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| Make a Flake |
relevant heART science
Scientific Chick provided the six-image heart X-ray
used to create this digital rendering. Thank you, Julie.
This is where I was AT thirty years ago
If one can have a favorite song for almost one's whole life . . . this is mine.
You might also like to know:
Words You Remember
“Never work for someone who’ll pay you to stay home and cut fish.”
Said my 1984 mentor Master Sergeant Karp. One reason I remembered these words was his name. Another, his mutilation of the fish or cut bait adage, which I knew—after ten weeks of hating real Infantry shit on the Korean DMZ together—was intentional. He always strove for subtle-funny and probably thought cut bait hit the ear too close to its intended target. But, irony was the biggest reason I remember his words. MSG Karp—in his 27th year of service—was advising that if I reenlisted, I should retire as soon as pension-eligible.
I’d matured enough by the age of 25 to realize I was at one of life’s fulcrum points. Get out, and return to hometown-Indiana to a disdainful wife, financially worse-off than the day I enlisted...or re-up for the MP Corps and get some income, training, and a divorce.
I picked the serially-monogamous military life, and (following his advice) stopped fishing on the day they offered to pay me to sit home and masturbate.
“Get on. Stop bothering us. Goddamn little shit!”
I was six. Second grade. Recess. Running away from a horde of three girls who were making screeching giggle noises after me with a threat of kisses. Out of breath, fearing seven-year old classmate cooties as seriously as I’d ever feared anything, I sought refuge near the playground monitors. My teacher, Mrs Creane, and my teacher from the previous year, Mrs Devlin, were standing in a patch of morning sun, near the center of the cracked pavement, smoking cigarettes. I plead for them to intercede on my behalf. Mrs Devil said the words. Mrs Crayon chuckled and waived me away.
To be fair, she said the third sentence in a lower tone than the louder first two and she wasn’t looking at me when she said it. To my adult sensibility, this does differ from staring and saying, stop bothering us you goddamn little shit. That nuance was completely lost on the little tadpole running away from kisses. Instead, a revered teacher was the first person to cuss me out, and I was shattered to tears. The gigglers caught up to me as I walked into the shade of the building, failed to get their desired reaction, and left me alone. At six (Santa, Easter bunny, and the Tooth Fairy now in jeopardy) I came to the harsh realization that adults were no longer sacrosanct.
“Cheese. Regular cheese. Yellow. You know, American.”
“It’s kæ-mul, not car-mal. Carmal’s a girl’s name...bloody American!”
Same vacation down under. Said by a middle-aged woman standing in line behind me in an ice cream shop. Her haughty, I’m an expert, what’s-the-world-coming-to mix of humor and disdain (specific to people with a Queen on their money) was barked at me after I asked the clerk for some caramel sauce.
She was probably not an all-the-time cunt. I suspect certain Australians in that tourist-laden northeast coastal city of Cairns—who pronounce their city’s name just like the rest of the world pronounces the film-festival-famous Mediterranean French city of Cannes (except the French of course, who don't pronounce the S)—have a mispronunciation sore spot. I could've been the eighteenth dumb-feckin-shatter that day to flagrantly pronounce a silent R, forcing otherwise quiet Sheila to snap.
Now I live in Oregon. When I hear people say Or-a-gone instead of Or-a-gun (which is the locally preferred way), I never get even the slightest impulse to point out their verbal faux pas. Would I have that same insight if I was never corrected by a cunt from Cairns?
The impetus of this post was Mary Whitsell at Resident Alien's post: Words You Remember. Although there are times I hear things I never forget, there are other times I read things which cause me to write. Thanks Mary.
2011's rainy days - 6 games, 7 books, 7 films
Games: Stacking, I Am Alive, LA Noire, Portal 2, From Dust, Agent
Books: Dark Command, Judging Eye, Wise Mans Fear, Ancestor, Terminal State, The Weight, Best European Fiction 2011
Films: Rango, I Am Number Four, Adjustment Bureau, Battle: Los Angeles, Sucker Punch, Cowboys vs Aliens, Green Lantern
How does one plan for the inevitable need to while away at least 500 indoor hours of the coming year, on those days when the battleship-grey weather shiver-whispers: Even a barely functioning moron would never golf or hike with his cat on a day like today....By spending about $500, that's how.
How Many Chicken-Little Wridiots Crying Wolf Does It Take?
I watch Discovery Channel. So, I was one of the many-millions who learned (a few years ago) that scientists had discovered the Earth routinely has a magnetic pole reversal. Sorry, I don't remember off-hand how often they reversed in the days of dinosaurs-past, but I do recall a geologist explaining about ancient lavarocks being flow-born and the iron inside them aligning when they cooled with the then-strongest pole (which may not have been a pole at the time). The geologist went on to relate that the earth's current magnetic reversal was long-overdue by a few thousand years.
Which is very similar to what a vulcanologist said on the History Channel (also a few years ago). He was explaining about the caldera under Yellowstone National Park. According to his calculations, it erupts pretty regularly and is also overdue by thousands of years.
We the contemplative, the superstitious, the nearly hairless, bipedal, opposable thumbed apes...oh how we love to hear about all things imminent. Anything. Even if it isn't cataclysmic; if it's huge and impending, we can't get enough of it.
Of course, everyone has already heard their fill of all the ologists-of-one-stripe-or-another regarding global warming. It may be world-wide. It may even qualify as a cataclysm. But global warming is only going to result in a slow and gradual rising of temperatures and sea levels. We're already bored with the eventual centuries-long creep of Venice, California and (hopefully) Los Angeles turning into Venice, Italy...we need to hear about imminent disaster!
Why?
Because we're all aware of our own mortality. We're reminded of it daily (hourly?). So, the notion that life might-possibly come to an end for all the douchebag-lickers on the planet—instead of just non-d-lickin me—that's supremely comforting in a everyone-else-is-an-idiot-and-they-don't-deserve-what-I-don't-have kinda way.
With all the reports of birds dropping out of the mid-western skies, a die-off of bats in the north, the frogs are disappearing all over the world, honey Bees, ditto...all over the United States. So goes the coral reefs. So goes. So goes. Just click any organism death and you'll learn an ologist's sad description of something else which is guaranteed to be gone by tomorrow or the next day.
Why hasn't anyone put all these deaths together into one big scheme?
Oh they have. It's 2012 (in 2013 they'll say, 'hey we added the calendars together wrong, so now it's...'). It's global warming. It's the magnetic reversal. But, we all know chickenlittle is full of big-bunky-bullshit. There isn't one single terrible cause. Well...except...humans. And most of us refuse to claim ownership of that cloak of shame because once we accept responsibility, then what...fix it? Fucqdat...we say. (Our usual name for things which aren't our monkey to pet.)
Could the die-offs be just a matter of nature doing it's thing? Could the only difference between the current deaths and the gazillion-trillions which have happened throughout history be: today we have a full bowl of ologists paying very close attention with mini-visual technology, data-crunching with powerful hand-held technology, and incessantly reporting with world wide technology? Oh hell, THAT certainly won't get much coverage.
Today's fauxpocalypse-du jour is the alleged one-final-blow and collective bigboy cum overall-reason for last year's storms in England, this year's Australian cyclones, and America's most recent superstorm blizzard. And they're going to get more powerful and more frequent, says Terrance Aym (a chicken little-esque, internet-equivalent-of-a-National-Enquirer-writer-idiot, or wridiot...who gets his kicks crying wolf). My first hint that he drew his conclusions from a tool-bag of lies? He tailored this story for his audience, pointing only at storms in English-speaking countries, many of which were much less damaging than those occurring during the same time-frame in non-English-reading countries.
Aym is a blatant and intentional distorter of facts. Couched comfortably in the solid science of others, Aym decries the unavoidable and ever-worsening future superstorms which he claims are, and will be, caused by the measurable shift in the magnetic north pole combined with the complete cessation of the earth's wobble. Written by a crowded-theater-fire!-shouter, Terrance Aym's article is nothing more than the fabricated blathering of a smooth-talker with a penchant for driving custom-made bandwagons that he cobbles together (from raw materials provided by others) and then gets others to jump on. What a giggle the fictionalizers-of-non-fiction—like Terrance Aym—must get when someone foolishly references them as an authority.
The truth is broken and twisted in all of Aym's "articles". In this one (which he hot-linked to dead-ends and pay-sites in order to dissuade fact-checkers) the truth is simple: The earth's magnetic pole is shifting as it has for billions of years, and its slight wobble—only measured for a century—paused for a brief period in the middle of the last decade. Neither of these geologic occurrences are anomalies. And, neither have any effect on the earth's climate or weather.
However...pumping carbon into the air (as we've done, are doing, and will continue to do) is definitely changing the weather. A fact Terrance Aym doesn't write about. It's not imminent enough. Not cataclysmic. And not the fauxpocalypse he loves to predict.
Read any of Terrance Aym's short stories posing as non-fiction articles, and you'll quickly know who he is. He's the greasy bottle-dude on the corner with the cardboard sign, ripped vocal chords, and brain stuck on its rambling-confusion channel. He's a hack-writer mixing the paranoia of others with his own brand of deceit and conspiracy. No different than a fabricator of computer viruses, Aym uses legitimate information to plant his insidious data onto Squire, which he hopes will worm into your brain, your conversations, and your beliefs. When Glen Beck looks up 'whackjob' in the dictionary—he reads about Terrance Aym.
Not Many Best Films - 2010
On Groundhog Day I received this comment-question in a film-related article I posted near the end of 2009:Hey there :)Well...hey back in your brain-addled and anonymous direction.
What was the best and worst film of last year in your oppinion?
For me it might have to be:
Very best: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Worst: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Thanks a lot :) <3
Your unfamiliarity with spealcheque, date/time stamps, and your emoticon abuse/misuse (colon end-paren less than three is...happy dick-n-balls) causes me to assume you're a 4th grader playing on mummy's computer and bored with Myspace? But, here's the thing, (I thought for a long three seconds to come up with an analogy you could relate to) when it comes to film opponion I'm like Eric Cartman when someone starts Come Sail Away.
Consequently...even though last year was a dreadful year in American film...I will finish what you've begun: 2010 started with me keeping track of every film I watched, but I quit that foolishness in April because I'd yet to see one newly-released American-film worth recommending.
The vast majority of 2010 films were average-to-unmemorable dreck. I didn't see either of the movies you mentioned, anonymous-commenter, so I can't provide you with my oppioidin on them. I can, however, explain why I chose not to see them.
I'll probably watch the first-half of the last Potter film, just before I watch the second-half...maybe sometime this year. Stephen King fleeced his avid-reader's with six mini-books released monthly in the mid 90's, which I realize was before you were born, Anon-commenter, but—nonetheless—they (The Green Mile series) were an early example of a financially-successful-yet-scummy way to make more money than would otherwise be possible. I felt almost the same way when Quentin Tarantino released Kill Bill in two parts (wouldn't a four-hour film with an intermission have been fantastic?)
There were so many worst films of 2010. So very many. I successfully avoided watching most of them by paying attention to their metric and choosing to only see those films with a score higher than 60. This is not a very good way of deciding, because...
Individual vs Society (HR 3962)
Acceptance of this adage is due to combining desired improvement with words (society, individual) which present differing meanings to different people.
Republicans think positively about individual; to them, an individual is: a leader, a stalwart, a trail-blazer or a commander. In the mind’s-eye of a Republican, an individual is always self-sufficient. On the other hand, Democrats have difficulty detaching the silent and invisible adjective selfish which always seems to precede individual in their mind's-eye.
Not so with society. Democrats hear society and think about the large group they’re part of, which includes many who are less fortunate than they are. Republicans hear society and see the slothful looking for hand-outs, welfare abusers, and human parasites.
During a recent lengthy discussion with my sister (economic-free market-pessimist / social-conservative / professional-successful businesswoman) she used the term Obama care. So, I asked her why she was against 2009's health care bill. She mistook my question as a statement of protest, and I needed to repeat myself a few times before my clarification “just because I voted for him doesn’t mean I support everything he does,” got heard.
I didn’t know much about the health care bill before today (and still don't know much). I knew it was almost 2,000 pages big and was supposed to improve health care in the US (there's that word again improve, now it’s appended to health care...which hits the mind’s-eye just like society, and not like individual.)
Since my sister is an adjunct to the medical, legal, and insurance professions I thought she'd have a rational, fact-based, explanation for dismissing it. She does not. Instead, she fell into an all too familiar rant-rut: government...bad...social security...fail... Medicaid...broken...goes without saying...blah...new health care...ditto.
I assumed she’s too close to the issue (the forest-from-the-trees analogy) but she says she sees the issue better than most because of her perspective, which is why she is amazingly confident in her ability to forecast the future failure of the 2009 heath care bill, which gradually becomes law over the next four years.
So I found it and skimmed it. Bill HR 3962. It delineates (repetitively and in legal jargon) the new law, while it also updates previous laws, describes new responsibilities, outlines oversight, enrollment, and fines, as well as updates the Native American health care laws, and revises some Medicaid laws.
In a nutshell, all US taxpayers (with exceptions) will be required, by 2014, to purchase health insurance or pay healthcare bills with cash. No more county clinic walk-ins claiming 'too poor to pay'; failure to do so will mean facing an annual fine (like a tax) which will be assessed by the IRS.
I have not paid much attention to this bill because I (retired military) and my fiancée (Native American) are two exceptions. Reading portions of the bill did not clarify, for me, why it's expected to reduce health care costs, although I do see how it'll improve coverages and close loop holes. I don’t know why my sister says it's all total bullshit. I suspect, though, that in the next few years there will be a dramatic increase in US taxpayers joining the Christian Science Church because, after 2014, the IRS can't fine you for refusing to own health insurance if you are a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist. Which begs the question: Are we sure we want the separation of church and state to be negated by an organization that advocates the creation of zombies on their registered logo?
Quadrantid Meteor Shower Tonight
I read in 2010:
2010 Charted
Compared to last year - golfing supplanted hiking, vacations (including scuba) and camping trips resumed this year, creativity suffered, and house-stuff (cleaning, driving, food prep, etc) was done more by my wonderful fiancée and, therefore, less by me.
The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portland
Oh yes it is so alive. Here. That's where. (sleep 'til eleven.) New IFC series airs in a month. I intend to giggle at people like myself (and my homeboyzngirlz).
and really you know like
An I’d hoped to come visiting again sooner. And you—of all people—know how they get. And, well, I just can’t borrow a horse to go gallivanting whenever I desire. I intended to write you, really. But my folks really keep tabs on their stamps and I really hardly ever get any privacy. Really.
I’z gonna, you know, call. But my parents were—yaknow—home an-all, you know. An I still ain’t got a phone in my room yet ya know.
I was like gonna text, but, like my parents were all—like—‘too many minutes’ and like took away my cell. So, I was like, whatever.
armistice day
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month we remember the end of a war, veterans who served, soldiers who still serve and, essomenically, the little children yet-to-be who'll serve and die (or live to remember) their defense of our country or their acts of aggression against citizens of other countries, in all-the-many future American wars, insurrections, police actions, peace-keeping missions, and acts of imperialism—legitimate and illegitimate (the wars that-is, not the children; nobody calls children illegitimate anymore...we're all bastards, we Americans who begin a new conflict, on average, every five years).
anger avalanche
In 1983, I received orders. I was to be stationed the entire next year in Korea, separated from my wife and infant son. We decided to find an apartment for the two of them, where she could work during my year overseas. Fortuitously (I thought when I learned of it) my step-father and mother were planning a two-week vacation without my 15 year-old half-sister (because she'd be in school). I asked my mother if my immediate family could stay in the guest room during their vacation, in order to apartment hunt (I assumed my parents would welcome an adult and car for errands and emergencies). "No," I was told. "Your sister has been promised unsupervised-use of the house. Her boyfriend has a car."
Wow. Unexpected financial stress (paying for a motel in my hometown while four bedrooms sit empty in my family's house) combined with parental favoritism (always visible, rarely this overt) and jealousy (rarely an unsupervised hour when I was in high school...but she's permitted a fortnight) became anger. Sticky anger.
Over the next several years I didn't reply to the handful of letters sent by my mother or step-father—all I recall of them were that they ruminated on my lack of religion and never contained an apology. During those years I divorced my first wife, my sons were adopted by her second husband, I married a Korean woman, and completed a few more overseas and stateside tours. Eventually, I wrote my mother and step-father and asked to visit and introduce my wife.
Using racist verbiage, the gist of my mother's answer: 'You are welcome. She is not'.
Which cased my anger to avalanche.
Many years later, after realizing my mother's bigotry only explained the last few years of our estrangement, I chuckled over the memory of that long-forgotten sticky anger and pondered how those years may have been different if I hadn't stopped communicating with them.
Had I only been angry because my immediate family members were never welcome in my parents home, or did I hold my anger because my mother and step-father never apologized...would one have occurred without the other? If I'd never expressed anger and, therefore, never expected apologies, would those decades have been estrangement-less?
Is the party who causes someone else to be angry always responsible for an apology? Is someone else getting angry at you sufficient reason to be angry back? If so, who should apologize first? How do insincere apologies fit-in here? Does just blurting the word 'sorry' (like a bed-wetting preschooler) ever suffice for anything more serious than accidentally stepping on someone's toes? If not (most have a keen eye for hollow apologies) how does one clearly and concisely communicate one's contrition?
Over the decades I've come to realize that, for my mother, it's always others who are unreasonable and always those same others who express unwarranted anger—while she never has reason for apologies.
Which has taught me I'm not so much my mother's son—I can, and do, say I'm sorry.
*Updated/re-posted Feb 2020
To sorrow I bade good-morrow, and thought to leave her far away behind; but cheerily, cheerily, she loves me dearly...she is so constant to me, and so kind. — John Keats
cept x cit
The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate. — John Keats
Must a bellydancer driving a pink truck be female?
Julie from Scientific Chick wrote an essay (A Pink Truck is Still a Truck) attempting to explain (to non-science people, like me) some recently published research which, as she put it, 'left her with more questions than she started with.' She cites a study by a couple of University of Cambridge researcher's, which attempts to explain that, while very young children have no gender-based color preferences, little boys prefer to look at images of trucks cars and little girls prefer to look at images of dolls.
Although the researcher's published abstract initially states: "...Girls looked at dolls significantly more than boys did and boys looked at cars significantly more than girls did, irrespective of color ... These outcomes did not vary with age..." they later contradict themselves by saying, "...both boys and girls preferred dolls to cars at age 12-months...".
Which is probably why Scientific Chick decided to simplify things when she wrote, "...The researchers found that boys preferred cars and girls preferred dolls. No big surprise there ... " I thank Julie for eliminating the confusion, and although facts were left on the cutting room floor, it seems the researchers themselves drew first blood on those facts.
But—more important—Julie's larger unanswered question: Why do we buy pink for girls and blue for boys?
A few years ago, Cecil Adam's The Straight Dope answered the question: Was Pink Originally the Color for Boys and Blue for Girls? Cecil answered in the affirmative, with "some thought so" and a "century ago some old magazine printed it," but his lengthy explanation still splashed solidly into the vague non-answer range of: "Nobody really knows (where blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls comes from)".
I propose the reason was—and still is—homophobia. The pink-blue "switch" occurred following WWII when the Nazi's required homosexuals to wear a pink triangle sewn or pinned to their clothing.
I recall old pictures and paintings of children who (as detailed by the above Straight Dope answer) all wore white dresses. Rare for The Straight Dope, they included a rhetorical question in the middle of their pink-or-blue article:
Since I'm pointing out the prejudice and factlessness of others, I'll give-a-go at including some truthiness: With zippers (1930), snaps (1885), and velcro (1955) decades or centuries away, can anyone use deductive reasoning to explain why mothers of yesteryear clothed their infants and toddlers in dresses and skirts regardless of gender? If you are stumped because deductive reasoning is predominantly outsourced to some form of Wiki, consider the diaper and toilet-training in the button-n-pin era...without stretchy cloth or rubber pants or indoor plumbing. If it was me, my entire brood of little shatters would have been restricted to the lawn from dawn to dusk; bare bottomed year-round, barefoot with skirts in the summer, leather footwear under long dresses in the snow.
The researcher's concluded (and Julie summarized that conclusion in layman's terms) that they, "could not draw any conclusions on whether this behavior was learned or innate".
This discourages me in an abject, why-am-I-not-surprised, kinda way. And not just because their published results clearly suggests—at least to this layman—that the behavior of looking longer at cars (boys over 12 months) and at dolls (all girls) is learned. Because when every year old infant prefers to look at dolls and then most of the boys between 18 to 24-months old changed their preference and looked longer at cars...that quacks and walks like a learned behavior duck.
But the biggest reason I'm discouraged by all this, is because real doing-science researchers couldn't find a group of children, in the entire world, who hadn't already been gender-role tainted. Because...there are no 12-24 month old children who've not already watched television or played with plastic never-important-toys? No Nigerian or Brazilian or Alaskan or Native American or Aboriginal group—anywhere—which hadn't already tainted every one of their toddlers with Tonka-Barbie (I originally included "Amish", in this off-the-cuff list but deleted it during proofreading because 'homophobic Amish' is redundantly redundant. Amish fathers probably spank their six-month old sons when they look at a broom). Nor, most surprisingly, could these researchers locate any alt-lifestyle-neohippy-Americans who've intentionally raised their young progeny without exposure to TV, gender specific toys, or commercialized society.
Oh and the A to my titular Q: No, he could have once been a toddler who's preference for images of dolls, over cars, never flagged. (I include this because, even I have gender role prejudices.)
Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid. — John Keats
Although the researcher's published abstract initially states: "...Girls looked at dolls significantly more than boys did and boys looked at cars significantly more than girls did, irrespective of color ... These outcomes did not vary with age..." they later contradict themselves by saying, "...both boys and girls preferred dolls to cars at age 12-months...".
Which is probably why Scientific Chick decided to simplify things when she wrote, "...The researchers found that boys preferred cars and girls preferred dolls. No big surprise there ... " I thank Julie for eliminating the confusion, and although facts were left on the cutting room floor, it seems the researchers themselves drew first blood on those facts.
But—more important—Julie's larger unanswered question: Why do we buy pink for girls and blue for boys?
A few years ago, Cecil Adam's The Straight Dope answered the question: Was Pink Originally the Color for Boys and Blue for Girls? Cecil answered in the affirmative, with "some thought so" and a "century ago some old magazine printed it," but his lengthy explanation still splashed solidly into the vague non-answer range of: "Nobody really knows (where blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls comes from)".
I propose the reason was—and still is—homophobia. The pink-blue "switch" occurred following WWII when the Nazi's required homosexuals to wear a pink triangle sewn or pinned to their clothing.
I recall old pictures and paintings of children who (as detailed by the above Straight Dope answer) all wore white dresses. Rare for The Straight Dope, they included a rhetorical question in the middle of their pink-or-blue article:
Why no attempt to discriminate further? ... Perhaps mothers decking out their little boys in dresses thought: They’ll get to be manly soon enough.There. Right there. Passive aggressive homophobia, written large in 2008, by Cecil Adams. Unusual for The Straight Dope (unless...it's both a font of arcane trivia and, literally, staffed by straight dopes).
Since I'm pointing out the prejudice and factlessness of others, I'll give-a-go at including some truthiness: With zippers (1930), snaps (1885), and velcro (1955) decades or centuries away, can anyone use deductive reasoning to explain why mothers of yesteryear clothed their infants and toddlers in dresses and skirts regardless of gender? If you are stumped because deductive reasoning is predominantly outsourced to some form of Wiki, consider the diaper and toilet-training in the button-n-pin era...without stretchy cloth or rubber pants or indoor plumbing. If it was me, my entire brood of little shatters would have been restricted to the lawn from dawn to dusk; bare bottomed year-round, barefoot with skirts in the summer, leather footwear under long dresses in the snow.The researcher's concluded (and Julie summarized that conclusion in layman's terms) that they, "could not draw any conclusions on whether this behavior was learned or innate".
This discourages me in an abject, why-am-I-not-surprised, kinda way. And not just because their published results clearly suggests—at least to this layman—that the behavior of looking longer at cars (boys over 12 months) and at dolls (all girls) is learned. Because when every year old infant prefers to look at dolls and then most of the boys between 18 to 24-months old changed their preference and looked longer at cars...that quacks and walks like a learned behavior duck.
But the biggest reason I'm discouraged by all this, is because real doing-science researchers couldn't find a group of children, in the entire world, who hadn't already been gender-role tainted. Because...there are no 12-24 month old children who've not already watched television or played with plastic never-important-toys? No Nigerian or Brazilian or Alaskan or Native American or Aboriginal group—anywhere—which hadn't already tainted every one of their toddlers with Tonka-Barbie (I originally included "Amish", in this off-the-cuff list but deleted it during proofreading because 'homophobic Amish' is redundantly redundant. Amish fathers probably spank their six-month old sons when they look at a broom). Nor, most surprisingly, could these researchers locate any alt-lifestyle-neohippy-Americans who've intentionally raised their young progeny without exposure to TV, gender specific toys, or commercialized society.
Oh and the A to my titular Q: No, he could have once been a toddler who's preference for images of dolls, over cars, never flagged. (I include this because, even I have gender role prejudices.)
Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid. — John Keats
if ya can't get a kylie minogue outta yer head
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; not to the sensual ear, but—more endeared—pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone. — John Keats
DIVE · TASK · STICK
This waterproof tool enables scuba divers to communicate with—and point out items of interest to—dive partners.
The middle portion contains pellets which (when shaken) act as a signaling device. One end has a waterproof laser pointer, operated by spring-button, and powerful enough to see in clear, shallow, bright-daylight dives or even snorkeling. The other end has a wide angle (43 degree) waterproof flashlight (torch) to improve visibility during daytime dives, (looking under ledges, diving on cloudy days, seeing the "true color" of deep marine life, etc.)—and powerful enough to be used as your primary light source on night dives. The dive·task·stick has a no-slip rubber cover in the middle with a sliding wrist lanyard.
Obviously, these items could be purchased separately and kept in a pocket of your BCD. In my diving experience, however, items in your pocket are rarely used.
The dive·task·stick is constructed from:· Wide-beam LED flashlight by Intova (10 hr burn time)
· Green laser pointer by Beam of Light Technologies
· Custom made aluminum tube “Shaker style” signaling device
· Wrist lanyard and rubber cover
· Three CR123 lithium batteries
· 57.2 cm × 2.5 to 3.6 cm × .90 kg (22.5 in × 1 to 1.4 in × 2.0 lbs)
· Safe to a depth of 40 meters (130 feet)*
NOTE: This dive·task·stick is not a "touch-tool;" the glass end-lenses would be scratched and damaged if this pointer were misused to brace against underwater objects or touch marine life.
* Although the laser company attests it will survive above depths of 200 feet (61 meters) and the flashlight company attests it will survive above depths of 400 feet (122 meters), I can not attest to the dive task stick surviving below the recreational diving maximum depth.
** This price depends on retail purchase prices (with shipping) of three items as well as the cost of shipping the insured tool to you. As of August 2010—the laser was $88; the flashlight was $47; the center pipe, pellets, rubber cover, epoxy, and labor were $45; I profit $20; and shipping varies.
Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom. — Benjamin Franklin
Wondering what to do with ten dollars?
If you enjoyed last year's comedy Zombieland, you will be more entertained by this film. You don't have to like Michael Cera (I never need to act because I play my expressionless self just fine.)—he holds the center of a typhoon of actors who keep all the hilarity swirling around him.
You also don't have to prefer Edgar Wright. This is funnier, tighter, and more over-the-top than all the movies he has previously directed, combined.
Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. — Benjamin Franklin
Progress, as predicted
I believe that as California goes, so—eventually—will the country. Twenty-one months ago, I wrote an essay decrying the bigotry of our age and pointing out the need for:
But think how great a proportion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women...who have need of the motives of religion. ... If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be if without it? — Benjamin Franklin
...California...Judges...to do, after the fact, what the mentally infirm majority of Californian voters were incapable of doing: enforce equality under the law...California's Proposition 8 law banning same-sex marriage has been repealed. Continued appeals by both religious bigots as well as generic non-religious haters will be made to higher courts, and in a year or two the US Supreme Court will (hopefully) enforce equality under the law for the entire United States.
But think how great a proportion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women...who have need of the motives of religion. ... If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be if without it? — Benjamin Franklin
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