Peter’s Blog V2

After record-breaking storms visiting all those regions surrounding us, New York finally got a sizable one this winter.

The District of Columbia needs to learn the spirit from the Big Apple: this city never sleeps, not even at 1AM in a freaking storm.  Armies of workers managed the streets with plows, blowers, and shovels of all sizes.  The fact that snow might’ve accumulated faster than they could clean did not discourage them… or maybe they just didn’t have a choice, like me working till 12:30AM with a pair of bad hands.

Cabbies also didn’t sleep, although they sure changed the rules a bit.  The first few that were neither occupied nor off duty asked for my destination before letting me open the door - and simply drove away once hearing Queens.  I didn’t blame them - if snow could accumulate up to 0.5″ around Times Square, it must be devastatingly trecherous outside Manhattan.  Licensed drivers wouldn’t want to risk their own lives… but those unlicensed town cars were a different story.  One of them willingly let me on to his car and offered to take me home - for an outrageous $100 in cash.  He explained that the ride would take at least 90-100 minutes due to the road condition.  At that point, I opened the door and got out.  A second unlicensed town car offered the same ride for $60.  What a bargain!  I didn’t take it.

Hungry for some Halal meat?  Look it’s open!

Back to Queens.  Thought this looked like sand dunes in a desert:

“Winter Wonderland”?

Still snowing 12 hours later:

Ice breaker:

Another army of snow busters.  I don’t know if these are, but a good majority of NYC’s labor workers are illegal immigrants.  We as a country are highly critical of the illegals… but without them, we’d be stuck!

I find this story highly amusing.

Teacher asked class to draw something that “reminds them of Christmas”.  Second grade kid drew dead Jesus on the cross (and told teacher it was himself).  Teacher, concerned about the kid’s underlying violent tendencies, sent him for psychiatric evaluation.  Community got furious, labeling it as an antichrist execution of the separation of church and state.  Black dad pulls the racial card.  Everyone is blaming the teacher.

This story is controversial in many aspects, not even mentioning how some of the accused details were made up by the parents.  Judging from the Internet comments, people focus way more on the religious aspect than anything else, complaining about the lack of freedom to express religious beliefs in this country.  Well, if the teacher was seriously having issues with Christianity, how would she give a Christmas-themed assignment in the first place?

What I see is this: teacher suspects of a problem and takes an action, the suspected goes berserk, and the act of suspicion becomes labelled as the biggest crime known to men.  Now, let’s not forget what people say when a crazy kid actually gets violent in school - “oh he showed ‘obvious’ psycho signs but the ignorant teacher did nothing about it…”

It’s tough running a school nowadays.

Two of the hottest current headlines: people oppose the use of public or private insurance funds to kill embryo cells, yet get upset that doctors may no longer recommend an ineffective and potentially harmful procedure for women.

Although the majority of our society isn’t about making sense, people should realize that our tax dollars are already used in tens of thousands of ways that we may not approve.  Don’t like to kill?  Too bad, we’re already paying for missle launchers abroad and don’t have any say in it.  Abortion in perspective is really not a big deal.  America won’t be a very honest land of the free if our people keep sticking their noses in their neighbors’ pregnancies.

The mammogram issue is funny in a whole different way.  All the testimonials go something like, “I had it, I think it worked, so it must work for everybody and I’m pissed off that doc might no longer recommend it.”

It’s a well known fact that actuaries are dull people, so the term “actuarial drama” is nearly as much an oxymoron as “business ethics”.  Well, guess what?  We’ve got one.

Bruce Schobel, arguably one of the most well-known and respected senior actuaries in the circle, had recently been removed as the president-elect from the American Academy of Actuaries, as a result of a felony he commited 30 years ago.

Bruce was a past president of the Society of Actuaries, and had highly engaged himself in public policy, professional promotion, and education reform for this profession.  At the same time, he’s constantly on online forums to provide information to actuaries and to help students study for exams.  To the junior exam takers and those without powerful top connections, he was somebody who really cared.  As the president of the SOA, he had signed and delivered over 1,000 FSA certificates, including mine: 

Now, it’s a shocker to hear about his ugly history, and it’s reasonable for a profession to expect high integrity in its members and leaders… but for a mistake taken place 30 years ago, are we really gonna lose one of the best individuals out there?  How much should a wrongdoing haunt down its doer long after the laws might have expunged it?

All I know is that somebody with a criminal record can still become the president or congressman of the United States.

WSJ: Review Finds No Nutritional Benefit to Organic Food.

And that’s not all… according to my forestry professors:

1. Farming chemicals (pesticides, etc) are very easy to wash off
2. You probably should wash your food anyway
3. Some plants without external pesticide protection can develop similar chemicals internally to fend off attackers (bugs, people); you can’t wash that off

Face masks are a common accessory in Asia.  People in Taiwan wear it to shield themselves from dust, pollens and viruses, and to keep their own sicknesses from spreading to others.  Hong Kong, Japan, and likely other surrounding countries, share the common etiquette in their cultures - something I slowly forgot after moving to the United States.

This morning, for the very first time in the US, I saw somebody wear a face mask in public.

And the second time.  And the third.

The swine flu has hit the US at a threatening level, and NYC has been hit the hardest.  The first couple of cases were discovered right here in Queens, which is also a crowded neighborhood for any virus’s convenience. Morning commute on the Subway is filled with endless surprises even without a pademic warning out there, so no wonder people started taking action to protect themselves.  Hmm. Maybe I should be worried too?

Last Saturday night, people around the world turned their lights off to conserve energy, in celebration of the Earth Hour 2009.  Click to see some amazing city skyline transitions from light to dark.

I did not hear about this event until Sean and Alice brought it up, when I took them sightseeing and they questioned why the office buildings don’t shut their lights off at night.  Obviously, you don’t see New York in this series of pictures as an Earth Hour participant.

Damn… a smaller scale, but equally horrific news story from my beloved VT campus.

Click to read.  I suppose it’s appropriate to not attach any picture to this post.

I guess, though, that nasty things like this happen all the time, everywhere, and it’s just the matter of whether we (especially the media) choose to pay attention.  That’s a pretty scary thought.

The president to get a spy-proof smart phone in place of his favorite BlackBerry.

I’m not interested in the security measures that the president has to obey, but this article really caught my attention.  It seems like the leaders of our country is very behind technologically… cannot use e-mail?  Sucks to be a president!

I wonder if his daughters will even be allowed to have Facebook profiles.

Thursday, January 15th - US Airways plane crashed into the Hudson River.  The tail of the plane could be seen from my office.  Kind of surreal to see that kind of thing in the water.  It was unbearly cold that day, too.

Thursday, January 22nd - Van crashing in Chinatown killed 2 children, wounded many.  That’s where I buy my groceries!  My $4-a-dozen Asian pears!

I wonder if this proves that air travel is safer than land travel.  You can survive in one piece from a plane crash but may suffer much more from walking legally on a sidewalk…

Sigh, why is New York such an “eventful” city?