Whatever you read here, please, don't try to find any sense. Any salient points made and supportable claims found are entirely coincidental and/or made in error and should not be taken as indications that I am capable of performing critical analysis or having informed opinions. I am an undereducated buffoon whose only saving grace is his ability to spell.
Showing posts with label my opinionated opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my opinionated opinion. Show all posts
Okay, look, the hotness of Ariana Grande aside, this song is a mess.
I'm not saying it isn't catchy. Of course it is. An impressive amount of cynical calculation goes into making today's pop music to ensure such outcomes. No, the problem (no pun intended) with this song is it's doing too much and yes, I'm saying 820.4 million views (as of this post) can be wrong...
First of all, I think this song was given to the wrong performer. And yes, performer. I'm not for a moment going to pretend that Ariana Grande is anything more than a performer in her industry. If you want to be an artist, you have to be able to do more than sing songs and Ms. Grande has not been presented to us as anything more than a singer of someone else's songs. There's no shame in that as it's a staple of the music industry. Not everyone can sing, write lyrics, compose music, plays such compositions, and arrange it all into a presentable piece. Farming out that work to professionals has created some of the best music we've ever been given.
I'm just not going to call you an artist for being a professional singer/performer. I'll reserve that title for people who can do at least three of those five things.
But the point I'm getting at is this song seems out of Ariana Grande's range. When I hear it played on the radio, I can barely make out what she's singing. She's trying to sustain notes either too high for her or too high at that tempo. Plus it sounds rather nasal, no?
Secondly, I hate featuring. Again, it's been done for a long time but in the past it felt more like something a friend was doing for another like Eric Clapton playing the solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" or Greg Hawkes playing keyboards for some of Ric Ocasek'ssolo work. And featuring back then was another artist contributing to the work of the main artist. Nowadays featuring feels like an intrusion to the song you've been listening to.
This too goes back a while as I can remember some No Doubt songs off the album Rocksteady having featured artists and I think in the rap industry, it goes even further back. Iggy Azalea, however, is an intrusion. Her presence takes away from, rather than enhances, the work. It's as though someone had changed the radio station in the middle of the song before changing it back. It's almost like a commercial you must endure before returning to your regularly scheduled programming.
Again, I get it. It's about money. Having hip-hop in your pop song gives it crossover appeal which means more $$$.
On a side note though... How is Iggy Azalea not considered to be doing something equivalent to blackface? She's a white Australian affecting a decidedly "black" voice. I guess that's considered okay now? Or is it one of those "it can't be racist because" things since she's not American? I don't know...
But perhaps the most glaring thing about this song is you can't know whose song it is. It's not Iggy Azalea's because she's just in it for the bridge but it's arguably not Ariana Grande's song either because should the band/performer be the one singing the chorus?
I mean, think about it. What is the chorus to "Problem"? It's nothing Ms. Grande sings. It's that guy whispering "I got one less problem without'cha": that's the chorus. Nothing else qualifies and that's something that makes this song very confusing. Its most memorable part (which is typically the chorus, though yes it can be a bitchin' solo) is not sung by the headlining performer but by another hip-hop artist named Big Sean so is it his song then despite his minimal presence?
I would have to say yes because that's how I feel when listening to songs. The chorus is generally the most important part as it's repeated, making it easy to learn quickly and allowing the song itself to become embedded in one's mind when it hits right. It focuses your attention on the song and since it's not performed by Ms. Grande, it makes the whole experience weird.
I don't know why Superman doesn't age. I've seen comics in which he survives thousands, if not millions of years, into the future. For the sake of the story, I can accept the the light of our yellow sun bestows Superman with his immense powers but I don't see why he shouldn't still be subject to aging.
On top of that, Superman seems like a dated character. He makes sense in the 1930s-1950s but I have a harder time seeing him remain relevant later on. His methods seem tailor-made for a time when people were looking for and needed big solutions. It was the Prohibition Era, the rise of organized crime, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, etc. Around the world, it was the consequences of World War I and the rise of various fascist states. I have a difficult time imaging someone who's basically a living god dealing with problems like Civil Rights, Feminism, and Environmentalism.
As for origin stories, Superman does have a convenient tie-in with actual world history.
Superman was obviously not born of Earth despite looking every bit as much like a human. He was born on a planet named Krypton at a time when the world was doomed. Their sun, called Rao, was going to die spectacularly. As to why a mass evacuation was not planned or even attempted, I don't know. Personally I wouldn't want to venture into that question (even though the comics certainly have). I think it better to suggest a story rather than actually depict it in this case. As it has been said about art: to define is to kill. We don't need to know why Krypton and all its inhabitants were destroyed, just that it did and that Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, managed to escape that Holocaust and arrive to a good family on Earth.
I figure, like the Thundercats, baby Kal-El was placed in a state of suspended animation for his long journey to Earth. How long the journey took should not be revealed. It could be anywhere from a few weeks to thousands of years. I figure Kryptonian technology must have been advanced but it's not important to know its details. I'm happy to go with the strange crystal ship we saw in the movies and its related crystal-based technology which we see working even though we don't know how it works.
Something else I wonder...did the writers know of the gaseous element or, because everyone on the planet died, was it supposed to be a pun "Crypt + -on" and they changed the C to a K?
As for when Superman arrives, however, that much can be said with certainty. In 1908 on June 30th over Siberia in near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River there was a massive explosion from an airburst made by a comet. While it left no crater it destroyed a large section of the forest in that area: over 750 square miles. It was only luck that this explosion did not occur over a very populated area. This seems to me as good a time as any to have Superman arrive on Earth.
Trees flattened by the Tunguska explosion. Imagine if we had better aircraft then so it could be photographed from high up?
Superman's crystal ship would have landed in Smallville and the explosion over Tunguska would have actually been a fragment of Krypton itself laced with the mineral kryptonite. Since this was before the Great War, perhaps in a spirit of scientific cooperation, samples of this meteorite would be sent all over the world, including the United States which would allow Lex Luthor to come into contact with the mineral and successfully hypothesize its effects on Superman later in this story's timeline.
I'm happy to have Smallville be located in Kansas, where it was in the iconic 1978 film, rather than have it be a mysterious Anytown, USA. It seems especially necessary for Superman to be "out of the public eye" in his formative years, raised and cared for by his adoptive family, the Kents, who are eternally grateful (and willing to keep his secret, even from Superman) for their literal gift from the heavens of a child whom they would christen Clark since they were incapable of conceiving on their own.
I'm not going to speculate here how Clark grew up here but it's obviously incredibly important that it be done right. Other superheroes have to learn the message of "With great power comes great responsibility" and no one more represents this message more than Superman given what he, as a living god, is capable of doing. Fortunately for the world he found himself being raised by a wholesome Kansan family who taught him right from wrong, about justice and fairness, about believing in your fellow man, and about idealized American values. It's very "Aww, shucks!" but without it, Superman could easily have become a fanatical dictator (which I believe he does in "Red Son")
I have no desire to see "the Adventures of Superboy". As far as I'm concerned, Superman did not set out to be a hero and had a regular childhood. I don't even know if I would want it revealed why he turned to superheroism either: as with Kryptonian culture and technology, it seems better left unsaid and implied. However, he should definitely come out wearing his trademark uniform on April 18, 1938 (when Action Comics number one was published) and declare himself to a curious public/press in June of that same year (that issue bore the date "June 1938" despite being published prior).
Dated June 1938; published April 18th
I think the newest movie suggested it took some time for Superman to gain his powers under our yellow sun so perhaps Clark Kent was effectively "just a man" until at least puberty and afterward, as his powers started manifesting, Ma and Pa Kent's teachings would take on an especially heavy importance. I think of the exchange from the movie spoken by Pa Kent:
The Superman story in my version also benefits starting in 1908. It was easier to hide back then and start fresh. There was no Social Security administration. The Kents, especially if they moved, could probably get away with claiming Clark to be their own child and if not, I'm sure no one would demand proof of adoption back then.
Clark would be nine years old when the United States entered World War I: maybe he knew friends who lost their fathers to the war. He'd be adolescent during Prohibition: perhaps organized crime affected his life in some way. He'd be 25 when Hitler came to power and when the Great Depression hit the hardest: did the Kents lose their farm? How did Smallville handle the despair? I don't know how Superman would have handled World War II though that war did scream out for heavy-handed solutions. Does he stay out of it? Does something force his hand? World history is already changed by his mere presence but how far does it go? Were the Kents progressive folk or did Superman carry with him attitudes that may have kept him from being concerned about the rights of black people and the plight of Jews in Europe?
When does Lex Luthor enter the scene? Maybe for the sake of the movie, Luthor gets his start in real estate schemes before the war but as a soldier in the war, he is the only one depicted showing concern, even horror, that Superman ended it so quickly and decisively in favor of the Allies. As was already stated in some of the comics, Luthor sees in Superman potential menace rather than blindly accepting him as an American hero like the rest of the public. His role was to take on the thankless task of stopping a god, or at the very minimum, containing him, before Superman realizes humanity is virtually incapable of stopping him (Superman) from doing what he damn well pleases.
Does Superman steal Capt. America's thunder and punch out Hitler himself?
Going by my timeline, Clark Kent would be 30 years old when he debuts as Superman and about 70 years old when he dies on December 10, 1978 (the date when "Superman: The Movie" first premiered) giving about a forty year run.
As for what causes Superman's death, which I'm assuming will have an air of heroism to it rather than simply the fading of a light, I don't care to speculate (although the Khmer Rouge was in power, actively genociding the Cambodian population at the time). However, I figure his end would be something like that of Avatar Wan, the very first Avatar from the Last Airbender universe in which Superman laments that he was unable to make the world a better place because there's still crime, corruption, war, and supervillainy. There simply wasn't enough time...
[With his eyes closed.] I'm sorry, Raava. I failed to bring peace. Even with Vaatu locked away, darkness still surrounds humanity. [Opens his eyes.] There wasn't enough time...
However, in his death, he becomes an inspiration for many other heroes. So, in a sense, like Avatar Wan, his spirit remains on Earth and continues to do good in the face of the entropy of evil.
The first of such heroes would be Batman whose comic debuted in 1939. Batman could have declared himself, a year after Superman did, in response to what he was seeing in Metropolis. Knowing that Superman could not be everywhere at once and still deeply affected by the loss of his parents to crime in Gotham City, Batman would be the first "copycat" hero even if his methods would not necessarily gain the approval of Superman.
I could go on, but I think I've already said enough...
[On a side note, I don't see Batman as a modern hero either. He feels dated as well, like he would benefit from a time with less invasive technology. I imagine the internet would be as much a bane to Batman's secret identity and staying at least one step ahead of both criminals and law enforcement as would the loss of telephone booths and omnipresent security cameras be to frustrating Superman's quick costume changes and desire for anonymity]
Recently, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew mentioned modifying the $10 bill to feature a woman instead of Alexander Hamilton as it was next in line to be redesigned in 2020 though I do not believe he committed to totally ousting his portrait on the note...maybe it'll still be the watermark? I don't know. However this has been causing a minor uproar in various newspaper editorials on why Hamilton ought not be removed and it's the same provincial reasoning that has kept dead Presidents/elder statesmen on our coins since 1948.
The rules for currency redesign are not codified in law to my knowledge but the Coinage Act of 1890 does specify that a design may be changed on a coin without the approval of Congress after 25 years and while this was done for a little while.
Barber coinage replacing the long-lasting Seated Liberty coinage from 1892-1916 which in turn was replaced by a veritable renaissance of Liberty depictions covering a span of 1916-1947 which in turn was replaced, starting in 1909 or 1932 depending on how you look at it, with Presidents that have never been replaced. Only the Franklin half dollar yielded to John F. Kennedy in 1964 and that design has proven unremovable as well.
In fact, the only President successfully replaced on a coin was Eisenhower whose dollar was made from 1971-1978. He was replaced by Susan B. Anthony in 1979 and she proved replaceable with the Sacagawea dollar starting in 2000. The key difference here though, the dollar coin barely circulates so no one's constituencies feel "threatened".
Our currency, like our coins, was once colorful and imaginatively designed. The idea of a portrait of a famous American to act as a focal piece of the note began from its inception in 1861. They even featured Lincoln while he was still alive, something which cannot be done now.
But also like our coins, starting in the 1920s, it became a goal to standardize our currency which up until that point had frequent redesigns and depicted a wide variety of portraiture such as Presidents, famous generals, Treasurers, notable Americans like Lewis and Clark, American Indians, and even allegorical depictions of Science, Liberty, America, and Industry.
Additionally, by the late 1920s it was deemed necessary to save money on printing by reducing the size of bank notes to their present-day size. When these small-sized notes were introduced, the portrait line-up was frozen with $1 Washington, $2 Jefferson, $5 Lincoln, $10 Hamilton, $20 Jackson, $50 Grant, $100 Franklin, $500 McKinley, $1000 Cleveland, $5000 Madison, and $10000 Chase.
These notes were introduced in 1929.
1929!
That's almost 90 years ago. There's probably less than a hundred people still alive with a living memory of anyone other than Hamilton appearing on the $10 bill and odds are that memory would be of Andrew Jackson who graced the 1914 series $10 Federal Reserve Note, 1918 series $10 Federal Reserve Bank Note, and 1923 series United States Note. Other current portraits on $10 bills at the time before the changeover were the first Treasurer of the United States, Michael Hillegas, graced the 1922 series $10 Gold Certificate and recently deceased Vice-President Thomas Hendricks appeared on the 1908 series $10 Silver Certificate. Assassinated President William McKinley graced the 1902 series $10 National Bank Notes.
Money used to be a lot more than Federal Reserve Notes!
I'm not saying I hate Alexander Hamilton, a man instrumental making this country what it is today, no. Though that is what people would imply of me but it's not the case. It's about sharing the spotlight with other notable Americans like was done previously. Replace all the current portraiture in fact, even Washington and Lincoln.
You can't tell me there are no other men and women truly worthy of such commemoration. You can make a rule like they have to not only be dead but maybe dead for at least 50 years so as to allow perspective to develop. I don't know who Thomas Hendricks is. I seriously only learned looking up whose portrait graced the various $10 bills of yesteryear. He was commemorated too quickly one might presume. I would argue the same with Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Dwight Eisenhower on the dime (less than a year after his death), half-dollar (less than a year after his assassination), and dollar coin (about two years after his death) respectively.
Change the vignettes on the reverses too.
But the point is, 90 years is too long. If the Federal Reserve wants to redesign currency every 7-10 years to keep up with counterfeiters then why not introduce new portraiture and vignettes while we're at it?
I feel like the US missed a great opportunity for a grand redesign of our coins and currency during the Bicentennial. We got a new reverse for the $2 bill (the old ones prior to the 1976 series featured Jefferson's mansion Monticello) and some reverse-modified quarters, halves, and dollar coins but that was it (and in the case of the latter, the design was produced only for 18 months with the previous designs resuming in 1977).
We could have had currency vignettes depicting important/triumphant events in US history. The $2 bill led the way with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We could have had things like the Surrender at Saratoga (which ended the Revolutionary War), the signing of the Constitution, an artist's rendering of the assault on Fort McHenry (where the Star Spangled Banner was written), Lincoln delivering the Gettysberg Address (or the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse which ended the Civil War), the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, and the Moon Landing among other possibilities.
Who might have graced such notes? I don't know, but the point is...we should have tried. Same with our coins. All our money designs are tired and stale. Surely good art is not dead in this country. Surely we can do better...
I saw it asked in the latest issue of COINage magazine and thought I'd offer my two cents (so to speak) on how I think one ought to divide up this nation's numismatic history and why. I am starting the eras with the commencement of Federal coinage under the Coinage Act of 1792 for the United States under the Constitution. Earlier eras exist but they will not be the focus of this article.
The following "coin eras/periods" will be elaborated upon after the jump:
The Early Era (1793-1834)
--- the Commencement Period (1793-1804)
--- the Undervalued Gold Period (1805-1834) The Classic Era (1834-1889)
--- the Early Classic Period (1834-1850)
--- the Neo-Denominational Period (1851-1877)
--- the Late Classic Period (1878-1889) The Renaissance Era (1890-1933)
--- the Early Renaissance Period (1890-1906)
--- the Renaissance Period (1907-1921)
--- the Late Renaissance Period (1922-1933) The Modern Era (1934-1998)
--- the Early Modern Period (1934-1947)
--- the Portraiture Period (1948-1970)
--- the Clad Period (1971-1998) The Circulating Commemoratives Era (1999-present)
Every time I watch a documentary about the Holocaust, I learn something new. It's just that big of a story. Night Will Fall was no exception. As I watched it, I found myself wondering what happened to the survivors afterward and this was briefly touched upon. It turns out that once fed and properly hydrated, once those basic needs had been met, they would slowly return to a more human state, even bickering over fashions, after a period as short as 2-3 weeks (and I'm sure you've seen pictures of the harshly starved prisoners from death camps at the time of their liberation).
I also learned that while American and British authorities were happy to use the atrocities of the Holocaust in order blame the defeated Germans, that neither government felt any obligation to care for the Holocaust's victims, especially the Jewish ones, either be granting them a place to live in their respective countries or to allow them to form a nation of their own. It didn't matter that what was done was a crime against humanity, they were still Jews...
And while the latter ultimately happened in 1948 with the creation of Israel, those people first heading there found themselves deported back to a Europe that did not want them or even held in new internment camps so shortly after having left their prior hells.
There are many unpleasant things one learns throughout history, both about the world and about one's own home. I am amazed at how easy it apparently was for the Final Solution apparatus to be set up and how readily it was carried out; at how easily a people could be swayed to collaborate and effect an end to a perceived scapegoat; at how easily those living near such death mills were able to blithely ignore the goings-on of the genocidal machinery within.
But then I am also amazed at how easily to this day people will call out for genocidal actions against the "other". And don't get me wrong. As a radical free speech supporter, I will not stand in the way of people wishing to voice such opinions. As a human being, I would be obligated to oppose the carrying out of such desires, but I will never oppose simply talking about it or wishing it upon.
I don't care if you ultimately still hate Jews, Muslims, gays, blacks, Latinos, communists, etc. but just remember when you casually call out blood, indiscriminate retributive bombing campaigns, or even openly wish for genocide that, to carry it out, this is what is required of you and those whom you commit to such tasks. This is what you must turn your eyes upon and see. This is what must be done. This is what must be lived with afterward.
There are spoilers in this kinda-sorta review so if you don't want to know, you only have yourself to blame for continuing...
I finally finished reading a novel by Samuel Delaney called Dhalgren and when I say finally, I mean from start to finish, this read took over fifteen years.
When I was still in college I had gotten into the habit of speaking with my adjunct after class. He would talk about literature, storytelling, and whatnot. One day he recommended to me, based on things I was saying, a novel called Dhalgren. He convinced me of its interesting nature by recalling events like their being an enormous sun and two moons in the sky and some other details which could be gleaned from reading the book's jacket. However, I never asked him how to spell it (or even if it were one word or two) and I quickly forgot who the author was.
It took me about a year to track the novel down because I had never thought to spell it with a D-H. But I found it and serendipitously at that, and by using a card catalog too...way to date myself! I put in an order at the local bookstore and it soon came into my possession.
I noticed the first page started in the middle of a sentence and my impatience got the better of me so I checked out the novel's last page to see if it ended on the start of that sentence. I found that it did and that I soon regretted having spoiled myself of what I thought the novel's twist was. I decided that I would not like to read this novel until I had forgotten this detail but as it is with memory, telling yourself to forget something is how you burn it permanently into the fabric of the Gilligan's Island Theme region of the brain.
Every time afterward I would look at and consider beginning that novel, the memory of my impulsiveness would return.
Six moves later, I unceremoniously plucked it from my shelf and made it my newest laundry read. A confession: I'm not much of a reader (by my definition anyway**) so I only read when doing my laundry. I'm stuck in that room for about an hour so it gives me something to do as well as an excuse to finally read these books that've been decorating my various residences all these years.
And so began my long journey to complete this novel, thirty or forty pages at a time once or twice monthly depending on my laundry needs. I avoided looking up anything about it online, even fan artwork, because I wanted to get as much out of it as I could without being influenced from the outside. I'll admit I had grown impatient by the end. When I hit that final chapter (and these are long chapters...it's an 800 page novel with seven chapters), I wanted this over so I actually read on my own time over a couple of days to finish it up and so here I am.
In retrospect, one thing that bugged me about Metroid II: The Return of Samus is why did she start the game with so few items? Now, I don't mean fully powered-up because that would be a weird game. I'm talking about the minimum necessary for her to accomplish her mission.
The story of the game has Samus traveling to the planet SR-388 to eliminate the Metroid species. I guess they have been deemed too dangerous to live. Unfortunately the game manual gives away that the Metroid species moults into successively larger forms when permitted to go through its natural life cycle but that's a God's-eye view for the player.
Samus, as far as I know, is unaware of this creature's capability so one would think she would've landed on SR-388 expecting to encounter the same creatures she found in the Tourian region of the planet Zebes. Those Metroids could only be killed by freezing them with her ice beam and pumping five missiles into their now-hardened gelatinous bodies.
Metroids attacked by grabbing onto Samus and rapidly drawing out her energy. That's how Metroids eat, they draw out the life force of living creatures. If this happened to you, you rolled up into a ball and dropped bombs. The bombs would knock the Metroid off you since you could not freeze them from inside.
Based on these attacks and abilities, one would think Samus would go to SR-388 bearing an ice beam, some missiles, morph ball, and bombs. Instead she begins the game with only a standard beam, the ball form, and 30 missiles.
The game had a chance to set up a HOLY SHIT! moment but missed the opportunity. Let me illustrate.
In the original Samus runs around a fairly open and unprotected cave encountering few enemies. At one dead-end is a pool of corrosive liquid through which she cannot pass and the other dead-end is a flashing Metroid resting on the ground and definitely not pursuing Samus. Get within a defined range and the Metroid's first metamorphosis occurs right before your eyes. An Alpha Metroid appears. Your shots have no effect on it, nor should you expect them to because in the original game only the ice beam would stop their advance. Your missiles, however, hurt the creature and five hits later it is vanquished, an earthquake happens, and the previous dead-end no longer has the corrosive liquid allowing you to advance.
Later on you find bombs and an ice-beam among other new and old items.
What I propose should have happened is Samus begins her adventure appropriately armed for killing the Metroids she expects to find (ice beam, missiles, morph ball, bombs). She travels through the same open cave.
The difference is she encounters an ordinary Metroid below several rock layers that one cannot quickly traverse. I'm thinking a couple layers of narrow corridors. Go all the way left, drop a bit, go all the way right, drop a bit, repeat. This is a set-up for the player. Why the Metroid is flashing would be unknown to the player and even easily dismissed as something the Game Boy's limited graphics were doing to make the enemy appear more interesting.
The Metroid would appear unaware of Samus perhaps because of the many rock layers between them the player might surmise. Either way, since this appears to be the point of the game, the player would give chase and the Metroid would dart out of the room further incentivizing the player.
The player then encounters the floor-resting Metroid like in the actual game and the metamorphosis sequence begins.
The player would fire ice beams only to find they have no effect. This teaches the player that this new, lightly armored version of the Metroid has developed a resistance to cold.
The player would also quickly learn these Alpha Metroids don't draw out life energy by circumcluding their prey like the larval forms do. They instead directly attack prey, perhaps drawing out energy via pokes and prods making the bombs she has brought worthless for keeping these new Metroids at bay.
The player would then find only direct missile strikes in the smaller exposed core have any effect. Five hits would kill the creature resulting in the earthquake as before. Game continues as normal but this time the player gets that shock of finding out Metroids are a lot different from what we've come to know about them.
The manual, if it were especially devious, would give no hints about the various Metroid moults and explain them only in an ending sequence or via log entries like Project AM2R has been doing.
Sometimes I wish manuals wouldn't give crap away. In the original game the manual told you how to kill the Metroids. You would think it would have left that for the player to figure out. Too bad they couldn't just be killed with missiles but freezing them with the ice beam would make it easier. The game had a wave beam and you were pretty screwed if you entered Tourian with it. Hell, if you didn't have the manual, you might have thought the Metroids were invincible :-)
I am fortunate to have friends from all sides of the political divide even if the majority of them fall into the liberal side of the equation. One of the things I see popping up in my Facebook feed is a call for the labeling of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). It's taken me a while, but I have come down decidedly against such labeling, at least so long as it is mandatory.
First of all, I don't find the proponents of such labeling to be putting forth scientific arguments. They fail to establish how transgenic plants (and presumably one day, animals, but let's stick to plants for this post) are inherently different from plants produced by selective breeding, grafting, cloning, and chemical and radiation-induced mutagenesis (i.e. the deliberate damaging of DNA).
Calling it unnatural is a non-starter since both grafting exists and bacteria having been trading genes with each other across species for billions of years. Perhaps analogously, it is the bacterial version of sexual reproduction.
I would need a reason (or reasons) that make the insertion of a gene into a plant's DNA fundamentally different from any of the other mentioned methods. Presently the only difference I can say exists definitively is that the changes wrought by such gene insertions are far more precise than any other form of selective breeding as this chart shows.
(click to enlarge)
Nextly I've learned that such a label would be redundant. There's already a label for it: organic. In order for a foodstuff to receive the coveted organic label, among its requirements is that the foodstuff cannot have been made using GMO plants.
Therefore, if you do not want GMO products in your diet, you have the organic label to provide you with that reassurance.
When I originally made this point I was told that organic products are expensive to which I replied they are expensive because they are not popular. If getting GMOs out of people's diets is the goal of label proponents, they need only begin advertising this fact. If getting GMOs out of diets is truly the will of the people, they would then flock to organic products, having a new reason to do so. More people desiring organic products would put pressure on producers which in turn would increase the amount of such products on the market and drive their price down. I got no response to that.
It was with this mentioning of the already-existing organic label that got me believing that GMO labeling proponents are not about creating an informed citizenry. I could argue that it is about fear-mongering (especially the calls/stall tactic for ascertaining its safety when I don't see them eager to have scientifically verified/disproven the legitimacy of their claims about organic foods) and while that may be a component of the push for GMO labeling, I thought of it as something else instead: religion.
As far as I know, there's no science behind organic food nor its movement. Organic appears to me as a philosophy, perhaps a misguided philosophy but a philosophy nonetheless akin to other values-based, but often pseudoscientific, movements like raw food advocacy and alternative medicine. It's presented in an emotionally persuasive, but not evidentially persuasive, way by practitioners to prospective converts. Logical fallacies like "appeal to nature" are also employed but I'm digressing...
What I'm getting at is I see anti-GMO movement as an offshoot of the organic movement, though still most definitely under the natural food movement's umbrella. For me, their dietary requirements are akin to religious dietary requirements.
Take kosher (or halal) for example. There's nothing dangerous or particularly unhealthy about non-kosher foods nor is there necessarily anything better or healthier about kosher ones. People consume non-kosher foods all the time without consequence to their health. Scientifically there's nothing to support keeping kosher either. There's some ret-conning of things like pork saying that trichinosis was common back in ye olde days so avoiding pork was a good idea but that's not why this was done.
No, the reason why religious dietary restrictions exist is the same reason why cultural idioms exist: it serves as a useful way to solidify membership/express solidarity in an exclusive club (so to speak) and to identify outsiders. There are plenty of war stories about how spies were caught not because of some elaborate operation, but because they looked the wrong way first before crossing the street.
Organic worshipers (if you will) have a set of values by which they abide and through these values, offer a means to show solidarity with fellow practitioners and like any religion, there's an ever-present need for additional adherents to avoid extinction.
Anyways, plenty of products exist out there which are naturally kosher but others may fall into a gray area and though I'm not Jewish, my store has a rather large Passover selection when the holiday rolls around. Simple observation shows that Passover has its own requirements, or at least stricter ones, as certain products are labeled as being kosher, but not kosher for Passover and others as kosher always.
If you want kosher products, you have an easy means for identifying them in the marketplace whether the K in a circle symbol or "parve". You can choose to buy kosher whether you are Jewish or not. There are also no requirements (to my knowledge) that all foods that are kosher be labeled as such. It is a voluntary label for the voluntary adherents of Judaism. It might be good business, but it is not a required business.
I see the organic label as no different than the kosher label and I view the movement to have GMOs labeled without proper scientific reasoning to back up such a labeling requirement as no different than Jewish leaders petitioning Congress to mandate the labeling of all non-kosher foods in the US marketplace. There's no need to label foods as non-kosher when a kosher label already exists and it would violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution I would assume for the government to mandate such labeling as it would appear to be the sponsoring of a religion.
There's no science behind kosher, only religious values. There's also no science behind organic labeling, only values. Labeling GMO foods does not educate or inform the consumer, it would only promote ignorance in a manner similar to when people use the lay definition of theory when deriding a scientific theory they disagree with. It is not a safety issue since GMO foods are not substantially different from non-GMO foods nutritionally (and if they are, that would require a label or the modification of an existing one like golden rice for example, the Vitamin A section of the nutrition label would have a different number than ordinary rice). We already happily import non-native plants and animals so it can hardly be considered an environmental issue either.
The FDA already has a black mark against it because its authorizing act specifically exempted pseudoscience-based homeopathic remedies from scrutiny and Congress has never fixed this. The USDA doesn't need a similar black mark with GMO labeling.
I guess the point is - assuming I've even been making one - is that if you're promoting your values, advertise the organic label better to both increase your adherents and bring down the cost of organic foodstuffs. But until and unless you have a scientific argument to support GMO labeling, I want you to keep your religion out of my food...
A common argument I hear against eliminating the penny is that it will cause additional inflation because stores will price their items in such a way so as to benefit from the round up.
First of all, that is stupid. Psychological pricing isn't going to go away with the loss of the cent. If anything, you'll get a better deal. Do you honestly think $19.99 is going to suddenly become $20 after the cent has been eliminated or do you think it will be much more likely to see a price of $19.95?
Remember, $19.99 is twenty bucks. So is $19.95. It just doesn't look like twenty bucks because our brains, for all their marvel of evolutionary engineering, are easy to fool. No retailer wants you to think you're spending twenty bucks. They want to exploit that part of your brain that only sees the 19 and assumes the product/service is only nineteen bucks because the vast majority of people can't be bothered to think that thought through after reading the entire price.
So no, prices are not going to go up because the penny is lost to our monetary system.
I forgot which article I was reading when I had this quick thought but I know what it stems from. It's the idea that all pregnancies carried to term are treated the same regardless of the reason behind it. In often angry comments, there's no reason ever to excuse a man from his responsibilities for an unwanted pregnancy.
Reasons such as, but not necessarily limited to, "if you're gonna have sex, you have to accept the consequences" or "the only way to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is to not have sex" or "if you didn't want to have kids then you shouldn't have been having sex" and other kinds of admonishments that miss the point.
These are all valid reasons...to a degree. But they also fail because the choice whether or not to have sex is not really in our machinery. It's a hardwired evolutionary imperative. It's why we're here. You don't really get to choose. The fact that we've learned to subvert evolution somewhat via contraceptives shows that the need for sex cannot be subdued. Abstinence is not a valid option, it's more the result of a lack of opportunity and I'd motion that those who do willfully abstain are closer to the mentally insane than those who unwillfully abstain.
And it's really hard to have this conversation with anyone, especially women. I think what bugs me about it is the man really has no choice in the matter. The ability to carry a pregnancy to term or to abort is solely the decision of the woman. No man can force her to give birth when he wants the baby and she does not. The power dynamic is one-sided to an extreme degree. Half the time, the man gets what he wants and 100% of the time, the woman gets what she wants.
And it is from that discussion where the admonishments referred to above come in. And I think because of the emotions inherent in this matter, it is not possible to discuss what I am thinking unless we use an analogue.
Now understand, this is rough, unpolished thinking. This is not an actual argument but merely the seeds for one. My analogue is with murder. Murder comes in degrees as well as categories. Why can't pregnancy come in degrees as well and have the child support owed, if any, be determined by these degrees? Because I agree, once a child is born responsibility must be borne by both parents.
ADDENDUM: I wrote the following thoughts on December 17, 2013. I'm in no mood to make these drafts into coherent posts. These were just some free-form thoughts that I had intended to go back to no more than a few days later but never got back to. The momentum is gone, not only from this post but perhaps this blog itself. I don't know how it would've turned out otherwise, but here's a sample of how I think...
~~~~~~~~~
The wall separating our working lives from our private lives has become anywhere from translucent to transparent thanks to the internet. I find it strange that there has been no mass protest in this country to oppose the thinning of this separation. It has allowed employers to keep an unreasonable amount of tabs on their employees through direct spying and snitching.
We are told to live in a state of constant fear as a result. Do not post what you would not want your boss to find out they say. People, especially teachers, have been fired for behavior done prior to their professional lives and during their professional lives even though it was all engaged in during their free time.
The concept of free time seems to be fast becoming a "thing of the past" and this terrifies me. Imagine if the wall separating church and state were again made transparent and you had to join the state religion. To stand up for your beliefs would cost you your livelihood (at best) or even your life (at worst). Your only alternative choice is to defy yourself and what you feel is right. No one would stand for that anymore knowing their beliefs could one day become the "wrong" beliefs. It's why the government in the Constitution is forbidden from sponsoring a state church...but we allow employers to effectively sponsor employer-based churches (example related to ACA-Obamacare) whereby the employer's beliefs are imposed upon their (usually female) employees. This is decried, but the loss of Freedom of Speech ("controversial" opinion posts) and Right to Peaceably Assemble (photos from a bachelorette party let's say) is not.
We are told we are now always on the clock. Everything we say represents our company. No longer are we free citizens. Accepting a paycheck is tantamount to checking your U.S. citizen rights at the door. Accepting a paycheck also means being on the clock for 24 hours while only getting paid for 8.
Related things: why is e-mail considered a separate thing from mail? Does no one who is not a legislator or HR director think that e-mail is not deserving of the same privacy protection as paper envelopes? The same applies to calls made by cellphone versus those made by landline. Does anyone besides those two groups actually feel cellphone calls are okay to tap without a warrant. GPS also applies, as does EZ-Pass. Why have we tolerated the thinning of these walls?
Rage began from #12 unpodcast "Your Tweets Are Not Your Own"
Controversial speech and ideas are the ones which need the most protection but they are the first to get you fired...
Link back to prior posts about teachers/students getting in trouble and NRA-type group for 1st Amendment.
It opens up the possibility of a world whereby employees must belong to the same political party as their boss and vote their boss's way too. Employees should have the same religion and tastes as their employer. I'm curious, if a man working for Coca-Cola was spotted drinking a Pepsi at a party, is that grounds for his termination...or even being associated with Pepsi (assuming he's not drinking any)? An employee who is on the clock is a worker, but off the clock is a potential customer. An employer should want his employees to also be customers, but should that not be earned rather than assumed? Is an employee allowed to consume the products and services of a rival? Why is employee behavior both on and off the clock subject to the morality of his employer, or more generally (when snitching is involved) why is employee behavior subject to the capricious whims of the most conservative person in the room? Why are the most conservative people (or financially well off) the sole arbiters of what is right and wrong?
Yet strangely, none of this has provoked rioting. The solution seems to be unionization and guilds (for professionals). Protection via a union and tenure may be the only way to protect the rights of U.S. citizens from being taken away by their unelected, non-governmental bosses. Because after all, one day your boss might be liberal and accepting and your next boss could be a stick-in-the-mud conservative. Is that any different than having a laissez-faire king who is tolerant of any religious expression being replaced upon his death by a new king demanding the citizenry now all be say Protestant? Is it fair? I don't know. But so long as earning money to make a living is not optional I don't see how threatening a person's livelihood for expressing their 1st Amendment rights (or any Constitutional rights) is any more fair or in any way American. Job retention should be determined solely by competence.
For the twelfth time now, media has officially gone somber for the occasion. Bringing out its sad music and mourning wear, especially for its normally flirty hostesses. A day to pay homage before going back into their normal stupid shit. I'll admit, this September 11th like last year's (for me at least) just came and went without acknowledgement.
I can't be bothered with it anymore. This "national day of mourning" I feel has long since crossed the line from a genuine expression of emotion to exploitative. It's one thing to acknowledge sadness but it's quite another to use it to drum up business or an agenda and that's what I feel the "holiday" of September 11th has become. It's officially called "Patriot Day" and while no one calls it that, I think just like the other day of infamy in this country, "Pearl Harbor Day" (December 7th), it too will just fade away but not before the big anniversaries - the 20th and 25th (and so forth) - into little blurbs in the headlines becoming less and less acknowledged with each passing year.
But for me, it's just exploitative. There are enough survivors from that heinous attack. It's their day now, not the nation's. Leave them alone, stop reading the names of those who died that day, and quit it with the phony jingoism and easy patriotism the day affords. Stop using them as symbols to unite us in supporting wars that don't need to be fought.
I think back to the opposite expression: the end of a trying war. V-J Day was on September 2, 1945 and we've seen the pictures...it was a hell of a celebration (for the United States at least). World War II was finally over. And I imagine there were similar, albeit smaller, parties through what remained of the 1940s on that day. But how long can one keep celebrating victory over one's enemy before it slips from a meaningful celebration over the end of a great war to what amounts to "rubbing it in"?
And that's what brings me back to September 11th. Yes, the first anniversary was meaningful and it probably should've stopped there as we had taken our pound of flesh from Afghanistan. But before even the second anniversary it had been used as a backdrop to justify an invasion of Iraq and to maintain the growing "security" state apparatus. By the tenth anniversary, one of the big anniversaries, the failure of our "War on Terror" was more than apparent and I remember acknowledging it as such (I'm certainly using that word a lot, aren't I?) but being introspective about what we as a nation had done to others and ourselves in response to that terrorist attack was not fashionable to say the least of it. I'm not when it will ever be fashionable to criticize our responses in the mainstream.
I'm not sure where I'm going with all this so I'll end it here. September 11th is just another day...as it should be.
I'm just gonna state first off that I did not follow George Zimmerman trial at all. My awareness of it has been strictly limited to what could be gleaned from the front pages of newspapers and internet headlines. What struck me upon learning the verdict was how people reacted to it.
I've noticed people treat these major trials like sporting events. They've picked their team and they root for it right to the end. If their side wins, justice was served. If their side loses, then an injustice has occurred. Of course when there's an acquittal there's no rematch so it can make people on the "losing team" a bit upset.
The other thing I've noticed is that people pick their sides right at the start. The person on trial was judged guilty or innocent before the opening gavel and like I said above, this opinion - once formed - never changes. I first saw it with the O.J. Simpson trial. And what's more, I don't remember a single person I've ever spoken to who first thought that O.J. was guilty and then later changed his opinion based on the evidence (or vice-versa). This was also true with the Casey Anthony trial and more recently with the Jodi Arias trial.
Knowing that makes me glad that the rule of law is what matters and not mob rule.
As for the race-relations issue that has come to a head since the verdict, I dunno. I'm definitely not in a position to discuss that...not at all.
Below the cut I will be asking rhetorical questions and writing conceptually about the nature sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors. The descriptions themselves will not be graphic in nature but I thought I should include this warning as a courtesy.
It really bugs me when people keep only $100 bills hidden somewhere for use as emergency cash. The truly paranoid do something similar by buying up one ounce silver and gold bullion coins. But here's the thing that gets me, say the economic disaster you swear's gonna happen actually happens. How do you go about buying things?
Unless you're buying shit $100 at a time, you could find yourself in a spot where you need something desperately but the seller cannot make change. It's either accept it for a hundred bucks or not at all. You may be stuck overpaying.
The same applies to the silver and gold holders too. One ounce of silver is currently around $30 per troy ounce (31.1035 grams) and an ounce of gold is hovering around $1700 per troy ounce. The silver might not be too big a deal, but the gold? When was the last time you spent at least $1700 on anything that wasn't a car or house?
Gold's not really helpful unless you're buying big stuff. So what of all your minor purchases? Day-to-day stuff that will surely come up in the new apocalyptic order. Fees, taxes...protection money, etc.
How about this? You actually keep an assortment of bills on hand so when a natural disaster strikes, you're not being that asshole using a one hundred dollar bill to pay for fifteen bucks worth of stuff. Know what, and more importantly, HOW, you buy.
I don't carry bills over $20 in my wallet and I find even $20s can be a bit much. You know why? Because I rarely make purchases large enough at one time to require the use of a $50 or $100 bill but yes, when planning such a purchase, I will keep a fifty or hundred on hand. Otherwise I don't like being the dick making small purchases with large bills.
And don't give the "It's legal tender!" bullshit argument. All that means is that the piece of paper you're holding is that denomination in dollars, nothing more. The only requirement is that a fifty dollar bill has to be accepted as fifty dollars (the same is true for the old silver money - a silver dime and a clad dime are both ten cents in terms of legal tender laws, but because the silver is worth more than ten cents, no one in their right mind spends them like clad dimes). There is no requirement that I (nor anyone) must accept your form of payment. Stores only put up with your shit generally because they don't want to create antagonistic relationships with their customers but speaking as a cashier, I fucking hate you when you tender sixty one dollar bills in your payment or use a $100 bill to buy less than five dollars worth of stuff. "Sorry, it's all I've got..."
Go fuck yourself...
And as for you silver and gold freaks, buy smaller coins for your apocalypse. I don't anticipate one happening ever, but should it, I have a handful of silver dimes, quarters, and half dollars which will take me a lot further than your oversized silver and gold "eagles".
And if you want proof that having only big stuff can cause you a problem, I point you to Indonesia.
Supply and demand. Supply and demand. If you focus too much on the big stuff, the guys with the little stuff will ultimately benefit while you overpay.
My Best Friend the other day was telling me about a book I've heard before called The Secret and its bullshit philosophy therein. The basic idea is that good things will come to you so long as you have a positive attitude. But my words cannot do it justice, why not quote the passages (I'm lifting them from this review by the way)?
"What is The Secret? What is Rhonda Byrne’s philosophy? What is the Law of Attraction?
It’s defined many times, in many different ways, by many different people in the book. Here are a few of the more concise descriptions:
'Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life. And it’s attracted to you by virtue of the images you’re holding in your mind. It’s what you’re thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you. Every thought if yours is a real thing – a force.'
'Thoughts become things!'
'Thoughts are magnetic, and thoughts have a frequency. As you think thoughts, they are sent out into the Universe, and they magnetically attract all like things that are on the same frequency. Everything sent out returns to the source – you.'
Got it? If you think about something, that something will be attracted to your life. Whatever is in your life is there because you caused it to be there. All the good and bad things surrounding you – your friends or loneliness, your loving or abusive relationships, your success or failure, your health or illness, your life and death – all are there because you caused them to be there. This is the 'Law of Attraction'”.
What kind of philosophy is that? So every bad thing that has ever happened to everyone is the result of your negative thinking? You just weren't positive enough? How insulting.
Unless your personal betterment philosophy can take into account the results of the Holocaust, you really ought to shut your fucking mouth or at the very least not suggest that the Universe gives even the slightest fuck about our existence...or suggest that this only works on the small scale when the tides of history aren't rushing in or out (and even that is bullshit, but at least slightly easier to swallow bullshit than what has been quoted above). So...those eleven to seventeen million people who were systematically and mechanically murdered by the Nazi regime were just being too negative? Holy fuck, for real? I'm sure every single one of those Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, political dissidents, communists, and whomever else the Nazis just plain thought ought to be exterminated caused it to happen to themselves. Holy fucking fuck fuck!
Even illnesses are apparently caused by you misapplying the Law of Attraction. They're practically reviving the pre-Germ Theory explanations for diseases. Should I have my humours checked? Perhaps my melancholy and blood are out of balance. Or perhaps I need a talisman to ward off evil spirits...
Also, note how the "philosophy" has a ready-made excuse for your failure: if you didn't get what you wanted from the Universe, you simply weren't being positive enough. You didn't want it enough. You brought your failure upon yourself. This "philosophy" sets you up to remember your few coincidental successes and gloss over your many failed attempts. That means Winwood and Costello are in my life because I properly applied the Law of Attraction rather than it being the more likely result of if you keep trying, eventually something will stick.
And the sad thing is these kinds of books get eaten up by the ignorant masses that comprise our public. I am not a practitioner of prayer, but the fact remains that I have more respect for whomever offered up this prayer philosophy than any charlatan preying and capitalizing on the stupid lazy people of this world looking for an easy way out to their problems.
I got completely distracted from a blog entry I was reading when I came upon this sentence: "Man, in Judaism's view, was created by G-d here on earth."
I was completely taken out of my reading. Look, I understand that it is considered a violation to use the Lord's name in vain. I really do. My question is how does using a hyphen in place of the letter O make it so that you have not used the Lord's name in vain? It's what you meant. The letter P is next to the O on the keyboard. If you saw I had typed Gpd instead of God, you would know what I had meant so again, how is blasphemy avoided through the use of a hyphen?
Later in the blog, the writer uses "Creator". So why not always use that euphemism? A quintessential example of using the letter of the law to violate its spirit, no?
It reminds me of the Hasidic Jews in our area. They're not supposed to do work on the Sabbath so there will be elevators on autopilot automatically stopping at every floor on the Sabbath so they don't have to push a button. Pushing the button apparently violates the Sabbath law, but benefiting from the electricity anyway apparently does not. I mean, if you set a timer before the Sabbath to turn on a light during the Sabbath, didn't you just violate the law anyway? It was certainly your intent. If you invite a non-Jew over (who's in the know by the way) just so that he can comment about how cold/hot it is in your home and ask if he can turn on the heat/air conditioner (so therefore you did not technically violate any Sabbath rules), how did you not violate the spirit of the law again? Also, if it would be sinful to do such work, how is it not sinful to get someone else to commit the sin on your behalf?
There are more examples like this and I don't mean to harp on Judaism, it's not my intent to have had them singled out. I'm more aware of their examples than that of other cultures'. My favorite example was a Christian sect which believed that since Baptism cleansed you of your sins...started you anew if you will...that it would be in their practitioners' best interests to be Baptized near the end of life so that one may die free of sin and thus get into Heaven. I guess that means you could live however hedonistically you wished just so long as you were careful not to get killed or die before a priest could Baptize you.
Like I said, I just don't get it. Apparently you can out-lawyer God. Who knew?
Am I wrong in thinking that a furniture company ought to also being a hauling away business as well? They would seem to go hand-in-hand.
I have a little bit of money set aside and given the uninviting appearance a single chair gives to my living room, I thought it time to buy a couch. I found a suitable design (and color, yes, thank you) and despite the website saying that they "haul away" - those exact words - when I called, before even placing the order, I asked to verify and for some reason, no...they do not actually haul away the furniture they are replacing. How deceptive.
You might be thinking, "Oh, but they will put it on the curb for you, right?" Yes...at my expense. But I can't just put stuff like that on the curb. The town only picks up on certain days and you can only put it out the night before pick-up. Delivery windows do not include "night" and even if that were not a problem, timing a delivery for the night before pick-up is really just too many dice to roll. What they offer to do is to take the furniture out of my apartment...that's something I could do (albeit not safely). But that's not hauling away unless you want to get liberal with the definition.
Car dealerships have this figured out. I'm assuming bulk appliance dealers do as well (stoves, refrigerators, etc.) I would think furniture stores would as well. Could you imagine having to figure out how to rid yourself of your old car while buying a new one? The hassle? The insurance issues? It'd be fun, right?
And aren't we also in the midst of a recession/depression/whatever-the-fuck-they're-calling-it? And here I thought service increased during such times because businesses desperately want to survive and if you can't sell like you used to or lower your prices any further, maybe you could encourage the opening of a wallet by improving service.
And I'm not even asking that they do it for free. They could offer to haul away for free, but I'm not that much of a dick. I grasp that hauling to a dump probably comes with fees and such. I am content to pay to have this stuff hauled away along with my delivery, but no...they don't do that.
Maybe this is why I'm not a businessman. I clearly don't understand these things. Enjoy the money you're not getting from me Futonland!
Does anyone really deny the assertion, "All men are created equal"? I don't. But then, by me saying that, it in no way should imply that I believe we remain equal. A simple look around should demonstrate that we have all long since diverged from our original equality either by accident of birth (sex, race, origin, wealth, etc.) or by effort (education, invention, influence, status, etc.) or by other means still and any combination thereof. So yes, while we were all created equal, it is clearly not a desirable state of being...
