Wating for the cow guru to arise －牛の教祖の登場を待っていること－

“Nobody [thought] it, nobody knew

No one imagined the great cow guru:

Cows are one!

[They] knocked over a tractor and ran for the door.

Six gallons of gas flowed out on the floor:

Run cows, run.”

From the Dana Lyons song, “Cows with guns”

 

Maybe cows are more intelligent than they look.

This week a cow in Poland made headlines with a daring escape.  The cow was being put into a truck bound for the slaughterhouse.  To avoid being loaded onto the vehicle, the cow broke the arm of a farm worker and got away by barging through a metal fence.

Although the owner tried to recapture the animal, it escaped by swimming to an island in the middle of a lake.  When fire-fighters arrived with a boat, the cow managed to swim away from them again.

It sounds like a pretty smart animal to me.

Humans can be oddly paradoxical.  How did Polish people react to the news of the cow’s escape?  Of course there was a huge campaign to save the animal.  The farm owner started leaving food on the island for it.  A local politician promised to help save it, saying that the cow was a “hero”.  When someone suggested allowing a hunter to shoot the animal, there were howls of protest.

But I’ll bet that most of these people eat beef, and will continue to eat beef.

Poor cows.  It’s a hard life when you are raised as food.  I hope that one day, as in the song “Cows with guns”, a great cow guru will arise and lead her people to freedom.

And yet I will also probably eat a beef-burger again.  But maybe not for a while.

Vocabulary:

daring – of an action, bold and adventurous

to be bound for – of a vehicle, heading towards; intending to go to

to barge through something – to push forcefully through something

paradoxical – seemingly contradictory or not logically consistent

a howl – a loud cry

 

 

Writers gonna write, Judges gonna judge －物書きは物を書くっきゃないし、裁判官は判断するっきゃないー

I sometimes wonder if humans will one day stop producing new books, movies, songs and works of art.  They will run out of fresh ideas because everything interesting has already been said, or sung, or shown or painted before.

Do you want to write a book about the evil side that exists within all men, ready to emerge if only the good side of our nature is weakened?  Don’t bother.  Robert Louis Stevenson has already written “The strange case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde”.  Have you had the great idea of combining classical Indian music with Western pop music?  Too late!  A number of British bands from the 1960s, such as The Beatles, got there ahead of you.

It becomes even more difficult for artists when big companies sue them if their work is even slightly similar to something which has already been copyrighted.

That’s why I was pleased to see one such copyright lawsuit being rejected by an American judge.  Taylor Swift was sued by two older songwriters because they said she had stolen two lines from one of their songs.  The lines were, “Players gonna play, Haters gonna hate.”

A “player”, or sometimes “playa”, is a slang word meaning a confident, influential man, especially one who has many girlfriends.  So the song lyrics mean something like, “You can’t stop some men from playing around (with women), You can’t stop some people from hating (you)”

The reason that the judge gave for rejecting the copyright claim was funny.  He said that the lyrics could not be copyrighted because they were so banal.  “Players gonna play” is no more interesting or original than “Swimmers gonna swim” or “Runners gonna run”.  He said that the lyrics don’t demonstrate even a little bit of creativity.  Maybe he’s more of a Bob Dylan fan.

This blog is copyrighted.

 

Vocabulary:

to run out – of something limited, to use all of it up so that nothing is left

to emerge – to come out

to sue – to take someone to court

to be copyrighted – of an idea or created product, to be illegal to copy without permission

“gonna” –  slang for, “(are) going to”

banal – so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring

 

 

I have had it with these emotional snakes on an emotional plane! －この感情的な飛行機にいる感情的なヘビは、もうたくさんだ！－

Quiz-show host: “This is your final question.  Get this right and you will win 1 million dollars.  Are you ready?  Okay.  Name five things you can commonly see on an American airplane.”

Sweating contestant: “Umm... Cabin crew, passengers, luggage, a coffee trolley...  Umm... ummm... Snakes?”

The quiz-show host pauses dramatically.  “Cabin crew – yes.  Passengers – Yes.  Luggage – Yes.  A coffee trolley – Yes.  Snakes? - ...Yes!  Congratulations!  You win a million dollars!”

Okay.  I made up the exchange above.  And I might be exaggerating a little by saying that snakes are common on planes.  But the quiz is based upon a real article I read on the BBC today.

Usually, if a passenger wishes to take an animal onto a plane, they have to pay a lot of money to have the animal stowed in a separate area, along with the checked-in baggage.  But blind passengers are allowed to sit with their guide dogs in the passenger compartment.  And people who suffer extreme anxiety from flying are allowed to take an “emotional support animal” (ie. a pet) with them into the passenger compartment, to sit beside them during the flight.  These animals are often dogs or cats but have included birds, rats, and even snakes.

I’m not joking!  The news article said that United Airlines had just adopted a stricter policy.  They have banned hedgehogs, insects and reptiles from the passenger compartment.  They have had to do this because of increasing problems with animals biting cabin-crew, peeing on the floor etc.  The airline received over 70,000 requests last year alone to accommodate emotional support animals.

I am glad to say that British airlines generally don’t allow emotional support animals, although they do allow blind passengers to sit with their guide dogs.  This seems to be a peculiarly American phenomenon.

Are Americans really so emotionally fragile that they cannot go anywhere without Harry the Hedgehog in their pocket?  If someone is so terrified of flying, is stroking their pet snake really a more medically effective way of controlling their anxiety than taking a pill, or taking a ship/train?

Maybe the real reason for the surprisingly large number of Americans taking emotional support animals into the passenger compartment is financial.  You have to pay a lot of money to put an animal in the hold of an aircraft.  But to avoid penalising genuinely sick or disabled people, guide dogs and other support animals can be brought onto many airlines for free or a reduced price. 

I suffer from extreme flight anxiety too.  That’s why I’m campaigning for airlines to provide free “emotional support parachutes” to all passengers who have this terrible condition.

Vocabulary:

to make something up – to invent something; to create fiction

an exchange – a conversation; a series of comments between two people

to exaggerate – to make something seem bigger, worse etc. than it really is

to stow something – to pack or place something carefully

a guide dog – a specially trained dog, used by blind people to help them get around

anxiety – a feeling of strong uncertainty or insecurity

the passenger compartment – the part of an aircraft where the passengers sit

to adopt – to start to use

fragile – easily broken or damaged

to penalise someone – to punish someone; to make someone pay a penalty

 

Why we need Japan to be our weirdtopia －どうして、私たちの変トピアとして日本が必要か－

Utopia was a fictional island, imagined by Thomas More in the book published in 1516.  On Utopia the citizens shared all property, respected each others’ religions, and avoided war.  It was a perfect place, and great for your imagination to escape to if you felt dissatisfied with your own society.

A dystopia is an imaginary bad place.  George Orwell, for example, imagined a country which was in a never-ending war, and where the government spied on people through their televisions.  Perhaps reading about dystopias can also be comforting to people.  Even if your country is having difficulties, at least it is not as bad as the dystopia.

Thinking about Japan, we may need to make a new word for another kind of “topia”.  This word will mean an imaginary place where things are not better or worse than in the real world, just weirder.  People who feel that their lives are boring can enjoy escaping in their imaginations to a “weirdtopia”, where the streets clean themselves and customers who wish to smoke in a restaurant place a special pod around their head to catch the fumes.

Japan seems to be a weirdtopia for many people around the world.  Any story about the country which becomes popular on the internet usually involves strangeness.  Many of these stories are fake or exaggerated.

I read an article this week about a website for speakers of Arabic.  The purpose of the website is to correct Arabic speakers’ misconceptions about Japan, and to deny fake stories which are circulating about the country.  The roads which clean themselves and the special pods for smokers in restaurants are two of these fake stories.

Another popular myth was that teachers in Japan are so well respected that their students wash the teacher’s feet before the lesson.  As an English teacher in Japan, I can say that I like the idea but that sadly it is not true.  Perhaps I could offer a discount to a student who is willing to wash my feet?

In a way, I hope that Japan keeps its image as a weirdtopia.  It makes people happier than to think of it as just another country.

Vocabulary:

dissatisfied – not happy or content with something

weird – strange; unusual; odd

fumes – bad-smelling or poisonous air

fake - untrue

exaggerated – made to sound more extreme or worse than it really is

a misconception – a false or untrue idea

to circulate – to go around; of an idea, to pass from person to person

a myth – a widely held but false story or idea