Recently in Culture Category

There has been much discussion lately about the Killer Whale trainer that was killed at Sea World, Orlando, last week. Rightly, most of it has been about the tragic loss of Whale Trainer, Dawn Brancheau's life, and the fact that the particular whale that killed her, has been involved in other losses of human life. Last night, on the Larry King show, however, the debate heated up.

Larry had five guests: Jack Hanna, who is a popular television host and zoo director that can often be seen on shows like David Letterman, Jane Velez, a television reporter and animal rights activist, Thad Lacinak, a former Sea World employee, Ric O'Barry, a former Dolphin trainer for the Flipper television program of the 1960's, turned animal activist (who I wrote about in this post), and Tippy Hedron, an actress and animal rights activist. If you're familiar with these people, then you likely know where they all come down on this debate.

One of the mantras from guys like Hanna (a paid spokesperson for Sea World), and Lacinak about the importance of places like Sea World is the education aspect. They would have you believe that it is necessary to keep these creatures in captivity so that we can learn from them, yet they never seem to talk about the millions of dollars that they make from ticket sales. In my opinion, these kinds of parks are no different than any other kind of big business where profits trump everything else. I have no doubt that the animal trainers love the animals, and want nothing but the best for them, but in a for-profit environment, the well-being of everything but the profit-margin, is typically secondary.

This recent tragedy reminds of something I read about a few years ago where some sort of traveling circus had an elephant break out of its pen, and go on a crazed rampage. People were injured, and I don't recall if there were any deaths, but the incident ended with the elephant being killed by local police.

It also reminds me of a study I once read about where they were testing the behaviour of various animals in front of a mirror. Most animals exhibited social behaviour, because they thought their reflection was another animal, but the elephants behaved differently. To see just how differently, they taped something to the elephant's face, and put the elephant in front of the mirror. The elephant saw the thing stuck to its face, and immediately used its trunk to remove the object. This clearly shows that the elephant has a sense of self. He knew that he was looking at himself, and not another animal.

What do elephants have to do with Whales you ask? Well, it is generally believed that the most intelligent animals are primates, whales, dolphins, and elephants. It is then not a difficult leap to believe that since elephants show clear and obvious signs of self, it is also very likely that dolphins, whales, and primates are, as well.

None of the debate that I have seen on this topic has even begun to come close to addressing this. The Larry King debate was laced with lots of personal attacks and vitriol, and it seems to me that even the defenders of whales are often missing the larger point.

If whales are indeed self aware, then isn't confining them to these aquaria (some call them "abusement parks"), a kind of slavery? Jack Hanna and Thad Lacinak are quick to point out that they have nothing but the animal's best interests at heart, and are in fact helping them by keeping them in captivity, but hasn't humankind historically used that argument every time it performed some horrible act against other human beings?

Perhaps in the case of this whale (and there are other examples of captive whales killing people), and in the case of that elephant, their behaviours were simply them lashing out against those who imprison them.

I think the bigger picture here is what troubles me the most.  Mankind fancies itself to be at the top of the food chain on this planet, having sovereignty over everything, which has led to the enslavement of people, the destruction of the planet on which we live, and the captivity of these whales.

I do not believe that we as a species can live in harmony, until we shed that arrogance, and treat everything within our spheres of influence with the proper respect. In this case, that respect would mean letting these wild animals remain in the wild.

I recently decided that I need an unhealthy obsession. I want to worship some ridiculous brand, or inanimate object to the point where I alienate large groups of people, and I need your help. Only, I am having trouble deciding what brand/object to worship, so I am soliciting suggestions.

Now, most of you are probably thinking that I should pick a popular computer brand, like so many before me have, but I consider that to be a rather mundane, boring choice. I want something different, and off-the-beaten-path.

I know, I know, right now you're probably all thinking that I am very lazy, but that's not true! I've put an awful lot of thought into this, but didn't like any of my choices. For example, I briefly considered becoming a fan of the American Standard Toilet brand, but that didn't seem appealing for very long. I also briefly considered obsessing over the Ticonderoga Pencil brand, but that lost its luster when I realized just how hard it was finding those wall-mounted pencil sharpeners like we used to have in grade school. Lastly, I mulled over the idea of worshiping the Swan Garden Hose brand, and I would have, if I still had any idea where my Slip and Slide was.

So as you can plainly see, I need your help. Please email any suggestions that you might have to either of the email addresses on my Contact page.

I extend my thanks in advance.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the impossibly minuscule likelihood that there is a God. I tend to always be thinking about things like this, but finding this website, a few weeks ago got me thinking about it even more.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am an Agnostic who leans toward being an Atheist. I can't absolutely prove there isn't a God, but I suspect there isn't one.

I always wondered what actually made people switch from polytheistic belief systems (Paganism, many gods), to monotheistic belief systems (one god). It seems to me that if gods do exist, and there is only one, that he is going to be one hell-of-a busy entity. Watching over the universe is probably a very big job, which is why Paganism always made more sense to me. In fact, I think Paganism, is a lot like the Unix Philosophy, which is why Paganism makes the most sense to me. In the Unix Philosophy, you design and write programs to be small, and to do one task very well. Why have these gigantic, bloated, memory-hogging programs that do a million things, when you can have a bunch of smaller programs, that do one thing each, very well? Why shouldn't this be true in theism as well? Have a bunch of gods, each doing different things, and doing them very well. Most Pagan Mythoi also seem to have a God King, with the lesser gods being under him/her in the power-structure, which implies a kind of hierarchical command structure. This also makes sense to me. We all know that military organizations, which employ hierarchical command structures, can be very efficient in delegating responsibility and duties. Again, overseeing the universe sounds like a big job, and delegating duties to many lesser gods seems like the way to do it.

Among my friends, their opinions on the topic of gods, and the afterlife occupy a pretty broad spectrum. Not that there being a God, or gods implies an afterlife, but they do seem to go hand in hand. Despite the fact that I don't believe in the likelihood of any God, or gods, and I am not expecting to run into any old, deceased friends in any sort of afterlife, I have many friends who do believe in these things, and we get along fine.

What got me thinking about this topic, today, was while I was flipping around the TV dial (remember when TV's had DIALS???), I whizzed past a channel showing the movie, Ghost. This film deals very much with death, and the afterlife, and I began to think about my friends and their beliefs. More specifically, the friends who tend to believe in some sort of something, after we die.

Some believe in Heaven and Hell, and others believe in some form of reincarnation. One of my friends who would profess to enjoy life, once told me that she has already picked out her husband's next partner, in the case of her own death. Yet, in films like Ghost, and other romantic films, they talk about people being soul-mates, who are meant to be together, forever.

In real life, sometimes, when one half of a married couple dies, the other never remarries, and spends the rest of their life, alone, and one would think, very lonely. My friend who has already picked out her husband's future partner finds this choice very distasteful, and thinks that just because your partner has died, that you shouldn't stop living, and enjoying life, and despite what anyone else thinks, you should, in whatever time-frame is appropriate for you, get back in the game, and begin again to enjoy life with a partner.

This is where I begin to have a problem.

Example:

Hypothetical Mr. Smith believes in God, and the afterlife. If Mr. Smith's wife/soul-mate dies, and in time, Mr. Smith finds another partner, isn't he, in a way, cheating on his wife, who is waiting to meet him again in the afterlife, when he dies? And if Mr. Smith then dies, leaving his new partner behind, and reunites with the previously deceased Mrs. Smith, isn't Mr. Smith then cheating on his second partner, that he left behind, living her mortal life? Say nothing of the fact that the deceased Mrs. Smith may have already found a new partner in the afterlife, by the time Mr. Smith arrives at the Pearly Gates.

This is complex stuff, and raises a lot of quasi-serious questions for me, on the topic of fidelity and morality. It seems like there is great potential here, for there to be a lot of problems in the afterlife, when all of the parties finally arrive, and start sorting out their issues and feelings.

At the end of the day, I suspect that no one will have any good answers for me.

Anyway, just my two cents.

Remember those days? When everything was good, everyone was happy, and everything worked? Well right now I am longing for them.

I am certain that everyone that you ask about the Good Old Days, will give you a different answer on what exactly they were, but for me, right now, they are about the days when products were not manufactured with built-in obsolescence. Or at the very least, were built with better quality.

Why am I longing for these days-of-yore, you ask? Because my Samsung LCD TV died, today. If I had to guess, I would say that the problem is simply a bad relay, and is probably quite readily fixable for a reasonable amount of money, but that's not the point. I paid top-dollar for a top-shelf TV, and expect top-shelf quality.

In the Good Old Days, my dad built a Heathkit console-style, color TV, and it lasted for thirty years, without so much as a hiccup. Sure, occasionally one of those fire-breathing vacuum-tubes would have to be replaced, but get this, you could test and buy those at any decent drug store, and you could replace them yourself. Now you have to pay $50, minimum, to shake a technician's hand, ultimately to find out that you have to actually pay $200 to replace the main logic-board, because electronic devices today really don't have replaceable parts, like my dad's Heathkit TV did, in the Good Old Days.

My Dad will occasionally spin yarns about The Good Old days, when manufacturers would crimp, and solder connections, making them fairly bullet-proof. Today, you're lucky if you get a second-rate crimp, from a grossly underpaid, ill-treated employee, who could not really care less about whether or not your TV dies one day out of factory warranty.

Sure, I recognize that a 1080p HD TV, is way cooler than my dad's twenty-five-inch, color console TV, but sometimes I am not so certain that these 'advances' are worth it. It will probably be one month before I see my TV again, if they can fix it at all, and it might cost a lot of money. The good news is that I did buy the extended warranty, so hopefully this will all be taken care of at no cost to me.

In any case, this would all be so much easier if I could go down to one of many local shops, buy a vacuum tube, and put it in, myself, but I can't. I'm told that they call this progress.

Ah well. Now where the heck is my record player??

Sunday, was one of those days where I had a lot of psychic coincidences. You know, those cool but coincidental moments when you think about something, and it happens? Well it happened several times.

I had been thinking about Frank a lot; don't know why. When I went to look at my email, I noticed that in one music list to which I subscribe, people were talking about Frank, and his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book, which I had read twenty years ago, when it was first published. I jumped into the conversation, mentioning that I had been meaning to dig up my copy, because Frank had a great quote in there, about people who think they like music. By music, I mean the day to day, pop drivel, that is force-fed to them on the corporate air waves, and music channels. Well, as you can imagine, Frank had something interesting to say about that, and then, someone on the list was kind enough to locate that in the book, and transcribe it into an email for me. Then, later in the day, I turned on the TV and began watching a show called Hot Rocks, on the Science Channel, and the host was in Peru, talking about Inca Roads, and I almost fell off of my easy chair, because Inca Roads is the name of the first song on Frank's One Size Fits All, record. I was being psychically assaulted by Frank, and I don't know why!

This led to one fellow Zappa fan, contacting me off-list, and we continue to have an on-going conversation about Frank, which has led to even more thoughts about Frank, from myself.

Moments like these remind me about just exactly how vibrant Frank was, and how involved he was, in so many areas. He liked to call himself a composer who happened to play guitar, but he was so much more. In addition to his musical talents, he was an astute observer of pop culture, a writer, humorist, social commentator, business man, film maker, and political activist. I'm certain I am forgetting something.

Another thing about Frank, was that he was widely and wildly misunderstood, misquoted, and mischaracterized. Frank would often make racial references in his works, not because he was a racist, but to point out the absurdity and pointlessness of racism, itself, by using racism as a device. People who did not know Frank, also felt free to judge him based on the unusual names that he chose for his children. What that has to do with the price of tea, in China, I will never know.

Thinking about Frank's life, and Frank's death, reminds me that we simply don't encounter people like him very often. People capable of defining, and inspiring a generation. He was one of several musicians and composers who opened my eyes to complex and interesting music. I have many friends, who would say the same thing.

In addition to writing interesting music, Frank always toured with a band full of world class musicians and performed the music, as well. His shows were a kind of variety act featuring music, and all sorts of fun, and absurd nonsense. I had the pleasure of seeing Frank several times in the '80s, and they are experiences that I will never forget.

I am not sure what the point of this post, is, but it sure was nice to go down the Frank Zappa memory lane these last few days.


P.S.

If you're interested in knowing what that quote was, for which I had been looking, here it is:
 

So, if music is the best, what is music? Anything can be music, but it doesn't become music until someone wills it to be music, and the audience listening to it decides to perceive it as music.

Most people can't deal with that abstraction -- or don't want to. They say: "Gimme the tune. Do I like this tune? Does it sound like another tune that I like? The more familiar it is, the better I like it. Hear those three notes there? Those are the three notes I can sing along with. I like those notes very, very much. Give me a beat. Not a fancy one. Give me a GOOD BEAT -- something I can dance to. It has to go boom-bap, boom-boom-BAP. If it doesn't, I will hate it very, very much. Also, I want it right away -- and then, write me some more songs like that -- over and over and over again, because I'm really into music."

They tell me that this day means something. I guess so.

I have very little to say, so instead I will let the inimitable Chris Stevens, DJ from the KBHR radio station in Cicely Alaska, do all of the talking:

"I," said the cow, all white and red,
"I gave Him my manger for His bed;
"I gave Him my hay to pillow His head.
"I," said the cow, all white and red.

So every beast, by some good spell,
In the stable dark was glad to tell
Of the gift he gave Immanuel,
The gift he gave Immanuel.

It's an old legend that on Christmas Eve at midnight, all the animals fall to their knees and speak, praising the newborn Jesus.

Back in the winter of sixty-nine, my Dad was serving a short time for a DUI and I don't know where my mom was. Anyway, I was home alone Christmas Eve and I stayed up extra kinda late to see if my dog, Buddy, would talk. And he did. I don't remember his exact words, but that's not important. What matters is that a seven-year-old boy experienced his own personal epiphany.

What's my point? Well, it's that Christmas reveals itself to us each in a personal way, be it secular or sacred. Whatever Christmas is--and it's many things to many people--we all own a piece of it. It's like, well, it's kinda like Santa's Bag: inside, there's a gift for everyone. My Christmas wish for you tonight? May your dog talk.

Good night, Cicely. Merry Christmas.

I am not so much into the Airing of Grievances, or the Feats of Strength, but the idea of a non-religious holiday that we can all celebrate, appeals to me.

As of today, Facebook will be entering your homes when you are not there, and eating all of your cookies and pies. To change this, go to Privacy Settings --> Baked Goods/Confections --> Theft, and check the DISALLOW box, and your cookies and pies will be safe. Copy and paste this into your Facebook status for all your cookie and pie loving friends ASAP!

When I was young, my dad always told me that you were not allowed to play Christmas music before the Friday after Thanksgiving. He did make it clear that it was an unwritten rule, not carved in stone, but one that he would not break, nonetheless. I thought that the rule was reasonable, and made sense. In more recent years, however, it seems as though that rule is being broken earlier, and earlier. If my memory isn't failing me, I believe that one local shopping center started playing Christmas music, immediately after Halloween, this year. So much for unwritten rules.

Do these business owners and decision makers really believe that people will spend more money if they start hearing Christmas music a month earlier than normal? If that is the case, why not just play it all year? Heck, they should have started blasting it 24/7 over every radio station and public address system in the country, two summers ago, when the economy crashed. Maybe that would have helped!

I am also intrigued by the name that has been given to today: Black Friday. I think that it is appropriately named, since I am not a fan of the crass commercialism and consumption that this day has come to represent. Wall Street seems to have co-opted everything, and yet despite that, surprisingly, they haven't been able to re-brand the name Black Friday into something less ominous sounding. Something like Friendly Friday, or Fantastic Friday, or Frolicking Friday. Perhaps I shouldn't have written that, because now they're likely to attempt to try.

It is my belief that there is little that you can do to cause people to spend more money around the holidays. They either have it, or they don't, and this season, I expect that they don't.

At the end of the day, perhaps this is a good thing. Just like I have had to learn to live with less due to my unemployment, perhaps not having as much money will teach people that the holidays are not about belongings, but are instead about belonging.


* Note to all business owners and decision makers: Playing Christmas music ridiculously early causes me, and people like me, NOT to shop at your businesses.

Doing things for yourself can be a wonderful thing. The idea of saving money, and learning a new skill is very empowering. But, I also think it's important to recognize one's limitations and respect them.

I have no idea when the do-it-yourself trend started, but it probably coincided with the popularity of shows like This Old House, and perhaps even some of the earliest cooking shows that showed us how to prepare gourmet-style meals at home.

The idea for this blog post came about when I was chatting with some musician friends on IRC, and someone suggested writing a piece of software to help guitarists adjust their instruments the way a proper luthier/guitar technician would. Don't get me wrong, I think being independent and self sufficient are very important things, and are to be admired, but some things require years of training and practice. Most guitarists, myself included, have a little bit of cash tied up in their instruments, and want them taken care of properly. While I know that in time, I could learn the skills necessary to adjust my guitars properly, I think there is tremendous value in letting my guy with thirty five or forty years of experience, do it for me. I'm happy to pay him money to do it because I know every time, they will be perfect.

Self confidence is a great thing, and sometimes it's fun to dive head first into a project, completely unaware of the challenges that you might face, but unfortunately, that can have its negative side as well. For example, I'm sure you all have one or two of those big home centers in your area. Those gigantic stores where you can purchase everything from 2x4's, to lamp-shades, with everything in between. Those stores probably could not exist without do-it-yourselfers. The epic fail however, happens when utterly unqualified people attempt to do something that for decades previously had been done by a tradesman. For example, somewhere near to where I live, there is a house that has a kind-of tumor on the front of it. The homeowners obviously went to their local home center and purchased a bunch of landscaping materials, and ended up building this thing on to the front of their house. They must love it, but for me, not so much. It's kludgy, obtrusive, inharmonious, and just plain ugly.

I don't know... sometimes things are best left to professionals.

Every now and again I wonder why I bother with any of the social networking sites. For me they are generally something I use to amuse myself. I have a habit of breaking chops with friends on them, and sometimes it gets me into trouble. I have found them to be good places, however, to debate, and express ideas. I use them as a sort-of playground for the ideas that eventually make it on to this blog. Today someone posted something on one of the sites that ended up triggering a discussion on the concept of free speech. Just when I thought I had no ideas for a blog post, I got fired up.

First let me quote their initial post:

"While driving to Cooperstown this morning, I saw things that made me feel very uneasy. Confederate flags draped over garage doors and signs telling me that if I don't choose Jesus, I am choosing Hell. All I can say right now is what's in between Utica and Cooperstown, frikken should stay in that in between....."

That's a valid thought, and feeling, right?

That comment triggered a flurry of comments beneath it, including some from me, but this was the very first one:

"i've seen the very things you're talking about, and i think a lot of the stuff in between utica and cooperstown should be destroyed."

Destroyed??? Ouch. That seems a little extreme to me, since it would be illegal, and since we have no way of knowing what is truly in the hearts of the people displaying these things. I posted a comment asking questions and giving my opinion of what I believe the concept of Free Speech means, and it ultimately led to this comment by the person who posted the initial message. This is the comment that really got me thinking about this topic.:

"This area in which I drove through today, to me, encompassed hatred and self righteousness. Nothing felt safe or comforting or welcoming and to me, this is not what the dimensions of diversity are about....."

Everyone's right to free speech does not necessarily include you making others, or others making yourself, comfortable. Speech that makes us uncomfortable is necessary. What good is the freedom of speech if people aren't allowed to say things that we don't approve of?

It would be difficult to call myself an absolutist on free speech, because I do believe in some of the limitations on speech as defined by our Supreme Court (that whole shouting 'FIRE!' in a crowded theater, thing), but I am as absolutist as I can be within those confines. I believe in those limitations because unlike some schools of political thought to which I do not subscribe, I do believe in a Greater Good. I also believe that the government has the right to legislate things to the betterment of the Greater Good. What those things are, however, is best left for another blog post.

I believe that people can say and do whatever they want, as long as it falls within the legal definitions of free speech, and I think America is a better place for it. I don't always agree with what people say, but I respect their right to their opinion. There is such a thing as going too far, but as long as people keep it reasonable, and don't start threatening people with guns, we should be celebrating our Constitution for allowing this.

The problem that I ended up having in the online discussion is that people were mistaking my defense of allowing people to hang things like Confederate and Nazi flags on their houses, with being sympathetic toward those causes, whatever they may be. This is disappointing to me because it seems to me that it's the simplest of concepts to understand that agreeing with someone's right to say something, is not the same as agreeing with the points of view, themselves. Make no mistake, the moment that these people overstep their bounds, and start infringing upon the rights of others, I will be there to help stop it.

Some people in this discussion were very opposed to the idea that anyone should ever be allowed to hang something like a Confederate flag on their house and they provided many kinds of arguments as to why. The only problem with this kind of thinking is that people so inclined, can make similarly worded arguments against symbols like the pink triangle, as well.

Beyond the free speech component of this argument, I am wondering if it's a good idea to get so upset because a few people hung potentially objectionable material on their houses. I do not mean to be flippant, but it's a cruel world out there, and you'd better learn to deal with it.

I am wondering if this kind of sensitivity isn't due to this new 'feel-good' ideal that's been taught for a few years now. The idea that everyone gets a prize, no matter how good, or how bad their effort is. I generally cringe at the idea of agreeing with conservatives, but I have to agree with them on this one. Maybe making everyone believe that they are the same in every way, that everyone is entitled to a prize, and that we're all going to live happily ever after, is OK in the very earliest of school grades, but at some point, it seems to me that we would be better off instead preparing people for the realities of the world. Realities like the fact that they might encounter speech and other things that make them uncomfortable, and that might offend them.

I understand what the person who posted the original comment was saying, and feeling. I too want to live in a world without hate, but taking away these people's flags and signs, and outlawing free speech isn't going to achieve that. I prefer to live in a country where people are allowed to express themselves, even if I find their ideas to be grotesque and abhorrent.

I first saw this video clip a few months ago when someone either mass-emailed me the link, or posted a link to it on Facebook. I hadn't thought about it in months, but then yesterday, someone linked to it again, so I watched it again. Perhaps you should watch it before you read on. I would have embedded it, but embedding is turned off, and I don't like embedded video on blogs, anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

The topic of happiness is something that my friends and I talk about all of the time. I think everyone wants to be happy, but the classic conundrum has always been actually finding it. Some people that I know are certainly well on their way to finding it, and others are working hard at it. For myself, I think that it's a journey, and that I have much work to do in this area.

The speaker in this video posits that everything is amazing and yet no one is happy. From where I sit, that tells me that perhaps amazing things don't make most people happy. In my limited experience, the things that I have found that make people happy are very basic things like human contact, meaningful endeavors, and love. The guy in the video doesn't talk about anything of those things, but instead, he talks only of things technological. Is technology supposed to be the key to happiness? At the simplest level, how is a computer or an airplane any different than a hammer? Are hammers supposed to make us happy, too? Amazement does not necessarily equal happiness, which is why there are separate words for each. There are certainly things which are amazing, that make me happy, but there are probably just as many things that are amazing, that are not so easy to be happy about.

What is most disappointing to me is that people haven't figured this out yet. They keep buying the latest MP3 player or automobile, in their search for contentment and happiness, only to have to continue to keep buying things, because that 'void' hasn't been filled yet. The expression 'money can't buy happiness' has been around for a very long time, and these objects are really no different than money, yet people continue to consume, unfulfilled.

I have a friend who fairly recently quit her job as an engineer, sold her house, and moved herself, her dog, and her guns to Montana, to be around like-minded people. A large part of her decision was based on her personal politics. As a Libertarian she wanted to be in a place where she fit in, but she also got tired of trying to be what people expected, and wanted to be less fettered by the rat race. I don't always agree with her political beliefs, but I envy her decision to remove herself from the rat-race in an attempt to be more happy.

I am very fortunate because I hang around with a remarkable cross section of people, and there are basically two schools of thought on this, as is apparently the case with most things. There is my family, most of whom belong(ed) to the blue-collar, 'you have to work the same job every day, twelve hours a day for forty years, like everyone else, or else you're lazy!' group, and then there is the more 'artistic' group of friends who understand, appreciate, and envy her choice. I think Mr. Spock would understand her choice, as well. If you've seen the classic Trek episode, 'The Way To Eden' you will know what I am talking about.

Have we become so unintrospective that we are no longer capable of seeing these truths, no matter how much evidence is under our very nose, or is the powerful Wall Street message-of-consumption subsuming us, despite what we know to be true, and to be good for us?