saturn return to sender

Not sure why this hasn’t shown up in any of the usual news sources yet.

The fringes of the Denver metro area remind me of the fringes of Beijing. It’s the provincial feel, I think, and the monochromatic population. White instead of brown skin, here, but everyone is eerily similar to everyone else. There’s also a lot of new development going on: fresh, tasteless capitalism. Shiny new buildings sit awkwardly on the grassy plains like costume jewlery in a hay field. Not to mention their parking lots. In one such Wal-Mart-sized superstore, I genuinely feel like a foreigner: its enormity is devoted entirely to hunting and fishing. I speak the language, but don’t understand the people.

The one thing you do see here that you’re not likely to see there — aside from hundreds of times as many cars — is obesity.

Loveland, Colorado might be exotic to foreigners the same way the outskirts of Beijing were exotic to me. What’s interesting, though, is how similar we all are. Provincial is provincial, urbane is urbane, powerless is powerless, greedy is greedy, saintly is saintly. People are people are people.

Still, I sincerely hope never to have to live in a place like that. =)

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

- An Open Letter to the Kansas School Board

(via, what else, MeFi)

Uh oh. I feel compelled to revisit a favorite rant …

What a waste of time and my taxes. Mr. Hatch, et al: which part of SYMBOL do you not understand?

I grow ever-more convinced of my perception that there are two kinds of people: a) herd animals, and b) herd animals plus. The plus is the part where humanity has control of the animal, and not the other way around. The plus is some degree of autonomous thought at worst, and honesty, rationality, and compassion at best. The herd animal is still there under the plus humanity, but it doesn’t take over until it needs to. Like, say, when your building is on fire. Or you’re in the cafeteria lunch line. Then it’s entirely appropriate to let the herd animal come out. Hey, go for it, I say. Bleat a little if you feel it.

It is not appropriate, I would suggest, in this day and age, in a person with actual power.

Plenty of left-wingers are herd animals, too, mind you, and for their sake Democrats will play the “rah-rah team!” card when it’s useful, but the right wing really uses herd mentality as a fundamental plank of its value platform. Pat Buchanan’s classification of Mark Felt as a traitor points at this directly. Tom DeLay’s dinner bash in the middle of ethics violations investigations does the same. Herds aren’t interested in truth. Herds don’t care if its leader is a psychopathic traitor to human decency. Herds are interested in being herds. Stick up for your herd, or you’re bad.

You know, I’m sorry, but I guess I left my ovine instincts at the door when indoor plumbing and refrigeration became available. Or maybe it was when I graduated from high school. Mark Felt is a traitor to a small herd but a hero to a larger herd: humanity. Well, gosh, I think I’ll identify with humanity before I identify with Nixon’s inner circle. I dunno: that’s just me.

Look: we only live in a sheep-eat-sheep world for as long as we all collectively choose to do so. As things stand, we still need defense, and the herd mentality is still useful under some circumstances. I would not argue, for example, that soldiers in war should, ideally, have much autonomous thought or compassion, when it comes to doing their duty. If nothing else, herdism will always be useful for so long as we have cafeteria lunch lines.

But to actually value herdism is regressive. (That’s a more gracious word for “backwards and stupid.”) Use it when it’s useful, but don’t valorize it. This is why the commander of the US armed forces is a civilian. Get it? The founding fathers did.

So. To get a little huffy because the symbol of your herd is desecrated is fine. Can’t blame you: the sheep in me is with you on that. To waste time and money trying to protect it when there’s human-level work that could be done instead is backwards and stupid.

Oh, also: that whole first-amendment thing. Right. Gosh, I thought that’s what the flag stood for to begin with. Now which herd do you guys belong to, anyway? American? Or Republican?