Zombies

Last night I found myself surrounded by zombies. I had a squared-off gardening shovel that I used in giant downward motions onto their necks and shoulders. It was difficult work and I became fatigued, not like in the video games. And it was not glorious. The notable thing about this is that I was horrified at the violence.

The anti-zombie media celebrates their destruction. We take in so many images that we forget that in reality the battle would be utterly dismal. Even I, the morning after, first rendered the dream as a thrilling action sequence. Only as my memory clarified did I remember the pain and terror. Yes, they want to kill us, but they also take a human shape. We are social and empathetic, we tend to anthropomorphize. It's unavoidable that we'd see them as us, and in no subtle way. More than enough to be disgusted at the endeavor. I'll take my end of days in another form, although I'm not sure what.

Maybe giant ants. No, they're too efficient.

Beers and Bears

When I think of a "dry" campground, I think of a place where there aren't loud drunks next to my campsite -- I never think of a place in which I would actually refrain from drinking.
The same softness of law is in effect for the requirement that dogs be on leashes at all times. To me, this rule means that your dog should be in control and should not be dangerous. These rules give enforcement some teeth if you are drinking to much or your dog is terrorizing the other campers. In my mind, most rules are reminders by and for reasonable people that we should remember to be reasonable. That's not to say that there are no rules that are always to be followed, like keeping your food locked up in places that won't attract bears. Indeed, members of my group did see a bear this weekend and informed a police. He said, "yeah, you'll get that here. Just keep your food locked up. If they come through your site, just give them a wide berth". These rules are good.

When I visited Dingman's campground last year, I and my companions were careful to keep alcohol in anonymous vessels and do our pouring in secret. The days passed affably and a lovely time was had by all. This year, though, there was a greater presence of park police at the campground. They would come by a few times a day, ostensibly to remind us of ways to remain safe. Funny how much less safe I fell when there are swarms of cops all in my shit. One night, some cops came in and found that we did indeed possess a poisonous concoction of fermented barley. The confessing individual in our group was issued a citation. The "parky" (we'll call him) rooted through our coolers. We were instructed to pour the beer out onto the ground. We remarked that this was incongruous with previous instructions about proper food disposal in light of the population of bears in the area. We were informed that the beer wouldn't attract wildlife. I'll have to remember that one. Bears don't like anything that is inconvenient to confiscate.

Of course, the similarities are clear, between having a bear rooting through our site looking for food, and having a cop rooting through our site looking for beer. The same rules apply to avoid both occurrences. If you went into the woods and found a bear and said that you just saw a park ranger, the bear would say "yeah, you'll get that here. Just keep your beer locked up, and if they come through your site just give them a wide berth."

And now, Saki wades. Totally out of control in her leashless state:

(click for big)

The Blender Did Succumb

The indefensible heat makes me feel middle-eastern, or at least they way I picture it, going up to sleep on the roof and waking at dawn because there is no other choice. Or old-European, like I should try to get a few hours of sleep, then rise early and enjoy a siesta during the hottest part of the day. Or maybe I'm one of the old black guys from my own neighborhood, squatting or leaning or sitting in lawn chairs in the shade, dispensing hellos to those unfortunate enough to find themselves in motion, making a slow migration from west to east as the sun moves behind a young tree on the sidewalk. Most of space is very cold, but we are parked right next to a goddamned star. We sit here and reproduce and fight, and we coat the surface outside my windows with black tar so that as little of the sun's energy is reflected back out into space as possible.

The blender did succumb. There were teeth on its base that interlocked with the bottom of the jar and ultimately turned the blades. This time, those teeth quickly melted and reorganized into a sphere of soft black plastic, while the disc on which they once sat spun freely. I took many moments looking down into the jar, dumbly contemplating its contents which remained very much un-smoothied.

Things tend to break, things tend to melt. Things become softened and then they warp. The human body does this, but we are amoebic, so we survive. We survive to a point, and we too melt and boil into the air. We've evolved complex systems to create action, but those systems produce heat, so we've evolved complex systems to cool ourselves. Evaporation is a cooling process. The action of turning from liquid to gas absorbs heat, and we use this action well. We create detours from the normal cycle of water, from cloud to aquifer, and run it through our bodies. We pour it into a dog bowl, where it is swept up by a lazy beast -- collar clanging against the metal sides -- and panted out into the atmosphere. We soak bandanas and unapologetically wear them.

Fans produce heat. Air conditioners produce heat. They represent a net increase of heat. They take heat and package it up, and send it to somewhere else. All the heat that was removed from your fridge is now in your kitchen. Your eggs are cold, but you will collect them from their cardboard nest and heat them over fire. Sometimes I wonder, as you are no doubt wondering by now, what is the point.

One Nation, With Liberty

Oh jeez, where to begin with this one.

The below email was preserved in screenshot form, so not to lose any formatting or flag-related graphics. The email fudged some facts here and there, and changed some numbers to make its point seem more dramatic. But the basic idea, about American public support for using the word "god", is true, so I'll address that. I'll also mention that I think it's lazy and vaguely cowardly that the original author of the email (safely anonymous, as usual) states that he doesn't want to hear from you if you disagree. He'd apparently prefer just to spout his opinion without having to defend it.

Requiring or pressuring a person to say the words "Under God" is religious coercion. If you think I am overreacting, consider that we require all (public school) children, beginning at a very young age, to say it every day. We take a specific religious idea and sell it to people who don't even yet realize that it is but one particular religious concept among many. "Under god" is simply a given, when it really should be an addition made only after mature, thoughtful reflection. Assuming that every kid should say it isn't just presumptuous. It is brainwashy and coercive and creepy. It's like something North Korea would do.

OK, I know how that sounds. And before I start to seem like some liberal zealot that's all into "personal freedom" and "not acting like an Islamic caliphate", let me say that I really don't care that much about this "under god" stuff. I was little, I said it for a while, then I developed some opinions and stopped saying it (then I stopped going to homeroom). It didn't damage me. It's not a big deal. What bothers me is that people get so furious about objections to it, as if those objections are a threat to their own faith. And then these poorly-worded emails get endlessly forwarded, containing sanctimonious declarations of what "America is about", or what "America really wants", or my favorite, "how 'Real' Americans act" ("real" Americans don't live near oceans, sorry Georgia!). All that noise compels me to respond in as thoughtful and reasonable a fashion as I can.

This nation is great precisely because we can choose to worship or not worship as we see fit. It is a deeply personal aspect of our lives. As an atheist, this topic stands out to me. Asking me to say "under god" is like asking you to say "under magic space elephant". It is truly that ridiculous to me. Does that make me a lesser American? Is the person who unquestioningly sticks to the largest group and shouts along with the loudest voices and who doesn't understand our secular constitution or our history of tolerance get an A+ for patriotism to my B-? I seriously doubt it. But I'm straying from the point.

Our religion is not a public concern. It is a private one. This argument was made by Jesus and by our founders. I find it absurd and anachronistic that this is even being discussed. I also find it interesting that the same people who don't think government should interfere in our lives (with a healthcare mandate or an assault weapons ban, for example), think it's perfectly acceptable for the same government to pressure us all to recite daily oaths of monotheism.

But the white Jesus is a nice thought, isn't it?

Left and Right

My earliest Poli Sci classes laid out the Left/Right divide thus: A liberal worldview tends to be more traditionally feminine, emphasizing nurture and fairness, and views people as products of their environment. A conservative worldview is more traditionally masculine, emphasizes discipline, and views the social environment as a product of its actors, who act according to what types of people they are. This was it in broad strokes, and I think it's fair enough. I even tried to make a diagram of these concepts, which, if I could see it next to this one, would probably be embarrassing.

Because I am so thoroughly liberal, it is a challenge to do fairness to foundations that have generated a political agenda that I believe does so much damage to the bottom 95% of society. But this beautiful chart does a great job of laying it out. Keep in mind that I do not think this visualization is without problems, but its fairness is, I guess, what strikes me about it.

This is from the Information is Beautiful blog, to which I have followed many a link in the past, but which I have just added to my Reader list for direct injection.