Reeeesolutions….resolved!

Well, January resolutions!  I feel I am more prepared for work!  I am also feeling more uncomfortable with my chosen profession.  Teaching at a community college is absolutely ridiculous.  There is a myth that community colleges are only for students who can’t get into 4-year schools.  That is totally a myth.  But there is also a myth that community college classes that transfer to 4-year schools are equivalent.  That is also totally a myth.

There is a drive in the community colleges to keep coursework intensive, to keep it somewhat at the level of 4-year schools, but even if it were (which based on my cc intro-level coursework and what I saw as a TA for university intro-level coursework is not actually the case) the emotional rigor is not.  Community college profs are supposed to be emotionally supportive of their students, but much of the emotional stress comes from the intellectual work, work that many of these students are not prepared for becuase community colleges are so reluctant to require students to complete prerequisites for many classes.  These prerequisites are viewed by students and administrators as a punishments and the real reason for them - foundation for future studies - is conveniently ignored as well as the requirement for them (something which does not occur in a 4-year college).  The result?  The majority of students don’t have the skills they need to succeed in their coursework, which stresses them out, which leads to them wanting special treatment, special treatment that has come to be associated with community colleges.  What kind of special treatment?  Well okay, here’s a story:

I assigned a paper.  It was a two-page paper based on an experiment the students had done in class.  They didn’t even have to do any research, it could have easily been typed up in half an hour.  I gave my students three weeks to complete it.  THREE WEEKS.  I told my students if they were planning anything on the due date they needed to hand the paper in early.  If a student doesn’t hand in their paper by the due date, they’d better be in the hospital.  A week before the due date I get an e-mail from a student saying there is no possible way he can get his paper in on time because he has to go on a two-day trip.  I tell him he has to get his paper in early.  He says there is no possible way he can set aside a half an hour in the next few days to write the paper.  So anyway, it turns out the two-day trip was not actually overlapping with the due-date - he was present in class that day.  The result?  The administration said I should accept his paper late at absolutely no penalty (by the way, this was a policy originally approved by the administration to keep high standards!).

Also by the way, the trip the student went on?  He was being an ambassador on behalf of the school on how to be a good student.  ….gosh, if he weasels his way out of all his due dates, of course he’s going to have a 4.0.

What pisses me off the most is there are students that don’t complain, the good students, the ones that negate the “communit college is for losers” myth.  They take responsibility for their actions.  These students don’t complain (as they shouldn’t) and as such don’t get the same advantages as the students who do complain.

In the long run, does it work out?  Sure.  The good students will do well in their jobs and the poor students will not.  The good students with their good work ethics will get raises and better jobs the poor students who like to scam out of work and deadlines will get passed over for promotions and fired.  But in the short term it does hurt.  Currently the poor students scam high G.P.A.’s and passing grades.  They’re able to get into classes sooner and programs and jobs more easily.  It waste employers’ times and clogs up the works for good students.

What a pain!

Resolutions 2010

Well.  It’s been a year!  Time for some more resolutions!  I’m going to try to do the same thing as last year, with a resolution to check in on every month.  Before I start the new ones, let see how well I did on last year’s!  The blow-by-blow tally’s after the cut, but it seems I only kept about 25% of my resolutions.  Ouch!  Hopefully this year will be better!

January - Be more prepared in my job.  I don’t think I want to continue in this field forever, but I should probably try to get the organization skills I’ll need when I switch into a real career XD

February - Get better at web design. 

March - Make a biweekly blog/comics post

April - Learn an instrument

May - Exercise more/lose weight

June -Learn Japanese

July - Write thank-you letters

August - Travel abroad

September - Finish a creative project

October - Learn to sew

November - Save $2,500.00

December - Eliminate $7,500.00 of debt.

There we have it!  Hopefully this year I can hit at least 50%

So last year I had twelve resolutions, one for each month.  They were…..

Jan 09 - Finish a comic…..not done! …..0

Feb 09 - Make weekly blog & comic posts…they were actually montly on the comics site…but that is better than usual, so ………. 0.5

Mar 09 - Healthy/weight is better than it was, likely due more to a change in geography than my own habits, though I did exercise a bit…..0.5

April 09 - Read more.  I et out to read at least four new books this year, and did so.  Not too many, but enough considering I’m not a great reader, I say hooray…..1

May through October were busts - no learning the guitar, no learning the piano, Japanese, etc.  0 on all months.

Nov, Dec 09 - save $5,000 and eliminate $5,000 of debt.  I  didn’t quite hit this, but I’d made up the number arbitrarily.  I also ended up switching jobs and relocating, which cost a pretty penny. Though I didn’t quite hit either target, I have more money saved and less debt than I did last year.  So half credit for each.  ….1

The feminization of schools.

So schools are being feminized.  It seems that girl students are being catered to more than boys, and as a result of this, some girls have (unfairly) been doing as well - or even better - than boys.

Now you may ask, “what proof do you have of this?”  Well, all you need to do is actually look at the school system, or even in your own family….

Our little Jimmy is failing class but Susie next door is in his same class and on the honor roll.  There is no way that  eight-year-old bitchlette could be smarter than our boy (I mean, she’s a girl for Christ’s sake) so it must be down to the teachers giving her an unfair advantage.

This is also obvious because while Jimmy is being sent to detention at least once a week, Susie always seems to make it home in time to get ready for band practice.  Why are the teacher’s picking on our son, giving him detention after detention, but not the one girl in his class we know?  Yes, we’ve read the teacher’s reports that Jimmy won’t sit down in class and constantly interrupts her when she is speaking, but there is no way that bitch could have anything better to say than our darling boy.  Hell, she probably got her job by sleeping with the principal anyway.  What right does she, someone with a college degree interviewed and hired by the state to instruct and evaluate students, have to evaluate our son?  This is America for God’s sake!  Our son should be free to do what he wants!  But now it seems you’re only allowed to do what you want in school if you want to sit down respectfully, pay attention to those in charge, and learn the material being taught.  This is out and out discrimination in favor of girls!

Back in the good old days, there was no catering to girl students.  Everyone knew girls couldn’t possibly be as smart as boys, so they didn’t even need to be sent to school.  Our boys would have high-level instruction by men with PhD’s.  These proper teachers would stand at the podium and lecture for hours, while our studious boys took notes.   Anyone who didn’t pay attention or caused a disturbance would be sent to the principal after a sound beating from the teacher and then get another beating when the principal found out what they’d done.

Ah, the good old days.

But now these women teachers have it in for our boys.  They don’t seem to understand that boys cannot sit still for long periods of time - but that is just boys being boys.  Sending a child to the principal’s office just because he doesn’t pay attention or causes a disturbance is sexist.  I know it’s sexist because school didn’t used to work like that - our boys weren’t punished for being boys.

Teachers are also redesigning classes.  Instead of having the students listen to a lecture for thirty minutes to an hour, they are actually asking students to get up and move around, engaging in their learning.  This is probably the biggest feminization of the school system of all - don’t these teachers understand that our boys cannot sit still for long periods of time?  Asking students to get up and physically engage in hands-on activities pertinent to learning offers a huge advantage to girl students because it has been long been shown that girls are less confident at performing hands-on activities than boys.

I mean, when will this obvious favoritism of girl end?!

This should concern every parent of a boy, because this is our future we are talking about.  Jimmy’s ma and I didn’t finish school, and we always known Jimmy would be the one to carry our family up - every generation is supposed to be better, right?  Why just last year his ma and I took a trip to the store and while we were gone our boy had the gumption to build a skate ramp for himself!  He grabbed my circular saw from where I store it on the floor of the garage and sawed the legs on one of the wife’s chair.  While sawing the fourth leg he cut half his pinky off, then hid it from us until it went gangrene and his whole hand had to be amputated, but can you imagine it?  A nine year old smart enough to build a skate ramp?  Show me a girl who can do THAT!

And here his teachers are telling me he’s not smart!  So I am saying now, all you teachers - this reverse-sexism in school has to stop.  Just because you all are bitter old hags that weren’t able to snag husbands (probably because you are such bitches) doesn’t mean you need to take it out on our boys.

And I am saying to all you parents out there, don’t give in to these people who call themselves teachers.  I make it a point to boycott parent-teacher conferences and to hang up on teachers when they call our house, asking to meet with us to best figure out a way for Jimmy to “succeed”.  It doesn’t make sense to me - she says  it’s obvious Jimmy isn’t succeeding because he is getting a D.  If she really wanted to help him succeed, why is she giving him that D in the first place?

I do take action when the school year ends and they say they are holding Jimmy back.  I invite Rich - the principal - over for a couple beers and we discuss how someone needs to give it to that bitch long and hard so she’ll lighten up.  I drop in that Jimmy’s being held back and this would be a shame.  This usually works, and Jimmy moves ahead.  Sometimes, if the bitch isn’t tenured, she isn’t back in the fall.

I say good riddance.  We don’t need that kind of discrimination in our schools.  Our Jimmy may be the first in our family to graduate from high school.  Maybe even college.  Why our boy could even be the President one day!

Wave and Love….the words are so similar!

I cannot wait to get my hands on google wave.  Oooh, I want to hug it and lick it, oooh….

I’ve been pretty shitty at updating this website, haven’t I?  Gosh, not as bad as usual.  I may change my format and just go back to more of a journal-style.  Fuck these reviews.  …It is november and I am completely floundering on my resolutions too, hahah.

So anyway, I lost or quit my job.  Wasn’t sure which….  I was told I was doing a great job, but needed to go to church more.  I said I wasn’t comfortable with that, this being a teaching position at a state-funded school and whether I go to church or not should have no bearing on my job performance evaluation, especially as my actual teaching evaluation had been so good.  I was told I shouldn’t do anything I was uncomfortable with….but that I should at least try going to Church.  And I said, “no”, and accepted a position somewhere else.

I am still getting nothing done….ug.

Updated.

The Unnatural Sex part 2: What is unnatural?

Part 1 in the Unnatural Sex.

Times they are a’changing.  In the news today it is sex, sex, and more sex.  Not for titillation, but instead for rights.  Homosexuals want the same rights as heterosexuals, women want the same rights as men, women want the rights to their own bodies, but these rights are slow-going as before any vote or new piece of legislature is written up, the question of whether these acts are natural or not must be considered.

So let’s talk about the generally accepted view of what natural sex is to people who argue against these rights being argued for.  Only men and women should have sex with each other.  Homosexual relationships are considered unnatural.  Sex should occur within the confines of marriage, with the man as the sole breadwinner.  Women are better at being nurturers and should stay home with the children.  Men are better at being aggressive and obtaining food, either by hunting or working to earn money for food.  Men and women belong in monogamous relationships although it is acknowledged that occasionally polygyny (the marriage of one man to multiple women, not to be confused with polygamy which is gender-neutral) is acceptable.  If a man wants to take multiple wives it is considered a natural urge, however it may be frowned upon within their society.  Women are not to lay with another man besides their husband - the urge to do so is considered unnatural.  All sexual activity should be confined to procreation, none should be for recreation.

So in summary of the above, natural sex involves a husband and wife having sexual intercourse in the interest of creating a new human.  If sex does not fall into that category, it is deemed unnatural.

These definitions of natural versus unnatural begs the question of “who says?”  Ask the average person what the nature of human sexuality is and they can give you an answer (being a numbers freak, a survey is forthcoming), but how do we arrive at these answers?  One could say that whatever they feel is natural is natural, however if we consider the term natural to be what is most likely intended to be the natural order of things (i.e., mutations and deviations can occur, but are not generally intended), what each individual considers to be natural to them may not be natural to the species.

If we take a broader view we can ask what society deems natural, which indeed is what we are seeing in these debates.  A seemingly small subgroup of persons declare something is ‘natural’, another group argues it is ‘unnatural’.  So who is right, and where have we gotten these views from?  How do we determine what is natural or not?  Some argue that what is written in holybooks is what should be considered natural.  Different holybooks have different view, though.  Some say it is natural for one man to marry one women, others say it is fine for one man to marry many women.  Some explicitly say homosexuality is taboo, others ignore the subject completely with a seeming acceptance by omission.  How can we determine what is natural for the entire human race if we are not in agreement as to which of these books to use?

Agreeing on a book is a moot point, though.  We cannot understand what our nature is by reading a book, to understand nature, we must look at nature.

New Fullmetal Alchemist Falls Short

Finally, I have gotten around to watching the new Fullmetal Alchemist series.  Of course, I must admit that although I have been looking forward to it, I put off watching so I could get some back-to-back viewings in.  So now, having dedicated the last three days to six hours of the new series, I must say….I’m disappointed.

yes, I said short

Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I am one of the purist, who cursed the day they heard a new series was on its way - I enjoyed the old series, very much, but I also enjoy the original comic storyline and cannot wait to see some of those in action.

The problem lies in that the new series cannot wait to get to those storylines either.  There is an old saying: “If you drop a frog in boiling water, it will jump out right away.  However, if you drop a frog in room temperature water, and slowly bring it to a boil, it will not leave.”  As a biologist I have to say that, in terms of actual frog behavior, that is completely untrue.  However, it is a good comparison for the new and old series.

The great irony that stands out right now is that this new series is supposed to more accurately reflect the comic than the old series but for the first few episodes the case is just the opposite.  Both the comic and the old series started out somewhat benign (well, as benign as a story about two boys who failed to resurrect their mother from the dead and suffered horrible consequences could be….), adding darker and darker elements until, at one point you suddenly pull away and say, “how did things get this bad?”  The adventures of the Elric brothers gradually became less fun and more dangerous, and the heat was noticed too late.  That is some damn fine storytelling!  That damn fine storytelling is lost on the new writers, who drop you into a big vat of “Oh shit, everything is horrible and dangerous these kids are in soooo much trouble!” right off the bat.  It makes you want to jump out.

Admittedly, the new series has a huge disadvantage the old one didn’t.  It needs to straddle the line between attracting brand new viewers and keeping fans of the previous series, a difficult feat that it is not winning.  In trying to get to the “new” stuff for the “old” viewers but trying to get in the “old” background for the “new” viewers the first several episodes, indeed the entire first dectet, cannot find a balance.

The first episode of the new series is original, and in all honesty should probably be skipped by brand new

the new anime will include characters not shown in the original, such as Major General Olivia Armstrong

viewers.  The majority of main characters are shoved into your face and introduced here - an exercise that is unnecessary for “old” viewers and unecessarily complicated for “new” viewers - as is the major plot.  While the old series took a while to string together the many small incidents being connected to a bigger, larger problem, the new series slams it onto the table the first episode.  Back-tracking follows in future episode, but it is too late - we know the problem is there.  The comic, too, took its time to string together and, since the third and on episodes try to follow the comic, the actions of the main characters make little sense in light of what happened in the first episode.

As the new series progresses, the balancing act continues, without much more success.  Some stories are replayed from the first series (so far as some of the original footage being re-used) with very little change.  The changes certainly pull the storyline closer to the comic - with scenes becoming more of what they were in the old series (more funny, more grim, more sad) and more accurately reflecting Hiromu’s original work - but it can get to be tedious waiting for that 5% which is new.  To compensate for the tedium, stories are cut.  Sometimes they are cut in length, sometimes they are cut entirely, which is worse than it being tedious.  The Youswell story seems to have been cut entirely, despite a character introduced in that storyline, Yoki, having a large part later.  This is taken care of by someone passing around a picture of Yoki and saying, “Oh, Fullmetal took care of him!”  A poor device, in my opinion.

Technically, the art style is somewhat the same. Ed is blonder than before, with a darker yellow outlining his hair instead of the former black, which isn’t much by itself, but combined with the fact of the other blonds in the series retaining the black outline of their hair, it is a little weird. The cinematography has changed a bit. The over-use of split-screen detracts from the experience, but the gradual color wash-out, fading almost completely to grayscale, during the creepier scenes, adds to the experience, so overall it’s no better, no worse.

Some voice actors have changed - Romi Paku is still doing Ed’s voice, which is fantastic, but the voice actor for Roy Mustang is new. Miki Shinichiro is doing an okay job, but he seems to lack the essential smarminess Toru Ohkawa brought in the first series. My brain cannot comprehend a non-smarmy Roy Mustang. Once again this is neutralized as the voice actor for Envy has been change to Takayama Minami, who is just better at delivering the lines than Mayumi Yamaguchi was. In fact, although there’s been a step back in Roy’s va, there’ve been two steps forward for Envy’s, so the voice work is better than series one (so far). I was surprised to see Rie Kugimiya was still the voice actor for Alphonse, as it sounded much different for the first episode, though it could just be the distortion needed for Al’s voice has been changed.  Some of the fluffier scenes have been removed so there is less adorableness for her to voice.

Overall it’s still a great anime, but not as good as the previous one in terms of storytelling and music.  Although a cartoon it is still a more intelligent story than most television shows on these days.

Ponyo? More like Pon-No!

I dare you to tell me how this could get cuter.

Imagine a room full of puppies.  They are wrestling, licking each other, and perhaps taking little puppy naps every once in a while.  Their tongues loll and their tails wag, and you wonder if this is it - if this is the most adorable thing you will every seen in your life.  Then imagine that while you are watching these adorable puppies, someone is droning on in the background about some boring-yet-slightly-creepy story.  Occasionally you can hear adorable yips from the puppies, but mainly while you are visually stimulated by the puppies, you are aurally assaulted by the story.  Imagine this going on for almost two hours.

This is what “Ponyo” is like.

Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the visuals of ‘Ponyo’ are on par with his other films (’Spirited Away’, ‘Princess Mononoke’) but lacks their powerful stories.  The story of ‘Ponyo’ is boring at best, creepy at worst.  When viewing the trailer I believed this movie would be about pollution and how the ‘goldfish girl’ (Ponyo) is charged with saving the world from the disasters we humans created.  This was a story I was excited to see.

The movie I actually saw was a story about love, a love so strong that….a girl is willing to destroy the Earth for it.  I’m sorry, no man is worth THAT much.

Already tired of the inevitable romantic side-plot to non-romance movies, to say I was disappointed that romance was the entire plot of ‘Ponyo’ is an understatement.

In brief, a little fish-girl (humanoid body but arms that resemble flippers and a fish-tail instead of legs) sneaks out of her undersea home to explore.  She is caught up in some dredging and ends up in a glass bottle.  A young boy , Sosuke, finds her and breaks the bottle then puts her in a bucket to take her to school.  Sosuke promises to protect the ‘goldfish’ and names her Ponyo.  About a minute later her father comes back to collect her.  Sosuke is upset but after an ice cream cone is okay with the situation.

Not so with Ponyo.  Ponyo is absolutely livid with her father and determined to see Sosuke again.  Apparently she is magically and uses her magic to turn herself into some kind of chicken-frog-human-fish animal?  She gets into a pot of her father’s magic potion?  And that makes some really huge waves and brings to moon closer to Earth?  What?  Huh?  Okay, I guess?  Ponyo leaves right after this to track down Sosuke.

Ponyo’s father is worried about her but Ponyo’s mother decides that if Ponyo and Sosuke really love each other, they should allow her to become a human and live with him.  After they decide this, they leave to let Sosuke rest in order to face the grueling test they have planned for him the next day.  Their plan is a little spoiler-y, so it is under the ‘read more’.

On the surface it sounds like a lame romance.  Scratch the surface and it far creepier.   Here is a girl who has her own life in her own world and she is completely fine with giving up everything to be with this boy she has known for, what, an hour?  In fact she even gives up her name - before Sosuke named her Ponyo she had been name Brunehilde.  But Sosuke wants to call her Ponyo so Ponyo she becomes.  In addition, Sosuke talks about his ‘responsibility’ to Ponyo frequently enough it almost reads as a PSA for teenage pregnancies - ‘boys, you got her into this mess.  The least you can do is take responsibility.’  He got a bottle off her head, that’s it.  If I were, I dunno, caught in a bear trap in the woods, I certainly wouldn’t expect the hunter who freed me to offer their hand in marriage out of responsibility.  Is that just me?  Am I bucking the norm again?  If so, I’ve grievously offended a large number of hunters….

One of the weirdest things about this ‘true love’ story is that Sosuke and Ponyo….are about five years old.  Five years old!  Ponyo needs to decide whether to leave her family to live with Sosuke at the tender age of five?  And Sosuke has to take on the responsibility for this girl who is entering his household because of him?  Even in Japan that is about thirteen years under the age of majority.  Nevermind these kids have known each other for about two days.  When I was five, love lasted a week, tops.  At least in “The Little Mermaid” Ariel and the Prince were both of the age of consent….

A strange thing in this film was the lack of disbelief from the other characters.  Everyone seems to see Ponyo as a goldfish, despite the fact she has the head of a frickin human!  When two five-year-olds are out in the middle of a flood by themselves, the passing townspeople simply say, ‘good luck!’ and send them on their way.  When Ponyo changes from human to the chicken-frog-human-fish thing, runs across flood waters, and kisses a baby, all the mother does is say ‘Thanks!’  Once again, would my freaking out at this metamorphosis and seeming miracle be out of turn?  Am I the only person who doesn’t experience this kind of thing regularly?  The lack of disbelief in the other characters is a drawback to the film as it makes me wonder why this story is special.  Since the townspeople are so used to this, obviously there must be tons of the goldfish people wandering around looking for love.  What makes this story so special?

Besides that the voice acting is bland at best.  It is almost as though someone asked all the stars to watch poorly-dubbed anime from the 1960’s and use the exact same inflection.  Lines are delivered stiffly and haltingly.  Tina Fey is especially bad as Lisa, Sosuke’s mother, though not many others stand out either.  Cate Blanchett does a fair job at Ponyo’s mother and Frankie Jonas and Noah Cyrus made Sosuke and Ponyo adorably voiced (respectively).  However, the ages of Sosuke and Ponyo were such that you expect strange speech patterns.  Were these voice actors doing a good job, or were their characters just hiding the flaws?

Another minor glitch I have with the movie is that ‘Ponyo’ is pronounced ‘Pahn-yo’, not ‘Pohn-yo’.  The name Ponyo is supposed to be representative of the sound something soft and squishy would make.  Somehow Pahnyo just doesn’t sound soft.

So in summary, adorable, visually stunning film to rent via NetFlix and watch while muted and listening to baby birds chirping.

Read more »

Losing green while going green

While munching away on some cracker/chip things and glancing at the package, I became aware of Terracycle, a company that takes waste reuses it and sells a new product.  For example, they take old pepsi bottles, stuff them with the excrement of worms, and sell it as fertilizer.  I recently read the not-so-recent article on how “Recycling Is Bullshit“, and even though recycling is not, in fact, bullshit, it made me rethink my waste habits.  I love gadgets and I like to buy shiny new things, but I know I really should, in addition to recycling, start to reduce and reuse things.

So clicking through Terracycle’s website was pretty fun for a bit, signing up to terracycle, checking out the goods they had to sell, and scrolling through their blog.  I am not sure how well the terracycling will go on my end…it is reassuring that everything is paid for - after you sign up a container will be sent to your home - but the quantity of what they are asking for is a little daunting.  I signed up for the yogurt one figuring, hey, I eat some yogurt!  But not only do you need to eat a specific brand you also need to send back 400 containers.  I…don’t eat that much yogurt in a year…additionally, sometimes I like to reuse the pots for something (they are very good for holding nuts and bolts).

If the amount of materials I’ll need to be storing in my home before I am able to ship them out wasn’t a strike against it, the products they sell would be.  It’s a new company so there isn’t much, but their recycled lunch box is simply some capri sun cases sewn together.  Soda bottles sent in are rinsed out, filled with cleaning product, and given a new label - no melting down of materials or anything!  Seems strange, then, that a bottle of window cleaning solution from terracycling costs about the same as a bottle of windex.  Oh, but that is before the shipping and handling I need to pay to get it to me - a whopping ten dollars.  I’m assuming this high S&H tag is because it is a chemical…but I am not sure I want to pay thirteen dollars for a liter of window cleaning solution….

Which brings us to the final point, which was a question raised by teracyle itself on the blog, The Eco Capitalist, and which is not necessarily Terracycle-centric.  The question is,

Would you pay more to go green?

In my salad days the answer was yes.  While living with my parents all the small income I had was disposable.  I would buy cfl bulbs and recycled paper towels, telling my parents they needed to get on this bandwagon - we have to save the earth!

…and then I started accumulating bills.  Between rent payments, student loans, gas prices, I must be frugal with the miniscule amount of money I am left with.  Currently I buy green when it is immediately practical - I will fork out the extra money for CFL bulbs because I do not have to change them as often and they will save me electricity, I buy “organic” soap because it is trichlosan-free, I keep my hybrid (which I initially financed during those green years) because it saves me money on gas.  But when it comes to the $4.99 box of granola in the recycled package versus the $3.99 box that hasn’t been recycled, unless I happened to have found an extra dollar in my jeans, I will go for the lower priced one.

These days the hierarchy is nutrition > price > green

I am not alone in this thought, as many of my friends will voice their love of Whole Foods, a market with wonderful produce, organic foods, and an atmosphere that just makes you feed good inside its walls, but hardly any of them shop there.  “Their fruit is so fresh and it tastes so good….but it is so expensive!” said a friend just yesterday.  Two of my siblings work at Whole Foods and receive a discount, but despite that it is still too expensive for them to do the majority of their shopping there.  Even without these tough economic times it is hard to make people pay more for relatively little immediate gain.

One question that is always on my mind is - why are these “green goods” more expensive in the first place?  When we talk about the benefit of recycled and reused materials, we talk about how less energy is needed to make them.  Less energy use = more green, right?  Well, less energy use should, logically, mean less money.  If Terracycle is getting most of its raw materials for almost nothing, then why does it cost the same as a company that is purchasing completely new plastic?  If paper towels are made with 50% recycled paper that did not need to undergo the same energy-intensive process as new paper does, why is it still more expensive to get them?

There are probably some very good answers to these questions but there are also probably some bad ones.  The bottom line, though, regardless of what the answer is, is that as long as it is more expensive the majority of people will not buy it.  Does this mean they are mass polluters that don’t care about the planet?  Not necessarily.  Some may do what they can to help, some may, oh, I dunno, buy that cheaper, non-green toilet paper, but shove it into a reusable bag and spend the next half hour pedaling furiously on their bicycle to get it back home.  Who knows.

So how do we get cheap and green?  It has to be a three-tiered solution consisting of the consumer, the producer, and the regulators (i.e. the government).  Most of the time it seems to fall only on the consumer - it is green and goes towards the greater good, therefore you must pay more.  Green consumers seem to accept this, “I will pay more because I am doing good!” but it leaves the people who cannot afford to pay more out and feeling guilty.  We should also begin saying to these producers - your product is for the greater good and you should accept a smaller profit.   The government, too, should realize the country benefits from these practices and offer tax breaks to all producers of green goods (not just the ones with the best lobbyists) and incentives to the consumers of those goods.  Perhaps the sales tax could be less in certified “green” markets.

Currently the only people who seem to go green are the higher classes who have large disposable incomes.  Sure, it costs very little to live off the grid, but getting off the grid requires sums of money the average American does not have access to.

After stress fracture man reduced to using crutches, whinging

Just where the heck am I supposed to sit?! ...no, I mean besides those two blatantly empty seats....

Far be it for me to look down upon complaining, but to me, good complaining takes the form of constructive criticism, taking note of a problem, perhaps offering a useful solution.  Anything less comes off as self-centered whining.

Take for example, the site, peoplewhositindisabilityseatingwhileImstandingonmycrutches.com.  The url, however awkward, may evoke sympathy and if you don’t actually enter the site, you may feel a little angry at these individuals who are, presumably, sitting in disability seats while this poor dude in crutches has to stand.

Enter the site, however, and you will find self-centered whining at its finest (or poorest).  This man on temporary crutches for a stress fracture in his leg is standing by choice, but is still pissed off at the people who are sitting.  He takes his agression out by taking photos of these individuals and posting them on his blog (I cannot remember if that’s legal or not - is misanthropy or supreme entitlement considered “news”?) .

He admits that he does not ask people to move, and the New York Times defends him saying that asking someone to move can make you feel “uncomfortable”.  What is he, a five-year-old?  If you don’t ask someone if you can sit down, they don’t know you want to sit down.  A study found that over 80% of passengers will give up their seat when requested to do so by seemingly healthy individuals, with no reason given.  Add crutches and a “because” (which has been shown to allow people to skip ahead in the copier line, regardless of what comes after) and this guy wouldn’t be at a loss for a seat.  Perhaps he thinks it’s beneath him to make that request, though….

…or perhaps it is because he knows the people he’d be asking would look at him strangely, wondering why he wants their seat in particular when there are other seats to be had.  Judging from the pictures he takes, there are usually other seats he could be sitting in.  He apparently doesn’t feel he should be made to sit next to anyone.  Breathing the same air as sitting plebs?  Gross!

The Unnatural Sex: Introduction

Almost ten years into the third millennium, we are still dragging through the same arguments, no closer to a resolution than we were in the second millennium.

The arguments that interest me most are the ones about sex, its aftermath, and what should be considered natural and unnatural.  Homosexuality, polygamy, abortion - people arguing for these and similar things propose that people should be allowed to make their own choices in life while people arguing against these things say these things are unnatural.

This begs the question as to what unnatural and natural really mean.  When did humans begin committing unnatural acts, and what drives them to do these things?  Is it possible to convince society to live naturally, to refrain from unnatural activities, and if so, how?

Over the next few months I will try to answer these questions with a new post each week.  It will be rough, as I am no great writer, but maybe someone will get something interesting out of this.

Til then!

-S