The Cult of Personality

It’s understandable not to want the burden you are saddled with.  Celebrities, however, how few and far between in regards to burden.  So much so they have forgotten what is was like to be normal.  They can no longer relate to the average working man or woman.  The one burden they carry is that of role model.  The tired excuse of not asking to be a role model is just that, an excuse.  People look up to them, regards of their worth or talent.  Magazines and industry are built of this cult of celebrity.  And it is their responsibility to in some way show proper etiquette and decorum.  Or at least, you know, not drug up, abuse your significant other, spout of racial epithets and run from the cops. Normal sane adults are swept up in this nonsense.  Offenses truly heinous are swept under the carpet due to celebrity status, good looks and little bit of charisma.

I mentioned this next part in a previous post but it’s worth revisiting.  When I lived in Philadelphia I followed the football team, the Philadelphia Eagles.  They were good but always the underdogs.  I left a few ago and moved back to Connecticut.  I never liked the Patriots but I went to a few games with some fans.  I refuse to root for the Eagle anymore after they hired on Michael Vick.  It’s far too soon for me to forgive him.  I’ve heard arguments from people, some even persuasive, that I shouldn’t let that get in the way but I have refused.  I can’t abide getting behind a team with an asshole like that as a star player.  I can’t so easily forgive.  One of the kids I work with at the dojo told me it’s in the past and he did his time.  Like that debt he had was washed away clean.  I thought heavily on that.  Jails in general as a premise are built on the idea of rehabilitation.  I find this flawed when the prison system breeds crime and rape.  Jails often turn minor criminals even meaner because they are plunged into a world o depravity.  Jail isn’t about fixing people it’s about forgetting them, tucking them away for a time to be ignored.  A very violent and ugly time out but without the warmth or a parent and no real lesson learned.  Yes, I understand there is always a need for repercussion and punishment but I find that prison is only about that.  Prison should be about modifying the behavior that brought the person there in the first place.  You can’t rationally say that a person is so bad they had to be removed from society as a whole and expect time alone to heal that personality flaw.

So should I just get over my anger and root for the team.  Not really.  He was out of a job for a while and then returned to a cushy lifestyle after a few dozen apologies.  Not good enough for me.  I don’t blame Vick for this I blame the Eagles.  Fuck them for hiring him.  The image of the team is more important than wins and losses.  But he’s talented so they hire him anyway.  And this is the team that had enough of T.O. bad behavior.  To borrow someone else joke this is the guy that got angry he could only receive the ball once on a touchdown.  How many scumbags do we need on this team?

The other argument I had for Vick was a bit more scary.  It involved the cultural background of the behavior, in this case dog fighting.  Much like Mexican Cock fighting, or Spanish bullfighting or the dozens of other cruel for sport abuses of animals, dog fighting is part of a culture.  So to that culture it isn’t inherently cruel.  And Vick was a part of that culture even after he had transcended the barriers with his wealth and fame.  But this though means we can never elevate ourselves past our start.  It would validate that caste system.  I just can’t abide that form of predestination.  I know too many people who defy this flawed logic.

But the point I was getting at is that famous people have a responsibilty to the public.  We made you famous and filled you pocket with money.  It’s very easy to pick on Chris Brown and the reason is he deserves it.  Now I won’t be so old fashioned in saying you never hit a defenseless woman.  Gender has nothing to do with it.  There a plenty of women out there who would beat me to a pulp.  They are in no means defenseless.  But you shouldn’t hit someone smaller and weaker than you.  You shouldn’t hit period.  And you shouldn’t hit you partner.  This is the person you have to be vulnerable with, show bare emotion and trust.  They do the same for you.  You are supposed to be safe and secure.  But then if you are some punk manboy like Brown you do as you please and expect to get away with it.  He seems so righteously indignant over his antics.  He genuinely feels wrongly accused when someone antagonizes him for beating bloody his girlfriend.  Like we should all just forget because he said he’s sorry.  And what’s worse is his legion of fans constantly make excuses for him.  They adore him.  That’s scary.  I turn the channel if Chris Brown is signing.  Which is too bad because I do think he is talented.  It’s just overshadowed but his incredible doucheyness.

Now I had heard, as apparently celebrity gossip travels reasonably close to the speed of light, that Rihanna’s father has weighed in on some of the nonsense.  Now you would expect the man to have some strong feelings.  But not when those feeling are for her to lose weight and get back with Chris Brown.  I haven’t verified this rumor as it would only make me angrier than I already am.  I have many problems with this.  Firstly I think we need a few more not twig but pretty women celebrities.  We have a thousand skinny famous women.  Give me a few more not so skinny ones.  We have Queen Latifa, Kirstey Alley and like three others.  We don’t need as many skinny bitches.  I might have to start force feeding some of Hollywood already.  Angelina is already past hope.  I seriously think she may be a lich at this point.  But worse than weight issues (and don’t women are alone in this men are growing much more acutely aware of body issues) is the idea of getting back with an abusive partner like he deserves a chance.  No, we don’t forgive and forget savage beatings.  If it was one angry strike I understand.  That’s a really bad thing to do but you emotion flared and you would, hopefully, regain your senses.  But after that one strike and you continue you have crossed a threshold into place where there is no forgiveness.  That manboy needs to learn his actions have consequences.  Sadly he is too busy getting awards and getting into twitter battles.  If Rihanna actually gets back with him that is sending the worst possible message to little girls.  I cannot stomach the idea of an abusive relationship coming to fruition because of her stupid choice.  And, yeah, you can say it is her personal choice and she has that right but she still has to accept the responsibility that her choice affects millions.  Her choice will be echoed by many others.

I am extremely frustrated when the people we have elevated to fame do not repay us with some consideration.   It is unsurprising when they ignore us.  But if we keep making excuse for them and buying their music can we expect them to change.  I read an article a little while ago blasting Chuck Norris for forcing Expendable 2 to a PG-13 rating instead of an R as he felt it would be inappropriate for his fans.  He stuck to his gun and wouldn’t play the part with the R script.  They changed the movie for him.  I honestly think the article had it wrong.  Ignore Chuck’s possible ego but he wasn’t trying to stop the movie or ruin it just not helping if they didn’t coincide with what he felt was his moral obligation.  And yeah they did mention his R work earlier which does point to hypocrisy but Chuck has grown more religious and conservative over the years.  He has stuck to this and while my belief don’t convinced with his I respect his action.  I read nothing of underhanded tactics, no name calling, just a simple demand.  And not an entirely unreasonable one.  They didn’t need Chuck for the movie, they have like fifteen action stars.  And probably a big enough budget to digitally reanimate Bruce Lee.  And sorry Chuck Bruce kicked your ass.  I don’t care how many Chuck Norris facts there are you still lost on film.  Oh, and his favorite kick isn’t the roundhouse it’s a spinning wheel kick/reverse crescent.  One of the favored kicks of Korean styles, which he studied when in the service (Korean arts being the first to really penetrate the states).

But for every celebrity like George Clooney who gets arrested while protesting human right violations we have vapid celebutards twitters blowing up with infighting, bickering, meanness, and conduct unbecoming a public figure.  And it is our fault for supporting these people still.  And our kids are suffering for it.  So either the celebrities start acting better or we have to just stop spending money on the assholes.  Nothing makes a person change their behaviors like money suddenly disappearing.

Ben

Sex and Violence

You can say America was founded on religious freedom, equality, and escape from tyranny.  You would be partially correct.  The original ‘modern’ Americans were the Puritans.  These guys knew how to have a good time.  Well maybe not so much.  Honestly, if I met one of those guys I’d want to jump out a window to get out the worst conversation of my life.  These were boring horrible people.  You know the whole idle hands thing, yeah, they were those super religious crazy people.  Hey, let’s not have fun and work so hard our hands bleed.  Oh, yeah and sex is only for children, period.  That’s some ideals I can get behind… and then run away screaming.  The American culture feels the echoes of this earlier culture.  Look at Europe, that place those sexless work freaks ran away from.  More vacation days, lighter work weeks and much more relaxed attitudes towards sex.  It feels sometimes America is stuck in a new Victorian age.  Sure, killing is okay but nipples are damn inappropriate.  Heck, look at our swear words.  A lot more are about sex and bodily functions than violence.  And swear words deal with taboos.  So sex, that normal and necessary natural function, is more taboo that killings.  This is kind of scary and unnerving when you think about it.  And yes, I understand the argument about watching a movie with your parents and then a sex scene comes on you want to fold in on yourself and disappear into another dimension for a while.

But why is sex so bad and violence is so okay?  Why is violence so celebrated and sex is so taboo?  Sex became this thing that is hidden away behind closed doors and never talked about openly.  And if you do you are labeled as a sex fiend or a deviant.  It had to be hidden away from polite society like it was damn plutonium.  Obviously subverted sexual frustration left alone and unchecked can only lead to good things.  Yeah, because nothing freakishly horrifying can evolve from those situations.  You repress something long enough and the fetish that comes out is truly terrifying.  Look at Japan.  There is a lot of sexual repression there and they laugh at our silly billion dollar pornographic empire.  The things they peddle over there are Lovecraftian in their unnaturalness.  I highly suggest against using the terms Lovecraft, sex and Japan together in one search bar ever unless you want to go blind from sheer emotional scarring.

The amount of hypocrisy surrounding sex is frightening and borders on the level of those corrupt mega church preachers.  So many politicians decry sexual deviancy and they themselves seem to be the most vile deviants of all.  I always take moral advice regarding sex from repeat divorcees who consistently cheat on their spouses.  The only thing the Democrats and Republicans can seem to agree on is fucking people other than their wives and husbands.  I wonder how long these men and women can argue with a straight face that legal and not horrifying nontraditional sexuality (gay men, lesbians and transgendered individuals) is bad.  Fuck them.  The moment they starting putting their little senators in other people’s election booths they lost the right to tell me what to do with my genitals.  And since when did birth control become such a hot topic?  What the fuck.  It seems like public opinion has so far lapped political opinion that those in power just said, ‘fuck it we’re turning around and going the other way to drag the middle back to where we like it.’  Boner pills are okay - whose sole intent is to smile in the face of nature while you bitch slap importance with your manhood -  but not birth control.  I just don’t understand why women don’t close up shop for  a few months and say no sex until you idiots stop this crap.  I guarantee that would do more than the 99% rallies.  There would be men with pitch forks coming to the senate floor screaming for the blood of any idiot stupid enough to get in the way of ending the dry spell.  I am very proud of myself for not making a premature ending joke… until well, now I guess.  Whatever, pride is a funny thing…

If sex is so bad then why is ‘the oldest profession’ referring to the job it refers to?  Speaking of those industrious little men and women in the mostly illegal and exceptionally unsafe world there is terrifying new (well, sort of new) information about sex workers in New York.  Did you know that New York cops use condom possession as justification for arrest?

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/the-policy-that-keeps-prostitutes-from-carrying-and-using-condoms/254197/

Obviously this will stop prostitution in New York.  Taking away the safe avenue for people who chose this line of work will obviously turn them around into living in the nunnery.  No, you idiot, they’ll just stop carrying and using condoms then there will be a shit ton more venereal diseases spread around.  That’s like trying to stop marijuana use by confiscating all the rolling papers, pipes and bongs.  Because obviously they won’t MacGyver another way around that problem with a method  which may or may not be even more hazardous to their health.  People tend to be incredibly inventive when you take away one path towards their additions and desires.

Hey, did you know that “[limiting condom use] leads to HIV, Hep C, and then we spend a lot of money paying for these diseases."  Oh yeah, it’s fiscally irresponsible.  So not only is this increasing the danger for sex workers and those who partake and then everyone who webs off of that, it costs money for everybody.  The legality around prostitution has done little to eliminate or stop the sex trade.  Actually it most likely has made it more violent and dangerous.  The same war that pesky war on drugs made that whole enterprise really scary.  Maybe if sex wasn’t so taboo there wouldn’t be these evil murderous pimps out there wandering the streets with their frightening cadre of ladies.  Or maybe the underground sex trade wouldn’t be so strong.  Now that is some real terrifying Taken level nonsense that will make you sick to your stomach.

So here we are in the modern era putting forth policies that would logically create more safety issues simply to increase arrests.  Good decision New York, I am super proud of you.

 “To be clear: Condom possession in itself is not illegal in New York, nor in any other state. Rather, the fact that condoms can be used in court as evidence of prostitution means that police will sometimes confiscate condoms, interrogate those carrying several, and use them as part of the basis for arrest”

Yeah, that will end well.

“A bill written by State Senator Velmanette Montgomery would change that, barring the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution in criminal cases. Since the bill's introduction in 1999, it is has languished, orphan-like, in the state legislature.“

It just seems altogether unpleasant and unkind that policies’ whose intentions are purely for protection and doing well for people always tend to shrivel up and blow away in the winds of obscurity.  Or it’s ignored and stepped over.  I understand this a touchy and scary subject.  The law should be set up in a way to encourage safety not discourage it.  If we are so naive to think there are no repercussions or that that the consequences are only on  the ‘criminals’ heads only I am, as per usual, awestruck by the stubborn refusal to back down from stupidity.

Ben

Law and Order

Cop shows piss me off for a number of reasons.  The main reason being why a television show pisses me rather than a movie is that cop shows try and mask themselves as reality driven.  While they aren’t trying for the same gritty reality there is still a degree of reality  in the movies, if not there wouldn’t be things like gravity or character consistency.  Sadly, there are movies that defy both those simple truths.  But we accept some falsehood.  There is this ‘willing suspension of disbelief’.  With a cop drama we are made to assume the actions taken by the actors are meant to truly mimic reality.  They play up interrogations, trials and plotline ripped from the headlines.  When I think plotlines ripped from the headlines I think lazy writing  cashing in on poor attention spans and sensationalism.  They treat it like a good thing.  This one point of contention but not where I grow weary and or angry.

Law & Order is really more famous for its' ‘dunt dunt’ noise than anything within the show.  It’s a device that serves as a cut.  Which is actually kind of cool and it works..  It’s a sound cue to acknowledge a change in place or time.  Cuts take place every time you move from one shot to another.  Normally these cuts seem seamless even though we are using multiple angles and points of view in one scene.  There are reasons why it works and how they interact and they are based on our perception and visual cues.  Things like eye line match and shot reverse shot are built in filmic devices we just naturally understand and accept.  The transition between scenes is handled through the traditional fade out and loud ‘dunt dunt’ sound effect or non-digetic sound (digetic = inside the film world, non-digetic = outside the film world, so a radio is digetic music while a character’s theme is non-digetic).

What the show tries to do is realistically take a forced plot and have detective instigate a crime interrogate suspects and hand off to District Attorney’s office who then prosecutes the case.  Now there are obvious things we as an audience are built to ignore.  If there is meant to be total transparent reality these would all be normal looking people.  There would be no one who looks like a leading man or leading woman (looking at you Mariska Hargitay) and more importantly those DA’s would have more than one case going on at a time there wouldn’t only be focused on this one case in every damn discussion they have.  Obviously with selective use of film time we can assume the character are doing other things during their off screen hours but these guys never seem to be doing anything that isn’t immediately plot A related.  A lot of stories tend to have another plot, a plot B (often times a romance) to round out the story and give more options for scenes to go.  This way a scene could be about plot A or plot B.  So it’s like a cop show having two crimes at the same time not interrelated.  As it is a narrative those crime scenes would tie back together but you can’t do that every show.  Cop shows try to replace the plot B with witty banter.  Witty banter pisses me off for different reasons.

If we work with the premise these shows are meant to mirror reality the things that aggravate me and are so egregiously incorrect are as follows in no particular order:

• Interrogations
• Crime scene investigations
• Court room antics

Here is a simple reason why the interrogations piss me off.  All the rough and tumble interrogations assume their targets, assume half of these people are wholly innocent and are in no way criminals.  Not relegated to the crime, not holding information back.  Just people who happened to be blamed for one reason or another.  Now think back to the actions of these fake police people interrogating them.  There cool and flippant attitude.  Constant one liners and crude demeanor.  Violent outbursts and inappropriate conduct.  Imagine those things aimed at a shit ton of poor innocent people who don’t deserve to be there.  And yeah the police depending on the city on city can be truly awful at interrogations and yes they can coerce people into admitting wrongdoing they didn’t commit but this often comes out eventually and the case is overturned.  But the bullshit TV cops do is okay because we sympathize with that character and we know they are on the right side and they’ll get their man.  Reality doesn’t work that way.  Cops have specific lines they are meant to follow.  And they usually do.  The egregious violations are not the normal way of things.  IN films the cops get their badges taken away and they have to act outside the law.  Even though they aren’t trying as much to be realistic they do a better job of being realistic in a sense.  Odd how that works.

Crime scene investigations anger me because it’s obvious TV writers read a chem book once and based a bunch of half assed ideas of that.  Hey he was stabbed with a  corkscrew because of the blood pattern.  Enhance!  Enhance!  Enhance more!  No image can enhance and cleaned up as much as those shows allow.  Oh and crime scene guys don’t do investigation.  They give notes to the detectives you know the guys who are trained for investigative work.  Fuck you CSI and your bullshit.

Law room battles anger me because well the legal knowledge of a couch potato  is shitty so the writers only have to give some semblance of truth and they ignore, sadly, true and correct legal precedent.

But that is the world of fiction.  What truly anger me is the law and order grievances around us.  The interrogation techniques we see in these shows used in real life; on our own soldiers, or on own school children.

Now we all know about the horrors of places like Abu Ghraib but I figure we can talk on that briefly anyway.  Now Abu Ghraib’s issues were so prevalent they leaked.  And not just a little leak.  They have an entire wiki page built for torture and prisoner abuse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

In the article it talks about prisoner death by torture and prisoner rape.  The rape was not prisoner on prisoner rape, like here in the states, but detainer on detainee rape.  I mentioned prisoner on prisoner rape in the states because quite alarmingly the occurrence of prison rape is so prevalent it inflates rape statistics so that is more common for a man to be raped than a woman because of the amount of that sexual violence happening in our prisons.

The quote “war is hell” is true.  The kind of psychological twisting that goes on is not normal.  It warps people.  Strong willed people too.  And the people we have in warzones are kids.  You say eighteen years olds aren’t kids but to me that’s too damn young to be thrust into such horror.  And this unhinging can lead to the dehumanizing of the enemy.  People were shocked by the picture the casual disregard of their humanity and dignity.  I wasn’t.  I was depressed and saddened but not surprised.  War is ugly.

Even if these picture didn’t leak out we would eventually, one would hope, learn about these atrocities through the Freedom of Information Act.  But don’t bet on people consistently following through with the letter of the law on the Act even damn time.  The cynical part me can’t expect those types of secrets to be unearthed easily or on schedule.

Now these are acts of cruelty to people identified solely as the enemy from the get go.  What about Bradley Manning suspect in the wikileaks scandal.  Now he was charged on 22 counts included aiding the enemy.  Aiding the enemy is not so a good thing to be hit.  Treason is not so good.  Below is our definition and punishment of Treason.

“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

You’ll notice it says treason is punishable by death and then the or bits.  The lesser possibility is a minimum five years imprisonment with a fine at a minimum of ten thousand dollars.  So treason is somewhat serious.  Now you can imagine that this should be handled delicately as it would be in the middle of a media frenzy and the armed forces acting inappropriately would only make the leaks seem like a good idea.  Fortunately the armed forces couldn’t give a damn about logic and probably tortured the shit out of Bradley for close to a year.  Close to year of isolation and psychological and physical abuse and torture.  Good job armed forces way to make America proud.  Sarcasm!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un

But, you say to yourself, that was justified as this man, if he is guilty (stupid if statements and jurisprudence) , could have put  America in harm’s way.  Okay, you heartless bastard, how about traumatizing a young school girl and coercing her to give up private information without consent from a legal guardian all because of some insults.  And yes young girls are fantastic with using insults to make people feel insignificant.  Not that I speak from experience.  Ahem.

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-10/us/us_minnesota-student-privacy_1_school-counselor-school-house-gate-facebook?_s=PM:US

Privacy is a big issue now.  With the pervasiveness of the internet as the new media and medium we need to guard ourselves from the new ways upon which bad people will steal or misuse our private information.  There are safe guards for things like PHI through HIPAA (private patient data) but there are a lot of loopholes when it comes to other information on the net.  All the shit we dump into Facebook is being leveraged somehow to make money.  Facebook doesn’t make all its too much too count money from ads alone.  In this age there is a glut of information and content.  Sifting through that and extracting data is of worth.  Gathering information is of worth.  Protecting your rights isn’t monetized in worth like the other two.  There is no payoff for privacy rights.

This is stated in the lawsuit accordingly to the article linked:

“The girl was called to a meeting with a deputy sheriff, school counselor and an unidentified school employee, the court documents states.

There, she was "intimidated" into giving up her login and passwords to her Facebook and e-mail accounts, the lawsuit says.”

So a minor was ambushed in a sense by authority figures.  And wrongfully coerced into divulging private information.  I think this goes a bit beyond the realm of vengeance for nasty twelve year old girls taunts.  The girl’s nastiness is not covered in the article.  I would think she is foolish above nasty as this is not the first time she had been caught speaking out on Facebook against school employees.  But this a very bad showing for Minnesota public schools and for educational professionals in general.

So I guess this Law & Order breaking the rules because we feel like it might actually be more realistic than I’d like to admit.  Dunt Dunt!

Ben

Evolutionary Science

Science is basically awesome.  If you dispute this you might be part of the problem plaguing the United States what with the rampant anti-intellectualism being exploited by very mean politicians (the scarier premise is that they aren’t exploiting this and actually are stupid enough to label science and intellectual curiosity as not so important).  I’m not talking about the silliness of religious doctrine fighting science; that’s a whole different subject.  The simple way I’ve come to think of it as science equals the study of that which pertains to nature.  It is measurable and quantifiable.  There can be fundamental changes, indeed, it is imperative that there are changes when evidence proves a theory, law, or idea incorrect.  Philosophy = the discourse of the immeasurable.  Philosophy deals with idea of attempting to quantify things like beauty, truth, reality and worth.  By worth in this context I don’t mean something as petty as monetary value but of which is greater an ant or a man, why and how much.  Religion equals the discourse and study of that which is supernatural.  Supernatural pertaining to that which is both outside nature and both outside of measure.  Religion is in no way silly.  People tend to swing too far when regarding religion as purely bad and foolish or the other way as the only way of life and everything else as unimportant or of lesser worth.  You can argue that metaphysics as well is the study of supernatural but metaphysics is stupid.   Kidding.

But science is becoming less popular in this country and that saddens me.  Science kicks ass.  Example: science can help blow shit up.  As an American male it is my patriotic duty to enjoy and partake in shit blowing up.

With science being all super awesome and all it somewhat surprises me that there is something much more powerful and inventive.  The animal kingdom.  You don’t believe me?  That’s fine Kyle, you douche.  Where the hell do you think flight came from?  Obviously if you say the Wright Brothers you wouldn’t be incorrect as, you know, you’re factually correct.  But yeah, the idea for flight and quite a few of the principles, like drag (which was later co-opted by Monty Python), were borrowed from nature.  Nature, you know, that thing that science is supposed to quantify and study.  The animal kingdom is shockingly efficient.  It has to be or there would be more dead shit.  Man, I am not proud of that last sentence.  That whole evolution thing comes in.  With success meaning you get to pass on genes and failure meaning you don’t it forces change and innovation.

Fish have an involuntary reflex that forces them to dart away, “built-in reaction to danger called a C-start".  This has been exploited by a particular water snake with, horrifyingly enough, tentacles.  The fish move so quickly when this reflex is turned on you can’t properly react to it.  The snake reacts before the instinctual reflex.  It strikes to the area it expects the fish to be at later.  Slightly off topic, martial arts teaches you how to read an opponent.  It looks like you are proceeding the reaction when in fact you are reacting to an earlier action.  Let me explain.  When someone punches it doesn’t often start with your fist.  You arm moves but usually before that your knees settle.  But before your hands moves your shoulder and chest moves.  You can become intrinsically aware of this as this happens from being placed in this situation repeatedly.  Martial artists are probably not the sanest people for volunteering to be placed in these situations repeatedly.  It is never a secret that most martial arts’ classes someone’s fist is hurtling at you with the intention of knowledge.  Now I can’t help but imagine fists hurtling through bad anime speed lines implying impressive velocity while a muscle-head shouts “Knowledge!”  So this water snake somehow figured out that fish had this reflex.  Then figured out how to makes sure the fish utilizes this reflex.  Then they have to anticipate this reaction and know where to strike so the fish comes directly to their mouth.  That’s some terrifying shit.  Imagine that kind of immense intuitive powers used by a human.  It would probably be used for picking up women at clubs.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-terrifyingly-advanced-ways-animals-know-how-to-kill/

There truly is no better laboratory than nature.  Just imagine if we could properly mimic the abilities of animals with science.  Animals by sheer accident have discovered ways to insulate and waterproof themselves better than anything we have created.  Ask someone in Alaska whether they want gortex or fur lining.  The answer is not gortex.  Heck, we are just making ground into how bumblebees fly.  If you say with their wings so help me Kyle I will punch you in your fat little face.  But we tend to think narrowly on certain subjects, like flight, and only talk to lift, drag and other elements when we don’t talk to other thing like you know the speed of the wings flapping.  Supposedly the honey bee flaps its wings faster than insects and eight of its size.  The size comes into play with aerodynamics as smaller insects tend to need to increase their flapping speed to fly.

http://www.livescience.com/528-scientists-finally-figure-bees-fly.html

Or a bit of simpler answer here:

“There is an old saying: 'The bumble bee is too heavy to fly, but no-one told the bee'. This was strengthened when early aeronautical engineers calculated the lift from a bumble bee's wings and said it was less than the bee's weight. They had made the mistake of treating the wing as a simple aerofoil. 
It was quite a few years before the real truth was found. As the bee flies, the downstrokes of the wing generate vortices above the wings. These create several times more lift than a simple aerofoil, more than enough for the bee to fly.”

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_bumble_bees_really_not_supposed_to_be_able_to_fly_considering_their_body_size_versus_their_wing_size

This problem being solved significantly later than the posit was first… posed… poses… some questions of its own.  Like what the fuck were these scientists thinking?  But I guess that is what happens where a engineer that designs airfoils looks at bugs.  People get confused.  But why don’t we take more cues from the Animal kingdom.  Why not really set up experiments that force animals to adapt over time.  Get a species with a short lifespan that populates rapidly and force some tasks upon it to see if nature can create a better solution than traditional science.  Then reverse engineer the shit out of it.  We seem to be great at reverse engineering.  You should see the kind of stuff people can do when they hack into a Kinect.  They get it to fly helicopters and sense surrounding.  Like some sentient Skynet kind of nonsense.

Right now we seem to be merely happy playing around with spider silk and turning it into violin strings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17232058

Not that isn’t cool but I’m more hoping for fucking ant armor.  Ants are god damn terrifying as a species.  Seriously we’re lucky ants haven’t decided they want us gone.  Because it is entirely possible they would either win that fight or cripple humanity.  Or picking up from the dubious science of Deep Blue Sea sharks have an amazing immune system.  I would say never to pay attention to any movie where Sam Jackson dies but that would eliminate Goodfellas so I’ll just say Deep Blue Sea was maybe better than G.I. Joe but not by that much (the lack of ninjas skews the quantifying).  You might mention that there are no sick sharks or sharks with cancer and it’s not due to their daily affirmations, which, I’m assuming, would go something like “I’m a fucking shark, today is going to kick ass.  Man, I feel bad for whatever I’m going to eat today.”

We have beloved superheroes whose only powers are being ‘like’ a spider.  Spiders are nature’s way of making sure we don’t get too uppity and that nature is supplied with a  constant stream of fear juice from our collective nightmares.  And Peter Parker only has some of the powers of spiders.  If he had some of those other abilities he would be way more badass.  But then they they’d just retcon that shit, again, because, hey, let’s have him be a whiny bitch forever and ignore character growth.

My proposition is to alter the game nature has created.  Normally the winning scenario in nature is living and passing on your DNA.  You have to compete against members of your species for mating and also the whole not getting eating thing and the not starving thing.  We simply change the things that get in the way of living and mating.  Instead of predators and mating display we separate the two sexes by a wall.  Only the animal that develop a method for getting through survive.  So they ones who can burrow the best of saw through the structure pass on DNA.  Keep this up and you have super moles.  We can then study these awesome new powers.  But hopefully scientist can think of something better than a wall separating mating pairs and super mol powers.

Most sciences could stand to pay more attention to animals and their evolutionary powers.  But don’t let logic get in the way of more important scientific breakthroughs like boner pills or something.

Ben

Generational Issues

Every generation tends to blame the preceding generation for some of the failures inherent in society and in many respect they have a right to do so.  Each generation is responsible for the one that follows.  Our parents are responsible for many of our flaws just as we are responsible for how we fuck up our children in a slightly different way.  There is a fuzzy time where we can longer blame our parents generation but it isn’t wholly within our power to start molding the future, or fuck it up as it might be.  But I won’t be getting into that fuzzy bit today.  Gosh that sounds very odd taken out of context.  Anyway… the work environment of this generation and the one previous is rather different.  Part of the reason is simple math.  There is a lot of fucking baby boomers.  It says so in the name of the goddamn generation.  You are famous solely for being large.  As such you take over a large percentage of the work force and with the economy sucking so much you aren’t leaving just yet.  I certainly can’t blame anyone for not wanting to retire.  Money is pretty awesome.  Some people say money is the root of all evil and that’s partially true but being without money isn’t a good alternative you hippy freak.  Kidding, I think your commune is a lovely idea and I wish you the best Mr. Prairie Moonbeam Toaster Love.

I’ve always had the good fortune of good fortune or, rather, good enough fortune.  I’ve been unemployed for periods of time and basically sat on my ass being as cheap as possible trying to get a good job.  I didn’t go out much and see shows or eat out a lot even as many of my friends encouraged me to do so or as they frittered away their  money from their crappy retail jobs because I understand money.  I know I shouldn’t be surprised by stupidity and I shouldn’t be upset by it but I am.  I really want people to be smart.   But so many seem to be blissfully unaware that there is a finite amount of money and they just spend every damn penny of what they make and wonder why times are rough.  You can blame this on stupidity, foolishness, selfishness but I usually blame ignorance.  There are, shockingly enough, people who have never been taught how to budget for themselves.  I remember my father told me in his high school they offered a course for the people who weren’t going on the college on things balancing a checkbook and other mundane life skills.  This was in public school.  Can you imagine the shit that would hit the fan if that happened now?  And yet such an easy skill seems to elude so many.  And I’m not talking to those poor souls who work two or three jobs to feed their family.  Those people should be immune from bullshit.  Those guys take enough crap every day.  I can only hope their kids thank them for all the hard work they put in for keeping them feed, warm and clothed.  But that’s asking a an awful lot from kids.  It’s not their job to know those things yet.

But back to the generational differences.  One of the problems my generation is facing is that my parents generation isn’t going anywhere.  And they, having been in job the market longer, are rightfully in the top spots and demanding high pay.  None of this is wrong mind you.  If I’ve worked somewhere for twenty years I sure as hell won’t be making just 40 K a year and reporting to middle management.  Fuck that.  They deserve their spots just the problem is there is only so much room at the top.  Hell there is only so much room at the bottom.  And with so many people the job market is absolutely flooded.  You can only fit so many people through the door until it gets clogged with applicants.

A man from my parents generation could have a decent job without a college education and get enough to live comfortably with a wife and two children.  They could have a house and a car plus barbeque on the weekends.  Barbequing was something we brought over from Korean war when we decided the men needed their own kind of cooking that was manly and not for women.  No joke.  Not so much nowadays.  I work as a cube monkey (financial analysts at a start up tech company) and my wife works as a music teacher.  Without the both of us working things would be really tight.  And that’s just the two of us.  Throw in some nuggets and we’re in trouble if only one of us is working.  That’s just the reality of the age we’re in.  And it’s okay.  There are a lot problems with being a working parent nowadays.  Not every business is kind to expectant mothers and their time off needs.  Federal law in regards to time off only affects businesses of a certain size.  If you are pregnant working for a small company that job does not legally need to be there when you get back.  If you aren’t working you aren’t earning.  This isn’t a generation thing this is more or less employees being slowly squeezed tighter and tighter by the elite.  The elite has been tightening their grip slowly over the decades.  Just think back how many hours a week was normal to work ten years ago.  How many sick and vacation days were given.  That shit has been slashed and compromised.  How many people do you know who have covered work for a let go employee or employees while still keeping up their workload without increase in pay or benefits and for an extended period of time.  I know several people.  Hell, I’ve done it too.  So many people I know are worked to death with extra hours a week they have to work and aren’t getting paid for.  I’m already at least five good friends in my head who have had this nonsense happen to them.  This is only getting more common.  Conditions like this take all the punch out of my previous commune joke.  Maybe it worth the crappy tofu pizza.  Probably not though.  Tofu should be cooked by people who know to cook it.  Like, you know, Asia.  You could say that is racist comment but you could also point out the fact the west hasn’t been cooking with Tofu for centuries like the East has.

So the question is, why is this squeeze happening to my generation?  Surely the elite have always tried to squeeze the populace.  It’s kind of their thing.  I could return to the apathy argument.  It fits.  Look at the voting numbers in this country.  They suck.  Like really suck.  Like really, really suck.  Like they are so embarrassing we try to avoid the subject at the world’s dinner table when Austria brings it up.  Austria is always trying to get us down.  And Britain just sits there quietly and refuses to stick up for us.  Bastards.

Don’t believe me about the squeeze?  That fine just ask Walmart.

"Walmart CEO Michael Duke's $35 million salary, when converted to an hourly wage, worked out to $16,826.92.  By comparison, at a Walmart store planned for the Windy City's Pullman nieghborhood, new employees to be paid $8.75 an hour would gross $13,650 a year." 

Yeah, because obviously Mr. Duke is worth that much more.  His value as an employee has t be that much better right?  Obviously he has some obvious skills and yes he is running a very important company and yes I’m sure the job has an enormous amount of stress.  Or do we just pay this small select group of guys way too much money.  But maybe this pay amount has been standard and CEO’s and the like have been this overpaid for a long period of time.

“"We've seen, over the past three decades, a tenfold-plus increase in the gap between top executives and average American workers".

Okay maybe not.  Well maybe we can take solace that these guys are paying a shit ton of money into the system.  Which is fair because the system has given them so much.  Some people argue that wealthy don’t need to pay higher taxes.  Why should they pay more just because they make more?  Right?  Well what about the fact that we pay taxes because well we use free services we couldn’t have otherwise.  You know how easy it is to run a successful business in a country full of bandits or one with no roads or reliable electricity.  Yeah, the wealthy don’t need those things, right?  So maybe it is reasonable that if you take a lion’s share of the services provided you pay more.  So I guess it’s alright if we charge the shit out of these wealthy guys and girls.

“The top marginal tax rate, he said, dropped from 91 percent in the 1960s to 28 percent in 1980s. It stands at 35 percent today.”

Or not so much.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/walmart-ceo-pay-hour-workers-year/story?id=11067470#.T1WWdfGPVLf

But back to the pregnant ladies.  The way we treat working parents is not wholly American lots of countries put pressure on working moms and dads.  But there is one country that seems to try super hard to be very progressive about that subject – Sweden.

"Here in Sweden, however, there is a carefully structured and generously funded social security system that helps both parents take time off, and makes it easy to arrange child care. Imagine a country where each child is entitled to 480 days at home with their mother or father. Imagine a country where full-time child care costs £110 a month. Imagine a country where the state spends more on preschool child care than on its [defense] budget. Imagine a country where there are as many fathers at baby singing classes as mothers. Imagine a country where stay-at-home mothers are discouraged. Welcome to Sweden."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/9096123/Were-just-not-ready-to-be-Swedes-Dave.html

Holy fuck.  Can you even imagine America spending a fifth of the budget for armed forces on kids?  That quote doesn’t include the high cost of this social perk.  Super high taxes.  The article does mention that but it also talks on the thriving economy in Sweden.  Something we here in the states are sorely lacking.  I just wonder when this country will start looking at copying the activities of successful countries to deal with the problems we face.  This reminds me of one of my favorite speeches.  Dwight Eisenhower spoke grave warnings on the future of this country when left office and I fear we ignored him.  He spoke on the prophetically on caution we should have regarding the military-industrial complex and what he felt America’s role should be in the future.  There are many great quotes but I’ll leave you with this one:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html

I’ve meandered a bit but as I’ve been finding out nothing is unconnected.  The errors of one generation are absorbed the one following it and their errors are passed onto the next.  It is our job to try to limit our errors and much as we can but also to pay attention to the past because it looks like we haven’t been listening as acutely as we should.

Ben

The Evolution of the Asshole

I don’t think people truly understand how amazing the internet is and how much it has changed our society.  I think that’s the way it is with new paradigms a lot of the time.  You don’t notice incremental change.  It’s the same with gaining or losing weight.  You don’t notice an ounce here or there but when you compare how your pants fit you can see the difference.  Fuck you pants for not changing with me.  You know how I said its me not you, well it is you.  Stupid pants.  Anyway, the internet has changed everything -  how we communicate, how we shop, how we learn, how we socialize, how we act like total assholes.  The internet has given new and unique tools to be jerks to other people.  When was the last time someone prank called you?  I got one a few years back waking me from a deep sleep about someone towing my car.  By the time the sleep had faded from my brain the little bastard on the other end must have been stifling laughter from coming out all of his orifices.  He called me for a few more days afterwards pretty regularly until he tired of harassing me.  I would usually pick up and immediately hang up so he didn’t get my voicemail.  But phone pranks are essentially a thing of the past.  Kids my age used to do it all the time.  Remember those idiots the Jerky Boys.  Now phone pranks are so stupid it resides only on radio.  Radio, now there’s an emerging market where they value culture and innovation.  (sarcasm).  Maybe it works better with italics and parentheses.  The old pranks are out now.  Just like phone pranks replaced whatever stupid nonsense annoying kids did before to terrorize other people.  If you are one of those delusional people who think children are angels you obviously don’t remember middle school or being a kid in general.  Kids are just like adults in their capacity for generosity and/or cruelty.  They are just a lot more stupid and they lack the experience to stop themselves from bad ideas.  I know playing with fire is bad not just because fire hurts but because I’m old enough to have seen people do really stupid shit with fire.  Like, you know, burn themselves.  I have some knowledge and experience backing me up to make a decision to not play with fire.  The internet however enables everyone an opportunity to act like an idiot.  And not simply for those times where we can act anonymously.  Being an asshole due to the power of anonymity of nothing new.  Let me share a few new trends of asshatery with you.  Asshatery is Latin for “he who is sartorially dyslexic.”

I read the term vague booking and I immediately thought of several people who clog up Facebook with vapid attention seeking posts.  And these are often lovely not at all obnoxious people but who, for reasons unknown, when in front of a computer have to post the most inane bullshit imaginable on Facebook.  I think it may be one of the more obnoxious trends in Facebook and that is saying a lot.  I think I might prefer being forced to slowly flip though a bad photo album of ugly overweight preteens posing on front of the mirror taking downward jaunty angled photos in black and white.  Angles can only do so much, you horrifying manatee.  Go away from my Facebook lurking I’m busy spying on my friends posts without actually communicating with them.  *Note* I have nothing against ugly or fat people but please either stop photographing yourself in a way that tries to hide reality or at least try not to the same fucking photo as every other oversensitive girl.  Skinny bitches are even more annoying on Facebook.  With duckfaces and crappy gang signs and commenting that 'you look terrible' in a picture where you have carefully distressed your hair and spent ten minutes setting up the lighting and the shot.  I want to reach through the internet and slap you.  But that would be wrong.  Mindblowingly awesome but wrong.  Also a poor use for the best new superpower not yet made into a comic book.  The Web Slapper: justice is anonymous.  You’re welcome Marvel.

Let me explain vague booking as I realized I went into full mini rant.  I can’t quite remember where I grabbed this quote, it could be from Cracked or Reddit or off any number of internet sites I frequent. 

“Vague-booking. Otherwise known as the “comment-seekers,” these Facebook friends post purposefully vague/sad updates for the sole purpose of eliciting a response. It’s usually something along the lines of “OMG. This is the WORST thing that could possibly happen.” Then within minutes there are twenty comments. “What’s wrong?” “Are you okay? “Call me.” And the Vague-booker strikes again.”

If you have more than few Facebook friends you now this new kind of asshole.  You could do the same kind of thing with the old instant messenger away message but people only seem to use instant messenger if you’re at work and they don’t block it.  These jerks never explain what’s wrong.  Even when they get seventeen comments.  They want you to call them.  You know what I do when I need someone to call me because I’m having an issue?  If you say 'pick up the phone' congratulations you are not a vague booker.  If you are a vague booker and you knew the answer that makes you even more awful as you understand how petty this shit it is.  The first few times I saw vague booking I showed legitimate concern because I wasn’t yet jaded and my empathy dictated an emotional response.  However, I shortly found out about this phenomenon and my empathy has since been replaced with fine layer of cynicism and lean muscle.  Yes, a layer of fat would be funnier but its altogether untrue.

Another quick Facebook gripe.  You ever notice how the people who friend you a little too quickly on Facebook after meeting once and probably never again are always the ones who post way too much.  Fuck those people for trying to be social.

Plagiarism and lying is nothing new.  But the internet seems to increase people’s ability for both.  I’ve only met one compulsive liar.  The amount of damage this one asshole can do to a single social circle is amazing.  However the compulsive liar is always eventually caught and they have to move on to the new circle of friends.  People like that are why I am overcritical and careful with who I spend large quantities of time with.  Does this make me a curmudgeon?  Undoubtedly, that and the intentional use of the word curmudgeon.  They would hand out badges to the newly initiated but no one in the inner circle wants to meet new people or shake hands.  The issue with plagiarism on the internet is stealing comedic items mostly; taking a joke, a picture, or a story and claiming it as your own.  It is so easy to access such an unbelievable amount of stuff and pass off as your own.  I would call it knowledge not stuff but with 50% of the internet being porn and memes I just can’t in good conscious do so.  The problem here, besides pretending to be something you are not, is you are affecting someone else’s work.  It is so easy to copy a link.

The other bit that really aggravates me is the disappearances of spelling and sentence structure.  Grammar Nazi’s are annoying.  They pick apart things just for the sake of being jerks.  They don’t do it to educate or be helpful.  They do it because they time on their what with not being legally able to climb inside their own assholes as so many of us wish they would.  I have receive texts from a fifty year old that read like a collection of spilled alphabet soup.  I can understand kids not spelling; that isn’t acceptable but it’s understandable.  Why are older adults commiserating in this nonsense?  The letter 'u' is not a word.  I swear to various things I hold Holy if they come out with a scrabble for the internet generation with 733t speech and bad lol speak I will slap a kitten.  I won’t but I’ll be mad.  And all manner of curmudgeony.

This may seem foreign to you guys but people used to communicate exclusively through long eloquent letters.  The immediacy and instant gratification of interaction is in some respect raping our language.  I wonder if the great literary minds of the past would have fallen prey to this as well.

"2 B or not 2b.  That’s the ??? lol roflmao!!!!  I r grate writer dood!!!"

That physically hurt me to write.

While I’m still bitching here is a quick list of things I dislike on the internet:

• Stupid quiz results.  I don’t care how your scored on some bullshit internet quiz.
• Links that force me register or install an app before I can get to the content.  Fuck you I want to read your story.  You get ad revenue by me coming to you page don’t make it more annoying for me to get there.
• Pop ups and interactive ads, especially ones where it’s hard to click the x.  Fuck you for making an annoying ad that goes across the screen.  A fuck you site owners for allowing that shit on there.
• Internet Exploder in general.  This especially irks me with helping out at the support desk at work.  Nothing will force you to jaded cynicism faster than customer support.
• Really shitty site design.  Fuck that its 2012 you don’t have an excuse for this anymore.  If I have a bottle of scotch and a few hours to read up on it I could code a page that doesn’t make me want to remove my eyeballs and replace them with inert facsimiles so I never have to look upon your disaster again.
• People ragging on one set off users while proclaiming their own set as better.  (Digg, Reddit, 4chan, etc.)
• Not having a mobile site.  Again its 2012.
• People who say ‘the cloud’ without an inkling of understanding.  Conversely people who talk about the cloud and do understand but do so arrogantly and condescendingly.

That should cover a fraction of the new evolutionary forms of the modern asshole.  Sometimes I wish I could quit you internet.

Ben