Meat Love: Too Much?
June 29, 2008
Janus Is In China, But We Are Not
June 17, 2008
Well, the end of the school year sapped all of my time, but I’ll be back in full after this vacation. In the meantime, Janus travels (apparently) to India. I don’t believe a word of it, but he offers this wonderful note…
Congratulations to us. The Chinese government has deemed us to be subversive, splittist, and/or pornographic.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/17/asia/17softpower.php Take that, China commies.
Savages and Troglodytes, Part Deux
June 6, 2008
And now, continuing our production of Thomas Friedman at Brown University…
Part the Second, in Which Mr. Friedman receives one Poorly Written Apology to his Presumed Annoyance.
One day later, Gawker.com received this letter from one Rickie Kostiner, who identifies herself as a Brown sophomore and is apparently an ice hockey player.
Dear Mr. Gawker,
My name is Rickie Kostiner and I am a sophomore at Brown University. I am writing to apologize for the deliquiencies of my classmates this past Tuesday evening, when two students decided it was a good idea to throw pies at Thomas Friedman. Not only a respected journalist for your New York Times, Friedman is one of the most respected and famous authors to date, and I want to personally apologize for these students actions. I am embarrassed to even say that I am a student of Brown because of incidents like this. Brown has the reputation of being an overly liberal school, but actions like these make us seem just plain stupid. Obviously only thinking of themselves, these two students made a complete moquary of the entire student body, and really showed how selfish some people can be. I want to stress again how terribly sorry I am for my institution to carry this under their name. I have attempted to find other ways to reach Thomas Friedman directly, but I could not find a more direct way then writing to the newspaper in which he has been affiliated with. I saw your blog online and I just wanted to send my comments. Thank you and again I am so very sorry.
-Rickie Kostiner
In an excellent, if subtle, demonstration of Ringkomposition, Ms. Kostiner’s apology comes as obliquely as the pies that struck Mr. Friedman just one day prior. Little Rickie had “attempted to find other ways to contact Thomas Friedman directly,” but her Brown education prevented her from discovering that Mr. Friedman’s email address is actually published on, of all obscure places, the New York Times website. Following her instincts, which undoubtedly contributed to her admission to an Ivy League school and will help her as a future executive/public servant/fast food restaurateur, she sent an email to Gawker.com to apologize to Mr. Friedman.
But doesn’t she have a point? Using poignant French terms, Ms. Kostiner deftly writes that the deliquiencies of her classmates did show them to be “just plain stupid.” Oh, and the moquary? Yes, you’ve never heard of that because it’s actually an expensive cognac that goes especially well with a Dominican Cohiba, which Ivy League elitists swill by the hearths of their social clubs as they enumerate their superior spelling skills.
Now we take leave of the stage, with Mr. Friedman’s green-pied countenance, the mysterious reasoning of the Greenwacs Guerillas, and a bewildering apology from an unassociated Brown undergraduate. Through the twists of fate and their own hubris, none have retained dignity.
FIN.
Pursuant to Mr. Janus’ comment about Thomas Friedman’s recent run-in with Brown University students, it is now my pleasure to present the following two-act news piece.
Part the First, in Which Mr. Friedman receives two Poorly Thrown Pies to his Left Arm.
Here we observe the would-be baked-goods terrorists, nervously sitting in the first row of the audience, only to abruptly launch themselves onto the stage at Mr. Friedman’s person, un-athletically lunging two classically comic custard pies. The missiles’ swerving trajectories land obliquely upon Mr. Friedman’s outstretched left arm and spray the floor with what appears to be a sickly green whipped cream substance. His body wobbles in a flailing, awkward, ultimately successful attempt to regain balance as he wipes the gooey foodstuff from his body. The seal of Brown University silently witnesses her sons humiliate her; I, for one, am surprised that it did not burst into tears of blood out of shame.
The New York Times columnist’s signature mustache was caught in the crossfire of stray custard shrapnel, but neither he nor his facial hair needed medical attention.
Despite having employed two extremely uncoordinated persons to pie a noted journalist, the whole incident seems to have been planned. By an organization of no less stature than the Greenwash Guerillas, an environmentalist group that has pulled off such infamous, hard-hitting, and intelligent protests as … well, the 2008 pie-ing of Mr. Thomas Friedman. I guess the varsity baseball team never did see an environmentalist on the mound. The Guerillas left this note:
Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face…
- Because of his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet.
- For telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand.
- For helping turn environmentalism into a fake plastic consumer product for the privileged.
- For his pure arrogance.
- As the only way to compensate for the ridiculousness of having this fool speak on Earth Day.
On behalf of the earth and all true environmentalists – we, the Green wash Guerillas, declare Thomas Friedman’s “Green” as fake and toxic to human and planetary health as the cool-whip covering his face.
Great googley moogley! I never knew that cool-whip is fake and toxic: have I been severely misinformed about my favorite whipped imitation dairy product? Once again, the shining light of rational thought and action has illuminated the darkest corners of humanity, swirling into physical manifestation as what will surely go down as the worst pie-ing ever. Where did the Guerillas learn to throw anyway, Donovan McNabb?
On the other hand, considering how much marijuana Brown students consume, I should probably just be thankful that they didn’t eat the pies before trying to throw them.
Toys!
April 30, 2008
Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?
April 28, 2008
Hot on the heels of our 36-hit shooting spree a few weekends ago, the Tribune has decided now would be a good time to resume its occasional features on “chronic diseases and their impact on urban communities.” Interesting choice for a chronic disease this time around… Endemic violence.
That’s an interesting label for it, but the article makes a very convincing case for taking it more seriously as a medical concern. The sociological, economic, and political ramification of violence are such obvious categories that, if nothing else, this can help us look at the effect of violence on communities as every bit as dangerous as any kind of bacterial or viral disease–and in some ways, a cause for much more concern.
[Research shows] exposure to violence is linked to childhood depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, learning problems, sleep difficulties, poor academic performance and a host of other problems. Persistent fear, scientists say, can cause neurophysiological changes in a child’s brain that can impair physiological, behavioral, cognitive and social functioning.
This may seem self-evident from the comfort of a cushy chair behind a computer, but this is something that goes far deeper than just violence begetting violence and the usual trauma. Neuroscience has made incredible strides in the past decade and those brain changes are real, they can be followed and charted and are very hard to correct. Our habits will form us, and our environments will inform our habits.
Researchers are also finding that parental perception of danger is sometimes greater than the actual danger in an area and they could be overcompensating to keep their children inside. There are serious ripples that could become destructive tidal waves later on if kids are forced into anti-social positions because of unsafe neighborhoods. It is important to recognize that:
“Social learning is fostered by play and exploration,” he said. “When those types of activities are constricted, a child’s future is also constricted.”
I liveplay is the primary means by which children learn to regulate their emotions and behavior, said Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist and president of the National Institute for Play.
It’s very difficult to read things like this and keep in mind my own students and the gang territories they cross on their odyssey to school. It’s no wonder that so many of them stay around the small outside plaza after school when most students are bolting to get home as soon as possible. Where else can they hang out, where else could they play?
The facts, the figures, the statistics, the quotes, the experts, it’s all abstract, no matter how we look at it, and we can always pity it without worrying about changing it. Please, volunteer your year or two in college, enjoy your spring break building houses. Every hand is needed, even if a minute is all you have to give, but we can’t rest on idealism, a variable number that one can change on a whim with minimal value.
The words of reality will always be the common denominator:
De’Jour said he tries to cope with his fears by avoiding crowds and staying close to home. He fondly recalls his more carefree life.
“I was happy,” he said.
Guess What Else Is Made In China?
April 28, 2008
The Joys of Parenting
April 27, 2008
Or not. After a day of coping with grown men unable and unstable trucks, it’s a little disturbing to find little kids driving their grandmother’s cars.
I would be lying if it didn’t generate laughter. Still, how does one handle this? I would not even have a clue where to begin and, actually, it made me wonder what keeps more kids from just stealing keys and driving, cause he’s got a point… it’s fun.
No Country for Anyone
April 14, 2008
I had been expecting Rififi, but apparently with Dassin recently passing away, everyone with a netflix account has decided now is the time to become admirers of French noir. I shouldn’t have let it bump down my queue so easily… who knows what a ‘long wait’ really means.
Instead, I sat down last night to watch No Country for Old Men, and I’m still watching it because there are glares from that movie that have not left me yet. I haven’t read this McCarthy novel yet, which will only allow me an indirect glance at his vision, but the Coen brothers really have to be commended for taking McCarthy’s prose, known to be cinematic but unfilmable, and giving it a just treatment on screen.
But it just adds more fuel to the fire for the question that me and my fellow McCarthyite coworker have spent odd lunches debating: Is McCarthy a nihilist?
In some ways, No Country for Old Men recreates the classic Leone trio of the good, the bad, and the ugly–that is to say, we have a good guy, a bad guy, and, yes, people in the middle. What makes these characters who they are? What are their motivations? It’s quite unclear for the good and the bad, while the motivation of the middle ground pushes the plot forward.
The unstoppable menace of Chigurh suggests an unimpeded march of evil, in line with other McCarthy monsters like The Judge from Blood Meridian. Their allegiance to nothing, lives ultimately surrendered entirely to a fate they are certain is beyond them, is the most chilling aspect of their characters. It recalls Iago at the end of Othello, demanding that nothing be demanded of him, for he has nothing to say. There is cruel calculation behind all of them and, it might be noted, in both of McCarthy’s books and in Shakespeare’s play, these characters are among the only characters still alive.
Bell, on the other hand, is an intelligent man who works for a good cause, but what do either of them really want in the end? I don’t want to give away any plot, but in some senses, the meaning seems to be, “Good and evil exist, but good is tired.” But, at what point might we say that survival itself is the highest good can attain to? And, if that’s the case, what should anyone bother to believe in?
The characters who suffer the most are in the gray. Leone, probably with tongue firmly wedged in cheek, calls them the ugly. They undoubtedly have their own codes, their own rationales, and they obviously have motivation, and they borrow from this pure evil and pure good freely where and when convenient to those aforementioned belief systems. Whether this weaved fabric is weaker than an iron mold is a theme tested in all great art and literature. Often, the good seem to suffer with the ugly, for no other reason than their association with them.
McCarthy’s characters are all challenges to any rigid belief system at all, yet anyone who has read his words, especially his paintbrush precision description of landscapes and the small phenomenons of nature, would find it difficult, I think, to label his theme outright nihilism. It’s more likely summed up in a short blurt that would engender McCarthy to minds like Jonathan Swift, skeptical of our reasoning. Belief in anything, much like meaning, is a magic trick of words and circumstance:
Creation is good. Humanity makes evil.
School Daze
April 9, 2008
Let’s be honest, education in America is in peril. I’m volunteering in Chicago, and statistics tell me that more and more recent grads are doing the same… but this is a stopgap, not a permanent fix. Help is needed across the board and creative solutions are called for.
