A Bit of Employment Perspective

August is drawing to a close and so, therefore, are my holidays. As I understand it, I have the month of August off, which means I will be returning to work on Sept. 1, a Wednesday. I've been told, not by my supervisors or anyone who works at my place of employment whose duties might include assuring that there will be a teacher in the classroom or in the Zoom room for all of the English language classes that will be the foreign teacher's responsibility to teach, but by a guy who teaches in a different department, that classes actually START on Sept. 1. Well, not for this ranchero. I'll be using Sept. 1-3 to design my curriculum and that, I assume, will include making my lessons. If there are plans of using a text, teaching face-to-face, starting on Sept. 1, moving to a new office, using new classrooms, or any semblance of a schedule, I have not been informed of those plans yet. So I will do what I ASSUME I am supposed to do. Not an uncommon thing around these here parts. 

I told you last post that I asked for help getting vaccinated and none was forthcoming from any member of administration at the unigwan where I work. If you don't know what unigwan means, and can't guess, I will explain that word as we go here. I also asked for some idea of what I will be expected to do in the upcoming semester and, in typical unigwan fashion, no response was forthcoming. I have been lucky enough to have friends who have given me what meagre information I have, and who helped me get vaccinated. What I'm saying is I'm on my own here. Expect no help and management will not disappoint. That sort of thing. The same as it was in Gongju Dae Cheonan. 

Now, don't get me wrong, there are definitely positives to that! Full autonomy is the dream of a lot of ESL teachers in Korea who work at hagwans (private cram schools) where owners (of the hagwan and teacher) are constantly changing schedules, class content, students, even contractual obligations, often at the whim of one pushy parent (I could have said mother) of one student. I already have the HUGE boon of not posting grades, marking tests or evaluating my students. My classes are already very casual. So if you add to this the advent of being completely ignored by management and administration, it's a dream ESL job in Korea! So, if I am ignored during the upcoming semester the same way I've been ignored when asking for help getting vaxxed and with schedule information, it will have been worth it. But as you might guess, from the tone of this post, past experience, or just my luck, I don't expect that to be the case. 

We'll find out soon, but so far my predictions about this university posted to this blog have been outrageously accurate. I hope that changes, but... sigh... it won't. This "school" has behaved as a hagwan on each occasion. It's proven to be a hagwan posing as a university, or, a unigwan. The only slight surprise was the success of my campaign to cut out the desk-warming, and if you recall, "success" is a bit of an overstatement, "conditional success" would have been better. The other problems with this job, I'll have less success at changing. But again, don't get me wrong, if these problems were enough to make this a bad job, I'd go somewhere else. Having said that, sure, this job could be, and really ought to be, a durn sight better. 

I am ever mindful of improving my lot in life and if that seems like I am always complaining, a Negative Nathan (or whatever), well I'll gladly put up with your derision, but I will not say I'm full when I'm hungry. I shall not accept as the crown of my desires a big tenement block with flats for impoverished tenants on thousand-year leases! May my hand fall off if I carry one brick to that tenement! Lots of folks get the impression that maybe I'm just fond of sticking out my tongue or cocking a snook at ESL jobs in Korea, but I've lived here long enough to say with confidence that if the position existed worthy of no snook cocking or tongue sticking outing, I'd cut off my tongue and my... umm - er - nose and never again have to urge to do either. Look up "cocking a snook" and you'll see why I didn't offer to cut off another appendage you might have expected. Ahem.

I love me some Dostoyevsky! Anyhoo, unlike old Fyodor, I won't be put in front of a fake firing squad then have my sentence commuted to hard labour in Omsk, Siberia if my protests are discovered. Probably just relegated to job hunting again or sent back home to hard labour in northern Canadia. And so, I will record in this very blog, the inevitable conditions of my "conditional success" getting desk-warming cut down. One I am already aware of and hopefully it will not prove to be the hagwan-esque micromanagement that it threatens to be, but from experience, not negativity, I am predicting that it will be. I have been informed that I will need to write out daily reports of every hour I spend on the job, who I am with, what I am teaching, sign them and turn them in once a week. Format and detail will likely be micromanaged within this micromanagement. It will just add some extra, tedious busywork to each day that I feel the right to protest. If they don't care enough to get me vaccinated or give me my schedule, then it would seem in character for them not to care enough to expect neat, detailed and frequent reports of my classroom activity. But I fear it is coming. 

I feel some history is needed here lest you take me for an ingrate. I have a job doing less work, making more money and enjoying more vacation time than any I could hope to have in Canada. I've given my country more chances than enough to demonstrate the superior employment market all my friends and family seem to be convinced exists there and while it was good to see those friends and family members while I was there, apart from that and a few cultural indulgences, I count those years as wasted time. However, the situation in Korea has steadily deteriorated, at least in the ESL racket, in a very familiar worldwide economic way. And it has a great deal to do with the inherent weakness in the occupation, which I've talked about before: teachers are nice. Nobody wants someone who isn't nice spending time with their children. It's a must in the profession. "Nice" is scoffed at as weakness in the business world and since education is now just business, teachers are being punished for their kindness. We won't unionize or demand fair conditions, we're too "nice." We won't even try to get cost of living adjustments. We're too "nice." We'll basically take any shit the hagwan bosses and university administrators can come up with in their limited, but diabolical business brains. 

The list is endless, but I'll point out a few that the administration of Gongju U. where I work now, has gotten away with piling on the "nice" teachers who came before me. Basically, this job has been stripped of almost all the good stuff it almost certainly USED to have. The salary of 2.1 million per month is bare minimum. It was probably competitive or even superior at one point, but hasn't changed since that point. "Nice" teachers, rather than being negative, have moved on to higher paying jobs away from here most likely. 

University jobs are sweet because they have two semester breaks that are two months long. That's a lot of vacation and it's paid. Those jobs are quickly disappearing. A lot of unis give teachers optional or mandatory "camps" during that time now. Teaching kids, teachers or administrative staff. The better (or slower to take advantage of "nice" teachers) schools pay their teachers over and above their regular salaries since these camps are not part of their regular salary, but paid holidays ARE. And, you guessed it, some places give the "nice" teachers mandatory camps with no extra pay. That's what I did in the month of July. So not only was I working for free, I was also given the worst schedule imaginable, one that actually breached my contract, AND told to do attendance AFTER the camp had finished. You can see how the month of July for me could have been considered just a part of the contract if I were ignorant of the past in Korea when universities just didn't do this. But I know about it. I just have to pretend I don't. Undoubtedly they've had a string of teachers here who either don't know that these two camps a year should be extra pay or vacation, or they've had teachers like me acting like they don't know this. And I have done many of these camps. They average close to a million won a week. Some I've done have paid more. That's 8 million won of free labour I am giving my employers. Per year. But are they satisfied with that much "niceness?" Oh no. 

I said "per year," last paragraph, but to be exact, my contract is 11 months. This was a fad at hagwans and universities that I thought I'd seen the last of till I got here. It's done because of the Korean severance pay law. Employers must give employees the equivalent of a month's salary after a year of work. Private schools have screwed "nice" teachers legally by adjusting laws to consider pension and severance the same thing. They couldn't just eliminate the severance, they just act like they've never heard the word. (in Korean or English) But public schools, including national universities (Gongju National University) employed the 11-month contract to screw the "nice" teachers. I asked about that at contract signing time and was lied to. As explained before, I didn't expect them to pay my severance even after I was told they would. I knew they were lying, but it was an acceptable loss. Of 2.1 million. So where are we now, about 10 million won I am knowingly being gauged here. A young, inexperienced teacher might not realize this. "Nice." That's what management think. But is that nice enough for them? Oh no!

The main "niceness" was the one I had removed. I was spending conservatively half of my time in the office not teaching. What that amounts to is an entire salary I was not receiving due to the mandatory office hours. That brought our total of free money for the uni up to an astounding over 35 million won. That's a savings of over 38 thousand dollars per year (or per 11-month contract)!!! 

Now you begin to see how management around here all consider the teachers, or at least the ones they can screw like this, to be STUPID, not nice. But I'm STILL not finished. 

Housing is expected to be provided on an E-2 visa contract. That's what the majority of teachers get here if they are not Korean, married to Koreans, teaching fully qualified positions, or some other ways to get a better visa. Universities and hagwons have largely switched to housing allowance instead of housing for their teachers. It has allowed them to provide the same amount of money to teachers while landlords have consistently raised rents throughout Korea. There's no way of proving this, but I'm absolutely convinced the landlords and schools conspired together on this. Landlords KNOW how much housing allowance you are getting. They use it against you when you are looking for apartments. They'll say, "You are getting 300,000 a month housing allowance, so you can easily afford 500,000 won for this 200,000 won apartment I am trying to fuck you into renting." Teachers, not the hagwans and unigwans, have been forced to endure the rising housing prices. And we won't ask for higher housing stipends because??? Now you're getting it! We're too "nice/stupid." But if you think anybody is finished taking advantage of that niceness, OH NO!!! I'm not finished yet.

The good contracts for university jobs used to be like the REAL university jobs around the world that require minimal hours of teaching per week in order to allow you to publish papers and books in your field of choice. You know, like a dozen hours a week or so. I had some of these sweet jobs before! But since most of us aren't publishing works in the ESL field, and since the amount of money charged for an hour of ESL teaching has gone up by a factor of 10 or so in the last 20 years, universities too are getting as many hours out of their ESL livestock as the hagwans do. There are actually a few remaining places where they expect publications from teachers, but in most places, just more teaching. Public classes, kids classes, English cafes, teacher training, and camps.

And along with 12-hour weeks, full vacation is destined to become a thing of the past here in university ESL gigs. Two other phenomena are cropping up: 1. Refusal to grant permission to teach elsewhere (camps for a million a week) during vacation, and 2. Difficulty in doing immigration paperwork for the private camps has increased. I wouldn't be surprised if you need more than a letter of permission from your current employer nowadays. Not to mention salaries for the private camps are rarely a million a week any more. Though the cost for students attending the camps has steadily risen.

Relocation allowance (moving expenses), travel allowance (for commute to and from work), annual air tickets home, Chuseok bonuses, Christmas parties/presents, performance rewards, Korean classes, communication with department heads, communication with supervisors/buffers, and any number of other perks are disappearing too. Immigration is constantly becoming more tedious, difficult and expensive. Application processes and interviews are too. And both are becoming more like hostile spy interrogation than the start of an overseas adventure it once felt like. 

As far back as I can remember teaching ESL in Korea (1997) people have been saying that the industry is going to be gone in 2 years. I have to give Koreans credit for not just dumping it in 2 years. They've strategically (diabolically) made it more profitable for Korea, and less profitable for teachers. And who can blame them if the teachers are nice/dumb enough to keep accepting crappier and crappier jobs? 

I have little doubt that my job was a whole lot better than it is now. And there are still a few ways it could be made worse. I wrote this because it's probably difficult for most of my readers to understand why I complain about my job, but still stay. I will be back teaching, most likely by the 6th of September, although, as I said, I still have no idea. But I will be happy to be working a job I know I couldn't match in Canada. It could be, and once was, much better, and I will continue to complain and try to improve my work situation as much as I can, but inevitably, it will get worse and worse until I change jobs and/or go back to Canada.

I shouldn't say, "inevitably," since there is a shinier endgame to my employment over here in Korea. It is possible for me to save here, unlike anywhere else I've worked. This means a very modest retirement, not in Canada, but in a cheaper, probably Asian country is a possibility. And it's not far away for me, a single, aging dude with very few needs in life. 

Dang, the weather is getting better, sports is getting more interesting, my favourite month of the year, the glorious month of October, is approaching, and in a lot of ways, I'm actually looking forward to getting back to work. I hadn't planned on this being such a bummer of a post. 

As the saying goes, life is suffering. Every day I manage to find ways to take joy in my suffering. I suppose this blog being an attempt at self-therapy, more of the suffering than the joy tends to find its way into it. But, to end on a happy note, don't worry, I'm not gonna blow my head off or anything. Dark humour. Come on! Things are pretty good. Seriously! As I've railed against before, I refuse to say, "Well at least I..." and pretend to be deliriously happy in everything. For example at least I didn't get hired for 12 months only to be fired at the 11 month point.

It happens in Korea. I didn't make that meme. Or, at least I ALMOST had to do mandatory Covid testing, one of the times Koreans panicked about the filthy foreigners spreading Covid. But I didn't. Also I didn't make THIS meme:

In both cases, the Korean characters mean "hagwan." And I was ordered by Gongju University to get tested immediately, just didn't go. The response was, "Oh, so you are not going to do what the directors told you to do? Do you want me to tell them that?" I said, "Yup. Please tell them that." The next day I called the Covid hotline and was informed that without symptoms, I shouldn't be tested, nor would I have been able to get a test when I was ordered to "by the directors" at 9:30 PM. This, as I'm sure you know by now, is probably the worst of the things that is increasing every year: the discrimination and general anti-foreigner sentiment that comes with the gig.

All that being said, things are tough all over but not as tough here, trust me. September will mark the beginning of 8 or 9 straight months of weather I like in Korea, possibly a new (full-year this time) contract here in Gongju, maybe a better apartment and with any luck the end to Covid and the return of really great vacationing. Although, I can only imagine how expensive things will be with airlines and all things tourism trying to make up for Covid losses. 

The future will contain more complaining about my job, but the future is bright. Now at least you have a better understanding of perspective. If I've given you that, this post was a success. Further complaints as events warrant...

Just Milling the Wind

 Promoter: Listen, we need one more song for the "Open Arms" album. What do ya got, boys?

Steve: I have a song I'm working on, but it's only half finished. 

Promoter: What's it called?

Steve: Doesn't have a name yet. Maybe something like "They Won't Break Me." 

Promoter: You say it's not finished?

Steve: Yeah. It has a good beginning, but I'm stumped.

Neal: I have a song I'm working on too. It's called "I'm On My Way," or maybe "On My Way." 

Promoter: Okay, that sounds promising. Can we hear it?

Neal: Nah it's not finished yet. I can't think of a good beginning for it.

Promoter: Well, here's an idea: We need to get this album out, boys! I'm feeling solid gold here! How about we put those two songs together? 

Steve: What? No way, that's crazy! I've heard the song Neal's talking about. It's pretty different from "They Won't Break Me." Completely different key, rhythm, everything.

Promoter: And for a crappy group, that might be a problem. But you guys are the best! Can't you write a complicated bridge, put the two songs together, make it trendy? This sort of thing is starting to catch on. Whatchamakallit... progressive rock? Right?

Neal: I'm sure I could do that, but the fans are gonna know no matter which title we use.

Promoter: Well that may be, but couldn't you throw in a line at the end, something like, "This is my escape," then just call the song "Escape?"

Steve: I dunno... The fans are probably gonna think it's just an extra song to fill out the album, aren't they?

Promoter: Yeah. I guess so. You're probably right. But hey, and I'm just putting this out there, if you don't like it, forget I said it, but we COULD make "Escape" the title of the album??? 

Neal: Hey, that's so crazy, it could work! Only one problem: I haven't figured out an ending for my ending.

Promoter: I'm sure you guys will figure something out...

Just listen to this song. The above conversation never took place. I just made it up. But ever since the summer of '83 when I listened to Journey "Escape" non stop, this song has been a mystery to me. It was a song I fast forwarded through when I first started listening to the album. Then as I got older and my music appreciation matured, it grew on me. I started fast forwarding through the overplayed hits instead. Now it's one (or let's be honest, it sounds like two) of my favourite songs from my youth. 

I can't explain why this song has come up in my life recently, but I've woken up singing it or with it rolling around in my brain several times during this past month while I've been trapped in Korea on my latest staycation. It could be related to the fact that Journey "Escape" was virtually the soundtrack of the best vacation I ever had. Summer vacation with the Pillas in 1983 in Penticton. What a great family and what a great vacation that was! Camping, going to the beach, arcades with Grant, go-carts in the rain, water slides, "Fast Times" at the drive in, tragically lost summer love, and endlessly cruising in Darren's yellow car up and down the Penticton strip listening to this album over and over. 

It might have been another one of those internet challenges that has thrust this old song upon me. Someone posted, "What is an album you are positive you've listened to over 100 times?" This was the one that instantly came to mind. 

Or it might just be the weather. Who can say? The normal Monsoon June and July here was more of the heat wave most of the world had, but half of August Korean weather has been playing catch up. So because it's raining almost every day, I'm not only stuck in Korea (because no travel during Covid) I've been largely stuck in the apartment. I surf the net, I read, I write and I do a lot of thinking. This is the sort of thing I think about.

What about you? Can you name any songs that grew on you like this? I remember Dire Straights "Brothers in Arms" listening to "Money For Nothing," "Walk of Life" and fast forwarding over some of the lesser known songs. Now I fast forward through those two songs and "Your Latest Trick" has become my favourite on the album. That and, again, the title track, "Brothers in Arms." "Thriller" was like that. Purple Rain. Synchronicity. 

Do you suppose, and I'm just putting this out there, if you don't like it, forget I said it, but is it possible that some songs take longer to appreciate? And who hears the songs of an album more than the artists? By the time they've released their albums, they've heard all the songs so many times, they are probably tired of the hits. Do you reckon that could be why so many albums are named for songs that aren't the best ones on the album? Or at least they aren't to begin with. No? 

Probably not. There aren't that many like that. I'm just letting my mind get carried away. But it helps to put it down on paper. Well... that's what USED to help. Now it helps to put it in my blog. Therapeutic writing. Getting it off my chest. It's been the genesis of some great writing! One example comes to mind because I've been reading on rainy days too and one of the books I've been really relating with has been "Notes From The Underground." 

If I were to rename this blog, I might call it, "Milling the Wind." Dostoyevsky wrote, "But what can one do about it if the direct and sole purpose of any intelligent man is idle chatter, that is, deliberately milling the wind?" He also wrote, "But there's something else: why, why exactly do I want to write? If it's not for  the public then couldn't I very well commit everything to memory without putting pen to paper? Quite so; but it will turn out somehow grander on paper. There's something inspirational about it, one can be more self-critical, and it makes for better style. Besides, perhaps by writing things down I really shall find relief."

To make this post just a bit more topical, I suspect that the Underground Man, were he alive today, might refuse a Covid vaccine out of what he calls "superstitious spite." If you'll indulge me a long quotation, here's the very beginning of the rantings of the Underground Man: "I'm a sick man... I'm a spiteful man. I'm an unattractive man. I think there's something wrong with my liver. But I understand damn all about my illness and I can't say for certain which part of me is affected. I'm not receiving treatment for it and never have, although I do respect medicine and doctors. What's more, I'm still extremely superstitious - well, sufficiently (enough) to respect medicine. (I'm educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious.) Oh no, I'm refusing treatment out of spite. That's something you probably can't bring yourself to understand. Well, I understand it. Of course, in this case I can't explain exactly to you whom I'm trying to  harm by my spite. I realize perfectly well that I cannot 'besmirch' the doctors by not consulting them. I know better than anyone that by all this I'm harming no one but myself. All the same, if I refuse to have treatment it's out of spite. So, if my liver hurts, let it hurt even more!"

There are obvious parallels and obvious differences between the ailment of Dostoyevsky's character and people who don't want the Covid vaccine. Fist of all, he has a sickness while shot deniers are not sick, they're denying prevention, not cure. Secondly, the idea that his liver trouble can only harm Underground Man while Covid 19 is something that can harm others around us. Liver disease is not contagious, Covid 19 is. Believe it or not, I have seen comments written on Facebook friends' posts about Covid saying, in intelligently written English, that Covid 19 is not contagious. Just a few days ago I saw one!  

This brings up one of the parallels: that there are people, a lot of people, (and I include myself amongst them) who know damn all about Covid the way U.M. knows nothing about his liver disease. But that hasn't stopped some folks from clinging to aging arguments against its treatment rather than, you know, researching those arguments. I read another person saying that Coronavirus isn't even a virus. This is related to the first silly statement I believe in that the Coronavirus, which is a virus, hence it's name, causes Coronavirus 19 disease, which is not contagious. Polio was not a virus either. Poliovirus was a virus. It lead to Polio. If you wanted to be a dick, you could use this minute detail to pretend that you are smarter than other people and say, "Polio wasn't contagious." That is probably what dipshit who posted on my friends Facebook page was trying to say. Coronavirus disease isn't contagious, it's the virus that's contagious. Okay you pedantic prick, maybe you know something that other people may or may not know, but you have no point that is germane to the argument so shut the fuck up.

You know people like that are just posting comments like that to appear more knowledgeable on the subject than others more than anything out of spite. Other arguments like it's a new virus or the vaccine has not been researched enough to be considered safe are aging too. We know that coronaviruses like SARS and MERS, have been researched for years. In fact, scientists identified a human coronavirus in 1965. So over 50 years of research has contributed to development of the Covid 19 vax. It's not something that just started in the Wuhan days. Also, with the FDA's approval of the Pfizer (and soon Moderna) vaccines, it means they have been found to be safe and effective by the FDA. Before you can guess the next spite argument, no, not all of the 15,000 or so employees of the FDA are scientists and doctors, but many are. And all but two of the FDA's commissioners since the mid 60's have been MD's too. So they know a little more than "damn all" about the things they approve.

While I DO agree that there is in many people an almost god worship for doctors that could be characterized as superstition, as experiments with placebos have consistently shown, and I think it may be as strong as ever despite damning findings against the medical profession and big pharma that seem to be in the news more than ever, I think, due to the serious nature of a worldwide pandemic, the doctors and drug companies might be worthy of our trust in this case. Not in SO many others, but in this case, I think so. Big pharma and a lot of doctors are screwing us, and I feel like a voter saying, "Well maybe THIS time things will be different," before casting a vote for a Giant Douche or a Turd Sandwich in some country or another, but, in the case of Covid 19 and the vaccination, I think this time things are different. And I have no evidence for this, but I assure you this has nothing to do with my recent vaccination. I do HOPE more that I'm right, but don't feel any surer. 

Perhaps, as with music, the tunes that Covid vax opponents are singing will become tiresome and other tunes that they didn't like before will grow on them. It has been a year and 8 months since the beginnings of the outbreak. I've become tired of music much faster than that!

Yet I am seeing just as much, if not more of the arguing between family, friends and strangers online over the whole Covid 19 controversy. I still continue to see it dominating news sites as well. I am starting to get one of those feelings of, "I wonder if this isn't pushing some much bigger, more important world issues out of the public eye." This happens. A lot. My last post comes to mind as one of the issues that we should be hearing more about: Taiwan. 

I am wearing my mask no less than I did before I got vaccinated. I am doing it for others. I understand and agree with people who hate the masks. But I haven't heard any new or convincing arguments against them, so I'll continue to wear them. I AM becoming more and more convinced that the vaccine is the real deal and it seems to me that most of the people who are still standing in opposition might not be as convinced of the arguments they're offering as they once were, but they're loathe to do anything that would appear as an admission of error or bad judgment. And I see people who I think are well aware that they are losing the vax argument, they just refuse to capitulate out of spite. 

Interestingly, there's a portion in "Notes From the Underground" in which sleep is described as an ESCAPE into the sublime and beautiful. With all the rain (I love sleeping when it rains) and nothing to do, I've escaped to the sublime and beautiful a lot too. I just wish they had more toilets there...

Will Taiwan Be The Next Afghanistan?

 Big news recently geopolitically speaking: Afghanistan. The Taliban wasted no time in sacking Afghanistan, taking over government, inheriting untold American dollars worth of American made and supplied armaments, and no doubt reversing many a social development that had taken place over the last 20 years, most particularly for Afghani women. Below is an adjustment of the latest slogan dreamed up at the June '21 G7 meeting of "B3W" which stands for "Build Back a Better World." Although it is much worse, "Build Back Burqa" is a lot less clunky. Keep the B3W in mind as you read... This is foreshadowing. Does it still qualify as foreshadowing if I tell you it's foreshadowing?

The Taliban didn't even wait until after the American military pulled out. Truth is, they were moving in while the pull-out was taking place. And despite constant warnings that the pull-out would stop if the Taliban (including other groups like al-Qaeda) committed any violence, the violence increased all the way through America's exit. Exit plans were adjusted, scrapped, altered, rescinded, reviewed, repurposed and withdrawn... it was not pretty. Here's a timeline of the events.

No doubt you've seen photos and/or movie clips of people chaotically clambering to board planes to get out of the country as soon as possible. Some even clutching wings and wheels of the planes believing they'd be able to hold on. Some falling to their deaths as they found out they could not. What caused all the panic? The Taliban promised to be nice after all. Well it turns out, nobody believed them. This is very reminiscent of the Chinese promising Hong Kongers that nobody would be extradited to China and tried for being unChinese. Nobody believed them either. And shouldn't have. Ask the millions of people who protested why they didn't trust the Chinese Communist Party and you'll get similar answers as to why Afghanis don't trust the Taliban. We may come back to this too. (more foreshadowing) <--- best read in a Homer Simpson whisper.

It all makes one wonder, doesn't it? What did the US get for their 20 years in Afghanistan? Here is an insightful list of ways this war has cost, and will continue to cost the US and Afghanistan. It begs the question:

Doesn't it? Did Uncle Sam win? It sure looks like the obvious answer is absolutely fucking not! But as you will find with age and wisdom, every question is best answered, "It depends." This question depends on who you think is represented by Uncle Sam Van Winkle. If, like most healthy-in-the-head people, you believe he represents the people of America, then the answer is no. But if you ask the brain damaged members of the ruling class, or the investors in the military industrial complex, Afghanistan was an outright victory! Here are the cold (chilling) calculations.

Now, given that pulling out of Afghanistan means putting a cash cow out to pasture, I'm thinking...

What the hell, bruh indeed! Big Money just doesn't abandon big money. And if you've read the title of this post, you might guess where I'm headed with this.

Here is an interesting article you should read. And if you are wondering why those ships might be going to the South China Sea, you should read this article. And if you are wondering why China believes, mistakenly, that Taiwan is part of China, you should read this article. And if you are wondering what China sees in Taiwan, it can be summed up in four letters: TSMC. Not only is Taiwan the world leader and focal point for the most important industry in the world now and in the foreseeable future, the whole world is becoming more and more dependent upon them. China would very much like to welcome them back into the embrace of the loving motherland, of course. But the greater concern, geopolitically speaking, is if China fails at, or doesn't even try diplomacy and just tries to Crimea Taiwan. The destruction of TSMC infrastructure being a casualty of war, (forget about the people because war is all about money) is a massive concern for the large, rich, powerful countries of the world (remember the B3W foreshadowing?). Here's an article about that.

Protecting Taiwan is crucial in the G7 plan to build back a better world and you can be certain that aside from posing for lots and lots of nice photos, the leaders and reps from the G7 were talking about Taiwan at least a little bit at their latest summit in Cornwall, England. Maybe the idea of re-routing all those ships to the South China Sea was discussed at the time. Maybe, despite the Chinese Communist Party's frequent promises to allow Taiwan to retain autonomy as an official Chinese territory is about as believable as the Taliban allowing Afghanistan full autonomy or the Chinese allowing Hong Kong full autonomy. Maybe this was discussed too. (told you I'd get back to this)

Crimea was only 7 years ago. The military coup of Myanmar was back in Feb. Hong Kong is sort of on a break because of Covid, but their autonomy is hanging by a thread despite the millions who protested CCP feces they didn't want China to fling at them. Now Afghanistan. It seems Imperialism is alive and well in the world. Spurred on by the seemingly effortless sacking of Afghanistan by the Taliban, it's not hard to imagine China champing at the bit to make its long threatened move on Taiwan. 

The question is, will this be a bad thing for the powers that be in the geopolitical soup? In other words, are those ships from the UK going to the South China Sea as a deterrent or a catalyst? 

The quote in the 2005 documentary, "Why We Fight" by American political scientist Chalmers Johnson comes to mind: "I guarantee you, when war becomes that profitable, we're going to see more of it." He was talking about profits of 25%. 

The question is, could that type of profit be sustained in a war over Taiwan fought between China and the US/Japan/UK and maybe some other countries on both sides wanting to share in the profits? 

Again, the answer is, "It depends." Do the people in charge of our world see people like this:

or do they see them like this:

I think we all know the answer to that. So while the occupation of the South China Sea by ships from all over the world may seem like a heroic move to protect Taiwan, and as scary as that is, it just might be a decidedly non-heroic provocation, and that, my readers, is a helluva lot scarier!

You can read in the articles I've posted here that the consensus is that nothing's going to happen. Don't worry, China won't attack. Everything's AOK. But that was the consensus in Crimea before little, green men started appearing. The best time to strike is when that is the consensus.

I hope, maybe more than ever before, that my fears expressed in this post are unfounded! We shall see...

Good Lord! No sooner had I finished this post than I read this. Again I ask, "What the hell, bruh?"

Vaccination Registration Registration

This post will mostly be a map for my Friday journey to register to get my Covid 19 vaccination here in Korea. I was supposed to have registered in a one-week window (I think) between July 17 and 24th, but did not receive any notification to do so. I've been told I should have received notification through Kakao, text, even snail mail, but as yet - nothing. I even had not one but TWO Koreans on the administration staff at my university on the lookout for me and THEY missed the window too. During the window, I was teaching teachers and admin from my school, several of them in the same age category as I and we were talking twice a week about when we could register. None of THEM seemed to get the message either!

To be as kind as possible, even though the world lauded Korea as having one of the best Covid responses with masks, social distancing and whatnot, the vax rollout has been a hot mess. To put it as kindly as possible. 

I have been getting 2-5 notifications every single day on my phone for over a year about Covid numbers, and updates and such. Almost all of them are in a form that I can't copy and paste into Google Translate. But I have seen ages expressed in numbers like, "55-60" with a curvy dash and I thought for sure I'd see my group, 50-54, when it came up. For the life of me, I swear I got every Covid update but THAT one! But there are other ways a guy can check too, none of which are working either. There's 1339, a Covid hotline that I've used before successfully. You may remember back when I was ordered to get tested for Covid IMMEDIATELY by my supervisor at Gongju U. in Cheonan. This was at 9:30 at night? Member? I called 1339 then and they told me I couldn't have gotten tested that late had I even tried, plus the testing centers weren't even giving tests to people without symptoms due to the limited number of testing kits. I had no symptoms, so they told me not to bother.

This is the same school. A year ago they're panicky and demanding that I get tested because I may have been close to an area in Seoul that had a pocket of cases. Now they don't even notice when my registration period for the vaccine comes up. It's quite something how Korea has changed in the last year! At any rate, 1339 is either automatically hanging up on me when I call, or tantalizingly getting me through the "press 6 for foreign languages" to the message (not in a foreign language) which says to wait till an operator picks up, and THEN ending the call before an operator picks up. I've called about 100 times and have had friends calling for me. Nada. 

Another thing I tried and failed miserably at was the online registration. This is an old story too. I recently got my Personal Customs Code, which, by the end of this year is going to be mandatory if you want to order goods online that will be delivered from other countries, get packages from family or friends at home or things like that. It took forever and the sticking point was the name. Korean bureaucracy could significantly increase its efficiency with foreigners by using the foreign spellings of people's names instead of taking wild and varied stabs at them with the Korean alphabet. At least for people who use English to spell their names. That said, it's pretty common for Russian or Arabic or people from countries that don't use this alphabet you are reading at the moment, to have an agreed upon Romanization of their names. Anyway, when the name is needed in an English application, some of the transliterations back from Hangeul into English are atrocious! Daeebeet Mekkenaer. Dayvyd Meockaenur. The combinations are endless and if you don't match whatever some unknown bureaucrat chose as your official spelling (rather than use your actual official spelling) you are shit outta luck. Sometimes they even DO use the proper letters, they just mess those up. Like spelling them wrong or using given name MacCannell, and family name David. Mr. David. This is REALLY weird because they do this when my family name is given first, like on my passport. Here they actually say the family name first, but somebody has been given a rule that foreigners say their given names first and family names last. So thoughtlessly apply the rule. Don't ask or anything. I recently read of a brutal example of this phenomenon that occurs so frequently in Korea.

As people like me are struggling mightily to get the vaccine here in Korea, they're actually throwing perfectly good ones in the garbage. Why? Mindless adherence to a rule without risking any thought about the purpose of the rule or the greater good. If I've said this once, I've said it a thousand times, and it's still true: people in Korea are trained, not educated. They follow rules, they are told not to think. They're awesome soldiers, but horrible officers. The story is of many Korean clinics advertising leftover vaxes and starting waiting lists for people to claim them online. When they didn't have any takers from the people in Korea who hadn't yet had their first shots, perfectly good vaccines were trashed. There WERE, however, people asking for the vaccines who had already had their first shots. If they had waited long enough to get their second doses, why not give them earlier than scheduled? Because there's a RULE! Obey, obey, oh yay, obey!

Anyways, countless foreigners are putting the letters of their name into randomizing programs, writing them on Boggle dice and rolling a random spelling, or just coming up with their own convoluted misspellings of their names and hoping to match the misspellings that will match the ones being used for the vaccine registration. When you enter any proper spellings, or the wrong misspellings of your name, you get the annoying message that says your name doesn't match your alien registration or you are not a registered foreigner in Korea or, more often than not, some message in Korean. Here's one of MY many attempts:

Isn't that an absolutely awesome nose thumbing? "The Korean Disease Control (and prevention) Agency says, "FUCK YOU waygookin! We're not going to give you an English message on our English website!" That's not what it says, but it might as well. This happens at every bank machine in Korea and countless other "English" websites. It's something that has gotten worse in Korea leaving little doubt that it has been intentional. You think they also don't know that transliteration of our names back and forth several times between Korean and English completely messes them up? Of course they know! It's all part of the foreign fuckery I've blogged about so often. And how many times have I warned that it will come back to bite them in the ass? Well here we are. Foreigners want to get vaccinated here but can't. You just KNOW this will lead to a general perception that foreigners are causing numbers to go up. You also know that Koreans bringing this on themselves with xenophobia will not be part of that perception. Well, way back in the spring there were mandatory tests ordered by the government only for foreigners. What message do you suppose THAT sent to the general populace? And further reports of the recent delta variant originating in a cluster of foreigners, and the delta detection rate being "especially high among foreigners," whether real or imagined leads to heightened anti-foreign sentiment here. Like that was necessary. But now that even Koreans want to get foreigners vaxxed up as soon as possible, their electronic booby traps are biting them in the arse.

Like most foreigners, I tried phone, I tried online and I failed outright to register for my shot. I needed an alternative. I emailed the two reps from the school to help me find a place in Gongju where I live that I could go to in person and fill out a non-electronic piece of paper that Korean bureaucracy was less likely to mismanage. I haven't heard back from them. I also texted my friend, Rob. He works for the same school and has had the same experience here in Gongju trying to register electronically and failing. So he went to:

Dat dada DA! The Gongju City Health Center. He said he went to the 3rd floor and registered in person on paper. BOOM! Exactly what I wanted. So I got the Naver Map of this location and figured I'd take a cab there on Monday.

The best way I know of to catch a cab in Gongju is to go to the bus station. There's always a lineup of them there. It's about a 20-minute trundle from my place to there. Even in the 31 degree sun, that wasn't going to be so bad... he thought foolishly. Did I sweat profusely? Nope. Did I get a wicked sunburn? No. It wasn't actually the weather that made my little walk a pain in the ass, it was the prevailing winds of anti-foreign sentiment. I didn't get to the grocery store next door to my apartment before I was accosted, in fast and not very carefully enunciated Korean, by a teenaged boy. I couldn't understand every word, but I have been panhandled in many languages before and I know the drill. I even KNOW the word for money in Korean and heard it in his spiel a few times. So I went with ignorance. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Moolah," which means I don't know, then continued walking. When I got far enough away, the kid shouted, "HEY! MONEY!" I thought to myself, "Maybe you should have led with that?" 

This was a first. Never before had any of the people of Gongju asked me for money. It wasn't the last first of the walk, however. No more than 100 yards later two boys riding double on one of those pay scooters passed me going the opposite way, The one boy said, "Hello!" Now you may think I'm being oversensitive here, but I've also been helloed many times in Korea and I know the difference between the genuine ones and the ones intended to impress friends with patriotic discrimination. This was clearly the latter. It's almost always a dead giveaway when the hello is from a group, not an individual. For example, on my latest riverside hike, a Korean man I've seen a few times on his bike or reading a book on one of the benches in the art park shouted, "Anyong haseyo," to me. I immediately smiled and yelled back, "Anyong haseyo," with a little bow cuz he's older than me. The kids on the scooter? Just having fun hassling the foreigner. That actually happened to me ANOTHER time from another kid on a scooter! First and second time since I've been here in Gongju that any kids walking (or scootering) in groups have done the infamous Korean cattle call. I call it that because if you say hello back, they laugh their asses off like when you moo at a cow and it moos back. I didn't give them the satisfaction. Little buggers.

Then, as I was nearing the bus station, I started across a street. A car was exiting a main road at high speed and turning onto the street I was crossing. I stopped for the car. The car stopped for me. I waved and started across the street. Maybe it was the wave, or maybe it was the eyes, but suddenly the driver gunned it and cut in front of me forcing me to stop before getting run over. 

So apart from the old guy in the park, I'm getting a clear impression that people in Gongju might be blaming foreigners for extended mask-wearing, staying at home and social distancing. And here in Gongju, we aren't on the higher lockdown levels that Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and most southern tourist areas of Korea are on. I wonder what it's like there.

To make a long story short, I got to the building pictured above and was met by resistance instantly. They almost didn't let me in the front door. But I managed to explain that I couldn't register by phone or computer and I just wanted to register at that place and time. They made me phone a number to verify my place and time, then I went to the 3rd floor. Two ladies sitting at computers tried their best to understand my bad Korean, read some government worker's bad Korean writing on the back of my alien card, and get me plugged into their computers. With great effort including my writing some things down in Korean (which I'm quite proud they understood) we got my name, address and alien number into their system. It only took 20 minutes or so. 

Then they took me to a room down the hall where 5 other people spent at least half an hour arguing about different interpretations of the rules, changing the instructions the two ladies had written for me (and they changed them about 5 times) and landing on almost the same instructions. The ladies had told me to come back on Monday. The NEW instructions are to come back on Friday. For a government office, that essentially one day earlier since they aren't open on weekends. So half an hour of arguing for a day. Things are clearly not yet organized on this front.

However, assuming the rules don't change again on Tue, Wed, or Thu, I will be going back to that office and actually registering for my Covid shot! All I managed to do on Monday was register to register I suppose, but it's still a victory! I doubt I could have gotten that done electronically.

On that high note, the following will be pics I took on the walk home from the Medical Center. It was a lovely walk even if the temperature was a little hot for my liking. And I got some exercise while registering to get registered. So not a bad deal!

The bridge to take over the river. The "Ballbearing" statue bridge.

The bear statue on the OTHER side of the bridge. Go up the road and turn right at the palisade park entrance intersection.

Walk straight till you come to THIS cool bridge. There's a nice little waffle and ice cream shop on the corner where this pic was taken. There's a big school on the other side of the bridge. Don't go past the school. Turn left as soon as you get across. 

You'll see this police station on the left. Keep walking straight. There are some nice houses with lots of flowers and veggies planted in the yards.

Keep going straight. Interesting coffee shop/store at this intersection and sign for the medical center. It'll be on the right hand side just ahead. You can't miss it. 

So other than the Covid caper, I am half way through my vacation here and even though it's only summer vacation, which is my least fave, and even though I can't travel, I'm enjoying it so far. I have a few more visits with a few more people planned. No word yet on what going on next semester at work, but how surprised am I about that?

Addendum: I went back to the Health Center today (Friday, Aug. 20) and waited for quite some time for different people to decide what to do with me. They were shouting my name from cubicle to cubicle, my phone number, my alien number, and seemed a little like they might be trying the same things I tried to get me registered. And having the same luck. Finally one guy picked up a phone and made a short call. Then I opened Google Translate on my phone and a young girl who had originally taken my alien card when I got there, punched in, "Go to Baek Jae Gym." She wrote on a piece of paper Beak Jae Jae Yook Gwan so I could give it to the taxi driver. I went outside the Health Center and caught a taxi. We drove a little outside of town to a big building in the middle of the trees. I went in and finally filled out my paper, non-electronic, offline registration form. Yippee!!

But then I was hustled to a few people who asked me a few questions, one guy who explained in English what may happen after the shot and he sent me to get the shot! I said, "Right now?" He said yes. So I assumed it had to be one of the extra AZ shots or Sinovac or some welfare vax nobody else wanted. I asked what kind it was. "Phizer," he replied. 

I am Phizerized! And earlier than expected. After 24 years in Korea (off and on) my luck is starting to change!!!

Should We Erase "Race?"

I can't tell you how often I've seen the Facebook meme, "What is a word people use that bugs you?" You wanna know my pet peeve word lately? It's "race" or any of its forms. Here we have a few things that are being called "racism." Going to Chinatown to get a Chinese perspective is not one of those things in my book, however. You find people from China there, some very new to the country, many who can't speak English, and all with some experience living in another country. AND, it's cheaper (not to mention time saving due to Covid restrictions) than sending a reporter to China. Chinatown in New York might actually be the PERFECT place to have sent Jessie Watters. That said, we laugh along with Ronny Chieng's comedic complaint that it's like going to the Taco Bell to get a Mexican perspective, even though it's quite different as Jessie Watters and later, Ronny Chieng himself, showed. You wouldn't be nearly as likely to find a Mexican making chalupa boxes at your local Taco Bell as you would to find Chinese people in Chinatown. After badmouthing Watters about going to Chinatown to talk to Chinese people, Chieng goes to Chinatown and talks to Chinese people. He doesn't nail the ones who don't speak English like Watters did, but he obviously prepared his respondents that we are meant to believe were random, and coached them into giving funny zinger answers in English. Indeed, if one wanted to be adversarial, one could question which report was actually the more "racist." But that's not the direction I wanted to go here today. I'm more interested in another aspect of this whole thing.

I want you to ask yourself, and be honest - it's only you asking you, nobody else will know, when the dude at the end was calling Watters a chicken-shit reporter; Chieng calls him a douchebag piece of shit; O'Reilly was called a LARGER chicken shit too afraid to go to Chinatown himself; Watters, the dude alleges, has no testicles; he made fun of people in the worst possible way; then Watters is called an asshole; when all of this was happening, were you laughing ha ha ha, or was it more like "ha ha ha yeah fuck them!"? I hasten to add that it is not even presumptuous on my part to say that the latter was the intention of the piece. Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, Jessie Watters, FUCK THEM for being racist assholes! Am I right?

I was rolling my eyes when the song, "Kung Fu Fighting" was playing and Watters was asking if a Chinese guy knew Karate then fighting in a Tae Kwon Do gym! China, Japan, Korea - they're all the same and their martial arts are all the same, right? Was that racist? The "Snap out of it" clip after the guy couldn't think of Bill Clinton's wife's name? Would any American in Americatown, Beijing, being asked in Chinese the name of Xi Jin Ping's wife "snap out of it" and come up with the right answer? So THAT'S racist, right? What about the old guy at the end who is asked if it's the year of the dragon? Or is it the year of the rabbit? His response was to take a drag on his cig. Do you suppose he knew any English? Or enough to understand Jessie Watters? Surely showing this guy as a representative of ignorance rather than a language barrier is racist, no?

Well here's my point: It seems like more and more we are all being bombarded with the term "racism," we're concerned with BLM and cultural appropriation, we "like" facebook posts about candlelight vigils for victims of police brutality, anti-Asian hate, Native Canadian residential school graveyards, and all racism, hell, we might even light up a candle ourselves! We seem very self-assured that we understand what racism is... but I don't think we really do. In fact the part of racism I'd like to focus on in this post is our collective ignorance of it. Let me go a little further, as I sometimes like to do, and say that quite often, and maybe as near as make no difference, almost always, when people use the term "racist," or "racism," they are assuming they know the races to which people belong, which includes the rules for defining those races, and that someone is using race as a motivation for committing a harmful act, and they are not correct. Does this, in and of itself, not qualify as the pot calling the kettle black? Oh geez, PHRASING! What I'm saying is the people who are calling other people racists just might be the ones committing a more clearly definitive act of racism.

Let me give you an example from the video. The lady from Queens. She definitely has the look of a Chinese lady. She speaks Chinese. She's in Chinatown. But while speaking (in Chinese) about Americans and their perceptions of the Chinese, she uses "we" as a pronoun referring not to the Chinese, but to Americans. Then when she says, "I'm from Queens," it gives us a pretty clear impression that she considers herself to be American. How long has she lived in America? Does it matter? Was she born in China? Does it matter? What was her first language? What could we find in her blood and bone structure? Was it racist for Ronny Chieng to spark up a conversation with her in Chinese? Does she even know her own race? And does any of this matter? If so, how much? What are the criteria that are used, and in what measure, to determine a person's race? The answer may not be as simple, in fact it's WAY the hell more complicated (and I dare say more STUPID) than you might think. Let's explore that, shall we?

The term "race," was first used in the English language as a categorizing term in the 16th century. Believe it or not, the English considered the Irish to be of a different "race" during the 17th century. They were a race of savages incapable of being civilized. Half the words in that sentence should have quotation marks around them, but I will assume intelligence enough in my reader to understand those NOT to be the opinions of the writer. More to follow...

But let's jump ahead to 1684 when in his writings called, "Nouvelle division de la terre par les differentes espices ou races qui l'habitent," or New divisions of the earth by the different species or races that inhabit it, Francois Bernier had the gaul to attempt to classify the people of earth by race. He did travel a lot and he was part of the superior race, so I guess that qualified him. His "4 or 5" divisions were not very clear, so let's move on to another attempt in which some similarities could be found. It was Carolus Linnaeus in his book "Systema Naturae" (1735) that came up with a more interesting and more detailed 4-category analysis. The first category was the best, which is why it was first - the white European. They were characterized as pale-skinned, active and creative. The second classification was the red American. They had reddish skin and were patient. Thirdly the yellow Asian race had yellow skin and were melancholic and lacking in flexibility. And bringing up the rear was the black African who was, you guessed it, black-skinned. They were also crafty, lazy and careless in nature. 

I guess folks lacked detail and some may have been unhappy that their category of race included people they didn't see as being of the same race, so a guy named George-Louis Leclerc Buffon wrote "Histoire Naturelle" (1749) in which he divided the earth into 6 races. 1. Laplander 2. Tartar 3. South Asiatic 4. European 5. Ethiopian 6. American. The Tartar was equivalent to others' Mongolian or Asian. Buffon believed that all races came from a single species of Caucasian. He believed in the Biblical tale of Noah. Noah and his family, being pale-skinned, somehow managed to grandfather all the races on Earth. The "first race" was, and unbelievably, still is called Caucasian due to the belief that Noah's ark came to rest after the great flood atop Mt. Ararat, which is located in modern day Turkey just south of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. 

So when you hear a person in real life or in the movies referring to a "Caucasian male committing a 2-11" or whatever, that racial term has its roots in a Biblical fable and some flawed geography. I'm not going to say a worldwide flood didn't happen. I'm not even going to say there wasn't any Noah or an ark... well, yes I am - the logistics are impossible. But the idea that Noah and his family were the only people on the Earth after the flood and all the races came from them? That's just silly! And when you factor in the more than 200 flood myths just like it from around the world, shouldn't we feel just a little bit stupid using the word "Caucasian?" The Caucasus region includes more than 50 ethnic groups for crying out loud! Their birthplaces vary and their skin colour may range from pale white to very dark brown. Confused? Wait there's more!

In 1790 a German (I'm not going to say anything about a German being the person we look to for racial characterization, but I think my saying nothing might say something about that) Johann Friederich Blumenbach in his book "Decas Craniorum" gave us 5 categories, but as the title might hint, the categories were not just derived from geography or skin colour, but also from cranial morphology. From my understanding, there were three types of skulls, which were called Negroid, Mongoloid and (ffs) Caucazoid. From this and a combination of geography and how people looked and were perceived to behave, he came up with the following races: 1. Mongolian, 2. Ethiopian, 3. Malay, 4. American, and 5. Caucasian. So the majority of Americans, the ones with white skin, are they Americans? Americans should have reddish skin. Can they become Americans if they live there long enough? What if they were of group of African people with skin as light as Asian? What if they were of a group of Mongolian or Malay people with skin as light as Caucasian? Are they Caucasian, Malay, American, African, Mongolian, What-the-hellian?

The act of racial classification hasn't come far since. In the rest of the 18th and even 19th centuries, the ideas bolstered by this pseudo science that natural laws made "white" people smarter, and more capable than non-white people became accepted worldwide and evidence of it still exists. "White monkeys" in China are people who are hired to promote products who, due to their skin colour, are considered more trustworthy by ad watchers, and therefore in high demand. The initial attempts at racial classification had their roots in tribalization and hierarchical organizing of the people of the world that were arrogant, childish, dangerous, and have been roundly considered invalid biological concepts. In the 20th and 21st centuries, race is now considered a social construct by most of us. But even so, I challenge you to come up with accurately socially defined ideas of race. 

Why do we even use the words "racist," and "racism?" I believe the usage of these words is maintained along with some of the original purposes of racial classification. The tribalization and separation through abstract ideas of blood purity, cultural superiority, and here comes that word again... PRIDE in something we don't even understand creates within us all a platform from which we can be manipulated to fight and die under the command of some false leader or another. When it changed over the years from the biological white=good and not white=bad to the social construct of white=better and not white=worse, it did little to get rid of racism. Listen to Dave Chappelle:

If we want to get rid of social, ethnic, cultural, or any other kind of division, it makes sense that we get rid of words that were created to encourage them. Words are powerful. Well, that's not even exactly what I'm trying to say either. Maybe it's like my "Proud" Canadian problem. As we all know, it's the context behind the words that is important. If you are "proud" of Canada that's not such a bad thing. But if your pride can be used to create in you sentiments of negativity against any other country, it IS a bad thing. And sometimes, it doesn't even matter. It's the assumption of context made by the person you're talking to. If you say you're a proud Canadian to your friends, you'll probably be okay. If you walk into an Alabama biker bar on July 4th wearing a Canadian flag as a shirt and say it, be prepared to chuck some knuckles. Best example ever:

So what is the context when we use the words "race," "racism" or "racist?" The context is rooted in ignorance and largely in ethnic and cultural division (or racism) itself. It has become convenient for us to use these terms thinking we have a common understanding of them, but we don't. I put it to you, dear reader, that very few people know their own race let alone what they're talking about when they use the word. Maybe if they did, they wouldn't use it so much. Maybe they'd use more accurate words like "bigotry," "prejudice," "discrimination," and such. To close, here's another example of how the context of words is so important. Not sure if it's 100% true, but it's a great example:

"Alternative fuel source." lol Anyway, this is where I'll end my pet peeve post. What do ya reckon?