Posts Tagged ‘controversy’
7 items.
Controversy Tuesday: Same Dip, Different Shit
July 22nd, 2008 | by adminPosted In: Controversy Tuesdsay
IS ARCHIVE
Americans often find themselves on the business end of criticism over having very little knowledge or understanding of foreign nations, including the European continent to which many of them have fairly recent blood ties. They’re often accused of not having an accurate picture of the differences in culture between the myriad European states, or even being able to identify many of them. I’ve spent some time in Europe, in various places, and I have one feeling about this stereotype at this point. Good lord, do pots enjoy calling kettles black.
Complaining that Americans can’t tell the difference between Sweden and Norway is like complaining that Norwegians don’t know the difference between Texas and Oklahoma. I’ve met myriad Europeans who weren’t aware that the USA is split into several well defined regions, each with its own politcal and social preferences, not to mention local culture. I’ve heard a lot about double morality, a phrase that requires a scoff to correctly pronounce, but not so much about the differences in the North Eastern, North Central, Mid Western, and Northwestern accents. I’ve heard people complain about Madonna and Eminem invading European charts, but I haven’t found more than two people in Europe who’d even heard of artists like Jurassic 5 or the Reverend Horton Heat.
What bothers me is the acrimony with which these fucked up notions are brought out. There’s a pervasive sense of classism, even imperialism in these kinds of comments. They carry a sort of secret nationalism that’s a poison to the listener. Even the people most disatisfied with their home country manage it: “Well, I maybe be disaffected in a shitty nation of jerks, but at least I’m not American.”
The moral here? “Fuck you” is the same in every language. And if it’s not in your native language yet, don’t worry. It’s getting there.
Love,
Captain Cussy Pants.
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Controversy Tuesday: The Trashiest Environment!
July 15th, 2008 | by adminPosted In: Controversy Tuesdsay
IS ARCHIVE
It’s populare these days to take a proactive stance regarding the pollution and/or alteration of the natural environment, as well as to adopt so-called sustainability practices into one’s everyday life. Many people take this to the furthest extreme they feel is possible, having a strong emotive context inspiring their actions. Common steps taken are regular recycling, purchasing organic foods and ethanol based vehicles, and using “natural” products.
The problems here are many. As far as recycling goes, it seems to serve the same purpose confession does to a not-so-devout Catholic. Recycling is comparably simpler to do than many other “green” activites, and has an immediate and observable result – all your cans are out there in a tub by the street. The breakdown occurs in what actually happens to that sorted material. Does any of it actually make it back into new products? Does it even make it past the waste collection centre? Do you even bother to check that you’re buying new products produced from recycled materials? Few people bother to answer any of these questions.
Organic foods and ethanol or other pure petroleum-alternative fueled vehicles take another direction. In the case of organics, an often overlooked point is the origin of the foods. Not all states have regulations defining the term “organic.” The regulations that do exist may vary from region to region. This has many effects; the term itself breaks down in meaning, and organic foods are more likely to be produced in states with well known standards (Oregon, California) and shipped by conventional means, which requires fossil fuels. This brings me to petroleum alternatives. Hybrid cars are merely a stopgap in truth, whereas electric cars most likely still depend on fossil fuels being burnt at the generator, as is often the case. A popular and fairly recent third choice is E-85 ethanol burning vehicles. While ethanol burns “cleanly” in comparison with petroleum distillate, it doesn’t come from out of nowhere. The corn that is required to make it must be grown like any other commodity, requiring machine tending and harvesting in today’s modern agriculture, then shipping and processing, all of which require energy in the form of electricity and/or the burning of fuels. Another dent in the “green” efficiency of ethanol is its production requires an increase of corn crops, which requires expansion of farmlands, displacing some farms into new, more poorly equipped areas, or just outright farming on new, undomesticated land.
The last concept I find ridiculous: that of consuming “natural” products. This is an idea that some clever marketeer dreamed up and was made king of Advertoria for. There seems to be a persistant belief that natural things are somehow better. The problem is, nothing that claims to be natural on the package can back up that claim to any point of satisfaction. One example is a fruit salad. All the individual fruits in the salad can be naturally, but pineapples don’t naturally come in small wedges, bereft of seed and skin and tree, nestled closely to orange sections. At best, the salad can claim to be a collection of natural things, but they’ve all already lost that distinction by being modified by human hands. The fact of it is that something is natural when it occurs in nature. Even the natural tomatoes you purchase cannot claim to have originated in the area they were grown. Furthermore, tomatoes and all other commodity crops have been selectively bred and hybridised over years by humans to improve flavour, size, productivity, uniformity, and a dozen other traits. The only way you can hope to really eat naturally is if you run freely in the woods and take bites out of birches and deer.
Why the fuck do you feel so good about being “green?”
Love,
Captain Cussy Pants
IS ARCHIVE
One thing I find terribly bothersome about the 2008 USA Presidential races and upcoming election is the question of whether or not the American people are ready for a potential president of some sort or another.
Racism!
It was a popular racism last year to suggest people may be poorly equipped to handle the emotional carnage electing a person in possession of functional amounts of ovaries and/or melanin could unleash on the country. This “unreadiness,” as they called it, was supposedly showing an effect on various numbers. Therefore I imagine unreadiness causes a vise like grip on several two- and a few three-digit numbers, many of which are important to pollsters.
However, it wasn’t asked if America was “ready” for a President made of human babies! That’s right! I am announcing my racism against the race of people who eat human babies! I am also racist against electing former prisoners?
IS ARCHIVE
What follows is a further attempt at normalcy, as dictated during a particularly furious cannon battle between the good lady Sturmkrieg and a well-laden FFA craft, which, when wounded, chose to shower Our Lady of the Storm with a considerable volume of grapeshot. Our captain was, noteably, not disturbed in the least by the volleys.
Frank Sinatra was a singer! He sang many songs, many of which were only good because Dean Martin was there too! Dean Martin was a clever alcoholic who made jokes about it, and thusly hurt both Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Juniour through words! There were two other guys as well, but Frank Sinatra was important because he got laid and had a daughter!
This daughter was none other than Nancy Sinatra!
You may very well remember the young Miss Sinatra for recording a particularly clever and delicious cover of These Boots. It has become an anthem for young women and lesbians everywhere, due to the iconographic lyrical depictions of having a woman step on a man and potentially a man’s gonads as well, said gonads being expressed in the male of the human species as testicles. And gosh! it hurts when something crushes a male’s testicles.
What I would like to address is the simple fact that Nancy Sinatra, despite all emasculating and/or “ball breaking” tendacies was a sex goddes to belong to. It would have given many quality young soliders in her time and yours and mine a great satisfaction to be sacrificed before an idol bearing her likeness. This isn’t a twenty seven virgins situation – this is a Nancy fucking Sinatra equation!
I can therefore elucidate from this past behaviour that Nancy was, in fact, a sex goddess. She was, perhaps, the proverbial swanness seducing the humanoid. It would not be going very far past this understanding to suggest a statue or two be erected in a hall of monument for her, and that laurels and paisley wreaths be brought before her likeness to gain favour in all things bouncey-bouncey.
Herein lies my point, somewhere. What the fuck, Cap? What the fuck with this shit, Cussy? I’ll tell you what the fuck. I’m suggesting a return to all things sexy. I’m suggesting a fucking revival of the right to fuck.
I am suggesting you – you lovely womens out there – I’m suggesting you try out Nancy’s tried-and-true brilliance for yourselves. I’ve been known to say, “Miniskirts and go-go boots – the trouble today is there are no Nancy Sinatras!” I was right when I was known to be right about saying that. And things.
Here’s my suggestions, womens. Get a lovely pair of go-go boots. You don’t have to call them go-go boots, it’s a bit pants name, but just get knee high or almost knee high boots with proper heels. You can also wear miniskirts – wear some fucking miniskirts. You have the legs for it – fucking show that shit off. Beehives? Yes, they’re sexy. It’s time you took back your sexuality. It’s time you used yourself like a fucking weapon. You deserve it. You worked hard for that body; make it work for you.
It’s time to make it work for you.
Remember, ladies: Nancy Sinatra. And don’t forget to email me your digits, lovely.
IS ARCHIVE
How many of you own or drive a car? So how many of you know how to change a tire? How about the oil? Windscreen fluid? Radiator? Not so many hands up now, huh?
So why don’t so many people know how to do these things? Why don’t YOU? Chances are, you either thought, “because I don’t care,” or, more likely, “because I get somebody to do it for me.” It costs a bit of money, but you can go to a fancy service station and get your fluids topped, oil changed, and your engine flushed and a hundred other things you don’t know how to do or even understand. Why do you do this? Maybe you read Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and felt it contained a life lesson. Probably you don’t feel like you should have to know how to do this shit.
Here’s something else. There’s a common misperception among people today that humans are a terminal point in evolution. This idea holds that humans have stopped evolving, being perfectly adapted for the habitat they’ve created for themselves. Others believe that humanity’s next evolutionary step is into robotics and artificial intelligence and downloading personalities and belfhekhgfkdljd. Of course, these ideas are both bullshit.
Which brings me back to your choice to take your car to a guy for maintenance. You make this choice because you don’t know how to yourself. You never bothered to learn because it didn’t seem important. There were more important things to learn – like law school, or computer science, or how to be REALLY good at compiling porn links on your blog. You’re good at your own things. You’re specialised. Welcome to a shit life.
Humans aren’t favouring mutations with dealy bops or extra toes. They’re favouring those who succeed at specialisation. With each generation, social and technological progress pushes us further and further in the direction of an ant colony. In said colonies, each individual fulfills a specific role. Among driver ants, there are three distinct worker classes, each with physiological adaptations to support the responsibilities within the class. Humans aren’t born blind if their role in society doesn’t require sight, or otherwise mutate to succeed in their job, but they instead get help from technology. With the advent and ubiquity of mobile phones, wireless networking, bluetooth, GSP, and internet connectivity, communication between individuals is wider and more instantaneous than ants could ever hope to achieve.
Sounds pretty great, right? You only have to be good at one difficult thing, and everybody else will pick up the slack. Woo specialised society! Life is so fucking hilarious and sexy all the time!
…Except when something goes wrong. The machine with the fewest moving parts is the least likely to break, and modern first world society is a machine with a shit tonne of parts. We combat this weakness by building in redundancy. Aeroplane manufacturers do the same thing, but then, it’s not like an aeroplane component has ever failed. The probabilities of that happening are insanely miniscule.
The things you give up when you let yourself be a part of this kind of system aren’t immediately obvious, especially to someone living inside of it, but they’re big. The foremost is adaptability. That might stick out in reference to what I said about evolution above. Another, more obvious, loss is self sufficiency, and, as a side note, the satisfaction it proivdes.
Everybody I meet these days seems frustrated at a lack of control over one’s own circumstances. It never occurs to anybody you can take that control for yourself. But it’s not easy. It’s hard work. Maybe that’s where the problem lies – maybe it’s just easier to get somebody else to take your control for you.
Personally, I think I’ll keep up the autodidactism.
IS ARCHIVE
Blogs are shit. They really are. Travel around the ridiculously termed “blogosphere” for a while and you’ll see what I mean. Seriously, go on, do it for a while. I won’t be doing anything interesting for at least a sentence or two.
Ha, I should’ve had vegetables for dinner. That’s what I get for being awesome, deliciously low nutrition snacky times. Back yet? Alright.
Notice what I’m talking about? No? Alright. Basically nearly every blog is completely fucking the same. Chances are, you hit one consisting of every single website the author finds mildy hilarious. Pretty great, huh? How was it the second time, when it had a different URL? How about the fifth? The twentieth? What the fuck? Alright, so you also read somebody’s political viewpoints or election coverage. How was that for you? Mind numbing? Maybe you found a movie or music review blog. Great, so you got a single person’s impossibly narrow selection of bits of culture. Maybe it was useful for you, if you read a review for something you were thinking about buying. But come on, you were going to buy it either way, weren’t you?
Blogs have a lot of potential. They could reinvent the way we communicate, the way we record our history. They offer a day-in-the-life view of the modern human, but they so rarely do. We could be using them to regale our fellow Earthworlders with amazing stories, or for sparking incredible debate and shared community understanding! It would be a Zen-powered eutopia of typing madness and it would fucking save the world. All we have to do is take those intriguing thoughts we all have several times per day and publish them in WordPress. We cann all achieve an evolution in society together.
Except I’m tired so I’ll probably do it tomorrow or something.
IS ARCHIVE
Activists are people who feel strongly about socio-economic issues and use what platfomr is available to them in order to spread awareness and effect change in perception and regulation of these issues. Integral to becoming an activist is to have issues to activate. It’s important to collect many issues. Perhaps the more issues you can have an opinion about, the more powerful an activist you’ll be!
It’s important for an activist to spread knowledge of the fact that he or she has collected issues. From what I can tell, the best issues to collect and spread are those dealing with anything that can make the activist seem more interesting or worldly!
That’s all I know about activists! You can probably read more about them on your favourite networking website’s notification or bulletin system.