I recently read the book Legion of the Lost by Jaime Salazar. Salazar was a graduate from Purdue University, who took a stab at life as a corporate executive, and found it not greatly to his liking. He walked away from an impressive salary in a high-rise office building, and ended up randomly touring Europe, not really looking for anything, and just generally hoping to find himself. He ended up joining the French Foreign Legion, primarily because he appreciated that it would be a hell of a challenge, and also because he couldn't think of anything better to do with his time. My male readers will appreciate that this is not all that unusual a choice: any man worthy of the name, or least aspiring to the name, has at some point or another thought ‘could I make it in any sort of hard-core military unit like that? Could I get through the US Navy Seals BUDS course? Am I tough enough to really hack it in a situation like that?’ Men wonder about these things. After all, we are the star of the show, but we sometimes wonder whether or not we've been miss-cast.
In any rate, the Foreign Legion has a distinguished history, dating back to its founding in the 19th century, as an outgrowth of France's efforts to retain the province of Algeria. Since then, it's gained a fairly impressive reputation in military circles, not necessarily for great tactical skill or expertise, but instead a reputation for being hard, brutal bastards who take shit from no one. The Legion has historically been a refuge for outcasts, the downtrodden, and/or fugitives from the law, as completion of a tour in the Legion means a new name and a new life with the full backing of the French government, to say nothing of the fringe benefit of any time you're in any sort of tight spot, all you need to do is call out “Moi la Legion!” and you have a better than average chance of several hard-core bastards - fellow former legionaries - appearing more or less out of nowhere, to help you deal with whatever travail is before you. In recent years the granting of French citizenship to legionaries has meant a great many people from the Eastern Bloc have joined the Legion, simply to get out of the hellholes that they live in. This means that anyone who attempts to join the Legion, such as any given Purdue alumni, needs to be impressive enough to win a spot away from a former Spetznaz commando, or other Eastern Bloc special forces type, who's willing to do pretty much anything for a shot at a better life in Western Europe.
The Legion's well-deserved reputation for creating fighting men who are as hard as coffin nails comes both from the Legion mentality, and from the training regimen, which is exceptionally brutal. Based on Salazar's account, corporal punishment, for any or no reason, occurs on levels that put prison riots to shame. The legionaries’ daily grind of make-work tasks - such as cleaning a military kitchen’s worth of pots and pans without either soap or other cleaning supplies - is routinely interrupted by fist fights with other legionaries, and/or beatings – again, for any or no reason - by the legionaries’ own sergeants. (The Legion’s officer corps is drawn from the French Army, but NCOs come from with the Legion’s own ranks.) On the outside looking in, by reading the book, what comes through is a message of savage brutal pointlessness bordering on despair. Miserable work assignments being done for no reason except to make the worker miserable. Beatings from sadists who the legionary is not allowed to fight back against. And of course, the universal military institution of physical training. Until you puke. Assuming there's anything in your stomach to puke up, since legionaries are never well fed. Having an empty stomach makes you hungry, and the French military leadership wants legionaries to be hungry. They consider that sort of hardness to be a positive character trait for foreigners serving in their army, which is hugely ironic in light of the typical laziness, apathy, and softness of any given Frenchman. In the not too distant past, a story made the French newspapers about how a legionary was beaten to death by one of his sergeants in front of the gathered company. For people familiar with the Legion, the only real surprise of the story was that anyone thought it worth reporting. But it’s not all hard work in the Legion. There is recreation as well. Like an entire squad getting roaring drunk, smash all their beer bottles on the floor, then playing some rugby on the glass shards.
Good times are where you find them.
So I was reading the book, particularly details about the pointless assignments, abuse without basis or reason, and intelligent, qualified people being degraded and abused by their fellows, simply because they were more intelligent and qualified than the people around them. Men really are wretched creatures, aren’t they? But what came to my mind, as I was reading all this, was high school.
Now there are those people on earth who consider high school to have been the greatest time of their lives. Not really having to work, surrounded by friends, and having a good time doing anything or nothing, based on whatever their whim was at the time. Generally speaking, people who feel that way about their high school years were That Guy. Or That Girl. You know the one I'm talking about: the muscle-head jock quarterback, who had other people write their papers when not busy stuffing them into lockers, or any other degrading thing that sounded like fun. Or else the cheerleader Princess, who treated every human being on earth like absolute dog shit, except when she needed their vote for prom queen. After watching a recent episode of Bones, it struck me that That Guy and That Girl love high school because it was endless fun, typically at other peoples’ expense. And if you were That Guy or That Girl, you probably don't even realize it. Booth didn't, and he was clearly That Guy.
Having thought about the matter, I think that perhaps 10 to 15% of any given high school class will walk away from it thinking that it was the best time of their lives. The cream of the crop - or at least that's what they would describe themselves as - the honor students, sports stars, and so forth. But for everyone else in any given high school class, most of the day-to-day routine consists of coping with one level or other of abuse from that top 10 to 15%. The jock assholes need to show everyone that they are in fact jock assholes, and princesses almost universally demonstrate their superiority by stepping all over those they consider beneath them. For those outside the self-appointed elite, especially those at the very bottom of the pecking order, physical and emotional abuse from classmates are daily fare, along with lessons tailored towards the lowest common denominator students, taught by teachers who either have no interest in getting actual results, or lack the tools and authority they need to get actual results.
For the self-appointed elite, it’s a charmed life. But for most everyone else, high school represents the absolute worst situation that they will ever face at any point in their lifetimes. Think about it. If an adult had a job that subjected them to the same daily travails faced by the average high school sophomore, they would quit the job, sue the boss, win that suit handily, and probably never have to work again as a result. But somehow, it's considered completely normal for kids being abused regularly by their classmates to be told to suck it up, toughen up, or get over whatever it is that's bothering them, because they really don't know how good they have it. Hell, people wonder what's wrong with their kids: why are they ditching school, why aren't they friends with the popular kids, why are they doing poorly? People can't or don't see the writing on the wall: high school these days is a cross between a day care and a prison, with the added benefit that the kids have no legal standing to challenge the guards or warden, and that all the adults around them think they're just being dramatic when they complain about how badly it sucks.
The twisted part is that people are actually surprised and confused when the system goes from simple ongoing malfunction in to outright meltdown. As Wil McCarthy noted in a recent blog, it is completely idiotic for people considering the Columbine massacre to ask things like “Why did they do it? What were they thinking?” My God, look at the kids’ behavior! For weeks or months before the blowup, the kids were screaming for help from anyone they thought would listen. Everyone in that school knew who they were, knew that they were catching a hard time from fellow students, and still didn't do a damn thing about it, except look for someone (read: someone ELSE) to blame after the fact. But right up until the bullets started flying, those kids could have been any number of students at any high school in the United States. Think back. We all knew those kids who That Guy and That Girl loved heap abuse upon, because they thought it was fun, and because it impressed their friends. None of us did anything about it, nor even thought much of it. It was just part of life in high school.
The fact that school shootings are as rare as they are is much more a testament to the resiliency (and/or apathetic despondency) of the abused students than a testament to the functioning of the system. But what to do? High school teachers these days have kids for one hour a day. Often times, the kids haven’t learned the things they should already to know to be in the class, and all the members of the class are NEVER anywhere near comparable levels of education/intelligence, which means that all the teach can do is aim lesson plans at the center of the bell curve, trust the top end of the bell curve will get by fine, and try to salvage as much as possible from the bottom of the curve in whatever time is available before the hour ends. They don’t have time to be counselors as well, or to try to beat back the tide of juvenile behavior being exchanged between cliques.
I don’t think that there is any real solution to the situation, except for parental involvement. Which is not to say that we should hope that parents take an active role and pay attention to the daily lives of their teenage children. Talk about trying to get blood from a stone: even if parents did try to get hands-on involved, it’s not going to work. ‘Snitches get stitches’ is a truism in both the school system and the prison system. Mommy or daddy stepping in is distinctly NOT going to improve the social situation of the High School lower class. Instead, the hope is that parents will make enough money to put their kids in private school. You know: the kind of school where class-levels are based on capability, and where teachers actually have the power and authority to do the job they are entrusted with. Doesn’t sound like too much to ask for, does it?
In the meantime, the public high schools will grind along, and – much like the Foreign Legion – will continue to use social abuse and ostracization, and the occasional beating from some over-bearing asshole, to turn wide-eyed young kids into hardened semi-adults. That Guy and That Girl will go on to whatever situation they choose (or that mommy and daddy can buy for them), and hopefully the kids at the other end of the spectrum won’t gun down too many of their classmates in the meantime. And the world will keep turning.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Let's Keep Those Fuel Prices High!!!
Call me crazy, but I actually like the way the gas prices are trending. For decades, America has consistently had the cheapest gas on the planet, which has gotten us into all sort of questionable lifestyle habits. Which habits we're probably not going to shake anytime soon; gas is about $4.40 a gallon, and assholes are still driving their Hummers and F350 pickups. I suspect those are the same people that are clamoring for the government to do something about the problem, which strikes me as irony at its best. Also the fact that such vehicles are often parked at the Starbucks near my office. People get upset about $4.40 per gallon of gas, but they think nothing of paying $5 for a PINT of coffee. Go figure.
For my part, I don't drink Starbucks, and I drive a Toyota. I've considered getting a more efficient vehicle, but the sad truth is that a hockey bag ain't gonna fit on the back of a motorcycle. Especially if I'm goaltending. Besides which, my career as a professional mercenary means that I do okay financially. Added to the fact that I've started driving pretty slow, and high energy prices make no real difference whatsoever in my live.
But what high energy prices have done is spur the development of all sorts of cool shit that have been periphery technology for years or decades. There were economic reasons that America has gotten oil from the middle east for so long: that was the cheapest way to do it. Even after pumping it out of the ground on the other side of the world, transporting it thousands of miles, sometimes in the face of hostile nations, refining it into usable form, and then transporting it from the refinery to your local Chevron, it was $2 a gallon for a long time. Compare to other commodities. That was less than the price of milk, way less than the price of beer, and astronomically less than the price of Astroglide. Although we sent billions of dollars to the middle east for oil, they sent a WHOLE LOT of barrels our way, and got rich only on volume.
Now rest assured that America is going to continue to run on gasoline. Although some Japanese auto-makers are pre-releasing a line of hydrogen-powered cars to directors and movie stars are a precursor to general release later this year, I don't think it's going to be more than a fad. First of all, liquid hydrogen is not all that easy to manage, and you can't exactly get it on every corner. Part of the process of releasing hydrogen cars is setting up the infrastructure and logistics of supply. Which represents a HUGE gamble for the automaker in question, since if sales don't pan out, that outlay goes down the toilet.
Second of all, hydrogen is not all that efficient as a fuel. It is amazingly efficient to burn, but there's more to the equation than that: while hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it - unlike oil - does not exist in abundance in usable form on the planet earth. Which means it needs to be produced industrially, either by breaking up hydrocarbon chains into base elements, or by separating it from water: both processes involve very energy-intensive processes, and the end result is that it takes more energy to create a gallon of liquid hydrogen than you get from burning that liquid hydrogen. It's the same problem as with early electric cars, the ones that had to be plugged in to recharge. Sure, you save on gas, but the energy has to come from somewhere, and - what with the fact that batteries generally suck from an efficiency standpoint - people spent more on their electric bills from charging their plug-in cars than they saved on gasoline. Thus, plug-in cars were fads, and didn't become economical until hybrids came into being (and hybrids are actually less efficient electrically, but make up for it mechanically, since they can capture the energy lost from braking).
Hydrogen is energy expensive to produce, so will go the same way as plug0in cars. Hydrogen works great as an energy storage medium for certain process (like home solar set-ups), but it's not economical to use in cars. As efficient (and clean) as it is as a fuel, it's still a hell of a lot more expensive than gasoline, and is going to stay that way. Barring a revolution in the chemistry and physics of hydrogen production, hydrogen cars will be limited to wealthy hollywood tree-huggers.
For the same reason, and barring a similar revolution, you can forget about shit like solar and wind power. Yes, it is superbly renewable and extremely efficient. But it's still to expensive to use on large scales, and small scales don't produce enough energy to feed an energy-starving society. Tidal plants using Wells turbines have some potential, but the science is still being worked out, is limited to certain coastal areas, and there are questions as to how much further it can go.
But there is good news: we will continue to drive and operate, by using cheap fuels, distributed through our pre-existing (gas-station based) distribution network. And the fuels are ones that everyone knows: gasoline and diesel fuel. Amazing as it sounds, the middle east does not have a world monopoly on oil. The United States is actually the world's third-leading producer of oil. It just consumes more oil than the next four highest nations put together. It merely seemed the middle east had a monopoly, because they were the greatest exporters, and because they could supply it at prices so low that all possible competition was stamped out economically. But no more. Middle-east oil is now so expensive that alternative sources of oil are becoming viable.
First and foremost, there are oil wells that were not economically feasible until now. Notably large undersea depositions, and other hard to reach places. It's now worth the cost to go get them. Likewise things like oil shale, which exists in abundance in local places like Colorado, and in raw energy content theoretically exceeds the reserves of Saudi Arabia. Before, it was just too expensive to industrially cook crude oil from the shale, since ready-made crude was available for cheap. Until now, that is. Rest assured oil shale is receiving serious consideration from On High. And then there are things like ethanol. It has been possible for years to distill burnable hydrocarbons from any organic matter containing appreciable amounts of sugars. You can even do it in your backyard. Along similar lines, any diesel engine can be modified to operate on normal vegetable oil (or peanut oil, or what have you). The problem with that - besides the energy cost of running a still - has always been that those sugars and oils were more valuable as foods than as fuels. Realistically, they still are.
But hope springs eternal, followed quickly by technology. Our good friends in Silicon Valley are already engineering bacteria that create crude oil from organic matter that is more or less useless for human consumption. Things like wheat and corn stalks (the stuff left over from the plant when the wheat or corn is removed). Or wood pulp. Or raw sewage. Anything the e-coli can survive on, in theory, which is a long list. Hopefully our energy needs won't reach Soylent Green levels, but the technology is already there to make it happen.
There are also things like thermal depolymerization, which can generate burnable hydrocarbon fuels (light crude) not only from organic sources like chicken industry byproducts, but also from plastics, medical waste, or old tires. It mimics the geological process of using heat and pressure to break down long carbon chains into shorter chains (methane, benzene), and is already being tested on industrial scales. With the increase in prices of foreign oil, things like this gain increasing attention as oil sources. Which means they gain tax breaks, subsidies, and venture capitol.
Anyone reading this knows I'm not a big fan of rose-colored glasses, but economics of oil are going to hugely benefit the United States in the next 30 years, since the United States is the nation in by far the best position to develop these emerging technologies into workable industries. So imagine: rather than buying a Saudi prince a new jet (or buying 7.62x39 ammo for terrorist AK-47s), the money you pay on gas goes to a bacterial plant in Kansas, which uses some of that money to buy corn and wheat straw (from farmers in the mid-west) to cook into crude. Landfills are strip-mined for plastics and other non-decomposables, which get fed into thermal depolymerization plants to make fuels and more plastics. Utility companies will boom when power companies want to buy America's trash to make energy. The technology is already there. While the US will probably never be a net exporter of energy, it will - through necessity - become much more capable of supporting itself, which means that many more dollars staying within the American economy.
Make no mistake, the Saudis are scared shitless that the price of oil is so high, since that's creating a market that will ultimately put them out of business. While this may not parley into savings for the customer, the Saudis will have to reduce the price of their oil to match prices of other oil. Otherwise, the alternative sources will claim ever larger portions of world sales. And the Saudis actually need us a hell of a lot more than we need them. What the hell else do they have to sell, other than oil? Makes you wonder what's going to happen to world politics vis-a-vis the middle east when the world no longer gives a damn about their oil.
I could go on for hours about the social and economic implications of expensive gas, both at local and global levels. Let me know if there's any particular point you want to hear more about.
For my part, I don't drink Starbucks, and I drive a Toyota. I've considered getting a more efficient vehicle, but the sad truth is that a hockey bag ain't gonna fit on the back of a motorcycle. Especially if I'm goaltending. Besides which, my career as a professional mercenary means that I do okay financially. Added to the fact that I've started driving pretty slow, and high energy prices make no real difference whatsoever in my live.
But what high energy prices have done is spur the development of all sorts of cool shit that have been periphery technology for years or decades. There were economic reasons that America has gotten oil from the middle east for so long: that was the cheapest way to do it. Even after pumping it out of the ground on the other side of the world, transporting it thousands of miles, sometimes in the face of hostile nations, refining it into usable form, and then transporting it from the refinery to your local Chevron, it was $2 a gallon for a long time. Compare to other commodities. That was less than the price of milk, way less than the price of beer, and astronomically less than the price of Astroglide. Although we sent billions of dollars to the middle east for oil, they sent a WHOLE LOT of barrels our way, and got rich only on volume.
Now rest assured that America is going to continue to run on gasoline. Although some Japanese auto-makers are pre-releasing a line of hydrogen-powered cars to directors and movie stars are a precursor to general release later this year, I don't think it's going to be more than a fad. First of all, liquid hydrogen is not all that easy to manage, and you can't exactly get it on every corner. Part of the process of releasing hydrogen cars is setting up the infrastructure and logistics of supply. Which represents a HUGE gamble for the automaker in question, since if sales don't pan out, that outlay goes down the toilet.
Second of all, hydrogen is not all that efficient as a fuel. It is amazingly efficient to burn, but there's more to the equation than that: while hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it - unlike oil - does not exist in abundance in usable form on the planet earth. Which means it needs to be produced industrially, either by breaking up hydrocarbon chains into base elements, or by separating it from water: both processes involve very energy-intensive processes, and the end result is that it takes more energy to create a gallon of liquid hydrogen than you get from burning that liquid hydrogen. It's the same problem as with early electric cars, the ones that had to be plugged in to recharge. Sure, you save on gas, but the energy has to come from somewhere, and - what with the fact that batteries generally suck from an efficiency standpoint - people spent more on their electric bills from charging their plug-in cars than they saved on gasoline. Thus, plug-in cars were fads, and didn't become economical until hybrids came into being (and hybrids are actually less efficient electrically, but make up for it mechanically, since they can capture the energy lost from braking).
Hydrogen is energy expensive to produce, so will go the same way as plug0in cars. Hydrogen works great as an energy storage medium for certain process (like home solar set-ups), but it's not economical to use in cars. As efficient (and clean) as it is as a fuel, it's still a hell of a lot more expensive than gasoline, and is going to stay that way. Barring a revolution in the chemistry and physics of hydrogen production, hydrogen cars will be limited to wealthy hollywood tree-huggers.
For the same reason, and barring a similar revolution, you can forget about shit like solar and wind power. Yes, it is superbly renewable and extremely efficient. But it's still to expensive to use on large scales, and small scales don't produce enough energy to feed an energy-starving society. Tidal plants using Wells turbines have some potential, but the science is still being worked out, is limited to certain coastal areas, and there are questions as to how much further it can go.
But there is good news: we will continue to drive and operate, by using cheap fuels, distributed through our pre-existing (gas-station based) distribution network. And the fuels are ones that everyone knows: gasoline and diesel fuel. Amazing as it sounds, the middle east does not have a world monopoly on oil. The United States is actually the world's third-leading producer of oil. It just consumes more oil than the next four highest nations put together. It merely seemed the middle east had a monopoly, because they were the greatest exporters, and because they could supply it at prices so low that all possible competition was stamped out economically. But no more. Middle-east oil is now so expensive that alternative sources of oil are becoming viable.
First and foremost, there are oil wells that were not economically feasible until now. Notably large undersea depositions, and other hard to reach places. It's now worth the cost to go get them. Likewise things like oil shale, which exists in abundance in local places like Colorado, and in raw energy content theoretically exceeds the reserves of Saudi Arabia. Before, it was just too expensive to industrially cook crude oil from the shale, since ready-made crude was available for cheap. Until now, that is. Rest assured oil shale is receiving serious consideration from On High. And then there are things like ethanol. It has been possible for years to distill burnable hydrocarbons from any organic matter containing appreciable amounts of sugars. You can even do it in your backyard. Along similar lines, any diesel engine can be modified to operate on normal vegetable oil (or peanut oil, or what have you). The problem with that - besides the energy cost of running a still - has always been that those sugars and oils were more valuable as foods than as fuels. Realistically, they still are.
But hope springs eternal, followed quickly by technology. Our good friends in Silicon Valley are already engineering bacteria that create crude oil from organic matter that is more or less useless for human consumption. Things like wheat and corn stalks (the stuff left over from the plant when the wheat or corn is removed). Or wood pulp. Or raw sewage. Anything the e-coli can survive on, in theory, which is a long list. Hopefully our energy needs won't reach Soylent Green levels, but the technology is already there to make it happen.
There are also things like thermal depolymerization, which can generate burnable hydrocarbon fuels (light crude) not only from organic sources like chicken industry byproducts, but also from plastics, medical waste, or old tires. It mimics the geological process of using heat and pressure to break down long carbon chains into shorter chains (methane, benzene), and is already being tested on industrial scales. With the increase in prices of foreign oil, things like this gain increasing attention as oil sources. Which means they gain tax breaks, subsidies, and venture capitol.
Anyone reading this knows I'm not a big fan of rose-colored glasses, but economics of oil are going to hugely benefit the United States in the next 30 years, since the United States is the nation in by far the best position to develop these emerging technologies into workable industries. So imagine: rather than buying a Saudi prince a new jet (or buying 7.62x39 ammo for terrorist AK-47s), the money you pay on gas goes to a bacterial plant in Kansas, which uses some of that money to buy corn and wheat straw (from farmers in the mid-west) to cook into crude. Landfills are strip-mined for plastics and other non-decomposables, which get fed into thermal depolymerization plants to make fuels and more plastics. Utility companies will boom when power companies want to buy America's trash to make energy. The technology is already there. While the US will probably never be a net exporter of energy, it will - through necessity - become much more capable of supporting itself, which means that many more dollars staying within the American economy.
Make no mistake, the Saudis are scared shitless that the price of oil is so high, since that's creating a market that will ultimately put them out of business. While this may not parley into savings for the customer, the Saudis will have to reduce the price of their oil to match prices of other oil. Otherwise, the alternative sources will claim ever larger portions of world sales. And the Saudis actually need us a hell of a lot more than we need them. What the hell else do they have to sell, other than oil? Makes you wonder what's going to happen to world politics vis-a-vis the middle east when the world no longer gives a damn about their oil.
I could go on for hours about the social and economic implications of expensive gas, both at local and global levels. Let me know if there's any particular point you want to hear more about.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Measures of Health
In recent developments, Japan has established national standards for waist sizes.
If your waist exceeds the government-mandated maximum (33.5 inches for men, 35.4 for women), you will be receive government 'guidance,' and -- if that doesn't get results in three months -- you will then be assigned for government 're-education.' I'm not making this shit up.
While not punishable by death (yet), this legislation strikes me as human stupidity on a colossal scale, which I object to. The only things that should be produced on colossal scales are burgers, roller-coasters, and redheads (and I mean lots of redheads, not colossal redheads).
Idiocy.
And I'm not just saying this because my waist, at 34 inches, exceeds Japan's statutory max. Even allowing for cultural differences (I would assume that 6-foot-3, 200 lb. hockey players are fairly rare in Japan), waist size is hardly the end all and be all of health. I appreciate the need to alleviate endemic diabetes and heart problems, especially in a nation with socialized healthcare, but there's got to be a better way to determine healthy/unhealthy than this shit. I mean, this is the country that has graced the world with... .... .... Sushi? Yeah! SUSHI! (Mmmmm.... sushi....) With all the crazy ways they can mix together rice and dead fish, you'd think they'd be a little more flexible about their definition of flab!
Lately, I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about insanity -- perhaps as a buildup to expounding own my own unusual mental state; let me know if you want to read about that -- and I have a theory about why Japan regularly comes up with ideas like, for example, bukake. (Google it.) Japan also has a large industry providing and supporting people with insects for pets, and purportedly, it is not an uncommon phobia among men to believe that one's penis might retract inside one's body. Again, I'm not making this up.
The Japanese people fall victim to their own social pressures. A nation that proudly flaunts its millenia of warrior history, that was stomped into the ground by a bunch of uncultured, honorless, foul-smelling gaijan. Where men are expected to be men, but also to swallow their pride and throw themselves onto their swords over relatively trifling (by western standards) issues of honor. Where the a relatively huge population is stacked into a remarkably small geographic area. With all the competing and/or conflicting expectations, repression so pervasive as to be the defining cultural norm, to say nothing of the constant pressure and buzz of so much humanity, it really is no wonder that they come up with so much crazy shit.
Take, by contrast, the Canadians. The only crazy headlines you see from Canada are about riots following big victories or big losses by the Leaf or the Habs. That's because hockey is the only thing Canadians take that seriously. Sweeping social freedoms, carefree lifestyle, and lots of open space: Their freedom of individuality is challenged only by the Aussies (who get crazy about rugby). Interestingly enough, both nations are also notable in that you can pick bar fights by criticizing someones beer choice. I guess when you don't really take anything seriously, you need to to contrive things to take seriously, just to remind yourself that you do, in fact, still have a pulse.
This had led me to the conclusion that nearly all forms of insanity and social deviancy arise as direct results of the social institutions we embrace, or -- more often -- that our parents force us in to. In American culture, the highest items on the list would be: 1) religion 2) family events, and 3) high school. *Sigh* Once again, I find myself trumpeting the cause of rebellion for all social and cultural norms as the path to better and healthier living.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Evil and Ignorance
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, in one of his notable books, makes observations generally consistent with my ongoing theme of mankind's ability to delude itself. Specifically, he talks about liberals and left-wing idealists from the 20th century, who wholeheartedly embraced the idea of communism, and asserted that, with so enlightened a form of government, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world followed the footsteps of the USSR, China, etc.
Of course, the generally right-wing American political system (and the world press) was telling them that the amazing success of Stalin's first 5-year plan was built on the backs of millions of his own citizens that he threw into slavery and ultimately either worked to death, or else just outright killed. Other branches of the press were talking about food and other commodity shortages that were happening in Russia, and which are endemic in any civilization based on altruism. Still other branches told of oppression of the Chinese and Russian people, and the pervasiveness of fear and paranoia.
The communist-idealist liberals -- including a great many college students, professors, and other people who's jobs and lives allowed them to be oblivious and/or ignorant of things like "reality" -- refused to believe any of those reports, saying that it was just propaganda generated to detract from The Enemy. They denied it. And they continued denying it, even (after the fall of the USSR) when documents, eyewitness accounts, and confessions from Soviet Party members substantiated everything that Ronny Reagan said the Russians were doing. Idealists were incapable of coming to terms with the fact that something they considered so grandiose, pure, and well-intentioned could ever be capable of anything like a government killing millions of their own people based on racial or religious reasons. None of that bad shit could really have happened under the aegis of so brilliant a concept!
In a similar vein, take Adolf Hitler. To this day, there are people -- and not just hard-core neo-Nazis -- who believe that he was the greatest man who ever lived. Now, if you deny that the man was an ego-maniac, a tyrant, and a mass murderer, you need to take another, closer look at history. Because he was all those things. On the other hand, if you deny that he was a political genius, an excellent statesman, and a superb inspirational leader of men, you also need to take another, closer look at history. Because he was all those things, too.
Among the people who remember him as all that and a bag of chips, some of them outright deny that the holocaust ever happened, and - much like the ideal communists - say that all that shit was just propaganda generated by the right-wing (Jewish/Zionist) elite to slander someone who challenged them. They refuse to believe that it happened. Among others of Hitler's modern disciples, they admit that the holocaust was reality, but either don't care about millions of dead Jews, or else think that millions of dead Jews is a pretty good idea.
Now then.
Which is the greater evil: to deny an evil reality to embrace a grand idea/ideal/event that is intertwined with the evil, or else to admit the evil reality, and still embrace the same grand idea/ideal/event? Is it better to be a zealot immune to all criticism of your Chosen Idea, or is it better to be aware of all that is wrong with your Chosen Idea, and to still be zealous supporter? People who deny the holocaust are, on facial analysis, a lot less bright than people who admit it and support it, but are they more or less evil? Or is ignorance it's own special brand of evil? And if clueless ignorance is evil, what does that say about the natural mental state of mankind?
Of course, the generally right-wing American political system (and the world press) was telling them that the amazing success of Stalin's first 5-year plan was built on the backs of millions of his own citizens that he threw into slavery and ultimately either worked to death, or else just outright killed. Other branches of the press were talking about food and other commodity shortages that were happening in Russia, and which are endemic in any civilization based on altruism. Still other branches told of oppression of the Chinese and Russian people, and the pervasiveness of fear and paranoia.
The communist-idealist liberals -- including a great many college students, professors, and other people who's jobs and lives allowed them to be oblivious and/or ignorant of things like "reality" -- refused to believe any of those reports, saying that it was just propaganda generated to detract from The Enemy. They denied it. And they continued denying it, even (after the fall of the USSR) when documents, eyewitness accounts, and confessions from Soviet Party members substantiated everything that Ronny Reagan said the Russians were doing. Idealists were incapable of coming to terms with the fact that something they considered so grandiose, pure, and well-intentioned could ever be capable of anything like a government killing millions of their own people based on racial or religious reasons. None of that bad shit could really have happened under the aegis of so brilliant a concept!
In a similar vein, take Adolf Hitler. To this day, there are people -- and not just hard-core neo-Nazis -- who believe that he was the greatest man who ever lived. Now, if you deny that the man was an ego-maniac, a tyrant, and a mass murderer, you need to take another, closer look at history. Because he was all those things. On the other hand, if you deny that he was a political genius, an excellent statesman, and a superb inspirational leader of men, you also need to take another, closer look at history. Because he was all those things, too.
Among the people who remember him as all that and a bag of chips, some of them outright deny that the holocaust ever happened, and - much like the ideal communists - say that all that shit was just propaganda generated by the right-wing (Jewish/Zionist) elite to slander someone who challenged them. They refuse to believe that it happened. Among others of Hitler's modern disciples, they admit that the holocaust was reality, but either don't care about millions of dead Jews, or else think that millions of dead Jews is a pretty good idea.
Now then.
Which is the greater evil: to deny an evil reality to embrace a grand idea/ideal/event that is intertwined with the evil, or else to admit the evil reality, and still embrace the same grand idea/ideal/event? Is it better to be a zealot immune to all criticism of your Chosen Idea, or is it better to be aware of all that is wrong with your Chosen Idea, and to still be zealous supporter? People who deny the holocaust are, on facial analysis, a lot less bright than people who admit it and support it, but are they more or less evil? Or is ignorance it's own special brand of evil? And if clueless ignorance is evil, what does that say about the natural mental state of mankind?
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Reality Checks
The Penguins are undoubtedly the future of the league, especially if they can keep the core together. (Read: Malone, Ryan; Gonchar, Sergei; Malkin, Evgeni; Staal, Jordan. Barring some miracle, Crosby and Fleury will play their entire careers there, and barring a similar miracle, Hossa will be gone after this season. Which sucks; aside from SC and MAF, Hossa has been their best player in the playoffs.) The Penguins are already the best team in the East, by a wide margin. It would have been fun to see them play Montreal, but they way they strolled through OTT, NYR, and PHI was IMPRESSIVE. This team is going to win a lot of games for a long time to come.
That having been said, Detroit is clearly the better team at this point. The scores for the last few games of the Finals have been close, and PIT has managed to prove that they deserve to be there. But most of the games have not been as close as the scores would indicate. Detroit is busting ass, whereas the PIT players appear tentative in what they're doing. On offense, they can't seem to get in deep, and loose pucks always seem to bounce right to a DET player who (not surprisingly) is standing in exactly the right spot. On defense, they seem to make swipes at the puck-carrier, or else stop driving on the carrier when the get within 10 feet.
I think it really comes down to two things. First, DET is head-and-shoulders smarter and more experienced than PIT. They (as a team and as players) are on the same page: they know exactly where they are, and where they're going. Part of this is more experienced players, and part of it is coaching. And part of it is playing in the Western Conference, playing regular-season games against quality teams. All in all, I expect the series to end tomorrow in Pittsburgh. I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'm right.
But the future is going to be fun to watch; I'm already excited about what the offseason is going to bring...
That having been said, Detroit is clearly the better team at this point. The scores for the last few games of the Finals have been close, and PIT has managed to prove that they deserve to be there. But most of the games have not been as close as the scores would indicate. Detroit is busting ass, whereas the PIT players appear tentative in what they're doing. On offense, they can't seem to get in deep, and loose pucks always seem to bounce right to a DET player who (not surprisingly) is standing in exactly the right spot. On defense, they seem to make swipes at the puck-carrier, or else stop driving on the carrier when the get within 10 feet.
I think it really comes down to two things. First, DET is head-and-shoulders smarter and more experienced than PIT. They (as a team and as players) are on the same page: they know exactly where they are, and where they're going. Part of this is more experienced players, and part of it is coaching. And part of it is playing in the Western Conference, playing regular-season games against quality teams. All in all, I expect the series to end tomorrow in Pittsburgh. I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'm right.
But the future is going to be fun to watch; I'm already excited about what the offseason is going to bring...
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Birth Defects
As I might have mentioned, I'm in the process of trying to write something decent, in which I provide a series of Rules (and supporting commentary) for the benefit of guys, who are incapable of figuring things out for themselves. It's fun. Time consuming, and slow going - after spending all day sitting at a computer at work, I generally don't want to spend all evening sitting at a computer at home - but visible progress is being made.
But as I work through the Rules, and especially as I write the associated commentaries, the underlying theme has become increasingly crystal clear. And what it boils down to is this: Woman live their lives at the mercy of their hormones. Men live their lives at the mercy of their own egos.
Guys tend to get pissed off at women for being loopy, flighty, inconsistent, illogical, and occasionally downright bat-shit crazy. One of the Rules (The Lunar Cycle/Lunar Psycho Rule) actually reads: "She will occasionally flip out and do/say/feel crazy fucked up things. She cannot help it, she usually doesn't mean it, and she will get upset if you bring these things up at a later date. Weather the gale or jump ship of your own choice, but accept that there will be those storms." The reason for this, I have come to believe, is the continually fluctuating levels of hormones that she is suffering from. There is no possible way to tell what a woman is thinking, because - aside from a fairly constant buzzing of worrying about pretty much everything that's happening and might happen - women change their mind about whatever it is they're contemplating several times over the course of any given day/hour/minute. They can't help it. It's just the way their electro-chemical programming works.
As for guys, we generally don't have that problem with fluctuation. We spend pretty much our entire lives at fairly high levels of hormonally-induced sexual excitation, on the off chance that a woman might suddenly deign to put out. We need to be ready for that, because god knows it doesn't happen often. But as we don't suffer from the swings, it's hard for us to understand the various mood/mind swings.
Further, being continually amped-up on testosterone means that men are generally oblivious to most of what is happening around us. Male electro-chemical programming results in us perpetually thinking of ourselves as James Bond, or Walker, Texas Ranger (or some other character; I personally consider myself more a Thomas Crown type). Our lives are a movie - starring us, of course - and it is completely inconceivable that the script should call for such things as professional failure, angry girlfriends, or the idea that we are less than spectacular in bed. We're the Star, after all! None of that shit can happen to us! If it looks like that is happening, it must be a mistake, because there's simply NO WAY that the hero in the movie falls victim to that shit.
Most of the problems in our lives, and nearly all our problems with women, stem from the fact that, as guys, we are pretty much incapable of getting over ourselves to the point where we can actually notice what's going on around us. (Of course, all of this only applies to other guys. Not to me. I'm the Star in this flick, after all.)
The battle of the sexes is based on the genetic failings of the participants. That's the sum total of what I've learned from my current recreational writing project (other than blogging, that is). If you want to hear more about this, you'll probably have to read The Rules.
But as I work through the Rules, and especially as I write the associated commentaries, the underlying theme has become increasingly crystal clear. And what it boils down to is this: Woman live their lives at the mercy of their hormones. Men live their lives at the mercy of their own egos.
Guys tend to get pissed off at women for being loopy, flighty, inconsistent, illogical, and occasionally downright bat-shit crazy. One of the Rules (The Lunar Cycle/Lunar Psycho Rule) actually reads: "She will occasionally flip out and do/say/feel crazy fucked up things. She cannot help it, she usually doesn't mean it, and she will get upset if you bring these things up at a later date. Weather the gale or jump ship of your own choice, but accept that there will be those storms." The reason for this, I have come to believe, is the continually fluctuating levels of hormones that she is suffering from. There is no possible way to tell what a woman is thinking, because - aside from a fairly constant buzzing of worrying about pretty much everything that's happening and might happen - women change their mind about whatever it is they're contemplating several times over the course of any given day/hour/minute. They can't help it. It's just the way their electro-chemical programming works.
As for guys, we generally don't have that problem with fluctuation. We spend pretty much our entire lives at fairly high levels of hormonally-induced sexual excitation, on the off chance that a woman might suddenly deign to put out. We need to be ready for that, because god knows it doesn't happen often. But as we don't suffer from the swings, it's hard for us to understand the various mood/mind swings.
Further, being continually amped-up on testosterone means that men are generally oblivious to most of what is happening around us. Male electro-chemical programming results in us perpetually thinking of ourselves as James Bond, or Walker, Texas Ranger (or some other character; I personally consider myself more a Thomas Crown type). Our lives are a movie - starring us, of course - and it is completely inconceivable that the script should call for such things as professional failure, angry girlfriends, or the idea that we are less than spectacular in bed. We're the Star, after all! None of that shit can happen to us! If it looks like that is happening, it must be a mistake, because there's simply NO WAY that the hero in the movie falls victim to that shit.
Most of the problems in our lives, and nearly all our problems with women, stem from the fact that, as guys, we are pretty much incapable of getting over ourselves to the point where we can actually notice what's going on around us. (Of course, all of this only applies to other guys. Not to me. I'm the Star in this flick, after all.)
The battle of the sexes is based on the genetic failings of the participants. That's the sum total of what I've learned from my current recreational writing project (other than blogging, that is). If you want to hear more about this, you'll probably have to read The Rules.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)