Kim Kardashian as the downfall of society; Or not.

Simon Doonan at Slate.com pisses and moans on and on about how as a society we are all fetished up with the Kardashians.  It isn't like in his day - or that of his parents or grandparents - when accomplishment and talent was truly respected, he says.

I've blogged so much about this type of thing, I doubt I even have to make most of arguments again.  Doonan ignores two hugely important facts:

A) every society and culture and time period has had its "cupcakes."  Way back when it was gladitorial fighting, then it was coming out parties and Queens and Kings and Barons and courts and then it became movie stars and comic books and on and on.  Most if not all of those "cupcakes" are forgotten about 30 years on, so of course today's offerings appear worse.  When you compare Bieber or Spears to only the best of what survived from decades ago, of course today is going to pale in comparison.  But was Elvis really so much more accomplished?  One of the few really insightful comments is from a reader of Victorian novels who notes that even in those works - written in the 1800s - people complain about the disrespectful youth and downfall of culture and society.

B) As more and more people learn to read and have access to television, of course the interests of those people are going to dominate the media more.  This isn't a dumbing down of America or the world or a refutation of science, its just that people who 100 years ago would have gossiped in pubs can now read, and so they read People or US or watch the Kardashians or Real Housewives.  To this extent, TV now more closely represents what the U.S. always was.  When rich, educated people have 90 percent of all the televisions you would expect the fare to be tailored to them.  It stands to reason that when they represent only 10 percent of the viewership, the programming is going to be less tailored to them.

And some of the commenters are the best.  They run about 80 agreeing, 5 percent contradicting Doonan, and 15 percent saying "don't lump me in with 'those people'"  This last group posts things like: "Kim who?" "Sports schmortz, we don't watch them."  "When people ask what us about the game we say 'is there someone playing something'" - as if not knowing about pop culture somehow makes one smarter or superior.  But its not as if one can't know both who S. Hawking or R. Dawkins are while at the same time knowing of K. Kardashian or Fletcher Cox (Eagles draft pick).  I know of all four.  I also know that - contrary to many of the commentors - there is plenty of good television programs.  And lots of it doesn't appear on PBS.  Channels like Science, Discovery and the like produce shows like "How Its Made" and shows featuring science giants like Hawking and Machu.

Some other comments I like: 80 of people are idiots (excepting, I'm guessing, the commentor and his friends, who probably don't follow such mundane things as sports and television stars)

As one of the commentors noted, there is an entire South Park episode dedicated to S. Hawking - how much more pop culture, Red Carpet, can you get?

Dear Adagio

Dear Adagio,

It's not you, its me.  Honestly.

You've always been there for me when I needed  you.  Quick to come to my aid when I called.  You were my first love and introduced me to so many new things.  You've been a warm cuppa on a cold day, and a nice relaxing way to ease into a work afternoon. 

But I've changed and you haven't.  When we first met, everything was new and exciting.  But over the years, as I've tasted your wares, I've come accustomed to them.  They are fine, to be sure, but they are no longer new and exciting.  I'm sure they are perfect for someone else, but for me, I think I need more.  Sure, sure, I know you've added some nice new gourmet things, but those aren't my interests, and I don't feel comfortable shelling out that kind of money for something new when so many things are new.  It's not that one of us is wrong, its just that we aren't meant for each other.

In other words, my eye has began to wander.  Your products are great, but I've started to notice new and enticing aspects that others can offer me.  I just don't feel I can be committed to you in the way I have in the past, and that isn't fair to either of us.

I may call you up in a moment of need, or when I'm longing for the sweet comfort that familiarity provides, or when I've made some horribly stupid mistake that I need to correct with old reliable.  And this isn't necassarily goodbye forever; someday maybe we can get back together, someday when we have both gone out in the world and come to realize that we are perfect for each other.  Until then ...

I'll always remember you.

Bryan

Tats And Dingbats

Tats

I'm not a big tattoo fan.  Quite the opposite, actually.  I wouldn't say its a sin, but its certainly not something I'm interested in.  To me, most tattoos are expressions of feeling or belief that would be better expressed in real life rather than in ink-on-skin format.  Take, for instance, the criminal with his daughter's name tatooed across his leg. Maybe just being a better dad and not ending up in jail may have been a better way to express your love for your child.  Part of it is that tattoos are just such and easy way to express something that is, often times, hard.  People get their partners' name tattooed on them rather than, you know, actually work at the relationship.

Plus, I believe that if you live your life by your own coda two things will happen:  One, you'll get scars, and scars are real-life tattoos with actual stories and meaning; and two, you'll be known for your beliefs rather than having to express them in ink on your skin.

The one possible exception I would make would be for the original tattoo group; you know, the people who got tattoos when it actually meant you were a dangerous outsider.  Now, a tattoo just means you have a tattoo, and some free money lying around.

So I nodded my head when I read the first part of this article.   But then it went in a weird and unexplainable place.  The author jumps from an explaination of tattoos and various downsides - the cost, pain, semi-irreversibility, time - to somehow deciding that people get tattoos because they spend too much time on Facebook.  Without a lick of evidence.  The way the article ends suggests the entire piece was a bit of a joke.  But if that was the intent, the first part of the article didn't imply such.  Maybe I just missed it.

Dingbats

I use this term lovingly and to be funny, not in the prejorative sense.  I'm not entirely through the article yet, but this piece on a new book, Bad Religion, is interesting.  From one of the first graphs:

I think I speak for a lot of secular liberals when I confess my lifelong skepticism that anyone could make a rational case for such old-fashioned ideas. And yet, you’ve done so. One thing I hope we can accomplish in this conversation is to explain to Slate’s readers how you’ve done that, and how your approach differs from what’s often understood to be the mentality of the “religious right.”

The title, Bad Religion, captures your argument quite well. Secularists look at many of today’s preachers and theocratic politicians, such as Newt Gingrich, and conclude that religion is the problem. Conservative Christians listen to those politicians and conclude that secularism is the problem. You’re articulating a middle ground: The problem isn’t that all religion is bad, or that religion is under threat of extermination—it’s that some kinds of religion are bad, and these corrupt versions are replacing the sort of religion that’s healthy and authentic.

Not much in this life should be considered actually, legitimately evil, in my view.  Mostly its just stuff that infringes on another's rights.  Murder; Theft, evil.  I see nothing inherently evil in religion.  In fact, most religions have at least some good take-away points.  Mostly, religion is a way for an individual to make their way through this world, and who am I to say their way is any better or worse than mine; until theirs starts interfereing with mine, that is.

Writing And Editing

What follows is some of the rewritten parts of my book-in-progress.  Twitter and Triple The Dad have taken up lots of my time, and I'm neglecting my post for ordinaryparent.com, which I hope to finish by week's end, all while another book ruminates in my head and a short story begins to take form.  This is to establish that I'm busy, not getting as much of this done as I'd like, and that what follows is probably not even finished.  And then, of course, there is that woman inside my head.  But still, anyone who would like to provide insight would be... well, honestly, my reaction will depend on what kind of insight is provided....

If cities have hearts and souls, the collective breathes and hopes of the citizens, Brookdale’s lay on the precipice of death.

The town sat in the mountainous area between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh that some derided as Pennsutucky. Michael hated the mashing of Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Should Pennsylvania residents or Kentucky residents take offense; he was never sure. But he knew no one confused Brookdale with one of Money Magazine's Top 100 places to live. Not that there were many people left who could find it, or cared to, anyway. The mountainous areas of Pennsylvania suffered the worst wounds when industry left, taking most the good jobs with it. If cities have blood, Brookdale bled out long ago.

The small town's smoke stacks still rose up from the ground toward the sky, but the fires within were long gone. Pictures of strength and power no longer, the towers now merely marred the sky. Ugly scars hiding even uglier things.

Michael Jesensky knew all this and more. But it was home; even if wasn't the kind of place Wal-Mart called home.

Now in his 30s, Michael still recalled waiting at the door as a child for his father to return home from the steel plant. Back then, Michael drew crayon drawings; and Brookdale produced steel.

Michael flushed a few boxes with the front of a shelf, patting their sides to ensure that all of them stood orderly in a row. The bells on the front door rang. Michael looked into the corner mirror and recognized the long, thin face instantly.

“Hello, Emilio,” Michael said.

“Please, don’t stop your work for me. I’m just browsing today.”

“Browsing, huh? Sure you aren’t here to check in on something?”

“Why, whatever would you mean? I simply enjoy your store. Go back to work.”

Several months ago Dr. Emilio Vargas stopped in the store looking for a 200-year-old leather doctor’s bag. That wouldn’t have been hard to find. Emilio wanted one with a Lilly-branded lock, upping the ante. After that first visit Emilio stopped in weekly. He always walked around inspecting various items; he never bought anything.

Michael found plenty of doctor’s bags available online over the months; all of them defective in some way: missing or broken locks, worn through corners.

But then, at a flea market the week before, he stumbled upon it. Not just another doctor’s bag, but the bag; a gleaming Lilly lock and all and in perfect condition.

Michael went behind the counter. The bag sat on a shelf under the register, safely stocked away. Michael waited while Emilio browsed up and down the aisles, periodically stopping to pull something off the shelf and inspect it. When he finished, he came to the counter, as he always did.

“How’s business, Michael?”

“Eh, its business. I’m not saving lives, my friend.”

Emilio chuckled.

“But, I might just make someone’s day.”

Michael reached under the counter and produced the bag. The oil he applied to the still supple leather gleamed in the morning light streaming through the store’s front windows.

Greed/Selfishness

Slate.com today stumbled upon the possibility that, maybe, just maybe, greed might be able to solve some, if not most, of the world's really big problems.

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran's story notes that taking nonprofits and attempting to calculate which are doing the best jobs has transformed the nonprofit world from "sleepy, underresourced, and inefficient to market-minded, well-funded and eager to change the world."

The Woman Inside My Head

I love XKCD. 

It is often funny, not in a lol way, but in a deeper way.  This isn't one of its better comics (though I did learn what negging is!).  Even in its not up to snuff mode, though, it hits a nerve.

The woman in this cartoon, especially the pentultimate box, resides in my head.  She is alwasy there.  Sometimes she dominates the conversation; mostly she merely resides in the background, biding her time and whispering to me how all the good things in my life could unravel.

I'm at 89

I've now done 89 pushups over 6 sets (approximately 5 minutes).  The program I'm using is trying to get me to 50 consecutive pushups.  I started out at appoximately 25 and I've been doing 20+ on that last set, so I should be, well, at least closer.

I actually pushed another, probably better, post out of the way to make room for this one, so check back later for a post that involves an XKCD comic as well as a glimpse into the mind of Bryan.