手袋

先週買った手袋です。自転車だと冬がかなり寒いだろうね。特に雨の日が心配だからGore-Tex入りの手袋にしたが、その分、値段が高かった。（一万円くらい）

I learned the following while listening to NPR's News and Notes the other day:

Black men working full time year round make 72 cents per dollar as a white man with a similar education. Black women get about 85 cents. Black unemployment is twice that of whites regardless of the economic situation. On average white Americans live 6 years longer than black Americans.

My god, does that ever infuriate me! I had no idea it was that bad. That is just unexcusable! Simply unexcusable.

カーレス、そして

久しぶりの日本語です。

今日はやっと車を廃車しました。もう、カーレスなんです。3ヶ月以上あの車を乗っていなかったからそろそろ時間かなと思い、近所の廃車買取さんに行った。車の事情を教えたらそこまで電話で別の人と喋っていた男性が近寄ってきた。

「もしかして、○○さんですか？」と。

よく見てみると、この人はよく知っている顔の持ち主でした。ホテルで働いていたころの仲間の一人だったのです。

「△△君？こりゃ驚いたな！」

彼と会うのは一年半ぶりでしたかな？当時彼は車とはまったく関係のない仕事をしていたからまさかその廃車買取さんで会うとは思ってみませんでした。

用事を済ませたら、また飲もうな！と店を出ました。

久しぶりにまた飲みたいものですがそれよりもまためぐりあえて嬉しいです。今日は古車とはさよならをしたが古友と再会できました。

均等のいい一日でした。

And the Winner is....

Barak Obama

Here's my take.

Let's forget all politics for a moment and think just in terms of people. And unfortunately as it is, the first thing that you notice is racial in nature. this is unfortunate to me because I could never and still can't figure out why so many people over the years and to this day take such huge stock in one's race when making value judgements in people.

I always knew that Jesse Jackson was significant because he was breaking new ground, but it never made sense to me. I knew that Collin Powell and Condie Rice, and Alberto Gonzoles were significant as well in terms of racial equality in the leadership of the country. But I could never figure out why race had to enter the picture in the first place.

Now everyone is making a huge deal about the first black president, and I have to admit that after an unbroken line of 43 white presidents, it's nice to have a change, but the real question for me is, why should it have taken over 40 presidents for race to become insignificant enough that anyone other than a white person could become president?

It's mindnumbingly difficult to figure out for me. If America was created under the proposition that "all men are created equal," then why all the fuss about race?

Politics aside, I am glad that Obama won, because maybe now we can finally look at people and treat them on the basis of their character, and not on their skin colour. I hope Obama stays in for 8 years and remains at least reasonably popular. And I mean that no matter what his politics turn out to be, because that way, everyone will have a good long look at someone other than a white person at the top. Hopefully after 4 or 8 years, people will realize that race does not have any bearing whatsoever on an individual's qualifications to be a good leader. Neither does it have any bearing whatsoever on his or her character in general.

Hopefully people can grow up. If Obama is the change agent for this to happen, I'm all for him. It would have a much larger impact over the future of the country than any policies he could ever devise.

Unflappable

One word which has been brandished a lot during this election cycle is "unflappable." I have to admit that I had never heard of this word until this year, but given the context that it is always in, it obviously means "difficult to upset."

So does that mean that if someone is flappable that they upset easily? And if I am upset am I flapping?

"Boy, did I ever flap last night when that guy tried to pick up my girlfriend! I don't mean to be so flappable, but you'd flap too, if it happened to you!"

Or is it one of those words like "ingrate" where you can't undo the negation? I mean, you don't call a grateful person a "grate", now do you? You might think he or she is "great", but that's a different affair, entirely. And now that I think of if, "to grate" has nothing to do with gratitude whatsoever. Which is interesting, because being grateful should mean that you are full of grate, but how can you be full of a frame of metal bars?

ARGH! It's so frustrating!!!!!!

Uh, sorry to flap like that. Now where was I?

On Novemer 4th...

If you have come across this blog, you absolutely MUST watch this video!

I have no idea who made it, but...

all I can say is thank you!

If I win, I promise to move back to America. How's that for a campaign slogan?