(no subject)

I'd like to beat my Libertarian friends to the punch with a link I leeched from Metafilter. This comes from Rule of Law and Confucianism, part 3 of Henry C.K. Liu's article entitled "The Abduction of Modernity", meant to illustrate the fallacies in the Western assumption that our civilization, and those that copy it, are the only truly civilized ones.

The Confucian Code of Rites (Liji) is expected to be the controlling document on civilized behavior, not law. In the Confucian world view, rule of law is applied only to those who have fallen beyond the bounds of civilized behavior. Civilized people are expected to observe proper rites. Only social outcasts are expected to have their actions controlled by law. Thus the rule of law is considered a state of barbaric primitiveness, prior to achieving the civilized state of voluntary observation of proper rites. What is legal is not necessarily moral or just.

I didn't have time to read the whole thing during my lunch break. But I'd already heard that the Chinese have different words for written and unwritten law, and that the idea of written law was resisted by those spiritual advisers who knew that written laws lead to litigious societies, much like ours.

I think whenever an American sues a fast food company for making fattening food, or a tobacco company for making unhealthy products, or another American for some perceived insensitivity, someone in Taiwan reads that story and is grateful they don't live here. One wonders if they even know about homeowner's associations.

On the other hand, I wonder whether a system such as theirs would prevent the kind of perfectly Western-legal behavior from corporations, that causes grief to so many of us in the United States. Here, Wal-Mart can muscle out a big fraction of the local business in a small town. They couldn't do it if their presence so offended the town that nobody shopped there. Could the RIAA and MPAA exist in a Confucian society?

I've got to remember to read this when I have more time.

(no subject)

I have a co-worker who's all snarky about people like me who were excited that the Cubs might make it to the World Series, people who weren't even baseball fans until this happened. He's probably ecstatic right now.

He's a native White Sox fan.

(no subject)

It seems my taste in reality shows is sort of on the fringes.

The latest thing I've started watching is Jamie's Kitchen, in which British TV chef Jamie Oliver picks 15 unemployed college-age unemployed, gives them a year of training and has them staff a restaurant.

It's at Episode 3 so far, and it's evident that this show is not some Fox production, where people live in a mansion and every day we put them in a Skinner box and see what they do. This is an actual project with the intention of opening an actual restaurant with these actual people staffing it full-time. And it's not a game show, either; their only possible prize is a career. And the show gives the very real possibility that the project will ultimately fail big-time.

And great Darwin's ghost, did they ever pick a handful of slackers or what. There are three chronic truants, and a couple of people with huge attitude problems. There's one girl who starts blubbering about not having any money every time the issue comes up, even though the show is paying for her transportation. Jamie and the other teachers have gotten deeply involved with trying to keep these kids on track, but I don't think it's going to work on all of them.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone contracted salmonella as a result of this show. The preview for tomorrow's episode contained the phrase "medium-rare chicken."

I do wish they didn't bleep "taking the piss".

(no subject)

Place your bets: will Kid Notorious last longer than, oh, six episode?

Oh, look, a show about a slimy Hollywood socialite. Because nobody's ever made a show about Hollywood before. I wonder what the American people will think of this mysterious, far-off land, and its secretive culture?

I don't think I'll even watch it. And I watched most of an episode of Stripperella.