Showing posts with label why. Show all posts
Showing posts with label why. Show all posts

Sunday, September 8

A Geography of Hotness

It's hard for me to explain this endeavor as anything more than what some might see as utterly reprehensible objectification. Guilty!
For those who would say fetish is an immaturity to be transcended for the great things of life to come, I might agree, but with two caveats:
1. Fetish might be one of the Great Things in Life, at least for a while, and in addition,
2. The only way to get past it might be to explore it, thoroughly. In Baccus' Dance with Death all things are realized, said a Philosopher that I will decline to name now because it will make me look even more like an ass hole if you don't like the guy, but ponder his words for a second.
Going on from here, as I work to transcend, perhaps what motivates me in my weak animal moments is the smell and sight of a pretty girl, base as it may be... and to these usually idyll observations I have decided to try to add a little insight, to understand in the mind what the loins only report.

Reasons for Hotness:
Endless refinement within one society (The Horn of Africa)
A fortunate coming together of two groups (French Polynesia)
Crisis Breeding, the loss of a large portion of one gender, leading to increased selectivity (Germany after World War II)
A New Start: a Place where people move to improve their life, the most confident and potentially hottest of a society, starting a new culture that leads to in improved pool of Selectivity (California)
A great article by National Geographic, which seems to be available only in part, laid out some of the science behind attraction. It touched on a few of these themes, notably by saying that we are attracted to people in part if we think they have the greatest genetic variance from ours. This might be an explanation for Europeans tendency for Yellow Fever, and in New World you might call it Native Love, or Squaw Fever.
sound track for this entry
or if you prefer a newer version

Places of Reputed Hotness:

California USA
The American South
Hawaii
Miami: The Capitol of Latin America
The West Coast of Florida: The Dumbest Hottest Women in America
Ivy League Colleges
Washington DC: Power is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac
Around any Important Person
Las Vegas, Nevada: Trashy Hotness Commoditized, although not quite like LA
Las Vegas, Montreal, and Miami Strip Clubs
Jackson, Miss
Anywhere the Sun Shines
Quebec
British Colombia
Sinaloa, Mexico
El Salvador
Cuba
Colombia
Cali, Colombia (Ful Bodied)
Medellin, Colombia (Full Personality)
Bogota, Colombia (Classy)
Armenia and Pereira, Colombia (Sweet and Small Town)
Brazil
Argentina
Afrikaners
The Horn of Africa
Belfast, Ireland
Upper Class England
France
Italy
Spain
Greece, if you like em big!
Germany
Scandinavia
Iceland
Netherlands
Eastern Europe
Russia
Israel
Persia
Dubai
Baliwood
Thailand
Korea
Japan
Western Australia
The Gold Coast
Sydney
French Polynesia

Monday, May 13

The Annoying Mysterious Round Trip Booking Rule for International Travel

There is some rule, and I have never quite known if it is a regulation, law, or international treaty, that seems to require travelers to have a return ticket to their home country unless they have some form of residency where they are traveling to. I have noticed that Americans and US based airlines are the most anal about it, which has always made me feel like it is a corporate rig for cash.
The apparent purpose of the mysterious condition is this: If an traveler goes to a foreign country and spends all his cash on a tourist visa, or gets robbed, or has some catastrophic attack on his bank account back home, they at least they can be repatriated even if they are out of food and money for a hotel room.
What this does is force travelers who like to be flexible, are required to be flexible by circumstances, or who want to travel elsewhere from their first destination but don't know the date perhaps, or where they might go from there etc., to create an elaborate return itinerary to satisfy some airline desk agent who thinks they look indigent, and essentially, to buy a second ticket just to leave their country. This makes me feel like a prisoner of my birth land, and I resent that, especially when it plays into the hands of corporations, who will sometimes gouge you by making you buy a ticket at the airport. I t also can create havoc for if say, you were going to fly to a country and drive back.. they want you to have some sort of bus ticket, ferry ticket etc. to satisfy them, otherwise you gotto buy a ticket, maybe with a non-refundable fee attached, to meet a government requirement that inconveniences perhaps 10 people for every 1 it is intended to help. It's also an immigration control of sorts I believe. Lot's of people go to foreign countries to stay perhaps longer than their visa will allow, and this is supposed top be an implication that you won't do that since your return date has to be prior to the termination of a traditional tourist visa, which ranges from 10 days to 6 months in most countries, but it does a poor job of that.. for one, you can miss your return flight, cancel it, or just fake one, and stay there if you wish until that country's immigration agency catches up with you. Meanwhile, others are treated a bit like prisoners of their country in some weird version of Napoleonic Law, where you pay to leave.
I asked a lawyer friend who works in immigration to clarify this for me, but never heard back from him. I know that enforcement is inconsistent. It feels like the harder I work to get a return itinerary, they less likely they are to ask me for it. The Airline industry is so screwed up that sometimes one way flight cost more than round trips, but I still feel absurd buying one when I know I won't be using it. almost every Country, from China to New Zealand, has conditions whereby you can prove that you have sufficient funds in your bank account, say 100 dollars per traveler per day, and avoid paying these fees just by providing a bank statement, but the airlines are like gatekeepers, they won{t let you on the flight until you meet their conditions about the return flight... return to sender... your ass belongs to Uncle Sam, and you are stuck in his 3 million square mile prison until you can prove otherwise.
I have done extensive Internet searching and have turned up very little on this. I have asked travel agents, and they just know, or want to know,t hat you have to buy return trip tickets. I have had this discussion in Japan, the US, and a few other places, but no one ever know more..
I'll publish more as I learn more.