I recently attended a class at the University of Colorado. I know what you may be thinking why go back so soon, but believe me my friends, when you take a little time off and don't have to do the homework associated, college is quite worthwhile. What got me going was the subject of an English class on folklore, specifically the day's topic on the power of the story.
Prior to the first Gulf intrusion (1991), it seemed that politicians were having a hard time selling an international invasion of Iraq. It seemed that the public cared that Kuwait was being raped economically and politically, but was not important enough to use American and other Western force in order to intervene. The first Bush administration continued to push the issue however, and when it came to the final attempt to coax the Senate into approving the use of force in Iraq a certain story surfaced.
According to a young woman who had been visiting a hospital in Kuwait City, Iraqi soldiers had been removing pre-mature babies from their incubators and allowing them to die on the cold ground. This young woman just happened to be the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States and Canada. This single narrative became the leading reason that justified the US-led military campaign into Baghdad, an action that troops had been preparing for in Saudi Arabia for months. It is quite clear that the American President fully intended to invade the country, he simply needed a piece of "information" that would allow the bureaucratic process of war to continue.
This got me thinking about the power of story in the realm of international politics. This has been a tool of propagandists for centuries. Just look at the history. Consider the story of Filipinos who were complete savages and obviously couldn't govern themselves. The story of the international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world if the true Aryan race didn't do something about it. The story of Communist Gooks bayoneting pregnant women in Southern Vietnam. The story of the subversive West deserving attacks on civilian populations because of their immoral behaviour worldwide. Or the story of WMD's falling into the hands of an evil dictator or three.
I find it appalling that an the oral tradition, now a written tradition of storytelling has become a political tool to influence the demos. Stories were the transmitters of culture. They became ways to escape the external shit that life brings along with it. And now stories make sure that you vote the way that someone else sees as moral. This is wrong. I think political decisions are supposed to be made along calculated empirical evidence, not the heartfelt testimony of some crying girl or the hunch of a high-up security official. Apparently this is what the political process has come to.
In order to sell the Desert Storm operation to the Senate and the UN Security Council, the incubator story killed up to 312 babies. The heartfelt testimony of that 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl attributed 14 of these deaths. After further investigation, somewhere between 4 and 17 babies that were in incubators died, and not necessarily at the hands of Iraqi soldiers. Two incubators were missing. After a second interview, the Kuwaiti girl admitted that she only witnessed one child killed, and was only at the hospital for a matter of moments.
Today we continue to see these stories fall apart. After six years in Afghanistan, we still don't have the head of 'Mr. Terrorism,' Osama bin Laden. After five years in Iraq, we still don't have the WMD's we were promised existed. Now we are made to believe that Iran is developing weapons grade plutonium despite an utter lack of actual intelligence evidence.
I have had several professors make sure that their students refrain from using personal anecdotes as empirical evidence, in both class discussions and papers. Just because something happened to one person, one time, it is not automatically a social trend. It is quite easy for personal experiences to become fact to a person, but these experiences may contradict what is actually going on. One person seeing one child killed is sad, but it certainly does not add up to become a wartime atrocity. The fact is, several of these 4 to 14 premature babies that died may have died as a result of a weak heart, or lungs, or doctor's error. And yet these deaths became the leading evidence for military action within a sovereign nation. Shouldn't we hold the political elite to at least the same standards that we hold undergraduate students to?
11 November 2007
23 October 2007
What's Up, Hoh?
I have just returned from the forest moon of Endor my friends. Not the friendly home of the Ewoks, but the Endor that might have been if the Empire had been successful in it’s mission to colonize the entire Universe. (I have to pause to catch my breath as our shuttle nearly hit a black beast. The beast turned out to be a big black cow, so lets get out of here.)
As we drove into Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park, Highway 101 was lined with re-growth forests. These are feeble attempts that the logging industry makes to justify its clear-cutting deforestation methods. An overly proud sign along the road told us that the last harvest had been in 1984 and replaced with seedlings. Today, these trees stand not too much taller than I do, shadows of the giants they “replace.” They won’t be able to grow to their full potential until well after I am gone, but when is the next harvest planned for? 2036. Oh, how noble of you Pacific Coast Lumber, letting these majestic plants grow to adolescence only to cut them down for your own profit. And what do they do with the slash that is left behind? Burn it, releasing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Ironically, this is happening directly across the highway from a massive National Park. I applaud Teddy Roosevelt for establishing the Department of the Interior and the National Park system, but perhaps he didn’t go far enough. Sure, the Parks preserve some of the most beautiful natural parts of our country, but it also introduces humans into these delicate ecosystems. Furthermore, why do humans have the right to set aside this grove for preservation, while the adjacent forest can be abused? What about the millions of organisms that are snuffed out in the process? I’ve seen the other end of the logging industry and it sickens me to think that these plants are going to be mulched and then glued back together and coated with plastic. I would rather have all stainless steel cabinets in my house and brick siding and breathe a little easier.
So, I remind you to keep vigilant Rebels. We may have blown up the Death Star, but we can’t let the Empire win. The fires are still burning and the saws are still running.
21 October 2007
The Weather Report
Here I am sitting in a coffee shop (I don't drink coffee) in Seattle (and no it is not Starbucks or Seattle's Best, it's Kaladi Brothers, thanks for asking) to use the internet (a weeks worth of business in a few hours). Dreary. The weather that is. My spirits are high as they can be when I haven't seen the sun in days. I miss you all, especially my sweet Mollypop (guys, snicker if you want to, I don't care). I'm ready to come back. I want to see some snow, it's well past my birthday and I have yet to see those tranquil flakes drop from the clouds. That's all that really makes a good excuse for overcast heavens for days on end for me (of course as far as flakes, California definately has the most of them).
Strangely enough, even though the weather sucks here, the people are really nice. In this case I think Ssack is in good hands. I swear I get more smiles from people walking down the street than I do in Boulder. Perhaps it is because there are a lot of rich, pretentious assholes in Boulder, I don't know (but there are of course plenty of warm, wonderful people too). I guess maybe people in Colorado become spoiled by the sunshine (myself included) and don't feel like they need to brighten anyone's day because our closest star is already doing the job. Either way, many of the people here carry the sun within themselves.
This carries on from a conversation between Ssack, my dad, and I. Ssack had read that Vancouver had the third highest quality of life in the world. We decided that this was true if; you were a multi-millionaire and could afford to have a high quality of life in Vancouver, and weather didn't factor into the equation. It was about the same there as it is here, overcast with constant sprinkles (which are neither rainbow or chocolate as it turns out). I can't imagine what Vancouver has that Denver doesn't (I certainly didn't see it).
Well, whatever, don't let me bring you down, it's just the weather. I'll be back in the sunshine soon to get my color back. Love.
Strangely enough, even though the weather sucks here, the people are really nice. In this case I think Ssack is in good hands. I swear I get more smiles from people walking down the street than I do in Boulder. Perhaps it is because there are a lot of rich, pretentious assholes in Boulder, I don't know (but there are of course plenty of warm, wonderful people too). I guess maybe people in Colorado become spoiled by the sunshine (myself included) and don't feel like they need to brighten anyone's day because our closest star is already doing the job. Either way, many of the people here carry the sun within themselves.
This carries on from a conversation between Ssack, my dad, and I. Ssack had read that Vancouver had the third highest quality of life in the world. We decided that this was true if; you were a multi-millionaire and could afford to have a high quality of life in Vancouver, and weather didn't factor into the equation. It was about the same there as it is here, overcast with constant sprinkles (which are neither rainbow or chocolate as it turns out). I can't imagine what Vancouver has that Denver doesn't (I certainly didn't see it).
Well, whatever, don't let me bring you down, it's just the weather. I'll be back in the sunshine soon to get my color back. Love.
16 October 2007
End of the Continent
The Pacific Ocean certainly is humbling. After hacking my way through the Washington rainforest, I stood on the water's edge looking into an infinate stretch of water and fog. The tanker ships floated lost on a horizon of seemingly endless and empty field of tossing water. I stand here at the edge of land and think about how random that it is that I am here today.
Our planet, our "spaceship Earth," as Ssack would call it, is the one inhabitable chunk of iron in our Milky Way galaxy (at least to the extent of our collective human knowledge). The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across while the diameter of the Earth is a mere 12,740 kilometers. This planet accounts for far less than 1% of the "stuff" (gases, rocks, other planets) in our immediate galaxy, much less the entire universe.
Now bring it down it even closer to home. The surface area of Earth is about 510,065,600 kilometers squared, and 70% of that surface is covered by water. That leaves about 153,019,680 square kilometers for us humans and the land animals we share it with. Even still a huge amount of that land mass cannot be inhabited by our species effectively.
I turn around and look back at the continent that is nearly 10,000 kilometers across (keep in mind that I can really only see about 20 meters of thick underbrush)and think about how small I really am. I pull off a big impact in my everyday life, but that is really only in human terms. My walk through the forest floor will impact billions of organisms, perhaps even end the lives of millions of them, but won't have anything to do with the other 99.9999999% of this continent, even less of the Earth, and won't even touch the thousands of delicate ecosystems hidden beneath the surface of the ocean. If our planet went the way of Alderon, it would have even less of an impact on the universal level.
As we walked back to the road, Ssack mentioned that he felt that these forests were made for the dinosaurs. All the ferns and thick growth in a thick, humid, and rainy climate transported us back to the age of what are now but fossils. These massive creatures went extinct through no fault of their own, whether it was by way of a comet impact or a catclysmic climate change. Today we may be standing on the brink of yet another Earth shattering climate change, but this time it very well may be a climate change percipitated by the planet's dominate species. Six billion and counting. Perhaps it was time that we let those tiny organisms that think that we are massive re-inherit the Earth.
Our planet, our "spaceship Earth," as Ssack would call it, is the one inhabitable chunk of iron in our Milky Way galaxy (at least to the extent of our collective human knowledge). The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across while the diameter of the Earth is a mere 12,740 kilometers. This planet accounts for far less than 1% of the "stuff" (gases, rocks, other planets) in our immediate galaxy, much less the entire universe.
Now bring it down it even closer to home. The surface area of Earth is about 510,065,600 kilometers squared, and 70% of that surface is covered by water. That leaves about 153,019,680 square kilometers for us humans and the land animals we share it with. Even still a huge amount of that land mass cannot be inhabited by our species effectively.
I turn around and look back at the continent that is nearly 10,000 kilometers across (keep in mind that I can really only see about 20 meters of thick underbrush)and think about how small I really am. I pull off a big impact in my everyday life, but that is really only in human terms. My walk through the forest floor will impact billions of organisms, perhaps even end the lives of millions of them, but won't have anything to do with the other 99.9999999% of this continent, even less of the Earth, and won't even touch the thousands of delicate ecosystems hidden beneath the surface of the ocean. If our planet went the way of Alderon, it would have even less of an impact on the universal level.
As we walked back to the road, Ssack mentioned that he felt that these forests were made for the dinosaurs. All the ferns and thick growth in a thick, humid, and rainy climate transported us back to the age of what are now but fossils. These massive creatures went extinct through no fault of their own, whether it was by way of a comet impact or a catclysmic climate change. Today we may be standing on the brink of yet another Earth shattering climate change, but this time it very well may be a climate change percipitated by the planet's dominate species. Six billion and counting. Perhaps it was time that we let those tiny organisms that think that we are massive re-inherit the Earth.
14 October 2007
The Transitive Property of Drinking
Recent research on subjects who attend house parties and situations were alcohol is present has yielded an interesting theory. This theory states that when a subject comes into contact with peers who are significantly more intoxicated than themselves, they seem to absorb and internalize the behavior exhibited by these peers. Example, a female subject walks into a party. Her friends, who are on the dance floor' immediately begin screaming when the subject approaches them. The subject who has just arrived, immediately begins mimmicking this behavior, thus the Transitive Property. This theory is in no way gender restricted, but has been observed more commonly amongst females.
In order for the Transitive Property to occur, three criteria must be met:
1. The subject must have consumed at least one alcoholic beverage over the course of the night, but has not exceeded the threshold of intoxication (.08 BAC).
2. The subject's friends must have consumed significantly more alcohol than the subject and must exceed the threshold for intoxication.
3. The venue of observation must be deemed a "good time" or "happening place" by both the subject and the subject's friends.
The Transitive Property mainfests itself in many different ways, but the overall effect is a seeminly heightened state of inebriation on the subject. This may include loss of inhabitions such as: loss over volume control of the voice, excessive dancing, inablitity to control one's verbal and body language. Other side effects include those commonly associated with alcohol consumption: slurred speech, inability to control one's actions, inability to control one's body or to stand up, or blurring of one's vision.
All of these side effects are related to the subject's "feeling" more intoxicated, without actually "being" more intoxicated. It is very important not to confuse this theory with what is known as the "Placebo Effect." In the Placebo Effect, the subject consumes a drug and begins to exhibit the percived behaviors associated with that drug. For example, a party where non-alcoholic beer is served and the subjects all act drunk even though no one is actually impaired. The Transitive Property explicitly implies that no more of the drug is consumed, yet the subject begins to feel and act more effected by that drug, seemingly through osmosis.
From Alcohol Studies in the Modern World
by Dr. Suss Oren
In order for the Transitive Property to occur, three criteria must be met:
1. The subject must have consumed at least one alcoholic beverage over the course of the night, but has not exceeded the threshold of intoxication (.08 BAC).
2. The subject's friends must have consumed significantly more alcohol than the subject and must exceed the threshold for intoxication.
3. The venue of observation must be deemed a "good time" or "happening place" by both the subject and the subject's friends.
The Transitive Property mainfests itself in many different ways, but the overall effect is a seeminly heightened state of inebriation on the subject. This may include loss of inhabitions such as: loss over volume control of the voice, excessive dancing, inablitity to control one's verbal and body language. Other side effects include those commonly associated with alcohol consumption: slurred speech, inability to control one's actions, inability to control one's body or to stand up, or blurring of one's vision.
All of these side effects are related to the subject's "feeling" more intoxicated, without actually "being" more intoxicated. It is very important not to confuse this theory with what is known as the "Placebo Effect." In the Placebo Effect, the subject consumes a drug and begins to exhibit the percived behaviors associated with that drug. For example, a party where non-alcoholic beer is served and the subjects all act drunk even though no one is actually impaired. The Transitive Property explicitly implies that no more of the drug is consumed, yet the subject begins to feel and act more effected by that drug, seemingly through osmosis.
From Alcohol Studies in the Modern World
by Dr. Suss Oren
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