Thursday, February 28, 2013

Random Thinkings -OR- Gack!

On Wednesday morning (2/27) Joe & Mika kvetched through a segment with author Michael Moss about his book "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us". Nobody on set seemed to grasp the irony that a show that provides the media equivalent of unhealthy ingestion on behalf of its own Media Giant does this disservice, 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks per year. That's a shitload of salt, sugar and fat disguised as whole grain "good for ya" BrainFood.

This is not an indictment of a specific show, network or personality, just an observation. Pretty much all of the vast wasteland is riffing on the same recipe; Six drops of essence of terror, five drops of sinister sauce.... This also isn't a lament that there are no shows trying to provide an information diet not laced with societal poisons or pollutants.
Those are out there too, with ratings to match the public's dietary preference for Salt. Sugar. FAT.

We're not just a fast food nation, we're a fast everything nation. "When the stirring's done may I lick the spoon?"



But what does any of it really mean? We are what we eat? We eat what's put in front of us whether it's good for us or not?
We eat whatever Mom & Dad bring back to the nest and regurgitate into our piehole? Salt. Sugar. Fat. It's tasty!

[****************]

You know that feeling? You arrive at an event and immediately realize. You're in the wrong place. What to do? Suffer in silence? Fight? Flight? Find a neutral corner? Start drinking? This isn't going to end well and you know it.

Having not been to more than a handful of events, in recent memory, that didn't evoke the survivalist in me, I find myself waning nostalgic for the days when nonsense was somewhat avoidable.

[***************]

I make no secret that I'm different. I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.

[****************]

WBEZ's "This American Life
with Ira Glass, on NPR, recently aired a two-part series about Harper High School on Chicago's southside. If you think you have a handle on the
"Chicago Way", a grip on the cost that the subsidy of your lifestyle extracts, your limited responsibility for what happens in the
world outside your patch of grass, I dare you to listen to both hours. Realize and admit that this is just a glimpse into another's reality that exists in small part from your neglect. Recognize that the choices you make, the causes you support, the politics you enable, the community you rely on to rationalize your philosophy... Understand that you can't distance yourself from accountability. The bill is due and payable.
If you have reservations, if you firmly believe in your own entitlement, if you feel you've attended the school of hard knocks and refuse to see that your perceptions of costs, value and worth are incomplete, then Party On Dude, but don't look back.

To go from there

to here

so fast, so unthinkingly, cannot end well either.

[****************]

We all have dreams.
If as many folks could quote chapter and verse of RAH's "Moon is Harsh Mistress" as those who hold up "Atlas Shrugged" or other books held up as
excuse to be myopic self-involved twits, we might get through to some semblance of an advanced civilization.

"Rational Anarchists" believe that the concepts of State, Society and Government have no existence but for the "acts of self-responsible individuals", but concede that this is not a universal belief. The desire for anarchy is balanced by the logic that some form of government is needed, despite its flaws. Knowing this fact, a Rational Anarchist "tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world". In terms of morals there is no such thing as a ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free, because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything that I do".

1 comment:

amber ladeira said...

B,

--A truly excellent post! I hope you send/email it to the Dept. of Agriculture and the FDA.

This post is witty, wise and trenchant. Keep it up. Hope to see
you and the missus sometime.

Be Well,
Best Regards,
Best Wishes