Air & Pussy

I would like to speak with you for a moment, if you would kindly allow me, about this subject we both hold so dear to our lives; this air we breath.

It is getting richer. Not richer in the sense of those individuals or nations who, in pursuing ever increasing margins by either flouting more costly "advanced" methods or utilizng the cheapest (read : dirtiest) materials, are stacking massive reserves of foreign currency; but rather richer in the sense that stacks of cancer causing caustic particles are proliferating and spreading throughout the atmosphere.  While the cross-border movement of capital is viewed as a positive, the later is decidedly less so.

Winter in Seoul has always been harsh.  But, this harshness has always been tempered by the beauty of the high, open blue skies and spirit-warming communal engagement found within various market-places.  No longer.  Now we are on the receiving end of flagellation from not only Mother Nature but from our own hand; well only 30% of "our own" as in "Korea's fault" in terms of the carbon-dioxide emitted from the vastly overpopulated pool of automobiles that seem rather to prefer remaining stationary in the middle of freeways, perhaps due to their own misinterpretation of the meaning of the name of the road they roam that they apparently take to mean "free to stay in the way."  Of course, the remaining 70% of the pollution that enjoys lingering in the winter skies of Korea being the bastard offspring of China, conceived somewhere along the course of that nations re-ascent to dominance and thrown away out of sight without even a second thought.

Lovely.  Now we are the ones who are left gulping down the putrid, coal-blackened effluvium.  And yet, it seems that no one is throwing up their hands at China demanding something be done to rectify this situation.  Why is this?  Of course there are numerous rational explanations that seek to provide some semblance of an answer - an answer, mind you, that provides no hint of a possible solution - but this is the rambling of an obscure blogger, so I will opt instead for an explanation of a controversial and comical nature.  While politicians are often caricatured as being a bunch of Dicks - some more so (and less so) owing to their own, un-coerced disclosures - the current leader of Korea is a Pussy. Literally.

While Dicks may rear their heads in places they are not welcome, it cannot be said that they lack fortitude (unless they do, in which case they lose the title of Dick and fall into the category of Penis (of the flaccid variety)).  Pussies on the other hand, well, they are known to just 'take it.'  They take it standing up, sitting down, in the shower, and, whether they are conscious of it or not, when they are sleeping.  Not to seem unfair or god forbid sexist, I want to make it clear that everyone in Korea at this moment is a Pussy.  We are, in a sense, engaging in perpetual gokkun (look it up) with the pollution that China has ejaculated all over us; is still showering on us.  Also, the 'pussy metaphor' need not necessarily conjure up merely negative associations; in our lives there are times we too must take it.  For example, when we seek to console another in their grief or suffering, by virtue of the process that is sympathizing and empathizing, we very literally not only take the other's upset condition, but we take it upon ourselves.  You see, 'taking it' is both a passive and active act, it can imply heroic virtuosity and effeminate feebleness; it is essentially both masculine and feminine. Interesting, huh?

For our case however, we are Pussies of the effeminate, feeble, passive kind.  You know we are because everyday we are told how to deal with the micro-dust.  We need to wear a mask.  Right, just like pussies apply pads to themselves to deal with the monthly flows of menstruation.  However, this proscription not only clearly illustrates the sarcastic point being made, it unfogivably misses the seriousness of the problem at hand.  Save for newly constructed buildings that intalled energy-saving double paned, gas filled windows and top-end air filtration systems, which is to say no building in Korea, no one is immune to the infiltration of the micro-dust.  Since the micro-dust is ever present in our houses, we are constantly sucking it down.  On top of that, the dust lingers, if not in the air then on the surface of everything for days after serious bouts of micro-dust phenomena.  Wind and other activities will continue to stir up the micro-dust until the natural air purifier that is rain occurs.

So, this is the state of things.  Again to reiterate, I too am a Pussy.  I lack not only fortitude but the authority to affect any kind of change to the circumstances we all find ourselves within. That being said, bearing in mind the fact that Pussies can take on Dick characteristics, we must not forget that if we all come together and 'take on' one another's burden, which is to say our own burden, we will become engorged in the masculine virtuosity capable of toppling empires.  To rephrase John Dickinson's (pun intended) famous quote from 'The Liberty Song' I shall end this post thusly: United we can be Dicks! Divided we are only Pussies!