Hell is not Mother Nature. She has been around long before we ever existed, and will do so even after we’ve gone. On a planet floating in space, we may be the most intelligent passengers, but we are passengers no less.

The universe has no compassion - it just is. Things do not happen because of cosmic vengeance or divine retribution. There’s no malice, no motive and no calculations.

China: Quake left 18,000 buried in one city - China earthquake- msnbc.com
Quake survivors now face exposure danger - World - smh.com.au

But Hell is indeed other people (“No Exit” by Jean-Paul Sartre) …

Burmese Army stops locals trying to give aid - World - smh.com.au
Myanmar Restricting Aid Delivery - New York Times

Who by their actions should have marked out their places in it, if there is such a thing. But for Hell to exist then so must Heaven. And if so, divine benevolence. But there is no divinity. Not when blameless souls perished, or lay dying, while selfish parasites live out their lives on this earth in comfort and luxury.

Though if Hell is other people, it also manages to shine a light on those who are selfless and on other nations’ largesse even as their offers of help are being rejected.

Monks aid cyclone victims - Asia-Pacific - msnbc.com
RAAF touches down with Burma aid - World - smh.com.au
UN chief presses Myanmar to accept more aid - International Herald Tribune

We can’t all be completely selfless, but we can definitely be a bit more caring and considerate in our daily lives and lend a helping hand when we can, even if it’s for the smallest of favours. Disasters will happen and evil people will continue their evil ways, but at least we are not adding to the bad stuff that happens everyday.

(via The Dark Knight @ Warner Brothers)

It has been revealed today that Heath Ledger died from 6 kinds of drugs: 3 kinds of anti-depressants, 2 kinds of painkillers, and 1 common ingredient in over-the-counter cold medicine or sleeping aid.

Among the drugs found in his body were two widely prescribed narcotics: oxycodone, the main ingredient in the prescription drug OxyContin, and hydrocodone, the principal pain reliever in the prescription drug Vicodin.

There were also three anti-anxiety medications: diazepam, the generic name for Valium; alprazolam, commonly known as Xanax; and temazepam, sold under the brand name Restoril and often prescribed as a sleep medication.

Doxylamine was also found in his system. It is an ingredient in some over-the-counter sleeping pills, and some non-prescription cold medicines that contain decongestants.

Ledger’s deadly cocktail - Heath Ledger - Entertainment - smh.com.au

The amount of each individual drug in his system was low enough for the medical examiner to rule out suicide. It still makes you wonder though. Yes, the drugs could have been prescribed by different doctors who are not aware of other drugs that he may have been taking. And Heath may not know the dangers of mixing the drugs. But why take two different kinds of painkillers, three different kinds of anti-depressants, and sleeping pills in the one day? Surely, you don’t need to be a pharmacist or a doctor to know that that is an excessive amount of drugs.

If it was a suicide, it would have at least made some sense. As it is, it’s a senseless waste.

(image source, SFW but links out to image depositories
of all the Edison Chen photos that aren’t)

The above flowchart shows all the women that Edison Chen - a Canadian-Chinese actor/singer based in HK - has been connected with. A couple of weeks ago, the HK media was rocked by the release of pornographic images of Edison and three of these women. They were allegedly leaked by the tech guy repairing Edison’s computer, who has since been arrested.

For those not familiar with the Chinese entertainment world, most of the women on the chart are singers and actresses, with a few models thrown in for good measure. The most famous one to Western audiences is Maggie Q (near the top right), who has appeared in MI:3 and Die Hard 4.0.

Of all the pictures obtained by the computer tech, there were 6 women involved. For the investigating police, only 4 are known to them. Three of these 4 women (2 singers and 1 actress, with the actress being currently married to one of Edison’s friends, Nicholas Tse, an actor/singer) were the unfortunate ones to have been exposed before the police and the courts put a stop to it by warning that anyone caught distributing the photos risk being arrested.

Shanghaiist has a good round up of the events and people involved (NSFW even with pixellated photos - read it at home!).
Shanghaiist: Edison Chen, Bobo Chan, Gillian Chung and Cecilia Cheung embroiled in Hong Kong’s biggest sex photo scandal ever

For a less titilating summary:
Edison Chen photo scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To me, it’s one thing for naive everyday people to be caught up in a moment of foolishness like this, but for people in the entertainment business who have carefully crafted images it’s quite bizarre. Assuming that these people are aware of the importance of image in their line of work, what possess these women to pose for him? And how big must his ego be to not care about the possible consequences if they leaked out like it has now? Or are they all just dumb?

Photos of 6 women were found on this one computer. Are there more saved on other computers stashed away in his home? How depraved is this guy, really? And what would his fans think of him now? He may be able to shrug this off and become more “adult” and edgy with his image - that’s what I’d do anyway if I was his PR, but the women involved probably do not have this luxury. It’s still very much a double-standard world.

In this situation, there are two glaring lessons for the Youtube-loving, Facebook-hugging, and MySpace-living digital generation of today:

1. Unless you are in the adult entertainment business, never ever take naked pictures and video of yourselves unless you can live with the scandal and embarrassment. And even if you can live with it, employers in most industries won’t. No matter how much you think he loves you, or how fun you think it’d be, think very carefully about what you are doing.
2. If you are going to send your iPod/MP3 Player/Computer in for repairs make sure that there’s nothing incriminating or highly private on the machine. Encrypt the information if you can and know how to. Otherwise, transfer the data onto another computer and delete the originals. While you are at it, delete your browsing history, cache and saved cookies.

A contrite Edison had asked for people to stop spreading and to take down the images. People in HK may be compelled to do so, but at this stage it’s spread beyond HK’s borders and its laws. Unlike printed photos with negatives, once it’s out there it ain’t coming back. The Internet is a bitch like that.

One thing’s for sure: these people are not going to have a very happy Chinese New Year.

I only know Heath Ledger from his movies but because he’s from Perth, it feels like he was more than a stranger on film and TV. Because he comes back to Perth at least once a year to see his parents who live a few suburbs away from me, it felt like I could have bumped into him at the local mall even.

The first thing that hit me when I saw the news this morning was: it can’t possibly be suicide. I felt that even if it’s suicide it could have only been that the sleeping pills that he had been taking, Ambien has been known to cause depression. I thought that he can’t possibly be depressed about anything else otherwise.

He loved his daughter Matilda, whom he had with Michelle Williams. Plus he sounded genuinely happy when he was back here during Christmas with girlfriend, Perth model Gemma Ward. He’d called a local reporter and left this message for him:

“I don’t know whether it’s a conscious thing or an unconscious thing, giving me space and respecting my privacy,” he told the newspaper.

“It’s just been awesome.

“And I’ve had the most beautiful time back here and being able to see all my friends and family, let alone the press and the people within the community of Perth, it’s been so lovely.

“It’s really enabled me to be a boy again from home and feel like I’d never left.

“It’s truly been an incredibly therapeutic and a much-needed trip home and just that little touch has made it all that more special to me.”

Ledger loved life: Family - People - Entertainment - theage.com.au

The other possibility is accident. When speaking about playing The Joker on the next Batman film, Heath mentioned about needing help to sleep and that one tablet doesn’t do it for him.

“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” One night he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.

Heath Ledger - I’m Not There - - New York Times

Until the coroner’s report is available, we don’t know how long he was dead for (his body was found around 3pm NY time). For all we know he could have died during the night before. Was he that desperate for sleep that he took more than he should? Did the pills and his pneumonia cause a bad reaction?

Whatever the case, a lot of people will miss him especially here in Western Australia. A goddamn bloody shame when his turn as The Joker in “The Dark Knight” is so highly anticipated.

RIP mate.

Reading the story below and others like it about car accidents and deaths caused by speeding really sends a chill down my spine because I know that I used to drive too fast sometimes and in a way that I wouldn’t drive now.

Four teenagers killed in a fiery smash on the West Gate Freeway on Sunday night were returning from a memorial service for a mate who died after being pulled unconscious from the surf at Blairgowrie last week.

The tragic twist came to light as police said the horrific accident might have been caused by two cars racing each other at speeds of up to 160 km/h.

The white Holden sedan with the four youths in it clipped a barrier and skidded across four lanes before smashing rear-end first into a tree and bursting into flames.

Crash teens had just farewelled dead mate - National - theage.com.au

Who knows what had transpired inside the car amongst the teenagers? Was the driver egged on by his friends? Or was he reckless despite their caution? The tragedy is that four people have needlessly died from it. And the bitter twist is that they had just come from a friend’s funeral. That is too ironic.

In the first two years that I got my license, I have driven stupidly on many occasions. Though it must be said that I don’t drive reckless or speed if I have passengers. Fair enough if I wanted to risk my life but I wasn’t going to take others down with me. And thankfully my first car wasn’t all that powerful or speedy. I’m scared to even think what would have been otherwise.

The more stories like these that I see on the news, the more I understand how my parents must have felt letting me loose on the road. I get why they would call me past their bedtimes whilst I was out clubbing, or wait up at the door. They don’t do it anymore now that I have taken it all in and know to be sensible on the road.

As for other drivers being dangerous or reckless, there are a few things that I now do out of habit:

1. Do not change lanes around intersections.
2. Check for cars from the far opposite lane changing into the lane that I want to change to.
3. Even if it’s my right of way, or the traffic light shows green, check for opposing traffic. This is especially important at night when there would be more drunk drivers on the road.
4. Do not change lanes in front of a heavy vehicle.
5. Avoid driving on country roads at night.
6. Sleep in my car in the car park if I have to - being drunk or tired at night with other drunk and tired drivers on the road is pushing my luck. My health and life is more important than the extra money that I have to pay for parking. You will want to be alert when there is the possibility of a car going the wrong way, which can happen even if it’s the freeway.
7. Expect other drivers to be crap, expect them to not signal, and expect them to shoot out from an intersection when they can see you coming. Basically, anticipate bad and dangerous driving.

It is a crapshot every time we take our cars onto the road but by doing the things that are within our control, we cut down the possibility of an accident greatly. And even if you don’t care about your own personal safety that much, surely you’d care for your loved ones travelling with you?

Live Longer

In the news today was the story of how scientists have discovered a way to manipulate skin cells into behaving like embryonic stem cells. Which means they have the ability to turn into any kind of human tissue with the obvious potential of being used in the future to cure diseases and to replace faulty organs. It can also aid in medical research.

If the recipe for stem cell-like behavior can be perfected, individualized pluripotent cells could be created to reflect a particular disease condition — for example, allowing researchers to test potential treatments for Parkinson’s disease on living human neurons created in a culture dish.

Skin cells made to mimic stem cells - Cloning and stem cells- msnbc.com

This advance in medical research will in turn lead to more advances in medicine. Having better medicine technology may reduce ethical dilemmas such as whether to euthanise a terminally ill or severely handicapped loved one, but new ones are introduced.

How will we behave if we know we can live longer? Will we become less motivated and less concerned about personal achievements? How will we behave if we know we can repair any part of our bodies? Will we become more selfish and reckless in our actions and behaviour?

Will we deny this technology to persons we deem to be criminal and deviant, thus breeding them out eventually? Who gets to say who’s criminal and deviant?

Looking even further ahead, being able to recreate copies of our cells would mean that we can clone ourselves too. If we can afford it, should we be allowed to make copies of ourselves and live perpetually?

Will our societies become rigid in structure with stringent rules and laws governing genetics and our identities like that shown in the movie “Gattaca“? Or will it be a genetic madhouse as depicted in the videogame “BioShock“?

A “gene bank” in the video game Bioshock

Bringing this discussion closer to the present, the immediate effect of us living longer and healthier is the planet’s population growing at an ever greater exponential rate. Which leads nicely to the next section.

Killing the Planet

Just a few days ago, after a UN climate conference in Valencia, Spain, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had said that governments must do more to fight global warming.

Ban said that he had just been on a trip to see ice shelves breaking up in Antarctica and the melting Torres del Paine glaciers in Chile. He also visited the Amazon rainforest, which he said was being “suffocated” by global warming.

“I come to you humbled after seeing some of the most precious treasures of our planet - treasures that are being threatened by humanity’s own hand,” he said.

“These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie,” Ban said. “But they are even more terrifying, because they are real.”

Global warming action urgent: UN chief - Environment - smh.com.au

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change presented a report which says,

Human activity is “very likely” to be the cause of rising temperatures and that deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, are needed to avert ever more heatwaves, melting glaciers, extinctions and rising sea levels.

UN climate talks agree on blueprint for action - Environment - smh.com.au

Even if you think global warming is over-hyped, an ever increasing population creates more energy needs which will pollute the environment further. Plus it puts greater strains on the resources of our planet. Ever dwindling resources will lead to more people fighting over them. In a very simple nutshell, all human fighting and wars is essentially a fight to control resources: oil, land, minerals, food and water.

Global warming will lead to greater human conflict, so it’ll be hellish one way or another.

What am I trying to say?

Knowing the environmental impact the human race has on the planet mutes my enthusiasm for any kind of medical advances which will prolong our lives and makes us healthier. It also makes me ambivalent about having kids, and sometimes it makes me callous about people dying of hunger, in a war, a natural disaster or during an outbreak of a virulent disease.

With the possible exception of natural disasters (and maybe not if sea levels continue to rise), all of those things listed above can be directly or indirectly traced back to a problem with overpopulation.

But every species has the instinctive urge to procreate and perpetuate the species. The question for us is: will the human race be smart enough to rein back those urges to give the planet a chance to recuperate and heal itself?

Everything tastes good if you stir-fried it with lemon-grass …

Australia has a problem with feral animals from camels and rabbits, to yes - cats. Even though some Aboriginal tribes hunt these cats as a secondary source of meat, it is definitely not as widely-accepted as say eating kangaroos is. But now the problem with them killing native wildlife has gotten so bad that eating cats is not as taboo as before.

Taboo food and drink - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A recent Alice Springs contest featured wild cat casserole. The meat is said to taste like a cross between rabbit and, perhaps inevitably, chicken.

…

The meat should be diced and fried until it is brown. Then lemon grass is to be added along with salt and pepper and three cups of quandong, which is a sweet desert fruit.

It is recommended that the dish be left to simmer for five hours before being garnished with bush plums and mistletoe berries.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Australians cook up wild cat stew

Did your mouth water? Mine did. Just like I don’t judge people who don’t mind eating dogs, I don’t think I should be looked at funny for even considering the idea. To judge other people for eating exotic meats would be hypocritical if you are a meat-eater yourself. Think about that the next time you tuck into veal or that yummy foie-gras.