Books, iceburgs, and the meaning of blue curtains

Have you ever read something incredibly and profoundly dumb that you felt obliged to say "NO" out loud to your monitor? I saw this floating around a few months back:

Here's the thing though...your English teacher was probably right! 

Thailand, England, Crabs, and Cricket

Thailand is a wonderful place to live. I often take it for granted, or fail to appreciate the good fortune that plonked me here. Every so often though, I'll have a small and often unexpected experience which will make me realise how thankful I am to be here.

For example, yesterday I was riding my motorbike on my way to get some dinner. Dusk had fallen, and I was driving through a nearby university as a shortcut. The roads were dimly lit, and I was mostly guided by the faint glow of my headlight. As I pulled round a bend I noticed a small black object in the road; slightly larger than a tennis ball. I couldn't make out what it was, but I was certain it was a live animal; I could just about make out some spindly legs and could see it inching across to the other side of the street. So I passed it before turning around for a closer inspection, my curiosity piqued. This was too slow and steady to be a rat, too fat to be a spider, and too short to be a lizard. 

It was a crab.

Meninism...just no.

Ugh. Sit down, guys. We need to talk.

It's this whole meninism/Men's Rights Activists thing. How can I put it? At the very least, I'll say it's silly and embarrassing.
 
Stupid as it is, it seems like the whole MRA movement in general is growing. I recently read a good (if slightly lengthy) article challenging some of the preconceptions and ideas held by meninists, and it served to remind me just how much this sort of mentality needs to be challenged. 

Decisions, Decisions

(picture borrowed from here)

Here's an interesting article about behaviour, choice, and inertia in human decision making. We’ve all been there. Maybe you were in line at Starbucks, or trying to choose a new phone plan. For me, I faced the problem of choice when I went shopping for cereal when I lived in the States a few years back. You’re confronted by an entire aisle (sometimes more) just for cereal, and you think…does anybody need this much choice? I mean seriously, with their being so much hunger and poverty in the world, how many varieties of corn flakes does the average Western consumer need? Or Cheez-its, for that matter. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some Cheez-its. All day, son. They’re a solid, incredibly unhealthy yet satisfying junk food. But the last time I looked on the box, I noticed there were almost a dozen different varieties! And for what? 

Trevor Noah

So, it's just been confirmed that Trevor Noah is going to be the new host of the Daily Show, and in all the midst of the #whothefuckistrevornoah idiocy that's already reared it's head, I've got to say it's not that bad of a choice.

“Kids today…”

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

Ah, yes. The youth of today. Vain, badly mannered, and utterly feckless. Of course, a lot of you will probably recognise this as a quote attributed to…Socrates. Also known as the clever guy in the bed-sheet, who died almost two and half millennia ago. These attitudes are nothing new, but they continue unabated today.

On the travails of being an ESL Teacher in Thailand

Having seen a couple of these before for various different jobs, I decided to have a go at creating one for ESL teachers in Thailand.

News, Media, and Subjectivity

I came across this cool little cartoon on one of my many recent internet rambles (I’m currently on vacation, so if possible these have actually increased in frequency). It makes a great point, and got me thinking more about news and peoples’ attitudes towards it.

The fact of the matter is that traditional news enterprises are on the wane. This is perhaps most obvious in print media, which is currently dying a slow and painful death as it struggles to squeeze an ever greater amount of internet-ready ‘content’ from an ever smaller number of qualified, experienced journalists. However, the decline in traditional news productions isn’t just limited to print; observe how CNN struggles to hold onto a dwindling viewership by running increasingly sensational stories of little journalistic merit. A prime example would be the obsessive, lurid coverage over the missing MH370 Malaysian Airline plane. CNN’s wild theories- I’m sure there was at least one person who wondered on air whether the incident was the work of aliens- may have made great fodder for the Daily Show, but I found it disheartening that a major international news organisation with such considerable resources was stooping to National Enquirer level reporting.