Tan Man

This made me lol at work today.

Have you ever noticed that if you need a tan, people will make fun of you for being so white, but if you admit to tanning, those same people will make fun of you for being "gay"? What's up with that?

Interesting historical fact: It's only been recently in history that being tan was considered attractive. For hundreds of years before that, true beauty, the kind of stuff that inspired poets, was all about being porcelain white.

Why? Because being tan meant you were a common laborer forced by your poverty to work in the sun. Only the rich and powerful were white skinned; therefore, white skin became a status symbol.

Being fat, or at least chubby, was a sign of beauty and wealth too. (Just look at classic works of art.) After all, back in the day, you had to be rich to be fat. Only the social elite could afford to eat enough to get fat, so fat became synonymous with money and status!

Funny that in today's society we strive to be tan and lean – to look like lowly field workers. Meanwhile, the poor are among the most obese in the US. My how times change.

TIME.com: Meet Joe Blog -- Jun. 21, 2004

Time mag finds out about blogs...

How will China and Japan get along in the future?


My roommate Ian sent me this piece that is rather prescient in the face of all the Asian economic growth that has been taking place of late. The China-Japan dynamic is something interesting to watch as is the China-Taiwan relationship. The future holds some interesting times and the Asian countries will continue to play a more integral part in the future of the US and the global economy.

Japan does not want to form a situation of competition with China or be put in a position where it has to make a choice. This doesn't mean it can stand aloof. For example, on the question regarding accession into the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation In Southeast Asia, Japan's reaction is rather complicated: It does not want to give others an impression of its competition with China, neither does it want to distance itself too far from ASEAN, it also hopes that the ASEAN may contain China. This kind of psyche means: I don't want to take the lead neither do I want you to. Instinctively Japan doesn't hope China to dominate East Asian affairs while at the same time it doesn't show up to compete with China. Former Japanese Prime Minister Makasone Yasuhiro said "I'm absolutely not advocating that Japan should strive to compete with China. I think this idea is rather foolish. We should avoid doing so". Why? What is Japan waiting for? Is it waiting for a substantive change in China-US relations?

Some Japanese politicians and scholars believe that 2015 will be the year when qualitative change will take place in China-US relations. By then China's military strength would be on a par with that of the United States. There would be three possible situations in China-US relationship: confrontation, alliance or cold war. Japan believes that the first two possibilities are very unlikely. The most possible situation in Sino-US ties would be one of interdependence under a cold war state. Japan must now consider how to handle relationship with China under a Sino-US cold war state.

Stretching Article

I've been working on my flexibility of late and thought this was a useful article on stretching.

DeFranco: I agree, you can be too flexible, but this shouldn't deter people from stretching. I say this because I've met lazy athletes who don't work on their flexibility because they claim they don't want to become too flexible. These are the same athletes who aren't flexible enough to bend over and tie their own shoes!

As if stretching a couple times a week is going to turn them into contortionists! This is equivalent to the fat aerobics instructor who eats McDonald's every day, but she won't lift weights because she doesn't want to get "big and bulky." It's ridiculous.

The fact is, you should try to achieve a level of flexibility that enables you to feel good and optimally perform your everyday tasks or your athletic event. Flexibility can benefit everyone, but you don't have to take it to the extreme. In other words, an NFL lineman shouldn't try to achieve the flexibility of a 95-pound yoga instructor.

Stretching Article

I've been working on my flexibility of late and thought this was a useful article on stretching.

DeFranco: I agree, you can be too flexible, but this shouldn't deter people from stretching. I say this because I've met lazy athletes who don't work on their flexibility because they claim they don't want to become too flexible. These are the same athletes who aren't flexible enough to bend over and tie their own shoes!

As if stretching a couple times a week is going to turn them into contortionists! This is equivalent to the fat aerobics instructor who eats McDonald's every day, but she won't lift weights because she doesn't want to get "big and bulky." It's ridiculous.

The fact is, you should try to achieve a level of flexibility that enables you to feel good and optimally perform your everyday tasks or your athletic event. Flexibility can benefit everyone, but you don't have to take it to the extreme. In other words, an NFL lineman shouldn't try to achieve the flexibility of a 95-pound yoga instructor.