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A story today on the BBC News site says that the Taiwanese government has begun efforts to help increase the country’s birthrate:

In 2009, Taiwan’s birth rate stood at 1.0 births per woman. This is well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Why do they want more babies? They need workers to replace their aging workforce.

As any population scientist can tell you, the higher the education level of the female population, the fewer children that they’ll have. Given that the human race is way, way past our carrying capacity (the number of individuals that can be fully supported by available resources), falling birthrates are a very good thing. Furthermore, one must wonder how the highly-educated single women of Taiwan feel about this unwelcome intrusion into their personal lives by their government.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Committee for Refugees & Immigrants reports that, by December 2008, there were almost 2.7 MILLION people seeking refuge worldwide. That number continues to grow at a terrifying, heartbreaking rate as violent conflicts, natural disasters and disappearing resources make more of our world virtually uninhabitable.

My advice to Taiwan? If you need more workers, accept more refugees. Leave your happy, single women alone. And thanks for having a low birth rate!

Let’s support education for females worldwide, so that this wonderful statistic spreads.

Another Martin Luther King Jr Day has come, and again, news outlets phone in their headlines about the “Slain Civil Rights Leader”. They take the safe, easy way out, disrespecting King by painting him merely as a black leader while ignoring important and still-controversial components of his great legacy. While King was undoubtedly the most important figure of the civil rights era, he was also much, much more.

Like pretty much all of my heroes, Dr. King was driven by Love.. Love with a capital “L”. Love led him to active compassion. Compassion naturally extended into a committment to non-violence, social justice and human rights. His civil rights work, condemnation of the Vietnam War, of nuclear proliferation and of colonialism were just some of the ways in which Dr. King acted as a humble servant of Love.

The King Center, founded by his wife, Coretta Scott King, quotes him thus:

“Life’s most persistent and nagging question, he said, is `what are you doing for others?’.”

This is why they call MLK Day ‘A Day of Service’ and ‘A Day On, Not A Day Off‘. Put aside some time to serve others, even if it’s just for an hour or two. By honoring King’s legacy, you’ll also honor the best within yourself.

The watered down King tributes try to make Dr. King’s vision something small and non-threatening… some anachronism tied to a single, supposedly resolved issue and time. The real Martin Luther King, Jr presented us… all of us… with a challenge that is as critically important today as the day he uttered these quotes:

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

“They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

“…we are challenged to achieve a world perspective. Anyone who feels that we can live in isolation today, anyone who feels that we can live without being concerned about other individuals and other nations is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The great challenge now is to make it one in terms of brotherhood.”

“We must all learn to live together as brothers – or we will all perish together as fools. This is the great issue facing us today. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone. We are tied together.”

“All I’m saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be – this is the interrelated structure of reality.”

“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

One of the reasons I post so infrequently is that I can’t bring myself to write anything without putting in hours or even days of research, and editing a dozen times or more.

Yes, it’s true. I’m a perfectionist. (Whatta surprise, eh?) Anyway, I’m going to try to relax my OC tendancies a bit in the service of blogging more often. Let’s see if I can bring myself to actually do it.

On a side note, we have an osprey who’s set up shop in a tree along the river in front of our house. It’s an impressive creature, but it’s been screaming non-stop for the past half hour.

Seeing as an osprey’s cry is similar to that of an eagle’s, I keep thinking that the Colbert Report is about to begin. I hope it’s catching some big fish down there!

If anyone is interested, I now have a Flickr account (photos). I’ll work hard to keep it interesting.

So… you’ve been romantically involved with someone for years now, and the relationship is serious and solid. For whatever reason (and there are many!), you don’t want to get married. Now that you’ve achieved the sought after “long-term, committed relationship”, how do you refer to eachother?

You could just let people call you husband and wife, but if that’s what you wanted, you’d be married.

The same goes for “fiance”.

You could confuse people with “common law husband/wife”, but that’s unwieldly and stiff sounding.

You could call eachother boyfriend and girlfriend, but that sounds like a casual fling or just plain juvenile. It can also cause real problems with people who assume that the playing field is still open.

You could put knots in your tongue with “significant other” or shorten it to “SO”, but the term has become dated and laughable to many. It also becomes tiresome explaining to people what it means.

You could refer to eachother as “my partner”, but if you have a business partner, things get confusing fast. If you say “life partner”, you assume that you’ll be together for your whole lives, and frankly, that’s unlikely.

You could say “soul mate”, but many people find that phrase too new-agey, or inappropriate for formal situations. The same goes for “lover”.

You could say “my better half”, but that’s sort of dodging the issue, isn’t it? And I hate to say it, but what about situations where it’s just not true?

“Other half” is a bit better, but personally, I like to think that my “partner” and I are discreet individuals.

What we need is a term that meets all these requirements:

* Short
* Obvious in its meaning
* Appropriate for both casual and formal situations
* Can be used by both males and females

With all the creative talent out there, this should be doable. Post your suggestions!

I’ve recently become friends with a Tibetan Buddhist monk/doctor. He’s rapidly learning English, but conversation can still be difficult. The other day, we were having a vegetarian meal with a number of people when he began to tell a story about the “rough, but good” people of far northwestern Tibet (the Kekexili region).

He said that the extreme cold, dryness and lack of soil makes it nearly impossible for them to grow fruits or vegetables. This (among other things) has led to a culture that’s quite different from that of southern Tibet, where most of the population lives.

He spoke a few more sentences that I only vaguely understood… something to do with northwestern Tibetans traveling to southern Tibet. The story ended with “…because they eat only meat!”

He laughed heartily, but then saw the confused looks on our faces. “That is a kind of a joke.”, he explained.

Then it dawned on me. Even Tibetan monks have Polack/Aggie/blonde jokes. It seems we humans have an innate need to poke fun at other groups of people whom we see as less sophisticated or intelligent than ourselves, even if we do it in a gentle, loving fashion. I wonder why that is?

As you can see by the time gap between posts, I’m perpetually busy. I don’t have the time to pen new missives as I’d like to. If I did, I’d be posting multiple times a day! However, I have plenty of things I’ve written in the past for other purposes that may be of interest to internet users. I’ll start posting these, just so they’re available online.

…if you can.

1. Credit card minimum payments will increase on most credit cards to 4% of the total balance over the next couple of months.

2. On October 17th, the remaining provisions of the new bankruptcy law will come into affect.

3. Credit card issuers have already started putting into place harsh punitive measures for payments that are even a day late, even if they’re from cardholders with a long history of on-time payments.

Right now, credit card minimum payments run between 1-2% of the account balance. Let’s say that you owe $10,000 on your cards. Right now, your minimum payment is $100-$200 a month. Between now & October, it will increase to $400 a month. For many households, this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Meanwhile, these same households that will find themselves unable to cover their bills will have a much harder time saving themselves by declaring bankruptcy. For example, under the new law, filers will have to meet with a credit counselor for 6 months before they can even file for bankruptcy. That means 6 months of defaulted payments and harassment by credit collection agencies. And THEN, before they can have their debts discharged, they’ll have to attend money management classes at their own expense. (You know… with all that extra money that’s lying around.)

Credit card issuers are already putting into place new rules like big increases in late fees and APRs that can jump to over 30% if you’re late just one time. They’re also doing bizarre things like moving due dates backwards instead of forwards if the due date falls on a weekend.

(Personal note: I make online payments. I intended to deposit money Friday for my payment due Saturday. Under the old rules, I would have been given a grace period of sorts until the next business day, which would have been the same day my deposit cleared and my payment processed. Under the new rules, for Chase, at least, I was considered late at 3pm central time on Friday. FRIDAY. The day BEFORE my payment was due.

I do incredible things to ensure that I pay my minimum on time, no matter how hard things get. I’ve been with Chase for over 10 years with a perfect payment history. Yet, as of today, I have a $39 late fee and a new extreme APR.)

All this adds up to a huge widening of the gap between rich and poor, and an overall economic slowdown. The Christmas shopping season, which most US retailers depend on to make it through the year, looks like it will be less than merry for them.

Retailers like Wal-Mart, who depend on the poor for their profits, are already reporting losses as a result of rising gas prices. Many of their customers are simply too poor to even drive to Wal-Mart anymore!

(On a side note, Wal-Mart plans to combat this in part by trying to woo upscale shoppers with high-end items. That’ll be a tough sell!)

To me, this looks something like an economic tsunami headed our way. Yet, when I surfed the web looking for more information this weekend, most of what I found was smug rhetoric coming from people who don’t know what hard times are.

They said, “You shouldn’t have run around charging up debt and living beyond your means.”

They ignored the large number of Americans who have little or no health insurance and must pay for health emergencies on credit.

They said, “You should have made larger monthly payments.”

They ignored the fact that real wages have dropped, and that making more than the minimum payment has become impossible for many.

They said, “You shouldn’t have used your card for non-essential purchases.”

They ignored how credit cards are handed out like candy to college students.

But most of all, they ignored the large number of Americans walking a fine line between scraping by and losing everything. My prayers go out to all of you.

It occurs to me that I’ve never met a female with “Jr” or “II” attached to the end of their name. Is this a secret window into male versus female psyches?

Obviously, lots of people don’t fit into neat gender stereotypes. I’m proof of that. Oxygen, the so-called womens’ network, features more than a few shows that make me want to projectile vomit. Witness ‘Mr. Romance: Oxygen’s search to find the next Fabio‘. Buluhehhhhh!

(I’m not much for “date movies” either.)

Yet, when I think back on the many times that I’ve heard people talk about why they want kids (usually in the context of urging me to have children of my own), there are some common male and female phrases.

From men, I often hear stuff like, “I want someone to carry on my name/legacy.”, “I don’t want the family line to end with me.”, and “I want a kid that can finish what I started.” or “…do the things I couldn’t do.”

From women, I often hear things like, “I just love babies.”, “Kids are great!” and “It’s so cool watching these little people that came out of you develop their own personalities.”

Given human overpopulation, a future that looks pretty bleak, and all the things I’d rather be doing with my time and money, none of these reasons seem particularly compelling to me. They do, however, paint a picture.

By and large, the men indicate that they want a child for selfish reasons that have to do with their own egos. They don’t dream of a unique new person, but rather of another shot at their own youth. That would explain why, instead of giving a son his own individual name, they sometimes slap their name on him and call him “Junior”.

(It would also explain why I’ve known so many men who become desperate to have children after coming face to face with their own mortality. Ladies, want a family? Find a guy who’s just completed basic training for military service.)

On the other hand, (aside from the bizarre notion that babies are like dolls, only better) most women indicate that they want children for the experience, or as a way of completing themselves. There’s a selfishness here as well, though biology seems to drive it.

To be fair, there are probably also biological roots to typical male reasoning on the subject. Maybe that explains why my dad, David, not only named my brother “David”, but then remarried and named one of my half-brothers “David”, as well as giving David-like names to my half-sisters, Darcy and Darla.

Ok, I take it back. My dad just has a screw lose. As my brother put it, “He’d name his dog David if he could!”. I guess I should be more grateful that my mom insisted on naming me.

UPDATE: My dad claims that it was his 2nd wife who talked him into all those “D” names. Hmmm… I don’t know…

A lot of people tell me that they’re open-minded, but their everyday world presents a very narrow view of reality. I challenge everyone to step outside their comfort zone for a day, even if it’s just online.

PART ONE

Choose 3 blogs at random that are in direct opposition to you politically.

Read at least 1 post in each blog from start to finish. THINK about what you’ve read. You probably won’t agree with what you’ve read, but you’ll have much better insight into how “the other side” thinks.

Reality isn’t divided into “us” and “them”, or “good” and “evil”. Real solutions require cooperation, sometimes between sworn enemies. For example, animal rights activists and hunting enthusiasts have successfully worked together to save wildlife habitat. Democrats and Republicans have worked together to achieve common goals too many times to count.

Your enemy may one day be your most important ally.

PART TWO

Pick a foreign country from this blog directory.

Choose 3 blogs at random and read at least 1 post in its entirity at each one.

Chances are that the 3 blogs you’ve chosen will disagree on some point. Nowhere on Earth does there exist a nation or a group where everyone agrees on everything. Be wary when news reports insinuate otherwise. Our variety (intellectually and biologically) is a beautiful and powerful thing. Without it, we would never have survived as a species.