A Query

Dear Korea:

We write you today in regards to your no smoking policy on T.V. 

It is not that we here at the ministry are not sympathetic to the dangers of smoking it is just... allow me to digress.

You are currently showing the American program "It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia" on your 'Fox Life' channel between the hours of roughly eleven and twelve.  This is a comedy which finds humour in such sensitive fields as:

Abortion
Having sex with your best friend's mother
The mentally handicapped
Racism
High risk gambling
Drug addiction
Slavery

 This list is not to suggest that we here at the ministry do not find "It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia" humours.  On the contrary, we do.  However we would understand if you chose to take umbridge with any of the above mentioned themes, but you don't.  There is no sensoring of the dialogue, no particular episode left out on morale grounds. 

And here in lies our thrust.  You blur every cigarette that is raised to someone's lips.  Man or woman, young or old, as soon as a very visible cigarette in the hand touches someone's lips it is swathed in a pixel penumbra that frankly is not fooling anyone.  Cigarettes are three dollars a pack here and you're going to have children confused why they can see the cig their daddy is puffing on. 

Let this not ruin our good relations.  Let it only be known that we here at the Ministry of "Why the Hell are you Doing That?" are wondering why the hell are you doing that?

Sincerely,

- The Ministry of Why the Hell are you Doing That?

P.S. While we're on the subject, why can see see naked boobs on t.v. while we're eating cereal at 8 in the morning?  You could at least wait until 9:30 when the children are at school.

How to turn a good day into a bad day in four minutes

First, a natural history lesson.  

300 million years ago the Eath's atmosphere consisted of a much higher level of oxygen (about 50% more).  Capitalist biology said "with so much supply, we can increase demand."  With more oxygen to fuel them, bugs threw big, too big if you ask anyone with any sense in their head today.  (For more about bugs and oxygen, go here) 

Now fast forward 300 million.  There is less oxygen, there are no bugs with two and a half feet of wings, (I didn't check on this and don't tell me if I'm wrong) and in South Korea 51 million people packed into a space that is nine times smaller than the Canadian province I grew up in.  I don't know where the air I breath places in the world ranking of the DCTYD* quotient, but everyone's got a car and the old woman who lives across the street from my apartment burns trash beside her rows of cabbage.  

(*Directly Contributing To Your Death)

The point is, why was the cockroach that I killed last night with a sandal in my apartment so god damn big?  Surely there should be some sort of inverse reaction to all  this.  Surely if cockroaches had any sense they would be tiny tiny and gathering at the G20 in Seoul to protest for carbon fuel emission regulations.  The worst part of last night came not when it fell to the floor and required to be hit again because it's thick carapace had evolved a resistance to even a well made German Birkenstock, or the volume in deciliters of guts that marred my floor when I finished him (with the sign of the cross, my homage to Boondock Saints).  No it in fact the worst part came with I glance up from his mess to find that there was already another mysteriously dead cockroach lying withered on his back on a rag by the sink.  Was a vigilante leaving me these grim bones as proof of their work on my behalf?

Sort of.  It was Brittney.  She left it there "for me to see it."  Which is a round about way of saying she hates me and hopes I don't get any sleep.  Did you know that as you fall asleep at night you can mistake the sound of your eyelashes scrapping the pillow when you blink for the sound of thin spindle feet scuttling towards you?  

The point is, two cockroaches in one day means I'm pretty sure they're trying to crawl into my mouth.  

I will not eat you Cock-A-Roach, 

I will not eat you boiled or poached.

I don't want to see you raw in the light.

And certainly not in my maw at night.

The Wise Children

This we are administering speaking tests to the seventh graders.  The speaking test goes like this: you sit down opposite myself and receive a card with five phrases on it.  Like this,

1. 시 간 은  돈 이 다    (Shee gahn eun   don ee dah)

That's only one phrase but you get the point.

And if you're a good and studious seventh grader you will say to me 'Time is money'.

Now the students here get wound up pretty good before any test, but a speaking test is especially tense.  It's them and me and a list of forty English proverbs they are supposed to have memorized.  I really shouldn't then have been surprised when I walked into my first class after lunch and was greeted by forty frantic girls screaming, "TEACHA TEACHA ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKE JACK A DULL BOY LET BEEGONES BE BEEGONES GOOD THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGE IT IS NO USE CRYING OVER SPLIT MILK BEGGARS CAN BE CHOOSERS A STONE CAN KILL TWO BIRDS LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP"