Welcome to the new Korean craze of "well-dying". In a country infatuated with "well-being" - living and eating healthily, even to the point where tobacco-makers offer vitamin-enriched "well-being cigarettes" - training companies are now offering courses on dying a good death.

From the archive:

In the 21st century, we "shy away from death," and we tend to think of a good death as a sudden one.

Not so in the 19th century.

Dying well meant having time to assess your spiritual state and say goodbye -- which is difficult to do if you're killed in battle.

To be sure, time marches on.

Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.

See also:

Kronomy is the place where the collective global memory lives. It allows you to create events and memories on a life path that can be easily explored and linked with others.

Unlike standard social networking websites, which offer only static profiles that focus on the present, Kronomy's simple navigation tools and advanced graphic interface let you travel effortlessly along entire life paths and explore events in depth.

Now you can travel through time, reviewing your own and others' lives, crossing paths with people who share identical or similar experiences and discovering interesting people who are ready to share their life events.

We know that your past experiences are as important to you as what's happening now, which is why we created this dynamic collective memory for everyone to participate in, use and enjoy.

The more life paths that are added and linked, the more powerful and complete the world's memory becomes - a fascinating and invaluable resource for all time.

When death is a reminder to live

They're encapsulated in an annoying Flash app, but they're worth a look if you haven't seen them before. (We've talked about these on MemeStreams in the past.)

Historical Public Health and Hygiene Posters

The proportion of U.S. adults who self report they are obese increased nearly 2 percent between 2005 and 2007, according to a report in today′s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). An estimated 25.6 percent of U.S. adults reported being obese in 2007 compared to 23.9 percent in 2005, an increase of 1.7 percent. The report also finds that none of the 50 states or the District of Columbia has achieved the Healthy People 2010 goal to reduce obesity prevalence to 15 percent or less.

In three states – Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee – the prevalence of self-reported obesity among adults age 18 or older was above 30 percent. Colorado had the lowest obesity prevalence at 18.7 percent. Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. BMI is calculated using height and weight. For example, a 5-foot, 9-inch adult who weighs 203 pounds would have a BMI of 30, thus putting this person into the obese category.

Latest CDC Data Show More Americans Report Being Obese

From a March 6, 2001, transcript of an online chat between Bernd-Jürgen Brandes (cator99) and Armin Meiwes (antrophagus):

cator99: I’m in telecommunications

antrophagus: Oh, that sounds interesting

cator99: I believe you

...

antrophagus: It’s only a few days until March 9

cator99: Still, I would have rather met you yesterday and felt your teeth

antrophagus: One can’t have everything. There’s still some time before you really feel my teeth

From the archive:

In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both “an idea and a cause”.

He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself.

But many voters would rather not suffer at all.

More on suffering:

In the 21st century, we "shy away from death," and we tend to think of a good death as a sudden one.

Not so in the 19th century. Dying well meant having time to assess your spiritual state and say goodbye -- which is difficult to do if you're killed in battle.

Continuing:

According to one who was present, Churchill suddenly blurted out: "Are we animals? Are we taking this too far?"

Bush: first of all, we have said that whatever we do ... will be legal.

My dinner with antrophagus

It's trendy now, but will hype and gimmickry (bacon cocktails, anyone?) spoil the great salty meat?

Is bacon the next great American food trend?

Atlanta is just as hosed as ... Dallas?

The South Shall Snack Again

Irina, a Moscow teenager with white-blond hair dressed in laddered tights and a black leather jacket, sits on a park bench in the city center with two girlfriends, drinking a bottle of beer and enjoying the warm summer afternoon.

The girls, sporting punky combinations of dyed hair, nose rings, and slightly sullen expressions, look like average teenagers in many parts of the world. But in Moscow, they are the target of a new government campaign to purge Russia's youth of immorality and sin. Irina, for one, is skeptical.

The plan that has Irina nervous is a package of bills and amendments, introduced in Russia's State Duma in June, aimed at "protecting children's morality." If some Duma deputies have their way, young Russians could soon find themselves in trouble for activities as seemingly innocent as carving pumpkins or listening to music.

Together with proposals to combat child alcoholism and pornography, the policy project outlines a raft of draconian measures such as a 10 p.m. curfew for all school-age children and a ban on tattoos and body-piercings.

Under the new measures, schools would be prohibited from celebrating Western holidays like Halloween and St. Valentine's Day, which are deemed inappropriate to "Russian culture." Toys in the shape of monsters or skeletons would be banned as "provoking aggression."

From the archive:

Looks like Warez has a new friend this year.

Rattle's protest:

When have I EVER stopped a rabbit from wearing glasses?!? Name me one time...

Russia Mulls Legislation To 'Save' Its Youth

Oh, the suffering surfer!

For years, Chris Mauro took a 10-mile detour on his way to work each morning to check out the swells at his favorite surf break and plot the best location for his afterwork wave-riding.

But with gas now approaching $5 a gallon, Mauro recently cut out his daily ritual in favor of the savings.

He isn't alone.

The surging cost of oil has been a dose of reality for many surfers who have long thought of their sport, with all its sun-kissed lore, as a counterculture niche shielded from the pressures of mainstream America.

From the archive:

This is a data-heavy presentation from two economists at CIBC World Markets. You'll have to make your own soundtrack. See how China dominates the growth in demand for natural resources. See how much is accomplished by Americans' purchase of hybrid vehicles, in the face of massive market growth in Russia and China. Watch how gasoline hits US$7/gallon by 2012. Watch ethanol peter out and energy capacity fall short. Watch the Case/Shiller HPI continue to plummet as delinquencies soar. And so much more!

Costly gas crimps surfers' style, roils industry

Frigyes Karinthy:

The distinguished Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy was sitting in a Budapest café, wondering whether to write a long-planned monograph on modern man or a new play, when he was disturbed by the roaring—so loud as to drown out all other noises—of a passing train. Soon it was gone, only to be succeeded by another. And another. Strange, Karinthy thought, it had been years since Budapest had streetcars. Only then did he realize he was suffering from an auditory hallucination of extraordinary intensity.

What in fact Karinthy was suffering from was a brain tumor, not cancerous but hardly benign, though it was only much later—after spells of giddiness, fainting fits, friends remarking that his handwriting had altered, and books going blank before his eyes—that he consulted a doctor and embarked on a series of examinations that would lead to brain surgery. Karinthy’s description of his descent into illness and his observations of his symptoms, thoughts, and feelings, as well as of his friends’ and doctors’ varied responses to his predicament, are exact and engrossing and entirely free of self-pity. A Journey Round My Skull is not only an extraordinary piece of medical testimony, but a powerful work of literature—one that dances brilliantly on the edge of extinction.

There is plenty of praise for this classic book ...

... to my mind, a masterpiece ... remarkable ... extraordinary ... unusual and extremely interesting ... terrible and marvelous ... a book of surpassing interest and power ...

With an introduction by Oliver Sacks.

From the archive:

“You know, dear,” I said to him one day, about two months after the stroke, when he was feeling mighty low, “maybe you want to write the first aphasic memoir.” He smiled broadly, said, “Good idea! Mem, mem, mem.” And so he began dictating, sometimes with mountain-moving effort, and at others sailing along at a good clip, an account of what he’d just gone through, what the mental world of aphasia felt and looked like.

A Journey Round My Skull

If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.

This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden.

A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell