BORDER DISPUTES!

Now that I have your attention by using the sexiest words possible, let's talk about border disputes. This is something I have been fascinated by for a long period of time, and I spend hours roaming the internet to learn why Country A thinks the line is here, and Country B thinks it's there. I just think it's amazing that something so monolithic, like a country, can be unsure of where it is.

A few years ago, I wrote a blog in regards to a dispute in a politically sensitive area. I took it down because although I like this silly blog, I don't want to get in trouble for it - despite me just talking about how interesting I found it, and not taking a position one way or the other. But people get really heated over land, for reasons I don't really understand. I mean, hey, Canada - if you want to swapsies Montana with Newfoundland on a trial basis or something, I'd be down with that.

And this is why I am not in charge of things.

But, gosh darnit, I have awful opinions, and this is my blog, so you're going to hear about them. However, I think it would be better to stick to countries that I am less worried about. Speaking of Canada and the US, according to Wikipedia, there are 6 border disputes between those countries. In the spirit of settling these matters once and for all, and being stuck in lockdown for who knows how long, I have spent an absurd amount of time learning about these issues. And now, as impartially and ridiculously as I can be, I hereby declare Border Court is now in session.

<gavel bang>

Case 1: The Beaufort Sea

Our first case takes us to the border between Alaska and Canada. See that beautiful straight line? Everyone agrees that is a-okay. The question is when it gets to the beach, and before it hits international waters. Canada says the line just keeps on going. The US says it goes straight out from the coast. Well, the coast is at an angle. This means it creates a wedge that both countries claim. Behold, my terrible doodle showing the US's claims (red), Canada's (yellow), and the disputed area (green):

Verdict: Canada

Like, c'mon US. Really. The line works fine for 1000km (yes, I checked), and then you decide it bends when it hits water, like a straw in a glass? Could it be people never specified that a border behaves differently over the sea, because that is insane? Give Canada its water.

Case 2: The Dixon Entrance

We're still in Alaska, at the end of it's southern tail. Like so many disputes, this one involves the British being terrible at drawing lines. They suck so much in fact, this one has been around since Russia owned Alaska. Anyway, in 1903, there was a treaty, yadda yadda, and it said where the end of Alaska was. Basically the end of the border you see on Google Maps, drawn right across to the tip of the land to the west. BEHOLD! MORE DOODLES!

Canada says, boom, that's the international border. The US says hold up: this only says where the end of Alaska is, it does not say where the maritime boundary is. The actual border should follow The Equidistance Principle, where you draw a line through the middle of everything.

Verdict: US

Canada, be cool. Seems pretty unlikely that the treaty wanted anyone sailing to Alaska to sail through Canadian waters. Besides, have you seen how drunk Americans behave on ships? You'd be knee-deep in beer cans in no time.

 

Cases 3 and 4: Machias Seal Island and North Rock

While technically two separate disputes, they're right next to each other and are affected by the same treaty. This one is actually kind of a big deal, because of the fishing rights in the area. When Trump visited the area during The Dark Timeline, the locals brought it up with him and he said he'd look into it. Clearly he did not, because here I am talking about it.

Like so many things, this is because the British suck at drawing lines. When the British set up Nova Scotia, the charter said that any island within 6 leagues of the coast was theirs. Then when the Revolutionary War ended, the Treaty of Paris agreed that any island within 20 leagues of the coast belonged to the USA.

Guess what's in both.

Actually there were a few places in both, but the War of 1812 cleared it up except for these two (because again, British, lines, suck). In 1832, Canada set up a lighthouse on the island, and have had a few people stationed there ever since. During WWI, the US asked Canada if it could post some soldiers there for defense. Canada said sure buddy, and after the war, the US soldiers left. And that's about all that's happened.

Verdict: Canada (sort of)

This is the hardest one to take a side on because both sides are right. The treaties have a conflict and nobody took the time to notice or settle it. I have to lean in Canada's favor though, since they built a lighthouse, and the US, as far as I could tell, never said "Hey, why you building a lighthouse on our territory?" (Fun fact: The US did start to build a fort on Canadian territory, said whoops, and abandoned it halfway) Also, if the US thought the territory was theirs, why did they ask Canada if they could station troops there? You'd think they would just show up. Anyway, although I do have to give this to Canada, I think the only fair solution would be to split the island in half, even if they have to do weird border stuff to keep the lighthouse. It has been done before with friendly countries. I'm sure if the US and Canada could work this out of if they sat down and shared a Molson with some BBQ.

 

Case 5: The Northwest Passage

You know. The route through the far north of Canada. This isn't really a concern now, because it is mostly covered in ice. However as the planet warms, this would be a valuable shipping route. The US says that this is an international strait.

Verdict: Canada

Look, I'm just going to call this. It literally goes through the middle of Canada. This is like saying the Panama Canal and the Straits of Bosphorus are international. Yeah, it really sucks for the US, but of course they would never admit this claim was only for their selfish interest. 

Just kidding! Here's a quote from the State Department back in the 70s where they admit this claim is only for their selfish interest:

"We cannot accept the assertion of a Canadian claim that the Arctic waters are internal waters of Canada. Such acceptance would jeopardize the freedom of navigation essential for United States naval activities worldwide."

 

Case 6: Strait of Juan de Fuca

We're going back to the west coast for this one. The issue here is similar to Case 1. The border as it is drawn here on Google is fine. The question is the maritime boundary. This is the most interesting one to me, because "winning" the argument here means you "lose" the argument for Cases 3 and 4. I spent way, way too much time learning about this, so I'm going to explain this whether you like it or not:

Basically, there are two different ways to draw maritime boundaries. The first is the Equidistance Principle from Case 2. That is, imagine the land could inflate like a balloon and draw a line down the middle where they'd meet. The other way though, is The Principle of Natural Prolongation, which says that in the case of ambiguity, any line that ends should just keep going (It's worth noting both of these mean Canada is right in Case 1). Anyway, depending on which you choose that gives us two possibilities, which I have continued to poorly doodle below:

Of course, Canada would prefer #2. However, if they go with that, it means that Machias Seal Island and North Rock from Cases 3 and 4 would be within the US. So they're kind of trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Verdict: US (sort of)

Only because Canada is saying "I want the rules to say I always win." I don't think it matters which method you take, as long as you both agree on it and stay consistent. Again, this is something that could be settled with a Molson and some BBQ. Since I said the US and Canada should split the islands earlier, I think they should work out an agreement where they split the difference between these two lines. To me, that seems like the type of solution that good friends would agree on.

<gavel bang>

I hereby close this session of Border Court, until the next lockdown drives me insane. After all this, I could use a Molson and some BBQ.

Day 40. Or 50. I've lost count. This entry is going to be pretty text heavy, and a bit dry. This is definitely a "for me" blog that I won't post on FB, because it is "not interesting" and "is the ranting of someone stuck inside for over a month". 

So, what have I been doing? Not so much, as you'd expect. My day is pretty chill. I get to wake up whenever I want without an alarm (loving that). In the morning and afternoon, I teach my two, 40 minute lessons per day. And many days, we get to go outside to line up and get a stick in my mouth for a COVID test (we've done probably over 20 so far). The rest of the time I fill with Reddit, Youtube, video games (a lot of those - I'm going through the entire Tales series, and I'm up to the PS3 era). Of course, cooking has been happening. My stir fry game is getting up there. I also made a pretty good frittata, and a curry potato pie. Ella made a restaurant-level sweet and sour pork, so we're certainly eating (and drinking) pretty well. Oh, I've also started playing piano.

Actually, I have a lot to say about that, so before I get into my thoughts on the situation in Shanghai, let me get that off my chest. If you'd like to skip ahead, and I recommend you do, I will indicate the end below:

Right, piano. I'm sure this will make my parents happy, at least. They pushed me to learn it well, 30 some years ago. And honestly, I hated it. So, why now? I'm not really sure actually. I suppose because Ella started learning ukulele, and she thought it would be fun if we could play together. But honestly, I'm not really a music person. It has been years since I've opened the music player app on my phone for anything but podcasts. But I guess I picked piano instead of something else because of similar reasons my parents used when I was a kid - it's like a big video game controller. I always found the non-binary nature of guitars and wind instruments really frustrating. Yeah I know the notes will be the same if you're good, but that just seemed like an unnecessary hurdle. Plus I wanted an instrument I could either A) find everywhere, or B) carry. That was my thought process to buy a harmonica years ago (no idea where that is), but I found that hard to play and kind of gross. So, piano it is. I picked up a keyboard for about $10 online, and yeah, it's not great. But it's fine for me.

How then, do I learn this thing? I approached it the same way I teach language, oddly enough - set a goal, and work backwards from there. My long term goal is that I want to see sheet music of songs I like, and be able to play that. Apparently this is an unusual goal, because every tutorial absolutely, positively, suuuucks at teaching you this. It's amazing pianos still exist in the world, as I assume every student would have smashed them in frustration. It reminds me of the very outdated ways of teaching a language, like Grammar Translation (i.e. the way you probably learned in High School, like I did with German). Endless drills, memorization of rules, and other tasks while some taskmaster says "You are not allowed to do that thing you want yet." And consequently, I remember very little of German.

So for my first lesson, I wanted to play the first bit of the Mario theme. That's all. I didn't care about my finger placement, or what the "right" way to do things was. And when you throw all those silly per-requisites away, it only takes like 5 minutes to do. And that was motivating. Motivating enough to play more and add more songs. By now I'm able to do the treble clef fairly competently. I only use 4 fingers (I guess I have a short thumb? It's really uncomfortable), I don't know the difference between the types of notes, but it doesn't matter. I'm doing things I actually want to do.

So now I have to think, how does piano instruction suck so much? Is it because that people just teach the same way they were taught? If so, what a waste. Surely there were things about your instruction you found difficult or disliked. Why wouldn't you want to improve on that? Or maybe I'm being too cynical, and there are plenty of piano instructors that do the "set a goal and work back" approach. All I can say is that if they were around as a kid, and the words "must", "rules", and "correct" were not in their vocabulary, I may have stuck with piano. For now, I think I'm partially learning in order to play with Ella, and partially out of pure spite for every stuck up tutorial out there.

====END OF PIANO RANT====

I guess I had a lot to say about piano.

I remember back when Ella and I were in Bali, we got hit by an earthquake. In truth, it was incredibly minor. It definitely was not minor the next island over, but I guess because Bali is a well-known place with lots of foreigners, it get a lot of attention on the US news. However, I feel the attention it got was really overblown and very clickbaity. People saying how scary it was, how things were shaking, etc.. Yeah, I mean, it is an earthquake. Things shake. But the whole thing was 10 seconds and was not at all severe. This has sort of colored my opinion of mainstream US news that they care more about views than being objective. It is my impression, although I cannot confirm, that is how they approached the situation in Shanghai.

And I'm sort of in between a rock and a hard place, here. The official state news will of course say everything is great. However, foreign news will say everything is terrible. And what I don't see is anyone in the middle. In truth, we are fine. We've always been fine. If it was the apocalypse like western news says, I feel I would have noticed. I mean, try to have 25 million people pull in the same direction? Good luck, with that. There will always be people who do not agree and fight back. I would like to see stories that are a mix of "Hey, these people are chilling on their balcony, but these people are struggling to pay rent." I guess because "everything is fine here" is not exciting news, but it also is informative, which is what I want. I just wish there were more of me.

But really, Ella and I have been okay through this whole ordeal. Early on we were a bit low on food, but instead of trying to do it ourselves we joined the community group orders. Now, along with government handouts, our biggest problem is eating the food we have before it goes bad. We've literally been giving it away boxes of food to neighbors with larger families. The only real struggle now is the mental one. Fortunately we're both pretty introverted, and have been more or less fine. Early on we'd get bummed for a day or so, but it rarely lasted. We'd occasionally get on each others nerves, but we would both talk about it and work things out. We're really quite used to it by now, and I think I could tolerate it for longer - not that I'd want to be any means, dear god let me go to a bar. However, I don't know how this all ends. I get COVID is dangerous, but is a lockdown this long the solution? There has to be a cost-benefit analysis, and I am not sure where things lie. Regardless, I think this will change Shanghai, for sure. Some 80% of foreigners, according to polls, say they're going to leave after this. I mean, asking people in lockdown "do you want to leave?" is going to skew the results for sure, but even if a fraction follow through it will feel like a different city. On the one hand, as a foreigner I'll be an even more rare commodity, which is not nothing for the salary. On the other, the idea of another lockdown is a hard sell. While this time has been tolerable, it has not been enjoyable. I am certainly not in the right state of mind to decide this now, but if China is going to stay hitched to the "zero covid" train, we need to consider if we want to get off at the next station.