As, I think, I've explained before, a "Vitamin-Enriched Pork Rinds" solution is a situation where you've correctly identified that there IS a problem, and you've tried to find a solution to that problem- but the chosen solution only reveals a deep misunderstanding of the problem you're facing.
For example: Certain people only have access to snack food and overpriced processed food from convenience stores, because they live in so-called "food deserts," where there are no grocery stores nearby which offer fresh produce, meat, and dairy. Therefore, these people are often more likely to suffer from malnutrition than people who have access to grocery stores. There is a problem here. Vitamin-Enriched Pork Rinds are not THE solution, to THE problem, but they might be thought of as A solution, to A problem. They also, in this situation, help avoid any discussion of any larger forces which have caused the immediately apparent problem.
A vitamin-enriched pork rinds solution often has an element of denial.
Here's one.
A doctor on the Cape has been arrested in connection with the death of a patient as a result of general anesthesia, which was administered during an abortion. This is a vitamin-enriched pork rinds situation. Even if the facts alleged in the indictment are true; that the doctor administered general anesthesia without proper monitoring equipment, and as a result, the patient's resuscitation was delayed, and as a result, the patient died - then the apparent problem (bad doctor) and the apparent solution (arrest the doctor), are actually a single, small aspect of a much larger problem:
This was a doctor doing a medical procedure under general anesthesia in an office. Why? Because when necessary medical procedures are so politicized and stigmatized that doctors, medical personnel, and hospitals, are under pressure not to provide or participate in them- the procedures become dangerous. They're performed under different circumstances; they're performed by a different population of professionals. When you take a medical procedure outside of the mainstream- people will be hurt. People will be exploited. And blaming the doctors will not solve the problem.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Dear Cary Tennis,
You have been trolled.
Love,
The internet.
And yes, I am aware that Mr. Tennis seems to doubt the validity of the letter. But you can't wink and smirk at a dolphin fucker, secure in your advice-columnist seat. The first rule of maintaining the balance between the aspirational, journalistic internet from the powerful, trolly, furries and anime porn internet. You can't beat it, AND you can't join it.
Why?
Well, because the number of people who are able to make a living from the journalism and commentary internet is, approximately, five. And their resources are limited by their involvement in, you know, life- and their professionalism. Whereas, the number of people who are able to find some personal fulfillment, in some horrid-fly-torturing-shit-photographing way- is, approximately, fifty bajillion. And those fifty bajillion don't do it for a paycheck. They do it for love. You can never beat them. They're like the viet cong, if the viet cong had to stop every seven minutes to masturbate. They're legion, they're well-motivated, and they're on their home turf.
God help us.
Love,
The internet.
And yes, I am aware that Mr. Tennis seems to doubt the validity of the letter. But you can't wink and smirk at a dolphin fucker, secure in your advice-columnist seat. The first rule of maintaining the balance between the aspirational, journalistic internet from the powerful, trolly, furries and anime porn internet. You can't beat it, AND you can't join it.
Why?
Well, because the number of people who are able to make a living from the journalism and commentary internet is, approximately, five. And their resources are limited by their involvement in, you know, life- and their professionalism. Whereas, the number of people who are able to find some personal fulfillment, in some horrid-fly-torturing-shit-photographing way- is, approximately, fifty bajillion. And those fifty bajillion don't do it for a paycheck. They do it for love. You can never beat them. They're like the viet cong, if the viet cong had to stop every seven minutes to masturbate. They're legion, they're well-motivated, and they're on their home turf.
God help us.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Saw Wall-e this weekend.
Movie was good; a little slow paced, not as beautiful as the rat-chef movie- the Chaplin angle, which has been much talked up, could have been fleshed out more. The animation was...incredible. It was entirely possible, until the squidgy globey humans came into the movie, to forget that it was animated at all.
All-in-all, a charming movie. Except that it's entirely the most cynical children's movie I've ever seen; it's like the concept came together in the exuberance and consumption of the up-sizing budget gourmet, mc-mansionizing years of 2003-2006- while the details were finalized during the "we're old and fat and no, seriously, we don't have anything to show for it" late days of 2007. Of course, I think that IS the timeline for the movie. But the thing is- it's a kid's movie, and all the anxieties about encroaching human uselessness through a combination of efficiency and consumption- weren't veiled at all.
Humans, in Wall-E's future, are people who are born into, and die on, a space-bound cruise ship, where no one has a job, people just fill time, and our bones have receded into a general bodily mush after centuries of microgravity and the absence of any actual labor. They are ferried around without walking. They exist only to entertain themselves, go from one activity to the next, slurp all food from giant soda cups at an infinite buffet. Everything they encounter is round and safe and pre-screened and dull.
Essentially, Wall-e's human race has universally achieved the idleness of american middle-class children - the exact audience for this move.
All-in-all, a charming movie. Except that it's entirely the most cynical children's movie I've ever seen; it's like the concept came together in the exuberance and consumption of the up-sizing budget gourmet, mc-mansionizing years of 2003-2006- while the details were finalized during the "we're old and fat and no, seriously, we don't have anything to show for it" late days of 2007. Of course, I think that IS the timeline for the movie. But the thing is- it's a kid's movie, and all the anxieties about encroaching human uselessness through a combination of efficiency and consumption- weren't veiled at all.
Humans, in Wall-E's future, are people who are born into, and die on, a space-bound cruise ship, where no one has a job, people just fill time, and our bones have receded into a general bodily mush after centuries of microgravity and the absence of any actual labor. They are ferried around without walking. They exist only to entertain themselves, go from one activity to the next, slurp all food from giant soda cups at an infinite buffet. Everything they encounter is round and safe and pre-screened and dull.
Essentially, Wall-e's human race has universally achieved the idleness of american middle-class children - the exact audience for this move.
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