Shirtlessness Shopping in Tesco, Monday evening, I had chance to observe a man standing, shirtless, in a checkout lineup. He had nice glasses on, and a woman with him, who had to be his wife, was dressed well enough. But, they both had the swarthy looks of primitives from the farthest reaches of the Chinese countryside -- at least to my Canadian attitude that regards going shirtless as low class (a comedic character in a popular Canadian t.v. show goes shirtless year-round -- Randy is his name.).
But to be fair and apologetic to the couple, I was quite the strange sight myself, as I struggled with Tony who didn't want to take our basket of purchases to an available register.
Anyway, irregardless of my strangeness to them (a one in a thousand freak in a Wuxi suburban supermarket) and theirs to me, I suppose there is something to be said for men going shirtless in public. It probably saves on resources for the fabric as well as laundry supplies. So I encourage Wuxi Expatriates, who wish to transcend being arrivistes and to become authentic Wuxiren, to conform to and to embrace this local custom. I still don't have the courage of my convictions to do it.
New Glasses I was at the Qingyang Road Carrefour not just for taking a video of Tony running about. My principle purpose was to buy new reading glasses -- I had lost my other pair. I got the new pair in about twenty minutes. I wasn't so fussy about the glasses I choose, just wanting plain frames that didn't contain any embellishments. It then took the glasses store staff ten minutes to put my custom lenses in the frame -- or did they do something to the lenses that were already in the frames? Thankfully, it is not my job to know these things.
But now I can go back to happily reading TLOR and Flannery O'Connor, and studying Chinese characters
Slate Podcasts The Slate website calls their podcasts "gabfests". I will listen to them to contrast with my more right-wing libertarian conservative fare of Radio Derb, Riccochet, and Econtalk. Since the gabfest comes from the left of the political spectrum, the best I can say for it is that it will offer a few challenges to my beliefs, but when push comes to shove, the show's pundits fall back on the race card and crude caractitures of Conservatives (e.g. Palin is a moron. Mentioning Rangel's ethical violations is racist. The tea-partiers are racist. Et Cetra). And so in doing so, they just conform so much to my stereotypes about Lefties that I can't be convinced by them of anything.
Redemption I act too much like someone who has achieved it. Truth is, I have sought it, and I have gotten the opportunity to achieve it, but I have fumbled it -- too easy, to hold back, than to make a true stand.
Someone got stuck in the rain. I took a photo of the person, who I saw from my apartment balcony. The photo was blurry and you can see it in this blog. Soaked thoroughly, the girl walked resigned to the fact that the rain had engulfed her. She seemed in no hurry to seek shelter.
Conservatives ought really to be anti-capitalists The person who wrote the article boldly stating this did not define exactly what he meant by Conservativism or Capitalism. So he had an easy time of it cherrypicking things to back his fuzzy point.
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