The Daily Cow

I took the time today to look up the description of this landmark on Shattuck that I walk by almost every week near the Berkeley BART station. I found it quite interesting:

Earth Song, 2003
Downtown Shattuck Ave. Public Art, Berkeley, CA. Commissioned by the Berkeley Arts and Cultural Commission.

A 45 foot Tuning Fork sculpture is tuned to the 16ths octave pitch to Earths fundamental natural frequency period, done with the help of seismic engineers. The Sculpture itself will be constantly set to vibrate by the chaotic mechanical energy from the wind and traffic while translating it into the Earths free oscillation pitch. At 3'6" high, a part of the sculpture is designed to invite pedestrians to sample the sound of the pitch, by knocking at it.

http://www.poshuwang.com/earthsong/earthsong.html

orijing (5:55:47 PM): maybe obama will run as hillary's vp
cpatcrunch (5:55:50 PM): LOL
orijing (5:56:02 PM): that might work
cpatcrunch (5:56:04 PM): yeah
orijing (5:56:12 PM): so if the woman gets shot, the nigerian can run
orijing (5:56:17 PM): or
orijing (5:56:19 PM): act as pres
cpatcrunch (5:56:37 PM): i should totally post that somewhere
orijing (5:56:59 PM): <_<
orijing (5:57:04 PM): that's not my typical language
cpatcrunch (5:57:06 PM): >_>
orijing (5:57:10 PM): I usually say bitch
orijing (5:57:11 PM): jk
cpatcrunch (5:57:13 PM): oh
orijing (5:57:17 PM): XD

Cal Student Orientation was really cheesy. A lot of funky icebreakers and building school spirit by putting others down, mainly Stanford. I guess the Stanford rejects at Cal (that is, the majority of Cal students) are still pretty bitter about not getting in. Yes, we're the number 1 public school in the nation, but Stanford is still several spots above. Might as well stop being in denial.

Apparently most science majors are Asian and most are doing MCB. The one non-asian in my group had a Mao emblem on his backpack (wtf) and impressed the FOB asian girls with his ability to write in chinese. So much for diversity.

I remember during the summer a Junior walked by a CalSO group and yelled "Berkeley sucks!!" Then someone asked why, and she was like, "actually I love Berkeley. I just like scaring Freshman." Summer finals were coming up too at that time too.

Anyway, two more months for me! :D

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdom

T.S. Eliot is so much more depressing when you're reading him outside of class. Must resonate more with me now. Not that I like emo poetry or anything. >.>

Anyhow...Waste Valley...that's what the locals call it here at West Valley Community College. No, it's not because there are many international students who can't pronounce 'west' --those students go to De Anza. It's because everyone gets wasted before coming to class. What else can explain the lack of academic inclination? Just kidding, I think the name comes from those who would rather be working than wasting their time with boring classes. But that's not to say that there isn't a fair share of people who come to class looking pretty stoned. So I don't exactly feel like I fit in here. But I think I'm moving on to Acceptance. While we're on the subject, here's my past several months on the Kubler-Ross model.

Denial: No...I did not get spring admissions to Berkeley. It must've been a mistake.
Anger: Why me!? What's this supposed to mean? You calling me less competent than your other applicants? Well I'll show you! I'm going to UCLA!
Bargaining: But I don't want to go to LA. Appeal! Appeal! Did you know that I'm actually black?
Depression: Everyone's going off to college and I'm still stuck here. *sob*
Acceptance: On the bright side, West Valley has nice...shrubbery.

But that's not the point. The point is, it's October 1st, which means...first semester is more than a third over with! Then I can be an official cow...er I mean Cal student in 10 weeks. Go Bears! Wouldn't it be cool if Cal changed its mascot to a cow? Then we could be the Cal Cows. And if the football team lived up to their name, they'd just be massive vegetarians waiting to be Cow-tipped on the field. I'd totally have school spirit.

Isn't it funny how easily we fight for and defend a place simply because of our ancestry and familial ties? Ancestry that we had no control over, a birth into a family that never asked you if you wanted to join. What right does one have to assert that his nation is superior if he would have fought for a completely different cause if only he was born to a different mother? If I had close ties to the Chinese mainland, I would very likely applaud Albert's recent fixation on asserting China's superiority in China-Taiwan relations. If I was born in Sudan I probably wouldn't even know or care about Asia as simple survival would take precedence over such far off matters. But unfortunately, I cannot tolerate these unrelenting attacks on Taiwan simply because I was born with close Taiwanese ties. My entire extended family lives in Taiwan, I have been there countless numbers of times, and I have come to love it for what it is. No, I cannot say it's better than China, as I have never been to China. But likewise, I do not value the criticism of Taiwan by people who have never actually lived there. Personally, I don't like arguing about such unresolvable politic, but yet I cannot keep quiet as others insinuate that my relatives should be bombed to hell or subject to authoritarian rule.

Much is a victim of how we were brought up, our relative perspectives. Albert says that "younger Taiwanese...butcher the language," but to me, the butchery comes from the mainlanders and their simplified characters. But again, I have no right to judge, as I know barely more than 20 words in Chinese whether they are simplified or not. Albert says that "Taiwan itself has no culture to begin with anyway," which is a clearly exaggerated insult. Yes, some places have less "culture" than other places, but when phrased in that kind of tone, any victim of that statement would respond with indignation, even if they might agree with a less offensive form of the same point. Additionally, many Taiwanese would counter that the so-called Cultural Revolution massacred much of the Chinese culture and drove the proponents of culture to the little island of Taiwan, where they have nevertheless managed to thrive and come up with a much higher GDP per capita. I suppose I would not object to Taiwan being a self-governing part of China like Hong Kong is now. But even now as H.K. is part of China, the central government has not dared to make major changes. Hong Kong has grown to be immensely successful outside of "communist" rule, and so has Taiwan, to a somewhat lesser extent. Yet it is also clear that China is on the rise and soon poised to be more successful than all of its self-governing regions combined.

We could argue endlessly on this topic, as we both have somewhat of a personal stake in the argument, and would likely never give in. But I don't want to. I don't think the Daily Cow was ever meant to be a forum for debate on cross-strait relations. I wish Chen Shui Bian would shut up on the issue of Taiwanese independence. I also wish we would too. Like Al's other post said, WHERE IS THE LOVE? :)

In the spirit of carrying on with the exploration of our beloved cow, I asked the question that logically follows "what do cows drink?"--what do cows eat? Natural answer is...beef, right? Because...mad cows are cannibals. Ok so this isn't such a neat parallel as "what do cows drink" and milk. But the question is are cows really vegetarian? The cow-crusading notmilk.com says no:

Forty-eight percent of dairy cows are fed roasted soybeans! Yummm. Thirty-nine percent receive dried blood from their own brutally murdered children, mothers, sisters, and aunts. Makes me sick to my stomach.

Oh such heart-wrenching pathos. I guess people really are desperate for having both their pasta and beef! Mmm Spaghetti and Meatballs. Actually I don't know what those meatballs are made of. Probably more dried blood. Anyway, putting the thought of eating granny for dinner aside, I suppose those farmers are doing their part for the environment. After all, recycling is part of going green, right? :P Even if the cows aren't getting very much of those greens.

But don't give up your lunch just yet! According to the general consensus at Yahoo Answers the cows destined to be your steak are indeed fed corn to achieve more "marbling". Of course, the more marbling there is, the more expensive the steak, so maybe you should stick with that Kobe beef!

            Moo. I love grandma!
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Well hello, I'm Joey, the official cow of...the Daily Cow. See that cow up there on the top left? That's me.

Just kidding. But I have to warn you, cows are quite contagious. No, not in terms of disease, because the FDA will assure you that cows, especially our cows, are very clean animals. And we totally trust the FDA, right? (mmm spinach). But no, I mean contagious in its very essence and ideology. The ideology of cows...doesn't that sound like a whole lot of BS? Maybe it is, but what better place to put it than here? Jinghao made that cow icon for me several years back when I had an...affinity for cows. It's quite a work of art isn't it? Can't you just imagine a bovine breaking out into that mischievous smile? I thought I'd never see it again, but here it is now...on the daily cow. Looks like Jinghao caught cow fever.