I think we sort of have the idea in our culture that your body Changes in puberty until you become A Woman (unless, of course, you become A Man), and then it stays the same and you are A Woman. And then one day, some time in the distant future, you Get Old and your body changes again and then you're an Old Lady.
But in real life, your body changes every single day. As a child, before you've even heard of puberty, you grow every day. Then puberty happens and I don't need to go into THAT mess. But even after you're done puberty, your body still changes every day. Even something small, like you get a zit or a scar. I think we sort of have a tacit cultural expectation that your body stays the same for a huge chunk of adulthood. People are expected to know what they weigh or what their measurements or dress size are, as though these things are constant. So then when your body doesn't stay constant, you feel like something is going wrong.
So maybe everyone would be happier if we standardized the idea that your body is always changing, every single day, and it never stays the same and the fact that it's changing isn't anything particularly special (while retaining compassion for the poor kids who are dealing with puberty).
Sunday, May 11, 2008
False piety
This post arises mainly from the massive protests against not doing the lord's prayer in the legislature, but it's an idea that has been festering for a long time.
There are some religious people (hereinafter The Religious People or RP) who seem to have a really strong need to make non-religious (or differently-religious) people (hereinafter The Non-Religious People or NRP) go through the motions of praying in the Religious People's manner and to the Religious People's deity even though the Non-Religious People don't mean it and are only going through the motions. (I think the RP are also collaborating with the xmas junta.) Even if the NRP say explicitly "No, I don't want say that prayer or sing that hymn or put up that cross because I don't believe in it and I'd just be emptily going through the motions anyway," the RP still try to force them to do that knowing full well they don't believe in it. It's like they're trying to bully people into displaying false piety.
I wonder what the RP get out of this? Some random person who's completely irrelevant to your personal or spiritual life goes through the motions of believing what you believe, either because they were bullied into it or to get you to STFU. And you know full well that they're just pretending. Why is that worth the effort? Why do the RP care? And why is the RP's inclination to try to force all the NRP to put on a show (and making the NRP be like the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector) rather than just living their own values, putting on their own show when they feel the need, and letting the NRP stand as contrast?
There are some religious people (hereinafter The Religious People or RP) who seem to have a really strong need to make non-religious (or differently-religious) people (hereinafter The Non-Religious People or NRP) go through the motions of praying in the Religious People's manner and to the Religious People's deity even though the Non-Religious People don't mean it and are only going through the motions. (I think the RP are also collaborating with the xmas junta.) Even if the NRP say explicitly "No, I don't want say that prayer or sing that hymn or put up that cross because I don't believe in it and I'd just be emptily going through the motions anyway," the RP still try to force them to do that knowing full well they don't believe in it. It's like they're trying to bully people into displaying false piety.
I wonder what the RP get out of this? Some random person who's completely irrelevant to your personal or spiritual life goes through the motions of believing what you believe, either because they were bullied into it or to get you to STFU. And you know full well that they're just pretending. Why is that worth the effort? Why do the RP care? And why is the RP's inclination to try to force all the NRP to put on a show (and making the NRP be like the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector) rather than just living their own values, putting on their own show when they feel the need, and letting the NRP stand as contrast?
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Les ananas ne sautent pas en parachute
I've just been watching Téléfrançais on Youtube. I haven't seen it since like Grade 4. It's a lot more fun to watch now that I understand it isn't supposed to make a whole lot of plot sense and is mainly to reinforce vocab and child language acquisition. Back in Grade 4 I thought I must really be missing French skills or cultural knowledge because I didn't understand why there was a junked car and I wasn't getting very much plot out of it.
Opening titles are at 1:57, Les Squelettes are at 5:35
Opening titles are at 1:57, Les Squelettes are at 5:35
More information please (labour relations edition)
[the Ontario goverment] voted down a private member's bill that offered one of the best anti-poverty tools available.
NDP Leader Howard Hampton's bill would have rolled back a Harris-era crackdown on unions and restored the right of card-membership to Ontario workers as it existed from 1950 to 1996.
[...]
Political leaders serious about helping low-income workers, and reducing widening inequality, would make it easier for workers to join unions, he said.
"Labour unions once were, and could be again, the most effective tool to improve the lot" of workers," he said. And card-membership such as that proposed by Hampton "would be the single biggest step to enable unions to grow again."
Sounds relevant, interesting and important, if only I had some idea what they were talking about. What's card-membership? My googling attempts are hindered by references to credit card membership.
And what exactly did Harris do to unions in 1996? I wasn't in the workforce yet then, and by that point all the grownups in my life who have been in unionized jobs had moved up to management by 1996. I've been in both unionized and non-unionized jobs since, but I don't know anyone who has been in unionized jobs both before and after 1996. I know that there are still unions today, but how is the situation different from pre-1996? The columnist seems to be saying that this is a really important issue, but I can't do anything unless I understand what's going on. A sentence or two of exposition would have been helpful.
On a related note, mentioned in passing in an article about how Catholic school board trustees abused their expenses:
Hartmann also said trustees voted themselves medical and dental benefits despite being told by board lawyers those weren't allowed.
Why aren't school board trustees allowed medical and dental benefits??? I mean, I don't agree with the Catholic school board's existence, but as long as it does exist the trustees are still people with jobs, and if OHIP isn't going to step up then jobs should have medical and dental benefits. WTF?
What if the entire population of Burmyanmar disappeared?
It has become apparent that the Burmese (because I don't know the adjectival form of Myanmar) junta doesn't care at all if the people live or die. And not just in terms of basic human compassion. All signs really seem to indicate that if the entire population just died and there were no more people left in Burmyanmar, that would make no difference whatsoever to the junta. Which doesn't make sense, not just from a human decency perspective, but also from an evil overlord perspective. An evil overlord needs an oppressed population to be evil overlord of, and the junta doesn't even seem to be appreciating that their citizens are there for them to be the boss of.
So let's play make-believe. Suppose every single elite stealth operative in the world descended on Burmyanmar behind the junta's back (they're stealth operatives, that's their job), scooped up the entire population, and relocated everyone to other places in the world, so the only people left in Burmyanmar are the junta. Logistically impossible because of the scale of the operation and completely disrespectful of the Burmese people's human rights (ethics essay topic: how acceptable is it to disregard a person's human rights to save them from someone who's disregarding their human rights worse?), but suppose it happened.
What would the junta think? Would they be cranky that they don't have anyone to boss around? Or would they think "Finally, some peace and quiet?"
So let's play make-believe. Suppose every single elite stealth operative in the world descended on Burmyanmar behind the junta's back (they're stealth operatives, that's their job), scooped up the entire population, and relocated everyone to other places in the world, so the only people left in Burmyanmar are the junta. Logistically impossible because of the scale of the operation and completely disrespectful of the Burmese people's human rights (ethics essay topic: how acceptable is it to disregard a person's human rights to save them from someone who's disregarding their human rights worse?), but suppose it happened.
What would the junta think? Would they be cranky that they don't have anyone to boss around? Or would they think "Finally, some peace and quiet?"
Friday, May 09, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
How to boycott the olympics on the internet
Some people are talking about boycotting the olympics because of China's human rights issues. I assume the plan is to not watch the olympics and not buy any olympic merchandise. But I think it might be more effective to boycott them on the internet. For example:
- During the olympics, don't mention the olympics on the internet, not even in passing. (Unless someone comes up with a good googlebombing.) Don't blog about them. Ideally everyone should blog about human rights instead (without mentioning the olympics at all), but that's a very demanding blog topic, so blog about anything else instead. The goal is to make it look like no one cares about the olympics at all. We don't want them to show up as a trend in Google Trends. It would be beautiful if human rights were getting exponentially more internet attention than the olympics, but it would also be quite helpful there were more posts like "Look at my new haircut!" and "OMG PUPPY!" and "Today I ate a sandwich" than there were about the olympics.
- Don't read any online articles about the olympics. Not even in the newspaper. Don't click through to anything. Do read all articles about human rights (or, if you don't feel like reading them, click on them so they get hits) and click on all their ads. No one should get any hits or ad revenue for writing about the olympics.
The beauty of this technique is that, if you really want to, you can still watch the olympics. I think TV still uses the sample household reporting system to determine ratings (please do correct me if I'm wrong) so you can turn on your TV without anyone noticing. You can still read about the olympics in the print version of the newspaper and no one will ever know. But on the internet, where it is remarkably easy for people to gather information about what gets them read, it will look like no one cares about the olympics at all.
- During the olympics, don't mention the olympics on the internet, not even in passing. (Unless someone comes up with a good googlebombing.) Don't blog about them. Ideally everyone should blog about human rights instead (without mentioning the olympics at all), but that's a very demanding blog topic, so blog about anything else instead. The goal is to make it look like no one cares about the olympics at all. We don't want them to show up as a trend in Google Trends. It would be beautiful if human rights were getting exponentially more internet attention than the olympics, but it would also be quite helpful there were more posts like "Look at my new haircut!" and "OMG PUPPY!" and "Today I ate a sandwich" than there were about the olympics.
- Don't read any online articles about the olympics. Not even in the newspaper. Don't click through to anything. Do read all articles about human rights (or, if you don't feel like reading them, click on them so they get hits) and click on all their ads. No one should get any hits or ad revenue for writing about the olympics.
The beauty of this technique is that, if you really want to, you can still watch the olympics. I think TV still uses the sample household reporting system to determine ratings (please do correct me if I'm wrong) so you can turn on your TV without anyone noticing. You can still read about the olympics in the print version of the newspaper and no one will ever know. But on the internet, where it is remarkably easy for people to gather information about what gets them read, it will look like no one cares about the olympics at all.
0.7%
The situation in Burmyanmar (I'm not even going to venture into the treacherous waters of what to call it) got me thinking about foreign aid. We're supposed to give 0.7% of our GDP to foreign aid, but the last I heard we don't give the full amount. I couldn't google up any information that's more recent than 2005, so I decided to do some research of my own.
According to Statistics Canada, our GDP is currently $1,558,844,000,000 (i.e. approx. $1.5 trillion, if you don't feel like counding digits).
I couldn't seem to google up information on how much we're currently spending on foreign aid. However, the 2008 Budget says that they plan to bring Canada's total international aid budget up to $5 billion in 2010-11. (If you can find information on our current foreign aid budget for 2008, please do post it.)
So let's work with those numbers. Our economy's collapsing, our dollar is high, maybe foreign aid of $5 billion over a GDP of $1.5 trillion isn't that far-fetched. So if you run the numbers, you'll find that $5 billion is 0.32% of Canada's GDP, leaving us 0.38% short.
Let's play with that 0.38%. Go to Google and type in 0.38% of $$$$$, replacing $$$$$ with your annual salary. Check out the resulting amount.
It's not that much, is it? I mean, it's not nothing. Buying shoes that cost that much would be a splurge, but it would certainly be a good price for Perfect Shoes (i.e. comfy, attractive, timeless, something you can wear every day then get reheeled and wear again next year). It would be too much to spend on a friend's birthday present, but if your best friend lost their wallet the Friday before a long weekend, you certainly wouldn't hestitate to press that amount of cash into their palm, waving away their protests, to tide them over until they can get down to the bank on Tuesday. If that were the price of tickets to something that makes you squee like a fangirl at the prospect of getting tickets for it, you wouldn't think twice before going to Ticketmaster the minute the sale opened and frantically pressing refresh. If something important - house, car, computer, dog - had some kind of emergency and you needed to throw money at it to fix it, you'd breathe a sigh of relief if the total bill came out to only 0.38% of your annual salary.
It really surprised me that our aid shortfall was such a relatively small amount. When you look at it on personal terms, it's an amount that if you had to pay it out unexpectedly and in one lump sum, you might feel it in your budget for a month, but after that you wouldn't even notice.
So I went to the Red Cross website and donated that amount to Burmyanmar. Maybe if our country won't step up, we can each make up our individual share of the shortfall.
According to Statistics Canada, our GDP is currently $1,558,844,000,000 (i.e. approx. $1.5 trillion, if you don't feel like counding digits).
I couldn't seem to google up information on how much we're currently spending on foreign aid. However, the 2008 Budget says that they plan to bring Canada's total international aid budget up to $5 billion in 2010-11. (If you can find information on our current foreign aid budget for 2008, please do post it.)
So let's work with those numbers. Our economy's collapsing, our dollar is high, maybe foreign aid of $5 billion over a GDP of $1.5 trillion isn't that far-fetched. So if you run the numbers, you'll find that $5 billion is 0.32% of Canada's GDP, leaving us 0.38% short.
Let's play with that 0.38%. Go to Google and type in 0.38% of $$$$$, replacing $$$$$ with your annual salary. Check out the resulting amount.
It's not that much, is it? I mean, it's not nothing. Buying shoes that cost that much would be a splurge, but it would certainly be a good price for Perfect Shoes (i.e. comfy, attractive, timeless, something you can wear every day then get reheeled and wear again next year). It would be too much to spend on a friend's birthday present, but if your best friend lost their wallet the Friday before a long weekend, you certainly wouldn't hestitate to press that amount of cash into their palm, waving away their protests, to tide them over until they can get down to the bank on Tuesday. If that were the price of tickets to something that makes you squee like a fangirl at the prospect of getting tickets for it, you wouldn't think twice before going to Ticketmaster the minute the sale opened and frantically pressing refresh. If something important - house, car, computer, dog - had some kind of emergency and you needed to throw money at it to fix it, you'd breathe a sigh of relief if the total bill came out to only 0.38% of your annual salary.
It really surprised me that our aid shortfall was such a relatively small amount. When you look at it on personal terms, it's an amount that if you had to pay it out unexpectedly and in one lump sum, you might feel it in your budget for a month, but after that you wouldn't even notice.
So I went to the Red Cross website and donated that amount to Burmyanmar. Maybe if our country won't step up, we can each make up our individual share of the shortfall.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
This is surprisingly spot-on
My numerology report. The italicized parts are wrong, everything else is right (although it sounds way ego to say myself that it's true, so let's say that it's right but a bit more enthusiastic than I'd be myself). I'm surprised, there's usually about twice as much that's way off.
The Life Path 7 suggests that you entered this plane with a gift for investigation, analysis, and keen observation. You are a thinker of the first order. You evaluate situations very quickly, and with amazing accuracy. As a result, you are thorough and complete in your work, the perfectionist who expects everyone else to meet a high standard of performance, too.
A Life Path 7 person is a peaceful and affectionate soul. But you guard your connection to people carefully. It's easy for you to detect deception and recognize insincere people, and you avoid them. You aren't one to have a wide circle of friends, but once you accept someone as a friend, it's for life. It's as if you must get to know someone a lot better before you allow the wall surrounding you to be penetrated. Chances are you are a very charming and refined individual with great poise and a quick wit. Nonetheless, there is an exclusiveness about you. You probably aren't a very social person. Your reserve is often taken to be aloofness, but actually, it's not that at all. It is merely a cover up for your basic feeling of insecurity. There's no rush, It takes time for you to warm up to new friends. Clubs and organizations hold little interest for you; you are not a joiner.
You actually like being alone and away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. In many ways, you would have fit in better in much earlier times when the pace of life was less hectic. You need a good deal of quiet time to be with your own inner thoughts and dreams. You dislike crowds, noise, distractions, and confusion.
The overwhelming strength of the number 7 is reflected in the depth of thinking that is shown; you will garner knowledge from practically every source that you find. Intellectual, scientific, and studious, you don't accept a premise until you have dissected the subject and arrived at your own independent conclusion.
This is a very spiritual number and it often denotes a sort of spiritual wisdom that becomes apparent at a fairly early age. A built in inner guide providing a strong sense of intuition may set you up as being a law unto yourself. Whatever spiritual position you take, whether traditional or bizarre, you will cling to it with fervor. Once you have decided an issue, it is almost impossible to get you to revisit the question. Adaptability is not your style, and change for you is a rarity.
You rely heavily on your experiences and your intuition, rather than accepting advice from someone. Your hunches usually prove to be very accurate, and knowing this, you follow the directions they seem to guide.
In the most negative use of the 7 energies, you can become very pessimistic, lackadaisical, quarrelsome, and secretive. A Life Path 7 individual who is not living life fully and gaining through experiences, is a hard person to live with because of a serious lack of consideration for others. There is such a negative attitude. Indeed, operating on the negative side of the 7 can produce a very selfish and spoiled individual and living with one can be a challenge. This may be why some 7s actually prefer living alone. If you have any of the negative traits they are very difficult to get rid of because you tend to feel that the world really does owe you a living or that in some way you are not being fairly treated.
Fortunately, the negative 7 is not the typical 7, at least not without some mitigating positive traits. This number is one that seems to have some major shifts from highs to lows. Stability in feelings may be elusive for you.
The Life Path 7 suggests that you entered this plane with a gift for investigation, analysis, and keen observation. You are a thinker of the first order. You evaluate situations very quickly, and with amazing accuracy. As a result, you are thorough and complete in your work, the perfectionist who expects everyone else to meet a high standard of performance, too.
A Life Path 7 person is a peaceful and affectionate soul. But you guard your connection to people carefully. It's easy for you to detect deception and recognize insincere people, and you avoid them. You aren't one to have a wide circle of friends, but once you accept someone as a friend, it's for life. It's as if you must get to know someone a lot better before you allow the wall surrounding you to be penetrated. Chances are you are a very charming and refined individual with great poise and a quick wit. Nonetheless, there is an exclusiveness about you. You probably aren't a very social person. Your reserve is often taken to be aloofness, but actually, it's not that at all. It is merely a cover up for your basic feeling of insecurity. There's no rush, It takes time for you to warm up to new friends. Clubs and organizations hold little interest for you; you are not a joiner.
You actually like being alone and away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. In many ways, you would have fit in better in much earlier times when the pace of life was less hectic. You need a good deal of quiet time to be with your own inner thoughts and dreams. You dislike crowds, noise, distractions, and confusion.
The overwhelming strength of the number 7 is reflected in the depth of thinking that is shown; you will garner knowledge from practically every source that you find. Intellectual, scientific, and studious, you don't accept a premise until you have dissected the subject and arrived at your own independent conclusion.
This is a very spiritual number and it often denotes a sort of spiritual wisdom that becomes apparent at a fairly early age. A built in inner guide providing a strong sense of intuition may set you up as being a law unto yourself. Whatever spiritual position you take, whether traditional or bizarre, you will cling to it with fervor. Once you have decided an issue, it is almost impossible to get you to revisit the question. Adaptability is not your style, and change for you is a rarity.
You rely heavily on your experiences and your intuition, rather than accepting advice from someone. Your hunches usually prove to be very accurate, and knowing this, you follow the directions they seem to guide.
In the most negative use of the 7 energies, you can become very pessimistic, lackadaisical, quarrelsome, and secretive. A Life Path 7 individual who is not living life fully and gaining through experiences, is a hard person to live with because of a serious lack of consideration for others. There is such a negative attitude. Indeed, operating on the negative side of the 7 can produce a very selfish and spoiled individual and living with one can be a challenge. This may be why some 7s actually prefer living alone. If you have any of the negative traits they are very difficult to get rid of because you tend to feel that the world really does owe you a living or that in some way you are not being fairly treated.
Fortunately, the negative 7 is not the typical 7, at least not without some mitigating positive traits. This number is one that seems to have some major shifts from highs to lows. Stability in feelings may be elusive for you.
The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery
If you only read one book about climate change, read this one. It is astonishingly well-structured and deals with absolutely everything - not only the things that are mentioned in the book and that we hear in the news, but solar flares and colonization and industrialization and coral reefs and that one chart from my OAC World Issues textbook - it's all covered and written in a way that you don't have to make an effort to read.
This book could also be used as a textbook on how to structure a book. I'm reading along and I'm thinking "Yeah, but what about reforestation?" Then the next paragraph is like "Now you're probably asking "What about reforestation?"" It's talking about rising water levels, so I'm calculating whether that would affect where I live and feeling slightly guilty for doing so, then the next paragraph reassures me that it's perfectly natural to be calculating whether this is going to affect me. Even if you don't agree with what the book has to say, it should get a prize for being so well-structured and user-friendly and anticipating the reader's needs.
This book could also be used as a textbook on how to structure a book. I'm reading along and I'm thinking "Yeah, but what about reforestation?" Then the next paragraph is like "Now you're probably asking "What about reforestation?"" It's talking about rising water levels, so I'm calculating whether that would affect where I live and feeling slightly guilty for doing so, then the next paragraph reassures me that it's perfectly natural to be calculating whether this is going to affect me. Even if you don't agree with what the book has to say, it should get a prize for being so well-structured and user-friendly and anticipating the reader's needs.
Monday, May 05, 2008
The religious argument against opening the legislature with a prayer
...is in Luke 18:9-14, if you're interested.
Normally I wouldn't cite scripture to back up my position on public policy, but since that public policy is the rote recitation of scripture, this might be relevant.
Normally I wouldn't cite scripture to back up my position on public policy, but since that public policy is the rote recitation of scripture, this might be relevant.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Things They Should Invent: Sesame Street kareoke for grownups
I've been having fun with Sesame Street songs, and I realized I would totally kareoke some of these songs. People should do that, either have a Sesame Street-only kareoke for adult children of Sesame Street, or include Sesame Street songs in with regular kareoke
What shall I blog about on a quiet lazy Sunday afternoon? Oh, I know, let's question all humanity's assumptions about our entire existence.
In xianity, and I think in Judaism too, humanity was created in the image of the god, and basically we're the number one life form in all existence. Which I've never really given much in-depth though to because I don't believe in this god or any other.
But suppose for a moment there is a god, but it didn't intend humans to be the number one life form. Instead, the number on life form is some seven-dimensional being that lives on Mercury, and we are just as relevant to this seven-dimensional being and to this god as, like, dandelions are under the model where we're the number one life form created in the deity's own image.
I think I'd like that.
But suppose for a moment there is a god, but it didn't intend humans to be the number one life form. Instead, the number on life form is some seven-dimensional being that lives on Mercury, and we are just as relevant to this seven-dimensional being and to this god as, like, dandelions are under the model where we're the number one life form created in the deity's own image.
I think I'd like that.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Things They Should Invent: pun jar
A pun jar is just like a swear jar, but ultimately will result in more social good. You utter a pun, you put a loonie in the pun jar.
Friday, May 02, 2008
How to make comedy history
Apparently Eddie Izzard now has this bit in his act where he reads pages from wikipedia from his iphone.
So here's what you do: go to one of Eddie's shows with an iphone or a blackberry or some other device that will allow you to access the internet from your seat. As soon as you can anticipate which wikipedia page he's going to read, get there before him and edit it to leave a comment directly for him. It will be the world's first live wikipedia heckle!
(Can't think what to write? How about "Hey, Eddie, get yer ass to Toronto already!")
So here's what you do: go to one of Eddie's shows with an iphone or a blackberry or some other device that will allow you to access the internet from your seat. As soon as you can anticipate which wikipedia page he's going to read, get there before him and edit it to leave a comment directly for him. It will be the world's first live wikipedia heckle!
(Can't think what to write? How about "Hey, Eddie, get yer ass to Toronto already!")
The creepiest picture of Miley Cyrus I have ever seen
Some people have been raising a fuss because there's a picture of Miley Cyrus that suggests that she might be nude under all the cloth that's covering her, but I find this picture much creepier. (It's perfectly SFW, it's a Toronto Star article.) Why? Because of the location of her right hand. She has her right hand on her father's torso.
Now intellectually I realize this sort of thing varies from person to person, but viscerally I'm cringing and squeaming, because I cannot imagine any circumstances under which I'd put my hand on a person's torso like that, unless my intentions were prurient. Putting your arms around each other for a picture, no big deal. A full-on hug, perfectly fine. Small kisses, I can think of dozen contexts in which that's appropriate. Stroking their arm or their back in a moment of sympathy, perfectly normal. Even grabbing their legs, if I'm sitting across from them and they say something that makes me lean forward and squee I could see that happening. But, apart from feeling a baby kick, a hand on a torso simply would never happen in a non-sexual context. If for some reason I had to pose for a picture with my hand on the other person's torso, I don't think I could even strike that pose without making a sultry facial expression.
Snogging a stranger (which, if you're just tuning is, is something I'm not at all into) would be more comfortable for me than putting my hand on a relative's torso. I think perhaps grabbing a relative's butt as a joke would be more comfortable than putting my hand on their torso. Being photographed nude attractively and tastefully would be more comfortable than being photographed with my hand on my father's torso. So yeah, that picture creeps me out.
Now intellectually I realize this sort of thing varies from person to person, but viscerally I'm cringing and squeaming, because I cannot imagine any circumstances under which I'd put my hand on a person's torso like that, unless my intentions were prurient. Putting your arms around each other for a picture, no big deal. A full-on hug, perfectly fine. Small kisses, I can think of dozen contexts in which that's appropriate. Stroking their arm or their back in a moment of sympathy, perfectly normal. Even grabbing their legs, if I'm sitting across from them and they say something that makes me lean forward and squee I could see that happening. But, apart from feeling a baby kick, a hand on a torso simply would never happen in a non-sexual context. If for some reason I had to pose for a picture with my hand on the other person's torso, I don't think I could even strike that pose without making a sultry facial expression.
Snogging a stranger (which, if you're just tuning is, is something I'm not at all into) would be more comfortable for me than putting my hand on a relative's torso. I think perhaps grabbing a relative's butt as a joke would be more comfortable than putting my hand on their torso. Being photographed nude attractively and tastefully would be more comfortable than being photographed with my hand on my father's torso. So yeah, that picture creeps me out.
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