August 12, 2008 - Fuxing North Road, along the raised tracks of the MRT Brown line.


August 14, 2008 - Burning "spirit money", Taiwan's unique contribution to global warming. Although such traditions are part of the glue that holds society together and gives a culture its identity.

Strange. Or not. With signs of positive movement in the stock markets, I kinda don't want the economy to recover so quick. I also find Obama losing some of his sheen when he says things like the auto industry cannot be allowed to collapse, although I watched his town hall in Strasbourg, France, and was affirmed that he is a great orator and fundamentally a great president who sincerely first and foremost wants to steer the U.S. and the world into a more enlightened direction. He just can't be as radical as one hopes.

The auto industry can't collapse? Why not? They're dinosaurs and time is coming for its extinction into a being specialized industry. If the auto industry collapses, it may be economically devastating in the short term, but something will emerge to fill in the void it creates. It's only natural. It's natural selection, and if the auto industry can't survive on its own, it's not the fittest for survival. Furthermore, what emerges can focus on the key word for the future of the planet - sustainability. Saving the auto industry is not a move towards sustainability, economically or environmentally.

Same with the stock market recovering and still using "growth" as the measure of wealth and success. I mentioned my problem with growth as a yardstick, and he was like, "without growth, what's the point?". And I think he's exactly right, and that's exactly the problem - it's a mindset we can't even conceive of getting out of.

OK, if the stock market recovers and shows signs of an improving overall economy, maybe that also means that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the system, and all there needs to be is regulatory tweaking and more, much more, oversight. International oversight.

But going back to any sort of status quo would be a loss of a huge opportunity to move forward. And also stymies our need for sustainability. No one wants to suffer, no one wants to suffer the pain of a long depression. But our fixes, unless sustainability is in every sentence of the fix, to avoid pain for ourselves seems to just add to the hardships our children and future generations might have to face.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Portia (Throwing Muses)
2. Angel (Belly)
3. Dashboard (Modest Mouse)
4. Glass Onion (The Beatles - Anthology)
5. sola (Kaela Kimura)
6. Circle (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians)
7. Love and Mathematics (Broken Social Scene)
8. Thick as a Brick (Jethro Tull)
9. To Your Love (Fiona Apple)
10. Cool Guitar Girl (J Church)