The Olympics in Beijing is soon upon us, and for those most involved, I imagine they will feel a big letdown afterewards as life returns to normal. The euphoria level will drop quite a bit.
Right now the excitement is motivating those inclined toward marriage to make August 8, 2008 the day to tie the knot. The number eight is one of those lucky numbers for Chinese, and the BBC tells us that couples are rushing to make the start of the Olympics their magic moment of love. Some 9,000 couples in all are expected to marry.
The number eight also brings good fortune in Chinese folklore, and the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008 is regarded as especially propitious.
We can view this as an exceptionally happy moment that will surely lead to major depression. Olympics over; I married the wrong girl and further this marriage thing is less fun; I met a sexy Norwegian tourist on day five of the Olympics and now I can't hook up.
Then again, maybe not. Sometimes it's good to get swept away into something bigger than yourself, and the Olympics and love are as good a time as anything to lose yourself and be happy. Let's hope the memory of the moment works as a bond that binds and adds to a long term joy. Would I do it? I think so.
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We know India is not China, but we are going to pretend that it is for thematic convenience purposes as we travel to Jalandhar, India. And if you never thought somebody or something in India would specifically impact your life, then we have some learning to do.
Apparently, and this is news to me, India and parts of Asia had a green revolution about forty years back that allowed for a level of food production that could sustain the population. Irrigation systems and high yielding crops were introduced. Long story short, the lack of government investment and strains on the farming ecosystem have reduced output today. Everyone up to president Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is concerned about the situation, even as farmers stop farming and others sell their land to developers.
India’s supply of arable land is second only to that of the United States, its economy is one of the fastest growing in the world, and its industrial innovation is legendary. But when it comes to agriculture, its output lags far behind potential. For some staples, India must turn to already stretched international markets, exacerbating a global food crisis.
(N.Y. Times)
For some reason this amazes me, but yet it's not surprising. Some farmer in some small zone on the other side of the world can impact the price I pay for my box of Rice Krispies. This is one of those articles that reminds you why the N.Y. Times is such a valuable newspaper, and it's also one of those pieces of journalism that teachers should be clipping and using in their classrooms. It touches on so many areas-geography, history, supply chains, environmental concerns, economics- and helps to put related situations, like flooding in Iowa, in perspective.
Often enough people will look at the price of oil, or the price of anything, and simply blame politicans or Bush, and ignore external factors. Most certainly many people have difficulty taking those external factors-other nations-seriously. Our sense of power to solve problems is overrated, which in turn often makes our solutions to problems inefficient. We tend to seek localized answers for international problems as though the U.S. exists in a vacuum unaffected by anything else.
The world, and the Olympics and love within it, all call out for attention and sometimes you have to jump in to fully understand.
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