April-May Issue

Better Expos, Better Life?

Shanghai Expo 2010, and the Fairly Short Version of the Long History of World Expos

BY MOÈ

NAKAYAMA

“Welcome to Shanghai!” When I went to Shanghai two months ago for

APAC Band, the little blue guy was everywhere. Everywhere I went, he was there to greet me with a chummy smile and a casual hand wave. I didn’t know it then, but his name was Haibao— “treasure of the seas”— and he was the official mascot of the Shanghai Expo 2010.

Now, as April comes to a close, the Expo is less than a week away. In Japan, the Expo has gained increased attention particularly because of its copyright-related scandals. Its theme song’s unsubtle resemblance to a 1997 Japanese pop song (I mean, seriously, they didn’t even bother to change the key!) and Haibao’s disturbing likeness to Gumby, the American TV character, were initially explained to be pure coincidences by China. The former scandal has been resolved: the “composer” admitted to his plagiarism, and the Expo asked for the singer’s permission to use her work as the Expo theme song.

And the latter scandal? Apparently, Haibao is Haibao. He is not Gumby version 2010.

Besides such suspicions and the rather worrisome number of unfinished pavilions, the Shanghai Expo is looking pretty impressive. As the first exposition to be held in the world’s rising superpower, Shanghai expects 70 million visitors to marvel at its colourful display of mankind’s progress in its 5.28 sq km site along the Huangpu River.

Its motto, Better City, Better Life, articulates its intent to explore the potentials of urbanisation. Shanghai, one of the busiest places in the world today in 2010, “will advocate the concept of the ‘City of Harmony’ as the city we must strive to create in this new century” (Bureau International des Expositions, 2010). The Expo seeks harmony between mankind and nature, man and man, and spiritual and material realms in the areas of culture, economy, science and technology, communities and rural-urban interactions. This focus on city life is reflected in Haibao as well, whose shape was inspired not from Gumby but from the kanji “人” meaning “people.”

As unique as its theme may be, the overall spirit of the Shanghai Expo is not new. The celebration of humanity’s achievements is a constant and overarching theme in expos, or world fairs, in general. World fairs have a long history— the first modern example was “The Great Exhibition” proposed by Prince Albert and held in London in 1851. It can be said that they date back even further to the medieval large-scale markets, where buyers and sellers from all over Europe would converge to create “an atmosphere of mutual understanding and fellowship between people of different nations and often conflicting cultures” (BIE, 2010). After the 1851 Exhibition, numerous cities followed suit. But as with all projects of such massive scale, problems ensued; despite the international nature of these fairs, there was no international committee to govern these events. Thus the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) was inaugurated in 1928, after a first failed attempt interrupted by the First World War. Since then, the Paris-based BIE has overseen the

organisation and manifestation of nearly thirty expos in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

The BIE founds itself on the three fundamental values of trust, solidarity and progress. It hopes for the creation of Expos that bring people together through joint effort and contribute to moral, material and technological advancement. It classifies expos into two main types: “registered” world expos and “recognised” international expos.

Shanghai Expo 2010 is the second world expo of the 21st century (the first being Expo 2005 held in Aichi, Japan). The upcoming Expo in Yeosu, Korea, will be a smaller-scale international expo, lasting three months from May to August 2012.

The grand opening of the Shanghai Expo 2010 on 1 May will surely arouse the excitement of the global community. Whether or not it actually achieves its expected 70 million visitors, the Expo will amuse us with its confident demonstration of not only its host city’s progress, but also mankind’s progress in general. In a time of rapidly worsening environmental crisis, one area of particular interest is the Expo’s

response (if it has any) to the need for a nature-friendly city. Urbanisation necessitates economic growth—but we really can’t afford to sacrifice Earth for economy much longer.

Better City, Better Life. Well, China, as excited as we are for your first major event since the magnificent Beijing Olympics in 2008, we must say that we’re a bit worried about those half-risen, scaffold-enveloped pavilions. You should probably try to finish them, ASAP. And one more thing—beware of copyright laws! After all, harmony is contingent upon honesty and fairness. Right? References:

Bureau International des Expositions. (n.d.) In Official site of the Bureau International des Expositions. Retrieved April 23, 2010, from http://www.bie-paris.org/site/

Dannyrogue. (2010, April 20). China travel forum. Message posted to http://www.chinatravel.net/forum/Shanghai-Shanghai-Expo-2010-Expo-soft-opening-in-pictures-The-best-and-worst/3752.html

Expo 2010 Shanghai China. (2006). In World expo 2010 China Shanghai official website. Retrieved April 23, 2010, from http://en.expo2010.cn/

Expo (exhibition). (2010). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved April 23, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/

2010 Shanghai Expo Site. (2009, November 27). In China Expat. Retrieved April 23, 2010, from http://www.echinacities.com/special/shanghai-expo-2010/Content.aspx?n=4460

BOOBQUAKE!

BY NINA GALLO

Congratulations! If you’re reading this, you have successfully survived the world’s first “Boobquake”.

Jen McCreight is the creator of Boobquake, an event that took place on Monday, April 26, successfully garnering the support of more than 50,000 individuals on Facebook alone.

The event was McCreight’s response to a quote by Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi. “Many women who do not dress modestly…lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” he said in a Friday sermon in Theran.

Now it should be known that blaming natural disasters on particular members of society is not solely limited to Muslim clerics. In 2005 Jerry Ferwell, an American Baptist cleric proclaimed that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of punishing New Orleans for its “child-murder-by-abortion centers”. More recently, Pat Robertson, an American Christian televangelist and TV host said in response to the Haiti earthquake that Haitians need to have a “great turning to God” since the country has been "cursed by one thing after another" since they "swore a pact to the devil."

Regardless, as both a scientists and a feminist, McCreight felt obligated to respond to Sedighi’s ignorant “hypothesis”. She took to her blog to promote Boobquake as a way for "other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts." "With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake," she wrote on her blog.

With the help of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, within 24 hours McCreight was able to recruit tens of thousands of supporters willing to test Seidghi’s hypothesis by agreeing to show as much cleavage as possible on Monday, April 26.

So did women dressing immodestly actually increase seismic activity?

Below is a graph of the total number of earthquakes that have taken place per day since February 5th. The red square on the graph represents Boobquake and as you can clearly see by looking at the data, the provocative dress of women seemed to

have no effect on the frequency of earthquakes during the day (surprise, surprise).

In fact, the study revealed that the mean magnitude of earthquakes that took place on Boobquake had actually decreased slightly compared to past earthquakes. Not only does this data clearly contradict Sedighi’s claim, but as McCreight wrote in her blog, “develops an even more interesting alternative hypothesis: Maybe immodest women actually decrease the amount of earthquakes!” Obviously, McCreight will need to further study the relationship between women’s cleavage and earthquakes before she can validate such claims, but it would certainly be an interesting way to provide disaster relief in the future. Reference HEUSSNER, K. (2010). ABC News. Retrieved on April 29, 2010, from

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/boobquake-today-cleavage-earthquakes/story?id=10474704&page=2

Obama announces offshore drilling plan

BY DAN WESSON Ever the ink blot, people have generally viewed Obama as however they saw fit. It’s why Republicans still regard Obama as a free market opponent and socialist, and it’s why Democrats have seen him as a powerful leader guided by a liberal ideology. This ink blot comparison allows us to understand why Democrats felt stabbed in the back when Obama announced his plan

(still a mere proposal) to allow exploration, study, and possible oil drilling off the East Coast of the United States from Florida to Delaware, including some areas of northern Alaska. The problem being environmental risk in the case of a spill and the benefit being increased oil independence of the US, albeit the areas opened up are not expected to yield large amounts of oil, and even then, Americans would only be pumping the oil into their cars by around 2015 at the earliest. The expected reaction from Republicans is some surprise and great elation, greatly summed up by a McCain Twitter post, “Drill baby drill! Good move” and a Palin Twitter post, “Drill, baby, drill.” Yet staying true to the Republican attitude of recent years, some Republicans found a way to attack Obama’s incredibly conservative and Republican-esque decision. Politico writes “[John Boehner, Republican from Ohio] is still blasting the Obama administration for keeping areas on the West Coast closed to such exploration” because apparently, the near 300 million acres freed up by the plan is not enough. Obama “continues to defy the will of the American people”, says Boehner; the logic being that all Americans want more ocean freed up for drilling, therefore, freeing up the ocean for drilling defies their will (what?). Environmentalists are predictably displeased by the plan coming from the man they thought was an ally. The Sierra Club’s (notorious American environmentalist hippie-magnet crew since 1892) executive director commented, “it [Obama’s plan] will only jeopardize beaches, marine life, and coastal tourist economies, all so the oil industry can make short-term profit”. A branch of the Sierra Club in Virginia is “deeply disappointed” with the proposal. But realistically, no one should be surprised in the least. Obama has gone on record since before becoming president and said he is “open to the prospect of offshore drilling”. But why issue this proposal now of all times? Avid Obama supporters, unwilling to believe that Obama truly thinks offshore drilling is a good idea, assert that Obama is attempting to extend a hand towards Republicans in order to formulate a comprehensive energy reform bill in the coming months. Obama has asserted that this decision is indeed the first step in the direction of clean energy and energy independence. His logic follows that achieving clean energy and independence is prudent for the long term, and to cushion the short term set back to the economy, we must drill some more American oil. Recent polls show that the issue on voters’ minds is the economy while the environment lags far behind. With this proposal, Obama attempts to reassure Americans that their priorities are the same as his, while dodging a

powerful environmentalist backlash from his Democrat base as oil rigs are very far off as of now. It all sounds quite crafty; yet reaching the presidency takes more than realizing that a few words will please some people while the lack of action won’t displease others. Obama, with this decision, has effectively made a way out for Democrats soon up for midterm reelections from the hardcore liberal stance they will be charged with from supporting the healthcare bill. Beyond this, Obama has put Republicans in a bit of a pickle. Offshore drilling is and always has been a characteristically Republican thing to support. With the GOP shaking their heads at everything Obama does in an attempt to derail him, stall change, and therefore label him ineffective, they will appear quite silly if they oppose him here—something Obama undoubtedly knows. Republicans up for reelection who apparently oppose offshore drilling will receive raised eyebrows from their conservative base. Maybe the move is meant to be a reverse psychology stunt, that is, a weird trick meant to turn Republicans into environmentalists. It would fit with the fact that the Obama administration has made the largest investment in US history in green energy, something surprisingly under publicized. But really, who knows what’s behind the proposal? There’s no correct answer on a Rorschach test. References BRODER, J. M. (2010, March 31). Obama Oil Drilling Plan Draws Critics –

NYTimes.com.The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/science/earth/01energy.html?pagewanted=1

O'BRIEN, MICHAEL. "McCain, Palin revive 'Drill, baby, drill!' slogan from '08 campaign O'BRIEN, M. (2010, March 31). McCain, Palin revive 'Drill, baby, drill!' slogan from '08 campaign - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room. TheHill.com. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/90075-mccain-palin-revive-drill-baby-drill-slogan-from-08-campaign

SHERMAN, J. (2010, March 31). John Boehner: Drilling decision falls short – Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com. Politics, Polit ical News - POLITICO .com. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35240.html

PolitiFact | Obama didn't expand offshore drilling, Boehner says. (2010, April 5).Politi Fact | Sorting out the truth in politics. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/23/john-boehner/obama-didnt-expand-offshore-drilling-boehner-says/

Obama Announces Offshore Drilling. (2010, March 31).YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh32n-kwnqM

RICH, F. (2010, April 3). Op-Ed Columnist - It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Obama! - NYTimes.com. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04rich.html?scp=1&sq=obama%20rorschach&st=cse

Turning Japanese: Part 7

BY SEAMUS BELLEW

I write Turning Japanese because I love music and I want to share that love, however naïve it seems. What irritates me is when I see people’s iPods filled with nothing other than the latest hits by Lady Gaga and Jay-Z. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-popular music (I do have a secret liking for Gaga) but I get annoyed when people simply don’t bother to expand their horizons. There are so many artists out there who play great music that I’m sure would make an appearance on those iPods if it weren’t for the fact that they aren’t in the top 40 songs of the week. Expanding your musical horizons can lead you to places you never thought you could be. Music is just so vast and diverse that there is sure to be something for everyone.

There are several places to start looking for new music. There is of course Youtube and Myspace, but I find blogs to be the most helpful. They are full of insight and are always trying to bring in the newbie. I have found two blogs in particular especially nifty for my purposes.

The first is featured on New Musical Express or NME. The Daily Download gives out several free MP3s a day with a brief description for each. It features mainly indie music, but again, even this leads to many new avenues. Check out their website, http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=122 Also see NME radio for an introduction into new music around.

Another useful site is RCRD LBL. It features tens of thousands of free MP3s, from blues to rap and everything in between. It is a massive database guaranteed to please anyone. You can find this helpful site at http://rcrdlbl.com/

Now please, for the love of music, replenish those playlists and download some fresh new tunes!

The Cove

BY GRACE MEIKLE

If you look up The Cove on the internet, you’ll find it’s an award-winning documentary about the annual dolphin slaughter in a secret cove off the coast of Taiji, Japan. The Cove received raving reviews for its artistry and message combined with a thrilling story line that plays out much like Mission Impossible. The premise is basically that each year, in this secret cove, thousands upon thousands of dolphins are trapped during their migration, then either sold or brutally killed by Japanese fishermen until the water in the cove turns crimson red.

The film is inspired by the work of former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry, part of the original F lipper cast (F lipper is a famous American TV show from the 1960s starring a dolphin named Flipper). He became opposed to dolphin captivity and an advocate for dolphin rights after one of the show’s dolphins committed suicide in his arms by deliberately closing its blowhole. He now spends much of his time in Taiji, protesting the dolphin slaughter and hassling the fishermen and officials who oversee the local dolphin business. He has come to be known as something of a town nuisance. Under O’Barry’s guidance, former National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos spearheads the mission to shed light on the cove’s activities. O’Barry and Psihoyos come up with a team of skilled activists consisting of professional deep-sea

divers, photographers, technical experts, and daredevils that will help them first gain access to the secret cove, then covertly observe and film the bloodbath. After quite a lot of sneaking around, they are able to gain some limited footage by disguising underwater microphones and cameras as rocks and placing them at various vantage points throughout the cove.

I was neither moved by this film, nor did I like it at all. But it did raise in me a couple of questions.

There are a number of ideas presented in the film which I won’t get into, but overall I think the main trouble with this dolphin-activist business arises from the disparity between how the Japanese fishermen and the filmmakers view these animals. In the film, Psihoyos and O’Barry really seem to think of dolphins as more than animals—fellow creatures who have just a right to exist freely as our fellow human beings. Their attitudes regarding the subject are much the same as one would expect if the slaughter were of humans rather than dolphins. They discuss, in considerable length, the human-like characteristics of dolphins; their self-awareness, their emotions, their language capabilities. They even imply that in many ways, dolphins are actually wiser, more complete creatures than human beings. Thus, to them it is abominable that dolphins were be slain in such a brutal manner and on such a large scale.

On the other hand, O’Barry and Psihoyos are dumbfounded and angry when the Japanese government comes back at them and says the dolphin slaughter is about “pest control”. To the government, and especially to the fishermen, killing the dolphins is no more murderous than setting mousetraps or pulling weeds. The dolphins are just big fish; we wouldn’t get angry if the same thing were happening with fish or another lesser animal. In other words, the dolphin slaughter is only a moral issue if you assume that dolphins have rights, which the fishermen don’t.

For me personally, having little to no experience with dolphins (except petting them at Seaworld, interactions which the film condemns) yet having no more desire to eat one than I do to eat a dog, it is hard for me to sympathize with either side. The best way I can come up with an opinion is by picturing that the same thing was happening to dogs. I love dogs, and I can’t imagine life without a pet dog. If someone where killing them en masse I would probably get very upset about it, especially if it were something local. But ultimately, to me, this dolphin killing is one of hundreds of thousands of cases of its kind going on in the world every day. In Canada,

hunters kill seals by banging them on the head with rocks. In China, they kill cute little puppies and make them into stew. It happens, and it’s fine to have opinions about it, but we can’t condemn each other morally if we don’t all start from the same premise.

On a side note, I think it’s dangerous and rather dishonest to mix moral issues with money-making entertainment. Topics of grave moral importance are not meant to be entertaining, nor should they play out like Mission Impossible.

An American reality: or, the essentiality of tapping into The Wire

BY RYAN MIYAKE

I've been fervently telling my friends to watch The Wire, originally broadcasted by television's patron saint HBO (responsible also for Deadwood and The Sopranos, two of the very few shows that rival the brilliance of The Wire), for no less than a year by now. Sadly, only one has actually acted upon my demand, and he thanks me profusely. Every time I bring the show up, the first question thrown at me is, unsurprisingly, "What is it about?". There is no brief answer to that question that can do the show justice, and I've noticed that most people generally display little interest in the show if it can’t be described in a

simple sentence at most. Taking this observation into consideration, here is my condensed pitch of David Simon's The Wire: possibly the best, most important TV show you will ever live to see.

Despite my disappointment in the miniscule size of the show's fan base at CA (which to my knowledge includes people you may know like Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Lucas), its lack of popularity here does not surprise me in the least. I've come to accept that television simply functions differently for different people. To many high school students, light programs like Gossip Girl, Jersey Shore, Entourage and the like provide a haven from constant onslaughts of homework and tests. By no means are my intentions to bash those shows or the people who watch them. In fact, their immense popularity makes complete sense to me: they are all essentially depictions of a certain American fantasy. The characters have more money, clothes, and beautiful folks around them than they can handle. Getting engrossed in the petty issues of people who have so much (the central conflict of a recent episode of Entourage, for example, was movie star Vince's inability to drive his gorgeous Maserati) proves a fun form of escapism. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Allow me to reiterate: my problem isn't with what most people are watching. It's what most people aren't watching. While the aforementioned shows open a window that can make us dream with envy, The Wire unveils truths about America that give us the impulse to open our own windows and yell "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!" in a moment of Howard Beale-scale inspiration (admittedly, this is an exaggeration, but being that this is a TV column, a reference to Network is in order). In short, The Wire is about an American reality that can be summed up fairly well in three words: America is broken. Anybody who’s been alive for the past decade can deduce this much. However, led by creator, co-

writer, and former police reporter David Simon, the team behind the show found a way to unravel this truth like never seen before. That is, through a 60 episode series of supreme character, plot and thematic development that rivals the very best books and films that deal with similar subject matter, mostly a testament to the uncanny talents of the writing staff (an unusually select group that includes lauded reporters and authors) and cast (a parade of small-name actors delivering home run performances).

On its surface, the show may appear to be a shrewd, sophisticated cops-and-criminals crime drama centered on the drug trade in Baltimore, Simon's beloved home city. Given the multitude of formulaic police dramas we're used to, such a description would appear to be a high compliment in itself. On the contrary, it’s an almost gross generalization. The Wire turns Baltimore into a microcosm, examining the city and its inhabitants at such a magnification that the program would act as a reliable blueprint to recreate the city. The first season introduces Baltimore's police department and the drug dealers they're chasing down, but not in the conventional manner of portraying the former as heroes and the latter as villains. The police force is balanced between white and black cops, while the dealers on the street are, realistically rather than conventionally, African American. Simon's show is distinct in its way of showing the same degree of sympathy to the characters on both sides of the war on drugs, giving us reasons to both love and hate most of them. Any viewer immediately gets the sense that these could surely be real people simply because the writers treat the characters as just that. The writers don't even hesitate to have the (ostensibly) main character of the first three seasons make a decision that leaves him minimal screen time in the fourth season. It's courageous choices like these that make The Wire so distinct. Nothing on the show is rushed. Plot lines and characters are developed slowly and

intimately over the entire course of the ten to twelve episode seasons. This has prompted the show to be called "broadcast literature" time and time again, as the show is novelistic in its scope, pacing and purpose. Like chapters in a book, no single episode can exist on its own. Each new season adds another dimension to the Baltimore microcosm, including the city's seaports and their shipments of drugs, women and the like, the politicians that occupy a solitary high-rank bubble, the public school system that can't save every kid from ending up in the crime-filled streets (focusing on a predominantly black elementary school, season four is by far the best season of television I've ever seen), and finally the media, specifically the Baltimore Sun newsroom, that finds success difficult to achieve without manipulating the truth ("The bigger the lie, the more they believe").

Simon has frequently called The Wire an angry

show, and he isn't lying. When he hears "America is broken", he takes it to heart. From his reporting to his books to his other shows, he has never aspired to do anything less than point a mirror at America while shouting tirelessly at its citizens to go and change itself. Generally, The Wire shows that no single group is to blame for the nation's current state, but no single group is exempt from blame either, that everything going wrong is cyclical and continued ignorance will leave the country as it is. There are so many themes unveiled in the program that an entire class could be taught on it, and indeed such courses exist in schools as prestigious as Harvard University and Duke University.

Simon's vision is undoubtedly pessimistic, yet the major accomplishment of this show, his definitive masterpiece, is its pathos. No show (and few films) has ever been able to devastate me emotionally to the degree that The Wire does. This is a series that

deprived me of sleep on more nights than I can count. It wasn’t depression keeping me awake, but heartbreak. More than anything, the reality and tragedy of the show imprinted a permanent mark on my conscience. I had turned my head away from the people that America essentially doesn’t need economically and thus hardly cares about for too long, and the show threw at me a much-needed uppercut to the chin. Yet a crucial reason for the show’s power is its hopefulness and humor. There are characters in the show that strive for honest change and put up real fights for hope of a better Baltimore. In addition, brilliantly hilarious scenes amazingly manage to pervade the entire run of the show amid all the pessimism. The series also houses some of the most compelling characters you'll ever see on a screen. Omar Little, notorious for his unique moral code that leads him to make a life out of robbing drug dealers, is the show's sole near-mythical figure (he wears a trench coat and wields a massive shotgun as if to be a modern cowboy) and easily a top contender in the "Greatest TV Character of All Time" race. Above all, this series is a masterwork of storytelling that, at its best, evokes shades of Dickens and Dostoevsky.

My desperation for The Wire to be widely recognized at CA is dire. This isn't a recommendation. This is required viewing. It’s time for you to make room in your life for this program (it starts off as a slow burn, but stick with it). Set aside Gossip Girl’s latest updates and check back in a few weeks. Settle for highlights of American Idol on YouTube. Put Entourage on hold for now and follow a celebrity on Twitter instead. Don’t ever watch another episode of the atrocious Jersey Shore. Go get your hands on The Wire (legally) and thank me later. References: Deans, J. (2009). TV ratings: The Wire's BBC2 debut draws 600,000 viewers.

Latest news, comment and reviews from the Guardian. Retrieved May 3rd, 2010 from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/31/the-wire-bbc2-ratings

Goldman, E. (2008). The Wire - the complete series DVD review. IGN. Retrieved May 3rd, 2010 from: http://dvd.ign.com/articles/937/937854p1.html

Morefield, K. (2009). Anarchy at the movies (part ii). 1More film blog. Retrieved May 3rd, 2010 from: http://1morefilmblog.com/wordpress/anarchy-at-the-movies-part-ii/

Weisberg, J. (2006). The wire on fire. Slate magazine. Retrieved May 3rd, 2010 from: http://www.slate.com/id/2149566

“I do.” But do you?

BY SAKI SHIMADA “I’ll call you later!” …oh I don’t think so. “I

won’t tell anyone”….mmmhmm, that’s what they all say. Many of us say these things, yet do we really mean them? We all make different kinds of promises in our daily interactions with others—whether it maybe a promise that is heavily binding morally, legally, or whatever other way, serious or not. Newlyweds say “I do” as a vow to promise to love and cherish each other no matter what for the rest of their lives, and hardly anybody makes this promise intending to break it.

Study from the University of Zurich in Switzerland led by Thomas Baumgartner shows that breaking a promise is a very complex neurobiological event, and excitingly enough, new a form of brain

scan may be able to predict who makes false promises and who intends to keep their word. This new finding will actually serve a useful purpose in the justice system as it will help in determining the true intentions of criminals who are up for early release on parole and deciding whether they may be released or if the risk of relapse is too high.

So, how did scientists come up with this brain scan? Well, using function MRI, the scientists at University of Zurich scanned the brains of subjects who were told to play a little game involving trust. Player A, who was outside the MRI scanner, had to decide whether to keep or give away a certain amount of money to Player B, whose brain was being scanned. If Player A chose to give the money to Player B, the amount would be increased five times. Player B, once entrusted with the money, could choose to either split the amount with Player A or keep it all. But the catch is that before Player A decided whether or hand over the money, Player B made one of four promises: If given the money, he would either always, mostly, sometimes or never share it---and once given the money, Player B could break his promise and keep everything, thereby causing Player A to face the dilemma of trusting or not trusting Player B’s promise. As opportunity costs plague this situation, the problem roots from the risk the investor faces of a loss if the trustee chose not to share. Nearly all the Player B subjects said they would split the money with Player A….but not everyone kept this promise.

The purpose of this activity was to investigate how brain activity differs when promises are kept and when they are broken. Hence the scan would concentrate on three specific phases during the game: when Player B made his promise; while he waited for Player A to decide whether to trust him; and finally when Player B decides to keep or break his chosen promise.

From this activity, the scan showed that nearly all participants fell into one of the two established groups—half were honest and consistently kept their promises, while the other half consistently broke promises. This outcome allowed for scientists to

compare the brain activity between honest and dishonest players. While the dishonest players broke their promises, the scan suggested that the dishonest players showed greater activity in the regions of the brain known to be involved in generating and regulating emotional and cognitive conflict but also showed greater activity in earlier stages when their behavior was indistinguishable from honest players. The scans suggested that promise breaks had more activity in the prefrontal cortex which indicates that planning and self-control were involved in suppressing the honest response, and the amygdale, which is in charge of the aversive and conflicting emotions like guilt and fear. Researchers have also examined if any brain regions showed increased activation in the honest players, but had no luck. They interpret this to mean that honesty may be a human “baseline”, as our brains might find it more effortful to be dishonest than honest—in essence, it is implied that we are hardwired to be honest. At the same time, it can be said that this honesty-related brain activity may be too subtle for such techniques to suggest.

As this brain scan provides interesting insight into how deception can be investigated experimentally, it is still important to note that these findings should be treated with caution. That is to say, the study does not provide concrete evidence that supports the existence of a definite correlation between brain activity and honesty. The topic may prove rather difficult to pin down precisely and capturing honesty with a simple test may be too unreliable to be used in more serious real-life situations.

The findings from this scan simply suggest that it may indeed be possible to detect if a person is about to break a promise based on their brain activity,

well before the promise is actually broken. The findings also show that deception can be successfully examined as a social act rather than in the context of lie-detection, which was prevalent in most of the recent studies.

This new study, which provides insight into questions like, Could we somehow tell in advance whether you’re going to keep or break a promise? or, Could we predict your decision by looking at what happens in your brain? now present a variety of new questions for future research, and can be used to supplement assessments by health professions rather than replace them.

So hmm, such a technique could maybe be used to take a peek into what goes on in the brain of a groom who says “I do”… Reference : Hamzelou, J. (December 10, 2009). Brain scan reveals who will keep their

promises from The New Scientist [Electronic version]. Retrieved April 23, 2010 from: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18266-brain-scan-reveals-who-will-keep-their-promises.html

4 things that should NOT be found inside a human body

BY LUCIA ARENZANA

As we draw nearer to the end of this school year, I can’t help but get a bit nostalgic about way back when in pre-school; the times when I didn’t have to worry about IB exams and heading off to university. I remember that as a kid I used to eat all kinds of things, including paper, glue, crayons, and play dough. Luckily none of these things really damaged me physiologically—I hope. In the midst of my nostalgia, I found myself wondering how is it

possible for the human body to ingest so many disgusting things, yet in the end it comes out, one way or another and no harm done. So I decided to do some research, and came upon an article of some of the weirdest objects ever found in a human body. This article even makes me feel normal for eating crayons or occasionally swallowing a penny or two. 1. Hairballs

Yes, just like a cat, a ball of hair has been found in the stomach of a human being. In 2007 a young woman of 18 complained she had stomach pains and had lost 40 pounds without even trying. After taking an X-ray and assuming it was a giant tumor, doctors operated on her only to realize what happened to be a 10-pound hair ball! Don’t worry, this can’t happen to you. This girl happened to be suffering from trichophagia, meaning she would eat her own hair. Of course it’s natural for girls or guys (if its possible) to chew on their hair a bit or chew on their nails, just don’t do it too much or else you’ll end up like the girl with the hairball in her stomach. 2. A fork

While this may seem harmless, the next case is one that is quite particular. A man by the name of John Manley complained about fits of coughing and pneumonia that had lasted two years; clearly something was wrong. After seeing several specialists, one doctor suggested they put a small camera down his lungs. What he found seemed to a tumor, with the logo of fast food chain imprinted on it: Wendy’s. Apparently, Mr. Manley had been eating at Wendy’s and was in quite a rush, when all of the sudden he inhaled a piece of his fork. By the end of his meal he had forgotten entirely about it and just continued on with his daily life. You know what I’m talking about; we’ve all been there before, right? Who am I kidding, what was this guy thinking?! You would seriously have to be dying of starvation not to notice a piece of plastic sliding down your windpipe! 3. Magnets

As I mentioned earlier, as kids we used to eat all kinds of crazy things, well just about anything we could get our hands on. However nothing like this next story of an eight year old girl who was taken to the hospital for severe stomach pains. It turns out she had swallowed over thirty magnets and chunks of metal! Luckily this is only common for small kids, so you don’t have to worry about this happening to you.

But just as a precaution, if it tastes like metal or rust, don’t eat it. 4. Cutlery

This may sound similar to the story of the fork; however when I say “cutlery” I mean not just forks, but spoons as well. Enter Margaret Daalman, a fifty-two-year-old Netherlands resident. She arrived at a hospital complaining of “crippling stomach pains” and what the X-rays revealed was what seemed to be a giant squid. After deciding to operate her to find out what in God’s name it was, they discovered, not just a couple of forks and spoons, oh no—by the time they were finished with the operation, they had removed over seventy eight!!! It’s almost unbelievable that a woman at her age would voluntarily ingest that entire set of cutlery.

You have to be clinically insane to swallow all

of that. Don’t you feel relieved, perhaps even more normal than before? As a child, it seems quite acceptable and very nearly a requirement to eat the weirdest crap. However, those stomach-damaging mannerisms should definitely stop once you’re fifteen, or there’s something wrong with your head as well. References: Fero, S. (April 12th 2010). The 7 Most Horrifying Things Ever Discovered in a

Human Body. Retrieved April 29th 2010, from Cracked.com: http://www.cracked.com/article_18470_the-7-most-horrifying-things-ever-discovered-in-human-body.html

My Top Ten Food Experiences in Japan

BY AZAR KHOSROWSHAHI

Food is not simply sustenance. It is a cause for celebration. Whether it is my daily family breakfast, lunch with my friends in the Canadian Academy cafeteria, a fancy dinner, or Japanese street food at a matsuri, enjoying delicious food in the presence of people whose company we enjoy is always a pleasurable event. What makes a great food experience is both the quality of the food and the memories that I associate with that food. Throughout my six years living in Japan I have had numerous delightful food experiences and the following are some of the most memorable. My Neighborhood Soba Restaurant

The inspiration for my soba salad article came in part from my neighborhood soba restaurant, Fukuakari. A ten-minute walk from my house, Fukuakari opened two years ago, and it is run by two young chefs. Every morning on my way to school, I pass the restaurant where I see the chef, Teru Tanaka, making the handmade soba noodles in the windowed work area, and on my way home, I see the shop starting to fill with its first customers for the evening. As a result of my limited Japanese reading ability, I am only able to identify some dishes on the menu, but I can always ask for the chef’s recommendation. I especially love the pre-meal snack that arrives at your table: flash-fried soba noodle pieces lightly sprinkled with salt. Yummy! And not only does the restaurant serve excellent soba noodles, but its tempura and other dishes are equally delicious, and all of the food is reasonably priced. The interior is simple with special attention given to the selection of ceramics and seasonal decorations. Located less than a minute’s walk uphill from Hankyu Mikage Station, Fukuakari i

is a restaurant that is definitely worth a try for some Japanese comfort food. Tempura in Kyoto

If you ever find yourself in Kyoto, and your “temperature is tempura”, then Takasebune is the place to go. Sitting at the five-seat counter or in a cozy private tatami-floored room, you can choose from four tempura selections, served with rice and a unique miso soup. If you are fortunate enough to sit at the counter, you can watch the chef, Hideo Okajima, prepare each piece of tempura and assemble your meal on the plate before you, while listening to the local news on his tiny portable radio in the kitchen. When you are served your plate of steaming and scrumptious tempura, you will notice that there is also a tangled ball of what appear to be puffy, white, fried cellophane noodles. As I have learned from experience, you must put these noodles into your bowl of miso soup, where they will crackle as they drastically shrink in size, and you will be able to eat them along with the seaweed and yuba (soy milk skin) in the broth. One can find Takasebune tucked into a quiet alley along the Takasegawa Canal, around the corner from the intersection of Kawaramachi-dori and Shijo-dori. I have enjoyed each visit to the restaurant since my first visit on a crisp fall day in sixth grade. La Bécasse

In my family, whenever there is a special occasion, like a Christmas lunch or a special birthday, I enjoy getting dressed up and driving to the finest French restaurant in Osaka, La Bécasse. The restaurant has an elegant minimal modern interior, with special floral pieces placed throughout the restaurant that change each month. In the restaurant’s entry area, there is a large floral arrangement, and if you are observant, you will see a small plastic orange frog cleverly camouflaged inside. A frequent patron placed the frog in the arrangement several years ago, maddening the prominent florist who creates the arrangements, yet it has remained there ever since. The chef and owner, Yoshinori Shibuya, trained under renowned French chef Alain Chapel, and the food at La Bécasse is Franco-Japanese. On the menu, one of

the most scrumptious choices is the lobster salad with coriander, which is especially refreshing in the summertime. The lobster salad illustrates the attention paid to presentation in the sublime food at La Bécasse. La Bécasse is not only one of my favorite restaurants, but it is the only restaurant in Osaka that is a member of the prestigious Relais and Chateaux, and a member of Les Grandes Tables du Monde.

Kaiten Zushi

When I first moved to Kobe, I had never heard of unfamiliar Japanese foods like okonomiyaki, yakitori, or karage, but I was very familiar with sushi. The first time that I visited Sannomiya with my family in fifth grade, we walked through the Kobe Motomachi, and spotted a cozy looking kaiten zushi restaurant, Uoyatei. I had only seen conveyor belt sushi once before in my life, and I was eager to try this cool new experience. Taking my seat at the counter, I was impressed with the enormous variety of different types of sushi traveling by on the conveyor belt. I tried salmon, ebi, unagi, ika, kanisalada… After six plates of tasty sushi I was full, and when it was time to pay the bill, the handheld electronic calculators that tabulated the total price of all the sushi that I had eaten once again impressed me. It was a memorable experience, and although I now like to eat a variety of other Japanese foods, I still go back to the kaiten zushi restaurant in the Motomachi from time to time. With seasonal specials like “asparaga” in the summer, and a toasty and inviting atmosphere in the winter, Uoyatei serves delicious sushi at an affordable price, the perfect lunch break during a day of shopping in Sanomiya.

Maison de G ill Sitting in a bright, naturally lit dining room

eating fabulous French food in the Ashiya restaurant, Maison de Gill, is always a wonderful way to spend a Sunday lunch. Located in a renovated house next to the lower Ashiya Gawa, on sunny afternoons, the restaurant’s simple and warm interior is especially inviting, and the dining room’s large windows let you look out into a pretty garden. Renowned French chef Gilles Tournadre’s only restaurant in Japan, Maison de Gill offers three different set menus to choose from for lunch, all of which are equally delicious. They feature seasonal dishes, like cold mushroom soup or a specialty fish dish, and for dessert, the restaurant serves a phenomenal mille-feuille; layers of paper-thin pastry filled with cream and strawberry sauce. Although French and Japanese cuisines are quite different, both cultures share a passion for fresh ingredients, presentation, and elegant design in food. This makes it easy to understand why the French and Japanese enjoy each other’s cuisine, and why Franco-Japanese food is so tasty. A great destination on a beautiful day, Maison de Gill is an ideal place to enjoy Franco-Japanese cuisine. Tofu Donuts

From a Western perspective, tofu donuts sound unusual. However, after my experiences at Hara Donuts in Okamoto and a donut store in Kyoto’s Nishiki Market, I have realized that tofu donuts are extraordinarily tasty, and even better than western-style donuts. Hara Donuts in Okamoto is a small donut shop that my mother discovered when cycling through the neighborhood. You can visit the counter, and choose from a variety of flavors, including plain, chocolate, lemon, white chocolate, and cinnamon. In the Nishiki Market in Kyoto you will find a small shop that serves bite-sized mini donuts that are available in quantities of 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, or 20 donuts. Your donuts are served, piping hot in a takeout bag, and you can eat them while walking through the market or on the benches near the shop. Both of these stores have a windowed work-area, where one can watch their donuts being freshly made. Tofu donuts are a unique experience like no other, and one that is definitely worth a try. Benoit Osaka

After dining at the Benoit restaurants in Tokyo and Paris, I was excited to learn that the restaurant was opening a location in Osaka. Its original Paris location opened in 1912, and French chef Alain

Ducasse currently owns the Benoit restaurants. The Osaka location is situated atop the Breezé Breezé building, with a modern French bistro interior, serving classic French comfort food. On the 33rd floor, the floor to ceiling windows provide beautiful light during the day and offer a fantastic view of the city, day and night. My favorite item on the menu, which is also served in the Paris location, is the “profiteroles Benoit”, mini crème puffs, covered in hot melted chocolate sauce, a decadent yet worthwhile dessert. The dishes served at Benoit Osaka are uniquely French, but aside from specialty ingredients that need to be imported, the dishes are made from fresh Japanese food products. Wonderful Wagashi

The Japanese sweets, wagashi and mochi make the list of my top ten food experiences in Japan, because let’s face it: they are simply amazing. For those of you who have yet to try either, I strongly encourage you to do so, as it is a decision you will not regret. Whether you try the refined wagashi of tea sweet stores or mochi from your neighborhood supermarket, these two Japanese sweets have a unique taste that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Recently, I have sampled some very special sweets. At Toraya in Tokyo, a supplier of sweets to the Imperial household, I had yomogi-mochi; a grilled mochi made with felon herb served with an extra fine azuki bean paste. Two-hundred year old Ichiwa in Kyoto is where one will find amazing grilled mochi on skewers, smothered in a sweet sauce, served with green tea. Hidden under a sweet peanut-ish powder, the warabi mochi of Rakusho in Kyoto melts in your mouth. The added bonus of visiting Rakusho is watching the award winning koi fish swim in the pond outside the teahouse windows. Bene Bene

About four years ago, while driving along the Yamate Kansen road in Mikage on the way to karate practice, my family and I noticed a new Italian pizzeria had opened along the north side of the road. One Friday night, we decided to walk down to the pizzeria, Bene Bene, for dinner. Seated in the enclosed veranda on an October evening, we ordered our pizzas and listened to the live Italian radio streaming into the room from the kitchen. The restaurant’s chef had previously lived in Naples, and travel posters and road maps of Italy covered one portion of the wall on the veranda. After a short wait, our pizzas arrived: Margherita, Quattro Formaggio,

Siciliana, and Margherita D.O.C. (a special version of a pizza margherita, using fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil leaves). Not only did the pizzas smell heavenly but they tasted great, too, and the pizza crust was soft and chewy, unlike any crust that I had tried before. Four years later, my family and I return to Bene Bene for their fabulous and well-priced pizzas and pleasant and positive atmosphere on Friday nights

Matsuri Food

Baby castella, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakisoba, taiyaki, kara age, ichigo ame… over the past few years of living in Japan, I have fallen in love with Japanese matsuri food. Four years ago, my family and I happened to drive past the Yakujinsai festival in Rokko that occurs around the 16th of January each year. We came back the next day, and tried all of the above foods, which made for an awesome dinner. We soon discovered that these delicious festival foods were also sold during hanami week near Shukugawa and Ashiya Gawa and at all festival-type events. This year, my favorite matsuri food is ichigo ame (candied strawberries), and during the New Year, I started to like taiyaki as well. We have introduced visiting friends and family to our favorite matsuri food. During our New Year visit to the Ebisu Shrine in Nishinomiya, my grandparents enjoyed the ika and castella. At o-hanami this year with my uncle, we enjoyed a yakisoba dinner under the illuminated cherry blossoms as the sun set on the Shukugawa

Closing Letter from the Editors:

We just wanted to say thank you to everyone for contributing to The Falcon Talon this year. You guys’ articles have been consistently diverse, informative, and entertaining. Many people throughout the year have complemented us on their quality, so good job! Thank you very much to Mr. Hengal and Mr. Smith for their help editing and posting the newspaper. Also, thank you to anyone who reads The Falcon Talon, your time and attention is much appreciated! Sincerely, Nina & Grace