I do not disagree with this song selection. Plus, why China's going to be edgy and ready to fight real soon.

From 5ives.com (see the link at right):

Five songs I sometimes listen to on repeat for 20 minutes

“North to Nothing” / The Wrens
“Most People are DJs” / The Hold Steady
“Only Shallow” / My Bloody Valentine
“7/4 (Shoreline)” / Broken Social Scene
“See That Girl” / Kirsty MacColl

The bold tracks *are* songs that I've been known to listen to on repeat. I haven't heard the other three songs, so, yeah, you know, I guess it's possible I would like to listen to those on repeat, too.

I read the new Foreign Policy magazine while I walked tonight, including an interesting cover story on "The Return of the Patriarchy." The subtitle is "And Conservatives Will Inherit the Earth." Here's why:

"The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disportionately from the feminist and counterculture movements of the 1960s and 70s, will leave no genetic legacy. Nor will their emotional or psychological influence on the next generation compare with that of their parents.

...

This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry. It may also help explain the increasing popular resistance among rank-and-file Europeans to such crown jewels of secular liberalism as the European Union."

Good stuff. But the side bar on China, whose citizens began choosing boys over girls thanks to the advent ultrasound machine a few decades ago, is fascinating.

"Thanks in large part to the introduction of the ultrasound machine, Mother Nature's usual preference for 105 males to 100 females has grown to around 120 male births for every 100 female births in China. The imbalance is even higher in some locales --136 males to 100 females on the island of Hainan ..."

*Funny*
"Understanding the effect of the testosterone overload may be most important in China, the rising Asian superpower. Prompted by expert warnings, the Chinese authorities are already groping for answers. In 2004, President Hu Jintao asked 250 of the country's senior demographers to study whether the country's one-child policy -- which sharply accentuates the preference for males -- should be revised. Beijing expects that it may have as many as 40 million frustrated bachelors by 2020. The regime, always nervous about social control, fears that they might generate social and political instability."

*Frightening*
"The CIA asked (a researcher at BYU) to discuss her dramatic suggestion that "in 2020 it may seem to China that it would be worth it to have a very bloody battle in which a lot of their young men could die in some glorius cause."

Today: 60 minute treadmill adventure
Tomorrow: 60 minute walk