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They’re Made Out of Meat

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

Note: There’s a great short story link at the bottom of this post; don’t miss it because of my ramblings above the fold. ~Joe C.

So, I finally watched Food, Inc. last night, the Academy Award best documentary nominee I’ve been hearing so much buzz about the past few months. I’d been putting it off because not long ago I’d read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and thought I knew most of what would be on display, mainly that government subsidies make corn cheap, so we grow a lot of cheap corn, and since there’s so much cheap corn a huge percent of the food in your supermarket is a derivative of corn including corn-fed cow, pig, and fish (yep, they’re teaching fish to eat corn now, too.) And, let’s face it, being clued in on the crap I’ve been sticking in my mouth is not the delightful subject I usually want to take in on a feel-good Friday night.

But, for some reason I decided to end the procrastination, maybe because Food, Inc. was available for the “instant play” cue on NetFlix.

Let me tell you, there is a reason you can go to Disney World and book yourself into an Animal Kingdom themed resort, or a Sports or Music themed resort, or the Wilderness Lodge themed resort, but they don’t offer a Beef Slaughterhouse themed resort. My wife updated her Facebook status during the movie: “Watching Food, Inc. and seriously doubting that I’ll ever eat meat again!” I won’t go that far, because I do love an artery-clogging diabetes-inducing Big Mac on occasion, but I will be eating more beans, tofu, and broccoli this week.

Anyway, the essense of the film is not anti-meat, but our vanished lack of respect for meat. The gist of the film is that corporate greed — and more truthfully, the American people’s misplaced thrift that leads them to buy cheaper bad food instead of more expensive good food, organically-grown food that isn’t a subsidized corn-derivative — has caused Henry Ford’s assembly line principles to be applied to the production of the animals that provide meat. Besides causing all sorts of problems, from E. coli outbreaks to a generation where 1 in 3 will develop early onset diabetes, it’s caused us to lose respect for meat. In order to grow meat in the terrible way we do, we must either lose respect for it, let our conscience drive us insane, change, or ignore reality. Ignoring reality and disrespecting meat is a lot easier than the other two options.

No Respect for Meat

So, today while contemplating our lack of respect for meat, I surfed on over to the blog of Indigobusiness, God is Not an Asshole, and his post about Terry Bisson’s short story, They’re Made Out of Meat, slapped me in the face, because among other things, this short sci-fi story is concerned with a large lack of respect for meat:

“No brain?”

“Oh, there’s a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“So … what does the thinking?”

“You’re not understanding, are you? You’re refusing to deal with what I’m telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat.”

“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”

This short story, published in OMNI in 1990, was later published in Bisson’s 1993 anthology Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories. It’s short, even for a short story, and best of all, Bisson has posted it in full on his website: They’re Made Out of Meat. It’s a good light-hearted weekend afternoon read, especially after something heavy like watching Food, Inc.

Posted in Art & Culture, Politics, Science | 15 Comments »

Mr. Rogers: Best Neighbor Ever

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

If you’re like me — coming up a bit short on faith in your neighbors, and feeling not a little sickened of the seeming trend towards rampant self-righteousness, ignorant belligerence, and all-around bellicose
nastiness — then you owe it to yourself to take your eyes off the TV pundits for a few minutes and recalibrate your faith by tuning in to a gentleman who actually lived what he said he believed.

In other words, you owe it to yourself to check out 15 reasons Mr. Rogers was best neighbor ever.

If that warmed your heart, but didn’t quite part the clouds and let the sunshine in, check out this archival footage from 1969 in which Mr. Rogers goes to Washington, yep, and this mild-mannered wimp takes less just about six minutes to ignite an apathetic senate, crush Nixon’s funding cuts, and secure enthusiastic support to the tune of $20 million: Mister Rogers defending PBS to the US Senate.

And finally, how about sitting back and listening to the man ramble like one of your own favorite, eccentric uncles: Fred Rogers - Archive Interview.

People who live the values they propose seem rare these days. But knowing that Mr. Rogers did, and remembering when he was here, helps me believe there must still be many good neighbors out there. Hats off to you, Mr. Rogers, and a life lived well.

Posted in Art & Culture, Consciousness, History, Politics | 4 Comments »

Cell Phone Pic Purge

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Over the weekend Jodi (wife of this particular splinter of the collective consciousness) sent a pic message of Ana (daughter of this particular splinter of the collective consciousness) from her swimming lesson, and when I saved it, my cell phone told me it was full. So, I decided to offload the picture vault…and I was surprised to find photos that were a couple of years old already! Time really does fly…sort of felt like I was taking a voyeuristic piddle through my own attic, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, here are a few, with more to follow sporadically, periodically, maybe even redundantly.

William (son of this particular splinter of the collective consciousness) plays drums in the 8th-grade band, and takes extra lessons from a guy in a recording studio behind a mattress store on one of the main drags through Rocket City.

When it’s not mid-summer and 120 degrees without a breeze, I wait in the car, because, let’s face it: two guys on two drums knocking out paradiddles and flams at breakneck speed…let’s just say the volume is just about perfect from the street outside.

Anyway, he’d just finished a lesson and jumped back in the car when I snapped a portrait.

Ana, meet Randy; Randy meet Ana.

Ana was only 1.5 (good grief, she’s already 3.5 going on 14 now…) when she — let’s be honest — infiltrated Randy’s (a.k.a. Muttzer) favorite space (especially when it’s thundering) underneath the built-in desk in the kitchen.

Randy looks thrilled. Ana looks like she wants to touch a doggy eyeball or stick her finger up his doggy nose.

No sweat, they are fast friends now…

Tyler (another son of this particular splinter of the collective consciousness) is clearly enjoying a trip to Bridge Street Town Center.

Bridge Street is one of those new urbanism projects designed so people can live/work/shop/play in the same locale, which saves a lot of gasoline, reduces carbon emissions, and plays hell with the plastic in your wallet.

On closer look, I think Tyler’s most excited to discover the Victoria’s Secret establishment behind him has finally installed their window displays. Or, maybe we were trying to decide where to eat lunch and he was using sign language for “Hooters.” You can never be too sure with Tyler.

Jodi and I took a weekend getaway to Atlanta around our third anniversary a couple of years ago. And what’s more romantic than searching around the MARTA subway downtown trying to locate the escalator Warren Beatty rode to the hereafter in Heaven Can Wait? (If you wanna know, it’s the longest of four in the Peachtree Center station, and as can be seen from this superlong escalator video, the view down is even scarier than the view up.)

From below, it really does look like it’s sort of taking Jodi up to heaven…stay away from the light! Don’t go into the light!

Anyway, that was one escalator where I opted not to take the stairs.

This is a United States Postal Service mailbox wrapped to look like C-3PO.

Yeah, yeah, for crying out loud, I know it’s R2-D2. Just testing ya’ :-)

Remember, this was 2007 — the thirtieth anniversary of George Lucas’s Star Wars film. Apparently the U.S. Postal Service wrapped a lot of their mailboxes across the nation to celebrate. Who says the government can’t do anything right?! :-)

Me! Me! MEEEEEE!

If you look closely, there’s a big ol’ tall building in the background.

I’m standing in front of it…and I think to myself, hey…I have a camera in my phone!

It was a pretty nice day with a nice breeze flapping the flags…and then add my face…what could be more perfect! ;-) ;-) ;-) Ahhh-Hahhahhahhaa…

Posted in Art & Culture | 9 Comments »

Happy Easter!

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

George Lucas dropped by yesterday and filmed the kids painting Easter eggs!

Link: Easter Eggs 2009.

Happy Easter!

Posted in Art & Culture | 13 Comments »

Atlas Shrugged

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

Atlas Shrugged As mentioned last post, it’s been crunch time at work, and this morning, for the first time in a over a week, I plowed through the non-work email inbox, and found a warm and friendly, if concerned, note from PunditMan (to the tune of Hendrix):

Hey Joe,

Where you going with that book in your hand?

His was a reference to a recent reference of my own, namely a confession to reading that oft critically panned but ever popular classic, that grand expansive endorsement of completely unregulated capitalism, that deluxe affirmation of self-interest as best for everybody concerned and, like Gordon Gekko told us (just before the savings and loan debacle tabbed US taxpayers for $32 billion a year for the next 30 years): “Greed is good!” — yes, that of which I speak is Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Check out Punditman’s own review of Atlas Shrugged.

Fact is, a good portion of my non-work spare time has been with my nose stuck in Ayn Rand’s book…

I first heard about Atlas Shrugged years ago after taking one of those Carl Jung inspired Myers-Brigg personality type tests, found out I was an INTJ, and then — as if to validate my diagnosis as introspective — I delved into about every site that tries to explicate what the hell an INTJ looks and feels like so I would know what I was supposed to look and feel like. Most of those sites mentioned Ayn Rand, and strongly suggested I would like her writing, Atlas Shrugged being her magnum opus. But I kept putting it off because all of the reviews and spin virtually tagged the novel as the darling favorite of the most sorry type of human — you know, like self-entitled AIG execs, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity — that sorry sort of coddled smug little jerk.

All dodging aside, after hearing one of my dad’s friends remark that it was his favorite book (even though my folks and their friends live in Tupelo, Mississippi, where the trees sprout leaves imprinted with Clinton jokes, where the very wind bashes Obama…), curiosity got the best of me. I succumbed to what every marketing guru and every CIA-employed propagandist worth their salt knows as the The Rule of Seven: a subject needs to see or hear your marketing message at least seven times before they take action. (not coincidentally, a sky-high proportion of Americans who watched seven or more Sunday morning TV talk show appearances from Dick Cheney/Condoleezza Rice/George W. Bush are still convinced that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the September 11, 2001 attacks and was on the verge of crop dusting US cities with anthrax, despite zero tangible evidence.) So, the next time I was browsing Barnes and Noble, I picked up the book.

Now I’m hooked. But not on Rand’s Objectivism philosophy. As far as Objectivism goes, I disagree with her belief that reality exists as an objective absolute independent of the thoughts of men, and I disagree based on the findings of eminent physicists like the late John Archibald Wheeler who provided hard scientific proof that human consciousness shapes not only the present but the past as well. In other words, the universe doesn’t, in fact, exist if nobody is looking.

I also disagree with Rand’s penchant for total separation of government and the economy.

In my opinion, the defect in her argument is her irrational (Rand irrational?!) belief that we should all have the same desires and morals and abilities if we’d only apply ourselves. But this is America, and I believe everybody is free to pursue happiness in whatever way makes them happiest — whether it’s running a billion-dollar hedge fund or spending forty hours a week cultivating a window garden or gambling — as long as their pursuit doesn’t exceedingly infringe on the pursuits of happiness by others. And ever since the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 deregulated insurance companies and banks, it’s clear some CEOs’ ideas of pursuing happiness — namely choking on bad debt, asking for no-strings-attached taxpayer-funded corporate welfare, and then blowing their welfare payments on hookers, fast cars, and all-expense-be-damned pleasure excursions — do infringe mightily on the pursuits of happiness by other Americans.

As further witnessed by any number of economic crises from the Great Depression to the S&L Crisis to Japan’s Lost Decade (evidence of what happens when the government doesn’t get involved with rescuing the economy…), pure capitalism can be as evil as pure socialism.

Joseph McCarthy I mean, let’s get real: those who argue for pure capitalism would support sending their senile parent, incapacitated spouse, and/or their children to the street in the event of their own hard-up demise, and history shows no matter how hard you work, everybody is one well-directed backhanded swipe of fate from a penniless end. So, don’t get all righteous and McCarthyistic on me when I say I’m in favor of a government that walks a fine-tuned line balanced between complete capitalism and complete socialism. And please forgive me for being harsh with the truth, but if you can’t understand the need for balance, then you’re an idiot, and that’s the reason the founding fathers created a constitutional republic for us instead of a true democracy, to have built-in protection from idiots like yourself :-) who might otherwise destroy the USA with good, however imbecilic, intentions.

But back to Rand’s novel…the story, the journey, the tale — that’s what has me hooked. For a 1000-page supposedly right-wing philosophical manifesto, there’s a lot more plot turns and twists than I’d expected, and I’m just really digging the slightly-but-not-quite-out-of-style 1950’s phraseology — there’s a captivating old-school quasi sci-fi noir feel to the whole business that’s ironically refreshing and striking primarily because that style of stodgy writing is rare these days.

Maybe most appealing of all, Rand paints a pretty picture around the plot. Reading Atlas Shrugged so far (I’m about a third of the way into it) is like walking through the attractively stark world of Edward Hopper, filled with our parents’ and grandparents’ gas stations, motels, restaurants, theaters, railroads, and city sidewalks, where people wore hats and suits to work, talked like Bogart and Bacall, and shared a smoke in the cafe after dinner.

Also, as witnessed by the recent propensity of Atlas Shrugged to jump off bookstore shelves, the novel is filled to the brim with mostly inversely apropos — but timely nevertheless — themes and situations. But I have another theory why it’s popular: like the black-and-white era it hails from, there are few gray areas in this story. In today’s world, where nearly every debate seems filled with more gray areas than black or white, a simplistic world like the one in Atlas Shrugged is a refreshing escape from our current convoluted state of affairs. And that’s a big reason people read books: escapist entertainment. On that front, Atlas Shrugged delivers.

So, have no fear; just because I’m enjoying Atlas Shrugged, I’ve not gone to the dark side anymore than I endorse the real-life mafia while savoring Don Vito Corleone’s every word and gesture each time I watch The Godfather. I’m just enjoying a good read with larger-than-life characters. I mean, it’s fun to root for imaginary elitist bourgeois industrialists, like it’s fun to pull for renegade cops like Harry Callahan; you just wouldn’t want to see these characters running around in the real hard-boiled world.

Posted in Art & Culture, Politics | 32 Comments »

Archive for the 'Art & Culture' Category

They’re Made Out of Meat

No Respect for Meat

Mr. Rogers: Best Neighbor Ever

Cell Phone Pic Purge

Happy Easter!

Atlas Shrugged

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