Why?
Why, for love, of course!
But if that’s not a good enough reason, here are a few more reasons with real emotional, intellectual, social and psychological benefits, to you and all who can look at your Facebook Wall, unlike most other memes.
Why Chinese Mothers are NOT Superior (aka Why Chinese Fathers are Not Needed)
Amy Chua with daughters Louisa and Sophia
Yale Law Professor Amy Chua recently released a memoir called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Talk about cheesy titles. Essentially, it was about the so-called “Chinese” method of raising children that was very strict, and why it was superior, as her Wall Street Journal essay (Why Chinese Mothers are Superior, Amy Chua in WSJ, Jan 8 2011).
Essentially, it’s how one clever woman is playing the race card in on offense, in a sly way to keep tension from building while generating debate and getting her lots of money and attention. This book would be nothing but for the hype generated by these racial insinuations.
If you want the details on the no sleepover, no dates, trashing your children, threatening to burn your children’s toys, forcing them to take either piano or violin and not settling for As in school, you can read the WSJ link above or the multitude of other related articles like this one from Canada’s Globe & Mail (Why Chinese Parenting is Best, G&M Jan 11 2011).
Note again the racial insinuation in the title.
That’s because its supposed “self-deprecating” nature that was in good jest, according to Amy, is all hear say and not backed up by anything but her opinion. She is presenting an argument on what isn’t “visible”, concentrating on what is, which is the successful products of the method. But how many have been failed by the method and had their lives ruined, and who will never be known?
Should There Be Horoscopes for Ophiuchus?
The world has finally been enlightened to the true dates of the zodiac, and that it contains a 13th sign called Ophiuchus, the “serpent-bearer”. Many of those formerly told they were born under Scorpio and Sagittarius were actually born under Ophiuchus. Should they have their own horoscopes now that the world has been enlightened to this?
If you want to make a real case about it, Scorpio is only 7 days long in the current alignment of the zodiac, while Ophiuchus is 18 days long. It would hardly seem fair Ophiuchus gets left out!
And if you believe in horoscopes, how could you believe it to be accurate if you knew a full real sign were left out?
New Horoscope Dates Explained (but will people use them?)
The 12 used zodiac constellations seen in the night sky
It’s old news, but it probably went viral this time because of social media. The dates of the zodiac used for telling horoscopes that so many people in the Western world follow are completely off! Astrology has been using a system that has been constantly changing for 3,000 years so that it’s about a month off now. But now that the world knows about it, what are people going to do about it? An explanation and some things to consider follows.
The Babylonians invented the zodiac system about 3,000 years ago. They noticed the sun passed through 13 constellations of the many they had mapped in the night sky. Passing through is a visual perspective as the Sun does not literally pass through any of the constellations. That needs another whole article if you don’t get that so I’ll pass given it doesn’t have relevance here. Yet, despite the 13 constellations the Sun looks to pass through, the Babylonians opted for 12 in creating the zodiac system we know today. Guess trisdekaphobia, the fear of the number 13, has been around for a while. The Babylonians left out Ophiuchus, with the Greek name given later to be the “serpent-bearer”, that is placed between Scorpio and Sagittarius.
Haiku Facebook Status Idea and Challenge
I have a friend living in Japan who has only updated her Facebook status this year with that most famous of engaging Japanese poetry forms, the haiku. From her first haiku update this year, Sarah Jane Blenkhorn, originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, declared that she intended to keep this up all through 2011.
What a really neat idea! It’s something I can see being on CNN or other sites which posts neat Internet undertakings, especially after a decent body of work might have been done. I would say about 200 haiku status updates should be enough, or about half way through the year, to get the world watching the rest of the year.
I’m sharing this idea because aside from it being neat, I think it’d be a great challenge for those of you out there looking for interesting ways to liven your Facebook status updates. You don’t have to use haikus, although they are easily engaging, or do it for a year. Maybe just do some poetry for a certain time, like National Poetry Month in April. I’m considering that as I am writing. I have a lot of visitors who come to this site for the Facebook tagging memes I’ve created, as well as Facebook safety and advice. I hope some of you will take up this challenge. I think it should be a national movement in Japan!
In practicing good Facebook behaviour, Sarah Jane’s status updates are not publicly available. I have encouraged Sarah Jane to hook up her Facebook status updates to a micro-blog, much the way one can hook up Twitter feeds to WordPress micro-blogs, so the world can share in her entertaining and thoughtful Facebook status updates. Nothing has become of it so far, but she did give me permission to share what she has written so far.
Digital Citizen 