, this will often be watered down. When it's not, people notice, and they get angry-- as well they should! Example: I know that one girl from my high school alma mater, who graduated a few years after me, got into trouble for focusing too explicitly on God in her blatantly fundamentalist valedictory speech. Most high school communities have an innate common sense about how far you can push the religious envelope.

I also question the plausibility of completely eliminating religious speech from the public domain. As long as people both have religious convictions and live in a society that cherishes free speech, it's inevitable that folks will express themselves religiously. For me to say "Merry Christmas!" to someone at the workplace is not an act of oppression. The recipient of my well-wishes might not be a Christian, but surely they can make a distinction between a simple "Merry Christmas!" and the more sinister "Is the White Jeebus your personal lord and savior?" To study historical documents that mention God is to study history, not to proselytize. If people are serious about banning such documents, there's something seriously wrong with this picture. And if people are expected to keep their mouths shut about religious expression (as is apparently the case in France with regard to what a student can wear), then the "anything but God" wackos will have gained a huge victory.

Me, I'm a pluralist: I have no trouble hearing "Happy Hanukah!", nor do I mind being on the receiving end of a "Happy Kwanzaa!" I understand these utterances to be well-intended. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion, especially in the public domain, don't need to be mutually exclusive. Diversity should be valued by both liberals and conservatives, and we also need to trust that open, public debate about religious issues will keep society on the middle path, with religious sentiments being expressed, but not overbearingly so.

A linguistic note: we use the adverb "religiously" rather loosely to describe activities in which we participate with conviction, emotion, devotion, etc. For example, "I watch 'Friends' religiously." While I don't believe there exist any absolute boundaries between the sacred and the profane, I think it might be a little much to say that an anti-religious* mantra like "anything but God" is itself religious. It merely has certain superficial traits in common with a truly religious attitude.

Perhaps it's time to do a post on "What Religion Is." Hmmm. That's a post that might come under fire from all sorts of dissatisfied customers. Heh.

---

*"Anything but God" is anti-theistic in terms of how it's phrased, but the mantra arguably expresses a broader anti-religious sentiment, since the word "God" is a stand-in for all concepts of ultimate reality and the institutions devoted to those concepts.

I imagine some people might want to question whether "anything but God" is in fact anti-religious. "Maybe," such people would argue, "it simply expresses the wish to keep God in God's domain, which in America is not the public domain." The problem is this: the trend in the West is to privatize religion, i.e., to make it an increasingly private matter. Perhaps paradoxically, the only way to know someone's private convictions is for that person to express them somehow, in word and deed (say, by wishing someone a merry Christmas or by wearing a religious symbol). To my mind, such expression should be allowed, because if all external means of expressing religious convictions are disallowed, the only thing left is "thinking religiously while in public," whatever that might mean.

At the same time, I do think we need to keep an eye out for creeping theocracy. But we should go about this task openly, by the time-tested means of spirited discussion and debate. The way to deal with issues of religious expression is to view their resolution in terms of process, and not as a fixed end result. This question isn't going to go away, nor should it.

_