Random thoughts as my vacation winds down
Jan. 13th, 2022 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anna_wing1 Working my way down the to-do list, and accumulating stuff to pack. Pre-travel PCR test and quarantine hotel at destination already booked. Should get flu shot too, just in case.
2 Yesterday I found treaure at our local Japanese supermarket: a box of Japanese strawberries at perfect ripeness, and therefore 75% off i.e. roughly the same price as the Korean strawberries next to it, at a mere 50% off. I bought the Japanese ones and had them at lunch. Yum. They really are the best. Sweet, firm, flavourful, big enough for two bites, and beautifully red.
3 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2022/01/05/global-journalism-reborn-what-difference-does-it-make/
I saw this, and laughed a lot. Contrary to what the New York Times appears to think, journalism from a US (or UK, or Australian, or South African or any other country's) perspective, whether left or right, is no more "objective" or "unbiased" than journalism from anyone else's perspective. The intelligent reader adjusts her assessment of what she is reading according to her understanding of where and how strong its biases are. It's like having an accent. Everyone has one. "Unaccented" applies locally and in restricted social circles only. As for the value of an external perspective, yes, there is some; certainly I prefer to read non-US media for news and analysis of the US for this reason.
In a global news market that already contains the Financial Times (now owned by Nikkei), Al Jazeera English, Nikkei Asia, the Economist, Channel News Asia, the BBC, the Bangkok Post, and even Janes Defence Weekly, I am not at all sure that those 200 million "unserved" English-speaking professionals (really? So few?) are actually short of information.
4 Collected the walking shoes from my dance shoe shop. One pair in black matte leather, one pair in two-tone matte-black and dark-brown mock-croc. Perfect and beautiful.
5 The former neighbours were decent and responsible, and re-homed the dozen stray cats they were feeding before they sold the house and moved away. Nature abhorring a vacuum, there are now at least a couple more hanging around, though I am not sure how many are actually strays. One big ginger chap apppears to be the new King of the Cul-de-Sac. He swaggers through my garden regularly, and occasionally sits on people's walls in the evening, yowling. I look forward to the day that he gets the squirrel that chews holes in my coconuts and drinks the water. The wretched rodent waltzed up the tree right in front of me the other day, undeterred by the slipper and vile epithets that I hurled in its direction. It is fat and glossy, and would make a nice meal for the cat...
2 Yesterday I found treaure at our local Japanese supermarket: a box of Japanese strawberries at perfect ripeness, and therefore 75% off i.e. roughly the same price as the Korean strawberries next to it, at a mere 50% off. I bought the Japanese ones and had them at lunch. Yum. They really are the best. Sweet, firm, flavourful, big enough for two bites, and beautifully red.
3 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2022/01/05/global-journalism-reborn-what-difference-does-it-make/
I saw this, and laughed a lot. Contrary to what the New York Times appears to think, journalism from a US (or UK, or Australian, or South African or any other country's) perspective, whether left or right, is no more "objective" or "unbiased" than journalism from anyone else's perspective. The intelligent reader adjusts her assessment of what she is reading according to her understanding of where and how strong its biases are. It's like having an accent. Everyone has one. "Unaccented" applies locally and in restricted social circles only. As for the value of an external perspective, yes, there is some; certainly I prefer to read non-US media for news and analysis of the US for this reason.
In a global news market that already contains the Financial Times (now owned by Nikkei), Al Jazeera English, Nikkei Asia, the Economist, Channel News Asia, the BBC, the Bangkok Post, and even Janes Defence Weekly, I am not at all sure that those 200 million "unserved" English-speaking professionals (really? So few?) are actually short of information.
4 Collected the walking shoes from my dance shoe shop. One pair in black matte leather, one pair in two-tone matte-black and dark-brown mock-croc. Perfect and beautiful.
5 The former neighbours were decent and responsible, and re-homed the dozen stray cats they were feeding before they sold the house and moved away. Nature abhorring a vacuum, there are now at least a couple more hanging around, though I am not sure how many are actually strays. One big ginger chap apppears to be the new King of the Cul-de-Sac. He swaggers through my garden regularly, and occasionally sits on people's walls in the evening, yowling. I look forward to the day that he gets the squirrel that chews holes in my coconuts and drinks the water. The wretched rodent waltzed up the tree right in front of me the other day, undeterred by the slipper and vile epithets that I hurled in its direction. It is fat and glossy, and would make a nice meal for the cat...
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Date: 2022-01-13 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-15 03:06 pm (UTC)